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15 Feb ’12
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do you guys think that the burning does more damage than the burning adding nutrients back to the soil? I can't imagine heat penetration to be more than a inch or two into the soil. I burned off our pond this spring
http://thehomesteadi.....hread3241/
and the cat tails have come back stronger than ever
3 Nov ’12
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Ive never tried slash and burn techniques before (other than to kill squash bugs) but from what I've read there are both benifits and drawbacks to burning. When you slash and burn, unless the fire gets to the point it starts consuming hardwoods, the fire only penetrates the first 2 cm of soil. There have been studies that show the fungal and bacterial populations are replaced in under 30 days. In the short term, fire changes organic nitrogen into mobile nitrates which are more easily absorbed by plants. This explains the sudden plant growth after a burn. However, mobile nitrates are easily washed away with runoff, so what isnt absorbed immediately can be lost.
20 Feb ’12
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KE, you're zone 5 right?
For that zone stawberry and lingonberry are great ground covers that produce an edible.
you can also look at dutch white clover or maybe even vetch which both will fix nitrogen.
Creeping thyme, stonecrop and creeping phlox are nice too. These should all flower and attract beneficial insects.
Keep in mind that most of these ground covers can get out of control since their nature is to rapidly spread out.
Personally I've only used strawberry, dutch white clover and hairy vetch so far and only inside of raised beds and a hugelbed. I'm thinking about adding phlox and thyme to my landscape as I'm planning out my food forest.
You can also add garlic, chives, horseradish and jerusalem artichoke to your root layer if you want more edibles.
Correct on zone 5. Thanks for the suggestions, I like the idea of dutch clover and will go that route.
Garlic and chive are going in 110%! I'll be dropping the garlic in shortly and in the spring I'm going to section off some of the chive from the house and bring them out there.
I've never thought of horseradish before, so I'll have to read up on it a bit.
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