Most 'economical' method of building up soil?

[Tracydr]

Originally Posted by Redbaron

The easiest way to explain it Glenn is by going here: The Red Baron Project year 1 p5

Remember the thread is " Most 'economical' method of building up soil?" Believe me This is economical. First off the mulched part uses 1/3 less because I am not mulching the whole garden, just the rows of tomatoes and peppers. No fertiliser cost, no pesticide cost, no herbicide cost. 1/3rd the mulch cost. (maybe free if you find a source of free mulch). Paper is generally free, but if not you can buy long rolls very cheap. All you have to do is have some rich compost soil to fill in after each transplant and inoculate it with mycorrhizal fungi spores. Nature does the rest. Even in hot Oklahoma, I maybe water 2-3 times in a whole season. (+ when I transplant) The most I ever had to water even with a severe drought was 5 times all season. My water is free. I simply didn't want to over water.

Next year, move the row over 2 feet. Grass will come right back on last years row. (I learned that this year) I still use covers. I grow a cover crop mixture through the winter after the tomatoes die. Besides that all you need to do is mow. Couldn't be easier. Even cheap and easy enough for a lazy cheapskate like me.

This way I get the most from both the long and short carbon cycles, and the soil improves astonishingly fast.

Now I have to say this though. Even though my soil was poor and hard as a rock through mismanagement years ago before I even lived in Oklahoma, the substrate is LitB. That's prime perfect farmland when it has enough carbon in it. So I don't know if it will work everywhere in every case. That's why I am always asking people, like I did Tania, to please try a row or two and post their results, good or bad.

I will try one or two rows of this. Is it okay, in a brand new garden, to till in a bunch of rotted leaves/etc? I am going to need a little lime, too. Can I till that in? Also,
I will starting a fruit garden, too. Unfortunately, I'm putting the strawberries and blueberries on top of my new, huge septic field. The soil was turned over for excavating and looks like pure sand. I'm sure this will take awhile to turn around but its one of my only places with sun. Planting blueberries and strawberries there. I threw some buckwheat seed down there to try to get some organic matter until its cool enough to plant. Little germination so far since we've only had a trace of rain. I may do some grass mix until I obtain my berry plants.
The vegetable garden area is not as sunny as I would like. It has nicer soil as it's been grassy for awhile. We have centipede grass, which more behaved than the Bermuda I'm used to.
I'll put fruit trees on the edge of this area.
I may hugelkultur some or all of the berries with all the felled trees in that spot.