The capabilities of a simple soil (Outdoor edition)

Made another woodchip run today. I'll be making woodchip runs pretty much every day for the next month until my entire backyard is covered in them. I will be covering my entire yard; beds, native dirt, and all with a 1ft layer of woodchip mulch. Possibly even more.

Winter will be here very soon, and in another 10 days my nights will be back down to the low 50s again. This mulch will be game changing for me. The sunlight will be hitting 6+ inches of woodchips, which will then absorb the heat and transfer it below down to my soil to warm things up during the night. The composting process happening in the soil and the woodchips will also provide heat for the soil. Lots of it. This, and the hoops should ensure my medical grow survives during the winter this year.

Now that I got the woodchips today, I was able to "repurpose" my rows. What do I mean by that?



You can see how there are two "rows" there, individual holes filled with the soil I made in the first post. The holes here are smaller than the ones that had my 6ft medical plants (15g), these ones only have ~5g of soil in the holes. The roots will actually grow out of these holes and into the native dirt. In fact, here's a picture of that exact thing.



If you zoom in on the photo, you can notice the roots of the weed plant not only grew through the native dirt, but it found its way into the adjacent hole that once had the bell pepper in it. As a result of doing this, I've effectively turned my native dirt into part of the soil web. Remember, roots/rhizosphere is where the bulk of the action happens. Sure, microbes can exist outside of the rhizosphere, but certainly not to the extent of how they can thrive in the rhizosphere of a plant.

I've also done so with minimal pre-made soil used. I did not need to fill a 2x8 row with soil, I only had to fill 4-5 holes with 5g of soil. Way less cost, with the same results.

The wood chips on top of the the native dirt will soon become a mixture of compost and native dirt for me to dig up and repeat the process with. I want to expand without having to buy and make more soil. I will be attempting to grow in nothing but compost and dirt by this time next year.


Before



and after (I'll take another in the morning)



Hoping the plants don't mind the transplanting. I tried with one yesterday to test, and it took well, so the others should do fine. Problem is, they weren't fully rootbound in the geo-pots.

I've noticed mixed results with transplants when I'd accidentally break the root ball. However, the depth of the soil web here is massive. My guess is that plants survive transplant shock depending on how much life there is in the soil. It is mind-boggling how deep the roots get in the ground here, even with only 5g of pre-made soil. Imagine all of those roots combining their rhizospheres with not just one another, but also combining with the rhizospheres with the trees in your yard.

Eventually, the entire underground of your land can be a soil web with proper planning. Once this happens, you can plant practically anything in the ground and it'll grow if there are no temp related issues from my climate. This nearly 1ft layer of mulch I just applied will help me deal with the climate from now on, I believe.


For those of you wondering about disturbing the microbes by yanking root balls up like this. A few things about that. Sure, it is ideal to just cut the plant by the stem and plant your new plant next to the stem. However, this isn't always practical. Sure, this will work perfect with seeds up to solo cups, but even a 1g pot will need a hole, let alone a 2g-5g pot. I find that yanking the rootball always leaves me with the perfect sized hole for transplanting. Think about every plant you've yanked from the ground. Damn near perfect hole for your new transplant almost every time.

And about the microbes? The 3-5 gallons of soil web being dug up is absolutely nothing compared to how large the web as a whole is. Definitely not the biggest deal.


And finally, repurposed this jalapeno bed that didn't really do much of anything.



Plants haven't done much there, too much shade. I considered trimming the tree to provide more light to this area, but would rather have it grow extra to help me more in the summer.

I don't want to work against the trees. I would be so fucked without them and things would look much different. So, I'll just start a fuckton of greens here.



I dug up all the soil from the hole and spread it out where you can see. Woodchips have been dumped for a "pathway". I can finally access all of that empty space in the tomatillo bed, more space for greens. I will be covering any unused native dirt with woodchips. The entire yard eventually.

Things get busier and busier by the month it seems. The rate of growth is exponential. 1-2 hours in the garden has quickly turned into 3-4. I'm enjoying the ride.

They took to the transplant amazingly, they look glorious. Had to hit them all with a sprinkle of Langbeinite, you can see them praying for the magnesium. Other than that, they look great. In fact, the praying makes me happy. Not only was the transplant such a tremendous success, but they're kicking so much ass they already need more nutes.


Just kind of thought these shrooms looked cool. They are a very welcome addition to my garden. They don't actually have roots of their own, but rather attach to the roots of other plants. Great visual indicator of just how far your roots are spreading. That and they help process food for the plant's roots, while also increasing the root's capacity to absorb water.





Poor sunflower, its a trooper though. I'll leave it be as long as it wants to survive. May just have to prune it back a bit depending on the growth of the med plants. Added even more mulch today, on top of what I did yesterday. That's a good 6 inch layer. This mulch, combined with my soil web, will ensure great results.

