“For all Hobbits share a love of things that grow.” is a quote from one of my favorite movies. I agree with Bilbo, there is something about things that grow. But in order to grow, you need soil fertility and top soil.
Quail Run farm is in the middle of the Utah High Desert. Yes, we have access to water, and can change our environment some to help encourage plant growth, but our biggest hurdle is soil fertility. Soil fertility is the part of the soil that allows for plant growth. In the desert you have a hard time growing things because of the lack of soil fertility. For plants to thrive, they need to have nutrients, minerals, organic matter, and moisture.
Because of the lack of vegetation in the high desert, it is hard to build the top layer of Organic material that plants need to thrive. We have started to use a few techniques on the farm, from hugelkultur, permaculture, and Back to Eden Gardening. In short, Back to Eden Gardening, is the process of allowing the land to take care of itself, by mimicking the way that nature preps the soil for plants. Basically God set the Earth up so that it could take care of itself, and we are just trying to mimic the way God has setup fertile areas in a not so fertile area. And to do that, we need a lot of mulch. It is suggested to have a deep mulch, and by deep mulch we are talking about 6-8 inches of mulch.
Mulch has several different purposes. Mulch is used to conserve moisture, improve soil fertility and health, reduce weed growth, and increase the visual appeal of the area. If you go into the forest, and look at the soil horizon, you will notice that the forest has a nice layer of mulch on top of the soil. This layer is what we are trying to reproduce. The mulch layer can be made from a lot of different materials. You can create mulch from leaves, grass, peat, woodchips, bark, straw, pine needles, or most paper products. One of the most common forms of mulch used in the urban setting is that of not bagging your lawn clippings. A lot of people use a mulching mower and don’t even know the benefits it is giving their lawn. On a larger scale, you may even see what is called Forestry mulching. A lot of farmers do this by cutting and chipping trees, and brush and the leaving it where they chipped it. You may have even seen them do this along roadsides to clear brush as well.
The problem we have, on Quail Run Farm, is that there is not a lot of tree litter. Because there is not a forest on the property, we don’t have an abundant source of mulch to use for our gardening. So we have decided to create our own.
First, we have to spend some money and buy some equipment. We use Big Blue (our 1973 Ford Tractor, that has a bucket) to haul the mulch around and do any heavy lifting that may be needed. We purchased a 5 X 10 foot utility trailer so we could collect the material that we are going to convert to mulch. And we purchased a chipper/shredder to be able to convert the material we gather into mulch. (We looked into renting or borrowing the chipper and trailer, but after crunching the math, we came to the conclusion that it would be cheaper in the long run to just purchase the equipment.)
The chipper/shredder.
Second, we needed to collect the material that we wanted to turn into mulch. So I put the word out on a local community on Facebook. I basically asked for anyone who was going to throw away leaves, trees, bushes, and like to give us a chance to come collect them before they threw them away. We had a lot of people respond. (And we still have more to go collect and to get back with.)
A bunch of juniper trees a developer removed. The resident said we could haul them off.
Loaded trailer with the juniper trees.
Kids helping secure another load from several different houses in Eagle Mountain.
Pile of trees, and branches ready to mulch.
More stuff waiting to be converted to mulch.
This bark was left over from some trees we had cut into firewood. We will also be converting it to mulch.
Third, we need to convert the material that was collected into mulch. To do this we used the chipper/shredder we purchased. It works really well. I would usually do a bag of leaves and then either the bark or the branches we collected. Once the shredders bag was full I would then dump it into the bucket of Big Blue and then transport it to the garden area.
Chipping some of the big stuff.
Shredding a bag of leaves.
Emptying the bag into Big Blue.
Forth, we need to use the mulch. Once we have the mulch created, we then would put it on the garden beds, and in between the rows of already planted spring crops.
Mulch over garden bed, getting ready to plan.
Mulch between rows of plants.
Mulch between rows of plants.
