Hi from New Zealand

[mischief]

Do you loose chickens to heat stroke? I've had birds overheat, with resultant electrolyte imbalance, even here, in Maine. One late spring, I noticed my 8 week old chicks stumbling around. I realized that I myself was a bit dizzy from working outside on the warm day (though it wasn't even up to 80*F). I came in, tanked up on water, made some electrolyte solution, gave some to the adults, chicks, saved some for me. Within 1/2 hour, the chicks were back to their perky selves.

I decided that I really needed to get some shade in there before I put the hens in.
It's actually been 6 years since I had 'chooks'. My how time flies, but I have been offered some that are needing a good home so I might be back in the egg game soon....like next week.

 

[mischief]

Jags, gotta have tough chickens to survive Texas heat! But I did put their coop on deep shade.

So you have volcanic soil that eats organic matter? I get it, we have sugar sand here. I call it living on the beach without the ocean.

Plant clovers, they fix nitrogen in the soil, cut it down after it goes to seed and it makes a nice Matt of organic matter. Even after our Sheep eat it down, there is still enough to put a lot of organic matter in the soil. Then the Sheep walk around making seed deposits wrapped in fertilizer pellets! LOL

hehe, I dont have room for sheep. I did consider rabbits at one point and may look at that again next year- I have too much to do as it is without adding anymore Things.

The woodchip I have got has mostly broken down.
I dipped into the pile that was in the shade over winter and got shade in the afternoon over summer. I was amazed at how much of it was actual soil, lovely black sticky soil with alot of big bits in amongst it.

I honestly think we need to add alot more carbon to the soil, so I also do the chop and drop mulch method.
This year, I will see if this will work. The last 18 months-2 years were spent mostly working crazy hours with on calls which meant I never had a real schedule to work with.

One thing I did today, was add some Burgandy mushroom dowels to a couple of beds- the one with my old type strawberries and alot in the bed that has sweet corn coming along. According to Paul Stamets, they like corn..so we now watch and wait to see what will happen.

 

[mischief]

with really sandy or mineral soils i always recommend a bit of clay to go along with that organic matter as it will help hold moisture and nutrients but also keeps other OM benefits around longer (worm pellets with a bit of clay in them will clump and stay together longer as compared to just sand - this means if you have very fine sand or silt that will help hold it in place longer so it doesn't blow or wash away). if you mix a little in with the sheep food they can do the distributing of clay for you through time. a little minerals won't hurt 'em. it doesn't take much to make a difference in any garden.

I dont have access to clay so I try to use what I either have or can easily get.
I had to get a tree cut down, so lots of woodchip and the tree fellers were looking for homes for truck loads of the stuff, so I got truckloads of the stuff.
I tried innoculating this with mushroom but it didnt work, so it was back to the drawing board, ie, studying.
My first book was 'Mycelium Running' by Paul Stamets. I'm waiting for the next one to arrive. (dont have a good book store locally).

I Have managed to find a couple of NZ native mushrooms, but so far these need to grow on our 'Cabbage tree', which I just happen to have and it does need to be thinned out.
I have some dowels slowly getting coated in mycelium and once thats happened I can drill holes and insert them.
That will be type number two.
The supplier does have an NZ type ****aki mushroom, but is still in the process of building up a supply, so I'm in line for that one too.

 

[Lazy Gardener]

What a lovely yard. Thanks for the pics.

 

[Britesea]

an easy way to add a bit of clay to your soil is to work in kitty litter- the old fashioned kind that doesn't have perfumes or "clumping" in the title. It is actually little pellets of clay, so if you work it in while everything is pretty dry, it won't clump up and make an impenetrable mass.

 

[Britesea]

and yet bentonite clay is used in things like toothpaste because of its ability to absorb toxins....

 

[mischief]

I dont want to add clay to my soil, strange as that my sound. What I want to add is mycelium.
I have been studying soil restoration after trying and failing to do this for the last few years. I decided I needed to actually learn how to do this rather than just think its a good thing to do.
What I learned is that we need to add more carbon to the soil- twigs, dried leaves,cut up branches, along with the green leftovers.
After years of adding organic matter in the form of lawn clippings and spent vegie plants, I wasnt seeing the rise in water retention I was expecting to see.
I stopped making compost in dedicated bins a number of years ago and instead, have been 'chopping and dropping' and importing woodchip from where ever I could.

I bought a bag of NZ Oyster mushrooms so I could watch how they grew and learn from them. To be honest, they have a different texture to supermarket mushrooms, a lot more chewy and I'm not too keen on that, but, I decided that I needed to educate my taste buds....so I bought another bag of a slightly different strain from the same source and am currently growing that one up to the point where it will produce mushrooms.

When the first bag mushrooms started to put out spores....because of the extreme temperature variations, I decided to experiment with it, so I gathered up soil and mulch from all around my back yard, used that to fill up a pyrex jug, added a couple of bags of sterilized wood dowels and popped the contents of the bought bag on top. This sits on a bookcase in my hall where it is not in direct sunlight.
It gets misted with rainwater often throughout the day and sometimes I take the jug into a better lit spot so I can look at what is happening.