Once the plants grow, I'll be adding more mulch. My hope is that once these plants are 2+ feet tall, I can have close to a 1ft layer of mulch.

Soil temps vary drastically on the first ~1-2 inches of the soil. As you go lower, the soil temps become more consistent, and often favorable. In the grand scheme of things, soil temp is more of a concern than air temp. Think of it like being submerged in a hot tub up to your neck, but its -10F outside.

Roots are the same, especially with how vast they are compared to the plants sometimes. Frost does a number on plant foliage, sure, but the damage to the roots is swift and brutal. By not only insulating the soil with mulch, but also the mulch providing extra heat via decomposition, soil temps should be just fine even if it does get to 40 degrees out here. I'm eager to see the results.

Happy growing!

Dam! Your planting and Im thinking about tuning up my snow blower.

myke said:

Dam! Your planting and Im thinking about tuning up my snow blower.

Click to expand...

Why I'm glad I'm not in the high desert, and these damn wood chips very well could result in a successful crop over the winter. I am quite eager to see how things perform. Thanks for stopping in my man!

In two weeks, night temps here will be in the 40s consistently, then in December its all mid 30s to low 40s. Pretty much stays that way until February. Day time temps are more tolerable, from 60-75 on average for that time frame. Those low nights are brutal to a good amount of plants, and ensures most everything dies or goes dormant.

However, I'm quite confident in the wood chips. I will layer on as much as I can, on everything. This way, the temperature fluctuations on the top layer will never occur on the soil. The mulch will take the fluctuations, allowing the soil temps to stay consistent. The roots will not experience shock from cold this way. Should this not be enough, I'll just get the hoops going. Would be nice to avoid them, but we will see.

Dealing with hoops daily is annoying, sure. But, its the work that needs to be done if we want to keep a consistent growing season. I don't want to "stop growing" at any time of year, I want to see what I can make work with what I'm given.

Surprised at the production I'm seeing from the plants now. Didn't expect to get even half of what I am this time of year, things seem to be getting established much quicker than I'd expected.

Going to just keep doing my thing, and let the soil do its thing, and see what happens.

Hey guys, life's been hectic. I'm mostly in the process of waiting for things to grow and/or ripen, and thinking of new places I can convert for growing space.



Had nowhere else to plant these, figured why not just throw them straight in some native dirt and see what happens. My hope is that, once covered with woodchips, overtime the native dirt will become a balanced soil. Going to see what happens. The dirt is pretty rough, but there have been plenty of tree roots working this dirt, which will definitely help. Been in the ground a few days, look healthy to me.





Getting pretty crowded in here, 4 of those plants in 5g pots will be going outdoors in the next day or two. Need to make room, and they're about as big as I want them before flower. They're going in 4ft tall hoop houses, as I want the 7+ foot tall tomato plants to block the view out of the medical grow entirely. Once harvested in February, the hoop houses will be converted to light dep grows to run into May. Come May, new plants will be planted in the ground to remain until Sept-Oct. The exception being one row, dedicated to light dep, to maintain consistent harvests while waiting for the large outdoor plants. Then back in for winter, rinse and repeat.

Its the vegetables and other plants I've still got much to learn about. But, as with anything else, that will come from experience and observation. I know how weed works, how the various strains will grow, things to expect, signs of optimal growth, all those "little" details. When it comes to anything but weed, I'm very much still learning.

Bananas all seem to be making a come back, some more than others, but they all look like they'll stay alive. I'm kind of glad they got stunted; if they need to stay in here until February then I don't want them getting 3-4 ft tall until then.

Blackberries also seem like they're doing pretty well for themselves, should be some nice sized bushes for me to plant in a couple of months.

The raspberry canes still look dead, that's because, they are in a way. Those canes came from a 2-3 year old plant that had already produced fruit. Apparently, those canes die, but their root mass is still very much alive. When the time is right, they grow new canes from their root mass, and eventually leaves and fruits from the canes.

Still need to learn and research more about them. May end up just sticking them outside, berries are used to cold winters after all, much colder than my climate. Trail and error.




Mothers are all doing well, time to take clones from some and keep the ball rolling. 2 different Bruce Banner phenos (#4 and #5 for me), Banana sativa, Purple Wreck, LA Confidential, and Zkittlez pheno of a strain called Maltezers.

Since I've finally got myself a dedicated veg space, I've finally popped some seeds I've been saving as well as invested in some new strains. More LA Con, something called Banana Dance, Cheesilicious, Super Shark, and Holy Grail Kush. Not sure about the freebies, but always worth seeing what happens. How I got that Zkittlez pheno after all.

The best outdoor Bruce plant I had happened to bless me with seeds, really wanted to keep producing that bad! Of course I popped some of those, going to be fun to see what happens with those. I still have my clones, if nothing else.

