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Post by odsteve on Sept 19, 2021 0:08:13 GMT -5
Hi,
New gardener here. I just finished my first raised veggie garden bed. It's large, 20 ft long, 4 ft wide and 30 inches high. The top half is a mixture of about 40% old cow manure, 30% soil, 5% old hay and 25% un-nutritious potting soil the government was giving away free about a year ago. The cow manure / soil / hay comes from the cow feeding pens of a near-by ranch. The potting soil acts like pure perlite but it contains other ingredients too, but they are unknown. Nothing grows very well, if at all in this potting soil. I just use it like I would perlite as it mixes and drains so well with the cow manure / soil combination.
In my front yard I have some white mushrooms coming up. My question is should I transplant some of them to my raised bed - not to eat but just to help break down the cow manure in the soil? Are possibly toxic mushrooms good to help break down the soil where I intend to plant veggies next year, or should I just keep them away from my veggie garden's soil? Or perhaps just plant some edible mushrooms from the supermarket and see what happens? I've read mushrooms help break down organic matter for the benefit of other plants. I've also read some mushrooms are poisonous to even touch, so not sure I would want them in my future vegetable garden. As a side note earlier this year I put some night crawlers from the local bait shop in my garden and a few hundred red wigglers purchased from eBay. I don't know where the night crawlers went, but with the drop in temperature I think the red wigglers are finally doing their thing as the level in the bed has dropped about 6 inches this past month, and they can now be found near the surface. I live at 4000 ft elevation, zone 5, with temps now in the 70's to 90's during the day and 20's *F at night. Anything else I can do to prepare the soil for vegetable planting next spring? Otherwise I just plan to let the garden soil sit undisturbed until next spring.
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Post by odsteve on Sept 19, 2021 0:18:28 GMT -5
Here's a picture of the partially-filled raised bed from earlier this year. The bed is level its just the yard and camera are somewhat slanted.  |
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Post by gardendmpls on Sept 19, 2021 0:35:09 GMT -5
y question is should I transplant some of them to my raised bed - not to eat but just to help break down the cow manure in the soil? Mushrooms are the fruiting bodies of the fungus. Most of the time, mushrooms are these stringy, underground things called mycelium. The mushrooms that appear above ground have the spores that start new colonies of mycelium. Generally, mushrooms and other organisms that break down compost materials (like your manure and hay) are in the soil already, waiting for the opportunity to get to work. If your bed has dropped six inches, all those decomposing soil organisms are hard at work already. As far as worms, as the weather cools, the worms, like night crawlers, go deeper. They also do this when it's dry. Even if you added no worms, they will show up if there is food that they like to eat. I prepare for spring by placing a layer of hay over the soil. It will slowly break down and meanwhile prevents a lot of weeds from sprouting (some people use straw or leaves as mulch). In very early spring, about 6 weeks before planting, I pull back the mulch and put out a layer of sweepings from the chicken coop, consisting of partly broken down chicken manure and broken down wood pellets. Then I put back the hay mulch or if it has broken down, add more. By planting time, the chicken poop layer has finished breaking down and grows great plants. There are other ways to prepare for spring, and they can differ depending on where you live. You can post the area you live in under your signature line. Some of the others can tell you how. That way we can give advice appropriate to your growing conditions. Best of luck and welcome to the forums. |
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Post by Mumsey on Sept 19, 2021 4:37:15 GMT -5
odsteve, Welcome to the forums! It sounds like you are getting a good start on that raised bed! As gardendmpls said, the mushrooms/fungi will come when the conditions are right. Fungi are very interesting and vital things, I watched a documentary called "Fantastic Fungi" on Netflix. If you have access, it's a great watch! Meanwhile, keep layering organic matter into your bed. You will have great crops next season.
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Post by emmsmommy on Sept 19, 2021 4:58:21 GMT -5
odsteve, I've filled my beds with whatever materials I could get my hands on from around my property and mulched the paths with woodchips. The mushrooms will appear. I did get some dog vomit fungus on top of some dried grass mulch once which was interesting.