As a note… Sometime things don’t go as you plan. For instance, don’t let the chipper/shredder run out of gas in the middle of chipping a large tree branch. Parts of it will get stuck in the chipper, and it will require you to remove the blockage before you can use the chipper again.
Cleaning the chipper after it ran out of gas in the middle of a large branch.
Back in March I stared a garden bed in which I was going to experiment with composting in place. You can read more about it: here. So far things are going well. From my investigating and poking around it seems like everything is breaking down nicely, although a bit slowly. I decided to give it a little help in the form of red wiggler worms.
Yes worms, did you know that you can buy worms by the pound? Yes you can, and I have, many times before and I have been so happy with the results of adding worms to my compost, thereby adding fertility to my soil.
Part of having fertile soil is protecting, maintaining and facilitating a whole ecosystem under the surface. All those little microorganisms, bugs, grubs and worms work together breaking down organic matter and turning it into nutrients that plants can use. Soil devoid of this secret ecosystem cannot optimally support life.
Worms are an irreplaceable piece in this puzzle.
Red worms in a natural ecosystem feed in the leaf litter — the surface of the soil that contains dead plants, leaves and animal remains. As red worms gorge on decomposing matter, they leave behind castings — excrement or fecal matter — that is highly concentrated in nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. All of these are important nutrients that fertilize living plants. During the feeding and decomposing process, red worms help aerate the soil, creating pockets of air that allow for water and nutrients to flow more easily among plant roots.
Adding worms to the garden or compost is quite easy, you just dig a little hole or create a small trench, add the worms and cover, then water in well. The worms will soak up the water and become active, eating everything and pooping a lot, helping the garden to grow.
We have had three ducks for a while now, and they have been very enjoyable. There are some great benefits to have ducks, they love to eat bugs, lots and lots of bugs. They will graze on grasses, herbs and weeds without being as destructive as chickens are. They also lay wonderful eggs, my family doesn’t love eating the eggs, but using duck eggs in baking produces a superior product and we hord the duck eggs for all our baking. This spring I have been talking and talking and talking about getting some more ducklings. We never actually purchased them, usually there was something more pressing that needed funds or I felt like I wasn’t set up for ducklings just yet, there were many excuses and reasons I kept putting off getting those ducklings.
One evening I was speaking to my Dad and he mentioned that the feed store close to him had ducks for sale at a steeply discounted price. He said we was willing to run over first thing in the morning to see if any were left and bring them to me the next day. I readly agreed, hoping that there would be two or three left, the price was so good on those birds that I couldn’t imagine they would still be there.
The next morning when he and my brother arrived at my house he asked me how I felt about twenty two ducks. Seriously? Twenty two ducks! When he got the the store, right as it opened, there were twenty two ducks left and he asked the sales lady if he could take them all. She told him if he would take them all that he could have them at no cost, they were that eager to have them gone. They boxed them up and brought them to me.
Now Quail Run Farm is home to twenty five ducks, we are so excited, we love having ducks around. For the next little while the ducklings will live in the backyard where they have acess to a warm heat lamp, supplimental feed, grass, bugs and a kiddie pool. Happy ducks are healthy ducks!
Globemallow
Desert Mallow
Apricot Mallow
Desert Hollyhock
Mal de Ojo
Sore-eye Poppy
My favorite wildflower, it grows in clumps among the sage brush and juniper, its especially prolific when we have a wet fall and spring. I watch carefully through out the early spring months, looking for the grey green foliage to come up and then I wait eagerly for the deep orange flowers to bloom. They start blooming in May and can go into the end of June carpeting the desert floor with its color.
