When reading the old ethnoagronomy travelogue
'Farmers of Forty Centuries, Or Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea, and Japan' I was quite impressed by one farming trick used by the chinese to increase the productive capacity of farm land a hundred years ago. The chinese would dig trenches, moving the topsoil to the side, then harvest the top several inches of subsoil. They would return the topsoil and level out the field. The subsoil they would move to their composting site and layer it in to new composting pits where it would ferment with the compost and in the process be transformed into topsoil! (In later years it would be learned that the nitrifying bacteria in the soil would also help the compost retain its nitrogen) The new topsoil would then obviously be returned to the field with the compost.
My modification is a hybridization with hugelkultur.
First the topsoil is removed, pots and tubs help if the garden isnt bare.
Next the top several inches of subsoil is dug and removed to the composting site, digging 4" from a 3' by 4' area will yield 30 hard packed gallons of subsoil.
Next try your best to replace its volume with branches, sticks, pine cones, dried up crabapples, whatever youve got. This time I was up to my nipples in mustard greens so I added some for a nitrogen boost.
Sprinkle some dirt on and water the mess before returning the top soil to the hole.
If you got enough branches and things in it should come out nearly level
When expanding my garden some areas of subsoil were so hard I needed a pickaxe to dig into it. Growing a crop of things like mustard, kohlrabi, and kale on such land will soften the subsoil for digging. Growing crops properly will, by itself, eventually deepen topsoil but this method gets it done immediately.
Author
Topic: Making new topsoil (Read 7353 times)