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Post by lilolpeapicker on Sept 19, 2021 8:06:00 GMT -5
At the end of the season I lay down rabbit manure on top of the bed, cut grass and leaves and then hay over that. I have a dog here who relishes the fresh manure so I either cover all that with burlap or if I have low fencing then surround the bed so she cannot get at it.  |
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Post by gianna on Sept 19, 2021 9:21:39 GMT -5
I don't know where you live, or your climate. Judging by the dry soil and grass (like where I live) you don't appear to get much summer rain. If that were my bed, I'd sprinkle some cover crop seeds in there, and water them in. Something fast like buckwheat. Even an old bag of lentils might work. There roots will help condition the soil, encourage soil organisms, and leave organic matter behind when you clip them off at ground level. A key to a successful garden is organic matter. Either live things in the soil growing, and/or compost and/or mulch. or all 3 at the same time. Welcome. Love the look of your raised bed. I see zucchini and tomatoes in your future.  |
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Post by desertwoman on Sept 19, 2021 10:40:34 GMT -5
I live on a high desert plateau (7000 ft) with hard clay soil and average 13 inches of precipitation/year (and far less the past several years). I converted to fully no till, several years ago. Besides seeing a huge improvement in my soil, it is far less work than I use to do! You don't necessarily have to give up on growing directly in ground, in what is now your poor soil, if that seems like something you might want to do. It just takes conditioning that poor soil. You can layer (lasagna gardening) all kinds of good things-alternate manure, crushed leaves, cut grass, coffee grounds, compost, whatever organic matter you have access to- mulch with a thick layer of leaves or straw and let it percolate over the winter.. The mycelium will appear, worms will appear. The less you disturb the soil, the more the mycelium network grows. A quick intro mycorrhizaworld.de/hp561/General-information-about-Mycorrhiza.htm?ITServ=a1eoiq0vadkck34jkt6hcuf8hju |
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Post by gianna on Sept 19, 2021 11:19:10 GMT -5
I converted to fully no till, several years ago. Besides seeing a huge improvement in my soil, it is far less work than I use to do! Ah, yes. Another strong recommendation for no till gardening from me. I wish I had known about this years ago. Every year the beds just keep getting better. In addition to your raised bed, it's somethihg you could start right now on the 'dry' ground (if you wish a larger garden) - the gathering and layering of organic matter. I use mainly the free, ground up municipal green waste. Others use leaves gathered in the fall, kitchen scraps, animal bedding, etc. A thread on the subject: organicgroup.freeforums.net/thread/4247/till-cover-crops |
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Post by breezygardener on Sept 19, 2021 16:22:32 GMT -5
I don't know how mushrooms would or would not benefit your garden, but yes it is true that some mushrooms are toxic enough where touching them can introduce toxins into your system. Probably not enough to kill you, but who wants to test that theory? But still - even experienced mushroom foragers advise putting mushrooms in different non-touching bags until you - or preferably an experienced mycologist - can positively i.d. one from another.
Regardless of what you decide, definitely do not eat any of them - lol!
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Post by raphanus on Sept 19, 2021 19:37:56 GMT -5
That’s an awesome looking raised bed, Steve! Northern California gets down to the 20s at night in September, for real ?!? Mushrooms don’t really transplant, what is above the surface is a fruiting body sent up by the below ground mycelium. The fastest way to improve soils is usually to plant legumes+cover crops, chop and drop, and add microorganism-rich compost. The worms you added are great too! Best of luck! If it’s really in the 20s at night already, you might want to think about cold frames or put PVC hoops and plastic greenhouse film over your raised bed so you can grow all winter. Best of luck, take care.
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Post by odsteve on Sept 19, 2021 20:12:33 GMT -5
Hi, Yes, I like the idea of no-till gardening. That's why I mixed everything (manure, soil and potting soil) very thoroughly in wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow load before putting it in the raised bed. In the several years I've lived here, I've never seen one earthworm here or any mushroom until this year in the front yard. That's why I put night crawlers and red wigglers in the garden bed - to give them a kick-start. It was my original intention to rototill the garden area and plant directly, but my soil really is nothing but gravel and clay. Attached is a picture where I started digging a hole to plant an evergreen tree. But after 5 days of digging and filling with water every night, I just gave up. It would require heavy machinery to break up the soil here. You can see its just gravel and not enough wood chips to make any difference. It may not look like bad soil near the garden bed, but under that inch of soil is just gravel. I would like to put a layer of wood chips everywhere in my back yard. But the city maintenance department does not own a chipper, the county has a chipper but not a truck to shoot the chips into. The same with the fire department. They just broadcast the chips all over the ground where ever they are chipping, but the power company does have a chipper and truck. However they have a waiting list and I've only got one truck load of chips from them this year. I've tried every tree trimmer listed, but no luck. If anyone has a suggestion where I can get wood chips without paying $200 a truck load, I would appreciate it. If you look closely at full resolution you will see my soil is mostly all gravel.  |
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Post by gardendmpls on Sept 19, 2021 20:26:04 GMT -5
Besides layering on the compost/mulch/future soil, you might try planting daikon radishes in the cooler weather. They are known to drill down through bad soil, opening it up for the top stuff to settle in.
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Post by odsteve on Sept 19, 2021 20:37:32 GMT -5
This past week began the below-freezing night-time temps in my northern corner of California. However it still gets into the 80's *F during the day so the night-time cold is very tolerable. PVC hoops and plastic greenhouse film - an excellent suggestion. Thank you. But for now I still need to let the cow manure etc decompose in my raised bed. As you can see by the attached picture, I think the manure is still too strong and my soil is out of balance in the bed because some of the weeds have yellow leaves. Interesting idea about the daikon radishes. Thank you.  |
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Post by Mumsey on Sept 20, 2021 5:23:26 GMT -5
odsteve, I also do no-till, even here in Iowa where we have some of the best soil in the country. The only thing I hand dig are the onion and garlic beds.
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