Along with all the pretty little vegetable, herbs and flowers the weeds are coming up in abundance. We are a no/low spray farm, and with a few exceptions we never spray chemicals on our land. The one exception is for Field Bind Weed, it is taking over, and there really isn’t a good way to get rid of it other than spraying. Our weed management consists of two main approaches: pulling and covering. We pull and pull and pull weeds all summer long. We also cover our weeds in a few different ways. Sometimes we will put down a weed barrier and mulch on top of that, that is my least favorite way of using cover, its limiting to me, plants can’t naturally spread and its difficult to add new plantings. We also use deep mulching, laying down 4-6 inches of chipped wood and leaves, this not only has the advantage of choking out weed seeds and seedling, it also helps retain water and adds fertility and the weeds that do come up are easy to pull. The last covering method we use is black plastic, we lay black plastic over large areas that need to have invasive grass and weeds cleaned out and let it sit for a couple weeks, the sun heats up the plastic and basically cooks the weeds and their seeds, this is quick and effective.
When ever we pull weeds we keep them in place, its a method of deep mulching. The weed is pulled and laid down right in place. It is important to pull these weeds before they go to seed. it acts like the wood chips or leaves, choking out weed seeds and seedlings, but it also keeps the nutrients from the weeds in place. Weeds in and of themselves are not bad, they are only bad because they keep the plants we want from thriving. Weeds are place holders, the are land restorers, land cleaners. Weeds come into disturbed land, pulling nutrients from the ground and the sun, depositing them on the surface, allowing for long term native plants to eventually come in and repopulate the land. Understanding this, I have a hard time pulling weeds and hauling them off, they have a purpose too, and I like to honor that by pulling and using them to nourish the plants that I want to thrive there.
Spring is in full swing here on the farm and new plants and popping up all over the place, from the diversity and organized chaos of the orchard meadow to the neat rows in the vegetable garden, there is green everywhere.
This is the lettuce bed, we have several varieties of leaf lettuce growing here as you can see by the different colors and hues. Lettuce loves the cool spring temperatures and will soon be big enough to start harvesting tender baby greens. In the heat of the summer we will have to cover with shade cloth to keep thing cool enough so they don’t go bitter.
Little bitty onions making their first appearance, I think it is amusing how those long spears come up bent over, soon they will be popping up straight and tall. From the looks of it we are going to have a bumper crop of onions this year.
The pea beds are coming along, I am expecting to have blossoms showing up in the next week or so. Some of the peas are looking a little yellow, I will be making compost tea this weekend and feeding my babies. This is close up of one of my leaf lettuces, I am excited about this variety, its named “Flashy Butter Oak” and I think it looks like a lot of fun, definitely a splash of color to add to a salad!
I am optimistic that we will soon have fresh, local produce to offer our community.
Since we moved to Quail Run Farm three years ago, we have seen a variety of wildlife. There is usual the wildlife you would expect to see in the high desert. My favorite sights is the majestic flight of the local birds of prey. We have seen eagles, red-tailed hawks, kestrels, owls, and many other different types of birds of prey. A lot of people have posted pictures of the birds, scenes and other wildlife around Eagle Mountain on the Scenes From Eagle Mountain Facebook page.
It has been fun watching a mating pair of Red-Tail Hawks raise their second season of babies on a high voltage power line in the agricultural lot next to us. They have a nest in one of the cross beams, and can be seen perching on the power poles.
Two Red-Tailed hawks, hunting near City Center in Eagle Mountain Utah. Photo: Shon Reed
We have seen other types of birds of prey including several different types of owls. You never have experienced the full power of these birds, unless you are face to face with one trying to get it to exit your chicken coop. You can read all about that experience here: http://www.momzoolife.com/2014/02/07/the-web-of-protection/.
Owl near Eagle Mountain. Photo: Shon Reed
One of my favorite Birds of Prey is the American Kestrel. Eagle Mountain is home to many kestrels. Driving though the city you may notice several poles, with boxes on them placed in locations in and around Eagle Mountain.
Kestrel nesting box. Photo: Aimee Kieffer
These poles and nesting boxes have been the product of the Eagle Mountain Kestrel Project, which Quail Run Farm has had the pleasure of being part of. If you are interested, you can find the location of these boxes by visiting the Kestrel Pole Location map. The mayor of Eagle Mountain, Christopher Pengra talked about this project in his February 2016 State of the City blog post.
