New from Texas - Need a grow plan

[peterd]

This may help explain how and why it fails or succeeds. I have zero expectations of results in the first few years until consumed nitrogen starts being returned. This is a multi decade process rather than instant results and I am OK with that.

Link:
Common mistakes in building organic soils and soil biology

 

[peterd]

I was going to surprise you with another compost order. I found a bloke who worked 30 years ago for the company I cancelled the last load with. Turns out the owner passed and the son has taken over and when I described the loads I got he shook his head at how far downhill the company has dropped quality wise. Also turns out he will deliver certified organic compost cheaper than what I was paying the other company for. I have 7 cubic yards coming tomorrow from the new bloke.

Well before posting this. I got surprised instead. First of many truckloads of woodchips dropped just after dinner



Well I better get to it if I am going to move over 136 cubic yards of this stuff. This was only a half load and the bloke told me he has a truckload every day that he drops off to folks that want woodchips. Could mean double this lot each day for weeks yet

So much for solarization--right now I've used the sheeting instead as a barrier sheeting along that fence line and foundation line.

 

[netreeguy]

Your plan is similar to what I did here in NE and I couldn't be happier with the results.

Only on my 2nd year of cigar tobacco but on my 3rd year after doing what you're talking about. This garden has been here since around 2005. I had just under 20 loads of wood chips I dropped off from my old companies bucket truck. I went easily 12" thick in my garden and added a few new beds around the yard with just the mulch. If I still had access I would get another 20 loads (wintertime removals to avoid all the green matter and weeds) and do it all again.

-I used cardboard under the mulch and made it the first year weed free then used pre-emergents after that. Still Pulling weeds becomes much easier through the potting soil that the mulch turns into.
-Amazing how wet it stayed the first year with no ill effect(with peppers mostly). Fungal colonies of every sort will come out of wood chips. When they complete their cycle some can bind the wood chips into a cake of sort and have to be broken up. They don't hold moisture this way. Most of the garden and mulch beds was this way year 2. Easily tilled.
-Don't be afraid to use extra of a good source of N, urea free, 34-0-0 nitrate/ammonia has been excellent in my experience. The microbes will get more than you think and nitrate fertilizer gets down in the root zone where the tobacco root heads for. With two separate apps early on it makes for an explosion of growth with the right conditions.
-Gypsum. Think tons/acre. The a.a.@8.2 soil test is the only way to get a real # on Ca. I shoot for 85%. Spectrum Analytics a.a.@8.2 test has my Ca # in the low 60's when midwest labs put it at 83%. With pH of 6.8 I use gypsum early and often. Don't forget everything else Ca is where to start but plants will only get to the potential of their least available nutrients.
-Mulch is long term food for the microbes. Plants use the nutrients made available when they die. Symbiotic relationships may have been made better with the abundance of food but the nutrient deficiencies (soil test) are still there and were not fixed with the breakdown of the mulch after two years. Fix with soil testing and amendments in the off season. I amend individually with the best sources of each.

 

[peterd]

You beat me to it I have 300 pounds of 46-0-0 being delivered. This is the first year kickstart application to start the slow burn of carbon decomposition for all that massive amount of carbon I am laying down.

 

[peterd]

As you can see last nights truck load didn't go very far. I will need another 30 truck loads at least.



Barrier sheeting done

 

[peterd]

It makes you mad when the little guy delivers 7 yards of compost and you get the same volume the large commercial player charges you 14 yards worth for.

The compost is certified organic, five times darker than the big guys piss poor quality compost. Has no branches, stumps, rocks and cement chunks and cost me more than $200 less than the big player. I am totally done with Soil Building Systems of Dallas. The new guy worked for them 30 years ago and told me the founder passed a few years back and the son took over. I wish him the best running it into the ground.





Dark lovely black gold with a lot of the carbon worked out of it.

The big companies compost

 

[peterd]

Four cart loads short of filling out everything i wanted up to the hvac cement pad. Not bad at all!

 

[peterd]

Sadly I blew out my last pair of redbacks by the end. Won't be getting more as they don't make them like they used to, today they are designed to fail early.



