If you have rich good soil packed with microbes ready to break down shredded leaves then add the leaves right away. The leaves will disappear quickly. If you are not sure if you have a microbe packed soil, then add a small layer (1/4 inch) of high quality worm castings on top of the shredded leaves so you are inoculating your leaves and soil. Worm castings are like pro-biotics for your garden.
I guess it’s the hobbyist thing. If you are growing outdoors, particularly here, you start in the spring and you are ending – by now. With indoor growing you can grow whatever you want whenever you want 365 days of the year. That’s what modern homesteading is about.
Our world is just too small to be messing with random additions of chemicals and in his book, the intelligent gardener, Steve Solomon spells it out for you. But if you prefer to keep it really really safe, simply make the conditions right for microbes and they will make the conditions right for plants. It is a simple and satisfactory solution.
But back to Biochar. Apparently if made and used properly it is a more or less a permanent solution to soil drainage problems, soil fertility, soil chemical problems and almost anything that ails you.
Maybe you grow seven hundred pound pumpkins? Or maybe you are the gardener reported on by the BBC this week who raised a record breaking 50 pound cabbage in England. So my question is this: why bother? I want to grow mineralized,organic, pest-free food. But does it really need to be giant?
I line up the tools and take them apart to clean them. Yes- you can also sharpen the blades leaving them on the handle and if you have a cheaper pair they might not come apart. But I don’t believe in half measures. I loosen the main bolt on my 35-year-old Swiss Felco’s. Into soapy water they go.