Preserving our natural beauty extends to our birds of prey, too. This year a resident by the name of Shon Reed worked with Austin Robinson, an Eagle Scout, to build nest boxes for American Kestrels. Shon also worked with Brian Smith from Rocky Mountain Power to get utility poles in the ground for mounting the nest boxes to. He also organized volunteers to place these boxes throughout the City. The next step is to get those boxes on a map so residents can observe the birds as they use the poles and boxes. This work is a testament to the selflessness of the people who live here. – Mayor Chris Pengra
Kestrel sitting on a nesting box on Quail Run Farm. Photo: Aimee Kieffer
The Forest Preserve District of Kane County also has a kestrel box program that they are working on.
The Forest Preserver District of Kane County has about 30 kestrel nest boxes in the field. Occupancy was just 8 percent in 2015 but the district remains optimistic. it checked with Audubon chapters around the Midwest with similar programs and learned that kestrel box programs often have low success in the first few years, followed by dramatic improvement once a few boxes become occupied. – Jeff Reiter (Dailyherold.com)
Giving the kestrels places to nest is just part of the equation. There are a lot of factors in increasing the kestrel population in an area. Nesting boxes are the first step, but not only do we need to give them a home, we need to protect and increase their hunting areas.
Eric Cirino, for the Audubon, recently wrote an article entitled, “Are Kestrels the New Poster Species for Pesticides?” The article points out that even after the ban on DDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane) the larger birds of prey have seen an increase in population. But the population of the American Kestrel is still on a steady decline. “According to the North American Breeding Bird Survey, there are about 4 million American Kestrels living in the Lower 48, Mexico, and nearly all of Canada and Alaska. That’s 66 percent fewer kestrels than there were in 1966.” Eric continues to draw the conclusion that the reason why the kestrel populations are still declining is because of the urbanization of its hunting grounds, and the use of other pesticides that kill the kestrels main source of food.
Wohler confirms that kestrel populations in Long Island have dropped significantly over the past several decades, too. Rampant development and pesticide use on farms and suburban lawns in the area could be the root of the cause. [Source]
Kestrels have a wide variety of food sources, but the majority of their food is insects.
American Kestrels eat mostly insects and other invertebrates, as well as small rodents and birds. Common foods include grasshoppers, cicadas, beetles, and dragonflies; scorpions and spiders; butterflies and moths; voles, mice, shrews, bats, and small songbirds. American Kestrels also sometimes eat small snakes, lizards, and frogs. And some people have reported seeing American Kestrels take larger prey, including red squirrels and Northern Flickers.
…
Current declines stem from continued clearing of land and felling of the standing dead trees these birds depend on for their nest sites. The American Kestrel is also losing prey sources and nesting cavities to so-called “clean” farming practices, which remove hedgerows, trees, and brush. An additional threat is exposure to pesticides and other pollutants, which can reduce clutch sizes and hatching success. For kestrels in North America, a larger problem with pesticides is that they destroy the insects, spiders, and other prey on which the birds depend.- allaboutbirds.org
Quail Run Farm is doing what it can to help protect the habitat and hunting grounds of the Kestrel, and we would like to ask you to help us with this goal. There are two major ways that residents of Eagle Mountain can help increase the kestrel population.
First, keep open land that is ideal for kestrel hunting areas. We can let the City Council and other elected officials know that we support keeping areas as agricultural and open for kestrel habitat. We recently had a developer propose a 60+ home development on what is currently agricultural land in close proximity to Quail Run Farm. A group of residents got together and were able to stop this land from being rezoned from agricultural to residential. In doing so, we have increased the chances that the kestrel population in Eagle Mountain will grow. I am not talking about improved green space, that most developments are required to put in. I am talking about preserving the native, natural green space that attracts the kestrel to the area. One of the things that makes Eagle Mountain unique is the natural habitat we have. There is no need to manicure, develop, and plow down all of the areas in Eagle Mountain. Eagle Mountain currently has an area of 41.7 Square Miles, there is plenty of space for development, as well as keeping native open space intact.