I wonder if this will wash out

 

[peterd]

@netreeguy Did I mention I used to grow mushrooms on the farm! I was thinking of bombing the woodchips with a spore slurry if time permitted. Not sure if I would build a hepa flow hood to do sterile tissue culture as I am not that fussed with local primary decomposers taking hold in the woodchips even if not edible or gourmet species.

 

[netreeguy]

First rain grew more of them than could ever dreamed of. Interesting harmless yellow slime mold still comes up. Getting it done anyway and your shoes look as rough as mine.

 

[Oldfella]

I admire your stamina. Me I'd borrow the neighbors tractor. I have heard of a product that helps to break down clay in gardens but I can't remember what it was. I'll ask my sister tomorrow, she used it when she lived in the city.
Good luck with your project I'm sure it'll all be good in the end.
Oldfella

Hi I finally found the name of the fertilizer to help build up clay soil, my sister couldn't remember, netreeguy jogged my memory, Gypsum that's the one it seemed to work well. Might be worth a try.
Oldfella

 

[peterd]

I decided to order a 5 pound bag of Stropharia rugoso-annulata mushroom spawn also known as the Garden Giant and is considered a gourmet mushroom. I will inoculate the first drop of woodchips and if the second drop arrives before the spawn does I will break the spawn down further and broadcast half deep into the second pile as well. It makes an excellent garden companion to corn.

Since I am 12 inches of chips deep it is plenty for the spawn to survive and grow on.





They are pretty tasty grilled on the bbq if you get them in the button stages before grubs get inside of them.

I will inoculate at least six inches above the soil and have different inoculations sites. Once the mycelium gets to the soil layer and earth worms get a whiff of it they'll come in droves for a feast. Not an issue as it will help feed and explode my earthworm population as well.

They get bigger than in the photo but by that stage are full of grubs eating them from the inside out. If you have a Koi or fish pond you can chuck them into the pond and watch the fish strike them as they try to get at the grubs so another beneficial reuse of materials.

 

[deluxestogie]

So you're saying that Stropharia rugoso-annulata can thrive on merely the wood faming of your house?

Bob

 

[peterd]

It is a primary decomposer of woodchips. Mushrooms are what turn wood or straws back into soils breaking down the lignin cellulose. If I was heavily mulching with straw I would try oyster mushroom species. With mushrooms the cells that make up the mycelium which is almost a similie to roots of a plant are the same that form the stem and cap of a mushroom. You can clone tissue from anywhere and grow a new mushroom colony. Although spores are the normal method of reproduction. A giant blender some water and toss in a bunch of primary wood decomposer mushrooms and blend it into a slurry then pour onto woodchips is another way to try to inoculate. If the cap has expanded and matured the gills will be making spores so you get tissue fragments and spores in your slurry.

Edit: And the overlooked obvious when its done you have created a bunch of free mushroom compost for your garden!

 

[billy]

in my experience those wine caps seem to for lack of better words suck the juice out of the wood, and leaves it visually lighter color and fluffier feeling. then they continue off to the sides or wait for more on top. im assuming at that point its much easier for bacteria and things to enter and finish breaking down. but most years ive been growing on small 1/4" to 1/2" sized hardwood chips cause i can get it as a local company waste product. and i didnt put normal sized chunk woodchips untill this summer so idk if it eats them any different.

and also what they dont normally tell you is they like edges and dirt for fruiting. i very rarely see a mushroom in the middle of a place. they would rather go 10 feet across the wood chips then 3 inches out in the dirt, and they go ahaa i found the edge and they pop up all the mushrooms there

 

[peterd]

There is a succession from primary decomposers to secondary decomposers etc. Each successive wave is optimized to exploit the remains of the previous. Some like these can also attack nematodes. Although it would be nice to think I will always have this one at hand, nature abhorres a monoculture of anything. Also the billions of spores already out there in the air floating around means this step is not necessary but a good opportunity to get in early and give the desired species a head start so you can collect something edible. You need damp moist environment so excess water can be consumed and helped to be retained within the mycelial colonies out in your woodchips piles. The mycelium expresses acids to digest cellulose breaking it down into polysaccharides beginning to feed a massive successive chain of life fungal and bacterial and insect etc. Lots of living pooping loving and reproducing and dying and recycling going on inside, life begets life. Also toxins and salts in the soil are bound and made inert during this process.

