Build your soil with Mulch

Enlarge Image Image Gallery

If you want to raise your own food, you can, even if the soil you have to work with is poor or non existent. It's quite possible to build rich, fertile earth on top of rock, if need be and harvest good crops in the meantime.

The raw material for your new topsoil can be mainly wastes almost anything that will decompose: leaves, lawn clippings, paper, garbage, cornstalks, even sawdust and shavings. (In the southern part of the U.S. it's long been believed that the turpentine in pine by products inhibits the growth of plants. I understand, though, that recent research shows the real cause of such failures to be the lack of nutrients especially nitrogen in wood wastes. Here in Montana turpentine is no problem in any case, and I've produced good potato harvests in 15 to 18 inches of fresh shavings with the help of fertilizer. Do be wary of pine needles, however: They make an acid mulch that's good for blueberries and evergreens but not for most other garden species.)

Suppose your homestead contains an infertile area which you want to improve and suppose you also want that patch to produce food for you while you're building the earth. Start your program in the fall, by spreading one side of the field with 15 to 18 inches of mulch mixed with plenty of manure or sludge. Some people think the organic matter should then be turned under. Nature, however, leaves it on the surface of the ground, and our best soil is found where wastes have accumulated for a number of years.

Winter the covering to give it time to settle down. Then, the following spring, apply commercial fertilizer if you wish. I use plenty of 16-16-16 and ammonium nitrate myself but whatever source you choose, you must provide at least 50 pounds of actual nitrogen per ton of mulching material. ( Fertilizer formulas are expressed as percentages by weight of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, always in that order. Ammonium nitrate analyzed as 30-0-0 thus yields almost a third of its weight in available nitrogen, and every 100 pound bag of Edgar's "triple 16" should add 16 pounds of nitrogen to his mulch. The calculation isn't always that simple for the other two components, which may be listed by percentage either of the elements themselves or of their oxides. In the latter case, one pound of phosphate-P 2 0 5 equals 0.44 pounds of phosphorus and one pound of potash K 2 0 provides 0.83 pounds of actual potassium. The analyses of various manures and other natural fertilizers can be found in Rodale's Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening. MOTHER.)

After fertilizing, let the rain fall on the patch once or twice before you plant (or keep the area wet for about a week by watering it yourself).

I prefer to use potatoes as the first crop in heavy mulch, because their habit of growth allows them to thrive in loose material whereas corn, for instance, might topple for lack of a firm soil around its roots. Although I haven't tried any of the smaller garden vegetables as initial plantings, I suspect that the leaves or paper or whatever would be too coarse a medium for them.