Eagle Mountain has a large power and gas corridor that runs from the north end to the south end of the city. We as residents need to try to keep that corridor free of residential zoning. Keep it zoned so that it stays native and is the ideal location for kestrels and other birds of prey to hunt. Lets preserve as much of their natural, native hunting grounds as possible. By placing nesting boxes along the power corridor, we can encourage the kestrel population in Eagle Mountain.
Second, don’t kill insects unless you have to. Not all insects are bad or evil. As long as insect populations are kept in check, they can actually be beneficial. And the majority of the time, the balance is kept if left to its own devices. If the insect is not causing a health risk, then we should maybe think about not using insecticides to eliminate it. Insecticides are non discriminating killers. By using insecticides to get rid of spiders, you are also eliminating other beneficial bugs as well. Kestrels require insects to survive, and as development continues, residents will spray their manicured lawns, and properties to eliminate the possibility that there may be a harmful insect.
The next time you spray an insecticide to kill a bug, think about the other bugs that may also be eliminated from the overspray, or what animals may be effected by the loss of that insect. If it is not a health risk, think about leaving it as is.
An article by Caroline Cox titled “Pesticides and Birds: From DDT to Today’s Poisons” in the Journal of Pesticide Reform discusses the dangers of pesticides and birds. Besides a long list of pesticides that kill birds, Cox discusses the secondary poisoning of predatory birds, the indirect effects of starvation and predation, and the more sub lethal effects. She concludes by saying:
Pesticides will continue to kill birds, reduce their food resources, and disrupt their normal behaviors as long as pesticides continue to be used. The only way to eliminate the effects that pesticides have on birds is to use nonchemical resource management techniques. On farms, in forests, on lawns, and elsewhere that pesticides are used, managers are finding that these techniques work well and make economic sense. Our job is to see that they are implemented more widely.
This is not a simple task, but one that is essential if we are to seriously heed the message of our miners’ canaries.
Everyone can do their part to help increase the kestrel population in Eagle Mountain. We can help the Kestrel Project by monitoring, installing, and facilitating the use of nesting boxes. We can help by encouraging the City Council and developers to leave natural and native open spaces. We can help by thinking twice about using pesticides, insecticides and herbicides on the properties we own or maintain.
Kestrel Facts
The kestrel does not build a nest but instead relies on taking over crevices, hollows in trees, and the nests of other birds. This makes it easy to attract them to nest boxes.(a)
The lack of suitable nesting sites is often the greatest limiting factor for kestrel populations.(a)
Kestrels prefer nest boxes over natural cavities, mainly because most natural cavities are more cramped than manmade boxes.(a)
The kestrel is an inhabitant of open fields, croplands, and orchards.(a)
Once widely known as “the sparrow hawk”, the name kestrel is now more commonly used.(a)
Although kestrels generally migrate southward in the winter, they return to their previous territories and nest sites year after year.(a)
Females tend to winter farther south than males.(a)
A kestrel family will eat upwards of 500 voles or mice per year as well as numerous grasshoppers and locusts.(a)
Kestrels generally begin breeding in early April or May, but often breeding activity reaches its peak in early June.(a)
The common name, American Kestrel, is used to distinguish the species that lives in North America (Falco sparverius) from its old world cousin, the European Kestrel (Falco tinnunculus).(a)
Unlike humans, birds can see ultraviolet light. This enables kestrels to make out the trails of urine that voles, a common prey mammal, leave as they run along the ground. Like neon diner signs, these bright paths may highlight the way to a meal—as has been observed in the Eurasian Kestrel, a close relative.(b)
Kestrels hide surplus kills in grass clumps, tree roots, bushes, fence posts, tree limbs, and cavities, to save the food for lean times or to hide it from thieves.(b)
The oldest American Kestrel was at least 14 years, 8 months old.(b)
Kestrels were once hunted by gamekeepers. However, they are now one of the few birds of prey that gamekeepers and farmers tolerate as they eat the rats, moles, and insects that farmers see as pests.(c)
Photos: Shon Reed allowed us to use some of his photos on this post. You can follow him on instagram. He has taken a lot of cool pictures of Birds of Prey around the farm and the Eagle Mountain Area.