The dowels will be fished out at some point in the near future and put in holes in trunks of my cut branches of my NZ Cabbage tree. These trunks will then be set on a block off the ground in a very shady part of my yard to do there thing. At some point, I expect that they will have real home grown mushrooms growing out of the trunk. If not, then its back to the drawing board.
What I will do with the original content, hoping that it still has active mycelium, is plant it outside in an area that is well shaded and with other native plants and trees, just to see what will happen- will it continue to grow and spread?

I've finished reading Paul Stamets book, 'Mycelium Running' and am current working my way though Michael Phillips on 'Mycorrhizal Planet'.
I feel like I have found the missing link.

Another experiment I have been doing after what I have read so far, is to put little pieces of innoculated wood in the ground beside each of my sweet corn seedlings. This is a different type of mushroom- the Burgandy mushroom. Its supposed to love growing in soil that has a high organic matter content.

And yet another, is adding a small piece of active mycelium to my vegetable seedlings. One in the smallest honeynut butternut, so I could see how this grew compared to those that havent been inoculated.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Can't wait to hear the results of your experiments!

 

[Lazy Gardener]

My current garden soil is sandy loam, with more sand than loam. I can tell you that by constantly adding organic matter in the form of mulch, the soil color and texture has changed dramatically. Original soil: tan in color, sandy. Now, to a depth of 8", it is very dark, and of good soil consistency.

I also have experience with heavy clay soils. My previous garden was built on heavy clay native soil. Gray, slippery clay that any potter would love to work with. After a rain, walking on it would result in it sucking my shoes off, or leaving me with a 3" sole of cement clay stuck to the bottoms of my feet. When I converted to Ruth Stout gardening on this plot, which was wet, did not get enough sunlight, and plagued by tree root invasion, I was able to get into and plant the garden about 6 weeks before my neighbors who had the same growing conditions. When the ground finally did dry out, my mulched soil did not turn into the hardened cracked cement that was evident in my neighbor's garden. Under the Ruth Stout system, my clay soil thawed sooner, did not remain water logged, did not turn to dry cracked cement in a dry summer, and was more friable.

BOTH types of soil were improved significantly with the addition of OM.

Over time, the OM added to sandy soils builds up a good matrix that stays put. But, it takes TIME, and constant addition of materials. I can't tell you how many gardens I drive by that are plopped in the middle of a home owner's lawn. The surface of those gardens sets at least 4" below the grade of the lawn. I was always perplexed by this, until a co-worker inadvertently solved the riddle for me.

She: "I'm thinking about not growing a garden next year."

Me: "Why?"

She: "It'll be too much work to get it ready next year."

Me: "What kind of work are you talking about?"

Her: "We have to take all the dead plants out this fall, and haul them to the dump. Then, we'll need to bring in loads of new dirt in the spring, and till it all up. I don't want to spend the money to haul in new bags of dirt."

That was my "AHA" moment: Fall clean up. These folks with their sunken gardens are constantly stealing from the soil, and never putting anything back.

Conversely, my garden soil has always been problematic (if you can call it that) b/c that dark rich soil spills over onto the lawn, which sits BELOW the level of the garden. I will occasionally take wheelbarrows full of soil from the garden to fill in craters left on the lawn by settling or chicken/snow plow damage. And, still, when I pilfer soil from the garden, it continues to spill over the top! I WILL NEVER REFER TO MY GARDEN MATERIAL AS DIRT! DIRT IS WHAT I SWEEP UP OFF MY KITCHEN FLOOR!

So, I can tell you that I have experience with different types of soil, and have found the addition of OM to be the answer in both cases. Yes, you can add sand to clay, or clay to sand. But, IMHO, either scenario is an expensive, laborious undertaking and does very little to improve the LIFE of the soil.

As for worms and their preference for sandy soil or clay soil: My experience has been this: They LOVE OM. In either garden, (the clay based or the sandy loam based) the worms have proliferated with the addition of OM. I've been 90% no till for YEARS, and have found that the worms abound where there is OM. When I go out in the evening, especially when the dew has settled, or it's raining a bit, the surface of the soil is CRAWLING with worms who are out doing their wormy dating rituals. Put down a mulch over either type of soil, and the worms, as well as the rest of the soil life will thank you and reward you thousand fold.

 

[flowerbug]

Hi.
I live in the South Waikato New Zealand.
I have been working on growing my own fruit, herbs and vegies for a number of years and this year an hoping to add some native edible mushrooms to the mix.
I got my first bee hive as a news years present for myself in 2017 and managed to keep it alive by the skin of out teeth. Last month, it needed to be split so now I have 2 and looking at the original, I'm wondering if I need to split it again cos Its still so big.

My main goal is to get a healthy eco system in place that not just feeds me but as many other lifeforms as I can do.
I also decided that if it wasnt a fruit, herb, vegetable or beneficial insect plant, then it had to be a native and have been slowly cycling out things that just dont fit.
My fruit loving dog, Jack, is old enough now that I think I might be able to add chickens this year as well and to be honest, I am looking forward to finding a local farmer who will let me buy fresh from the farm milk so I can start making cheese and yogurt again.

welcome! i'm glad you joined us here.