 

[peterd]

This is a great method from mushroommountain I got for those who want to evade earth worms, or don’t have enough space to grow outdoors.

What You Will Need

• Presoaked straw or woodchips, or both. it is OK to mix these two substrates
• Container: any type of plastic container (will need drainage holes in the bottom), a carboard box lined with a trashbag (will need drainage holes in the bottom), black nursery pots (already has holes )
• Spawn
• Water
• Potting soil, and a handful of your native soil

Method

Step 1
Presoak the substrate the day before.

Step 2
Drain the substrate.

Step 3
Mix the spawn with the substrate really well.

Step 4
Fill your container with the spawned substrate. Pack it well. Leave two inches at the top for potting soil layer.

Step 5
Water gently so you are not washing the spawn down to the bottom of the container. Water everyday for the first week, every other day for the 2nd and 4th week. Water once a week after that.

Step 6
After a few weeks, the whole container should be colonized. You will see stringy, filamentous mycelium growing all through out the container. Try not do disturb it much. At this point, you will case it.

Why do we need this casing? Without it, the mushrooms will not fruit. This is why you don’t see king stropharia growing on logs. They are terrestrial mushrooms. Add the handful of your native soil to the casing (just in case the potting soil was sterile, not containing microbes), and wet it down really well. Add 1-2 inches of the potting soil to cover the surface.

Step 7
Water. You don’t want this layer drying out. To keep it humid, you may even cover the whole area with a humidity tent, which is a fancy word for a see-through plastic bag with holes in it.

Step 8 (Optional)
Seed your whole container with some wheatgrass, to create a functional, and pretty microclimate and habitat for mushroom formation. Planting wheatgrass will elevate oxygen, and provide a dewy hideout for the baby mushrooms.

I may do this to keep some pure wine cap spawn handy to reinoculate new wood chip piles.

 

[peterd]

also what they dont normally tell you is they like edges and dirt for fruiting. i very rarely see a mushroom in the middle of a place

There are different fruiting triggers, and the reason the edge or surface layer is a trigger is a lot of mushrooms use carbon dioxide levels to determine when to stop growing underground mycelium and to instead tell the cells to form mushroom fruiting bodies. Other mushrooms such as this one I am using also use the presence of soil microbes to trigger fruiting (same with Truffles, etc.)

When growing Oyster mushrooms in a laundry basket its those edges where the mushrooms form.

Some require casing layers which provide microbes and provide a bank of moisture to use in the accelerated growth of fruting bodies (mushrooms).

 

[Chicken]

I don’t know your average rainfall, but I don’t like the use of the tarp,, bacca don’t like “wet feet”. And that tarp may prevent proper drainage.
. I’d go to a lake and get some vegetation from thier to mix in,, is thier a grove of elephant ears growing wild ,,
Any “sort” vegetation,
Hit the sawmill and get some saw dust, any horse or dairy/ cow farms around? Go get a truckload of poop,

your fertilizer will be 6-6-18, if you search some of my posts you’ll find all the info you need from that, a actual tobacco farms ticket I delivered to . I work for a huge fertilizer company,

you could get 2 crops if you started them in December,, and by April at planting time be 6”+ tall, in 4” pots

Im in north Florida, perhaps a straight line from you, and I’ve thought I could do another crop, if I’d had them ready, there was plenty of summer left,
When I grow its around 250 plants. I built a tobacco barn, but haven’t used it yet.

 

[Chicken]

And I too have grown some mushrooms, years ago, I had some spores gave to me, and did my research, and give it a try with amazing success, I had MONTEZUMA..and B+.. spores, which are psychedelic mushrooms,
I used a syringe and mason jars for the inaculation.. mixed rice flour for the growing medium, drilled 4 holes in the “wide mouth mason jar lid” on the edges.
Filled sirange with water, then squirted it in a shot glass, mixed my spores with the water, then sucked that up with my sirange and with the long needle along the edge of the glass, squirt a little in each hole deep as possible,
Sit it in the dark, and watch the white spores take over the brown rice flour,, top that out, place in a clear tote, on top of perlite, with holes drilled everywhere on the tote, and keep moist with a mist bottle,
I used a led grow light , and had mushrooms galore,,

they were consumed by members of a funeral wake,, giggly mushrooms they were,