The following is a small gallery or showing of the birds of prey that have been taken by Shon Reed and posted to various Eagle Mountain facebook pages.
The past week has been gloriously wet! Here in the high desert we love our spring showers! On a large scale the water fills up the reservoirs in the mountains, to be used later, during the hot dry summer. On a smaller scale, our rain barrels are running over, the swales, hugelkulturs and deep mulched beds are absorbing and storing water, small little reservoirs in their own right. And of course, the ducks just love the rain, while the chickens hide under the coop, trying to keep away from the damp, the duck revel in it, playing in the raindrops and puddles. I enjoy watching my happy little birds.
Comfrey is one of my all time favorite herbs, ever. It’s uses are numerous. We use this plant for permaculture, animal feed and herbal healing. Comfrey is a vigorous plant, it grows easily in all types of soil, and while it doesn’t’ spread, the clump gets bigger and bigger each year and it is easily divided and grows quickly from it’s woody roots. I will go over the various ways we use comfrey on the farm.
Comfrey is widely used in permaculture landscapes. Comfrey is a bio-accumulator, it has very long deep roots, they can grow to a depth of ten feet. They collect minerals from deep in the earth, bringing them up into their leaves where they can be used by other plants, animals, microbes and us. Comfrey leaves have calcium, potassium, phosphorus, iorn, magnesium and iodine, to name just a few.
Comfrey is the only land plant that takes vitamin B12 from the soil. The entire plant is a good source of vegetable protein, and the green leaves contain vitamins A, C, E, and several B vitamins, including choline, the fat-emulsifying vitamin that helps fight cholesterol deposits. Other ingredients are folic acid, the anti-anemia vitamin, and some B12, which controls the deadly pernicious anemia. (www.herballegacy.com/ThesisChemical.html).
We grow comfrey in one big patch, those are what I consider my stock plants, and I harvest from them in all but the coldest months. We use the leaves as green compost when creating dead-fall swales and huglekulturs. We also add the leave to our compost piles, they are great for activating the composting process and adding all those wonderful minerals to the compost. I also take small roots from these plants and plant comfrey in our orchard meadow and other various places on the farm. Several times throughout the growing season we slash back the plant letting the leaves fall around, mulching and composting in place, thus creating bio-mass and top soil.
Because of the incredible nutrition captured in the leaves of the comfrey plant we use them as animal fodder. a few leaves a week are fed to our rabbits, along with their other forage. We will throw leaves to the chickens, along with the comfrey they nibble on when free ranging our in the meadow. When the goats come this spring, they too will get comfrey.
We also use comfrey medicinally. There is some debate on its use. The root of the wild comfrey plant has been found to contain pyrrolizidine alkaloids, which can cause liver damage if ingested in large amounts.
In the 1980s there was a research paper that reported liver damage in laboratory animals that had varying doses of these alkaloids injected into them intravenously. This came as shock to the Herbalist community because comfrey has long been regarded as one of the safest herbs…..
…Naturally, experts rushed to the defense of comfrey. One expert pointed out that the rats had been fed the equivalent of twenty-four times their body weight in comfrey leaves. (Green Pharmacy Barbara Griggs 305) Fred Fletcher Hyde argued forcefully that a plant is not only a physical dilution of its chemical constituents:
Teas, almonds, apples, pears, mustard radishes, and hops, to list only a few items, all contain substances which, if extracted, can be shown to be poisonous when tested under conditions similar to those used in the comfrey experiments. Must we then ignore our experience of the usefulness and wholesomeness of these foods because controlled trials and scientific evidence have not been published to establish their safety? (Green Pharmacy Barbara Griggs 305)
Perhaps it starts with confusion, aided by imprecise language. There are two species of comfrey: wild comfrey, Symphytum officinale, and cultivated comfrey, Symphytum uplandica x. (The “x” means it is a hybrid, a cross.)Wild comfrey (S. off.) is a small plant–up to a meter tall–with yellow flowers. Cultivated comfrey (S. uplandica x.) is a large plant–often surpassing two meters–with blue or purple flowers.
Everyone I know grows uplandica and that is what is sold in stores. But gardeners and herbal sellers alike usually mislabel it, causing no end of confusion.
To complicate the situation even more: the roots and the leaves of comfrey contain different constituents. Comfrey roots, like most perennial roots, contain poisons. Wild comfrey (officinale) leaves have some of the same poisons. But cultivated comfrey (uplandica) leaves don’t.
Comfrey is generally reguarded as safe when used topically, and you can find commercially prepared topical application of comfrey. Comfrey, also known as “Knit-bone” is the great healer of all bones, muscles, connective tissues and skin.
Comfrey ointment heals wounds, cuts, burns, bruises, itches, and most skin problems. But it is most amazing when used to stop friction blisters from forming when you over use your hands or feet–walking, raking, rowing, hoeing, whatever. Even after the blister has swelled and filled with fluid–though better at the first twinge of pain–frequent applications of comfrey ointment will make it disappear as though it was never there. I apply the salve every five minutes for the first hour if I can, then 2-3 times an hour until I go to sleep.
We use comfrey leaves (never roots) in salves, oils and poultices. We do also choose to use comfrey internally, although it is illegal in the United States to sell commercially prepared comfrey for internal use. We dry and chop our own comfrey and use it in herbal infusions. One of my favorite ways to use comfrey for injured and painful joints is to prepare my herbal infusion, pour one quart of boiling water over one once by weight of dry comfrey, place a tight lid over the hot infusion and let sit for four hours or longer. After at least four hours (I make mine at night and drink in the morning) strain through a cloth and drink at least a cup. Then I take the strained leaves, place them in a pot and pour two cups cold water over them and bring it to a boil, let simmer for a few minutes, let cool, once it is cool make a poultice and cover the affected area and let sit as long as you can. I have found this to be powerful herbal nutrition for strained and sprained joints, and use it often with my teenagers, who are runners and have injuries from time to time. This year I will be making comfrey oil and salve, I would like to try and see if it is as effective as a poultice. Otherwise I will be spending a lot of time harvesting and drying comfrey leaves to make herbal infusions throughout the year.
Soil is defined as the top layer of Earth that allows the growth of plants. All areas have a different soil horizon, and that profile will change over time, and can contain all of the different types of soil discussed in this article. You can find out what your soil horizon is by digging a hole in the ground and then observer the cross sections in that hole.
Permaculture is not about changing one type of soil to another type of soil, but is about creating a top layer of soil, in your soil horizon, that plants will thrive in without having to change the underlying soil profile. BUT, it is very important to know what the soil type is that you are building your permaculture soil on. The underlying soil type will effect the temperature, water drainage, water retention, and the depth of your plants roots. Typing your soil can be very complicated. You will hear people classify soil by color, weight, and other measurements. I hope that this article helps in clarifying some of the different types of soil, and terminology used. Over time as you build your permaculture top layer, the underlying soil horizon will change. It will take years, but eventually the changes you make on the top layer will percolate down to the lower layers of the soil horizon. That is a great side effect of doing permaculture gardening, but it is not the ultimate goal.
According to the Unified Soil Classification system (USCS) there are 5 different types of soils. They include Gravel, Sand, Silt, Clay and Organic. But I would like to add an additional type, and that is of Peat. There are different grades of those types (poorly graded, well-graded, high plasticity, and low plasticity), but I will leave that for another post.
GRAVEL
Gravel is composed of rock fragments. These fragments can be in a lot of different sizes. It is pretty easy to identify gravel. There is really not a good test to verify it is gravel besides the look and texture. Because gravel has an inferior ability to retain moisture, nutrients, plant life in gravel soil is more sparse. One advantage to a gravel soil is that it does have a very high water drainage rate, so it can be good for plants that need a dryer root system. But it also does not retain nutrients.
SAND
Sand is more granular than gravel is, and is comprised of finely divided rock particles. It is finer than gravel, but is coarser than silt. Water drains rapidly, and also does not store nutrients for plants very efficiently. The nutrients are carried away usually to quickly for plants to be able to use them. You can test to see if your soil is sand by picking some slightly wet sand up. If you try to create a ball with it, it will not form one, will leave particles on your hands, and crumbles easily in your fingers.
SILT
Silt is finer than sand, but not as fine as clay. Silt is fine enough that it may also be found in suspension in bodies of water. Silt is usually what makes rivers, and lakes have a dirty look to them. When silt is wet, it will have a slippery feel, but when it dries, it will have a floury feel. Silt drains poorly, and is usually cooler than sand.
CLAY
Clay has the smallest particles. Clay can be easily molded in your fingers when wet, but when it dries, it becomes hard or brittle. If clay is wet, it forms into balls easily if rolled in your fingers, and feels sticky. Clay soil is cold, and takes time to warm, because it does hold moisture well. Clay also stores nutrients well. The downside is that when clay becomes dry, it becomes very hard and plants have a hard time growing in dry clay.
ORGANIC
Organic soil is soil that is primarily made up of matter composed of organic compounds. It usually contains the remains of plans, animals, and their waste products. Organic soil is usually created by the organic matter being broken down by bacterial or fungal action. Soil holds water, and nutrients, giving plants the capacity for growth.
PEAT
Some people classify peat with organic soil, but I feel it is in a class all of its own, because of how unique it is in its formation. It only forms in peatlands, bogs, and mires. Peat if rolled will not form a ball. It is spongy to touch and will release water if squeezed. Peat can be added to the other types of soil to increase its ability to retain water and nutrients.
So, which soil is the best?
The answer to this question is all of them in a mix. When you have some of all of the soil types mixed, you get what is called Loam. usually the composition is 40%-40%-20% (sand-silt-clay). The best type of soil to plant in is loam with the inclusion of organic matter. This way you get the best combination of draining, nutrients and moisture. But because it is almost impossible to create loam, permaculture may be the answer. It is impractical to create loam on a large scale in most environments. Loam is ideal for starting plants that then can be moved to your permaculture garden.
Loam is considered ideal for gardening and agricultural uses because it retains nutrients well and retains water while still allowing excess water to drain away. A soil dominated by one or two of the three particle size groups can behave like loam if it has a strong granular structure, promoted by a high content of organic matter. However, a soil that meets the textural definition of loam can lose its characteristic desirable qualities when it is compacted, depleted of organic matter, or has clay dispersed throughout its fine-earth fraction.
Loam is found in a majority of successful farms in regions around the world known for their fertile land. Loam soil feels soft and crumbly and is easy to work over a wide range of moisture conditions. [Source]
Besides doing the ball test, as motioned in the different soil types, you can do jar test. The jar test is explained at the end of this document: Soil Types and Testing. It will help you find where your soil fits, if it is sandy, clay, or loam soil.
Below is a video that explains loam a little better, with details on how to mix it.
Other Factors
Soil color can also tell you a lot about the soil, dark soils have high organic matter, aeration, available nitrogen, fertility, and a low erosion factor. Moderately dark soils have medium organic matter, erosion factor, aeration, available nitrogen and fertility. Light soils have low organic matter, aeration, available nitrogen, fertility and a high erosion factor. [Source]
Soil Temperature also has a lot to do with growing plants, and the type of soil you have under your permaculture can effect that as well. For the fastest growth, you want to try to keep your soil temperature at 65-70 degrees F. Above or 85 degrees and below 40 degrees you have no growth, and little to no bacteria or fungi activity.
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