Ordered an Ethiopian landrace strain from Ace seeds that I'm very much eager to spend the next couple of years experimenting with. I've never had the pleasure of growing out a long flowering sativa, so just that alone will be an exciting experience for me. Very interested to see how it acts in my climate, which is similar to the part of Ethiopia this strain comes from. Tons of breeding potential here too once I start collecting pollen. Getting tired of buying seeds. Hoping for a good male that I can pollenate the Bruce Banner seeds I got



Also giving Greenpoint a try, so we'll see how that goes once they get here.





Plants are just the right size I wanted for this particular spot, I'll be keeping the larger ones in the back against the walls. Looks completely normal and natural when blended in with the other plants growing and towering above the hoops. Perfect. Legal or not, always good practice to keep things discreet.





Next plot of rows in the back is about ready, just need to get some woodchips and get the hoops put up. Then I can transplant some of the bigger plants and get them flowering.

About all there is to it for the medical side.

Got a lot more tomatoes coming in that I thought I'd have. Some of these plants are already 7-8ft tall, and I'm hopeful that will help them survive the winters. Who knows, maybe they just won't stop producing lol









Love how this volunteer just didn't give a fuck and grew straight out of the native dirt, though its no wonder the plant is thriving, even in the native dirt it is still a part of the bed's soil web. Still not sure what this one is, almost looks like a Black Cherry tomato, but only time will tell. Only ones I can readily identify are the Atomic Grapes and the Beefsteaks, and something called a White Tomesol. The rest are unknown until they ripen more lol



Going to have to dig this bed up, it is so compacted, extremely difficult for me to stick my finger through it now and nothing is sprouting in here. The tomatillos are still producing, but the fruits are much smaller than they should be. Poor tomato plant on the left barely managed to put out one tomato.

This is the oldest bed in the yard, one I built 2-3 years ago as an experiment at the time. Second time I've had to dig this bed up and rebuild a soil due to how quickly the bed turns into compost. Pretty sure its because of how close this bed is to the two large trees I have, but I could be mistaken.

Exciting though, means I get to dig more holes and plant more stuff! When I dig this up, I'll have pure compost, I'll need to get some native dirt to mix it up with. Once refilling the bed, I'll have excess soil remaining, so I'll use that to fill up the holes I dig. A cycle that keeps repeating. I haven't had to buy any "new" soil with all of these expansions. Just kind of a natural benefit of organics, it compounds naturally. In a few years, I'll need to go across the street and dig desert up from the sand because I'll have used up all my native dirt. One step at a time though.

To combat compaction in the future, I'm going to practice "top dressing" with my native dirt. What always happens is that eventually with these beds, things decompose so much that the top 4-6 inches becomes pure compost. This sounds awesome, but its really not. It retains a shit ton of water, and the roots struggle to even breathe let alone grow. The compost is quite "compacted" when this happens too. It can be dug up easily with a shovel, but attempting to push a finger will prove difficult.

Anyone ever seen filo dough for baklava? Extremely skinny dough, so thin you can see through it. The thin dough is layered 25-30 times, if not more, then baked.

Imagine this thin dough is compost. Over time, once it gets layered enough, gravity will take hold and combine with the water retaining properties of the compost. As a result, the no-till ends and you have to dig the bed and start anew. I believe that by "top dressing" with my native dirt every month or two, I can mitigate compaction for a while, if not potentially eliminate it outright. We'll see.

Regardless of all of that, the trees cover up way too much of this area during the winter. Likely just be mostly greens on this side of the yard during winters.

Every part of the yard has its own "microclimate", and these microclimates change with the seasons. Once I can learn more about the individual microclimates in my yard, I can plant more effectively.

For the time being, I'm literally just sprinkling seeds all over the place and seeing what happens.

kratos015 said:

Going to have to dig this bed up, it is so compacted, extremely difficult for me to stick my finger through it now and nothing is sprouting in here. The tomatillos are still producing, but the fruits are much smaller than they should be. Poor tomato plant on the left barely managed to put out one tomato.

This is the oldest bed in the yard, one I built 2-3 years ago as an experiment at the time. Second time I've had to dig this bed up and rebuild a soil due to how quickly the bed turns into compost. Pretty sure its because of how close this bed is to the two large trees I have, but I could be mistaken.

Exciting though, means I get to dig more holes and plant more stuff! When I dig this up, I'll have pure compost, I'll need to get some native dirt to mix it up with. Once refilling the bed, I'll have excess soil remaining, so I'll use that to fill up the holes I dig. A cycle that keeps repeating. I haven't had to buy any "new" soil with all of these expansions. Just kind of a natural benefit of organics, it compounds naturally. In a few years, I'll need to go across the street and dig desert up from the sand because I'll have used up all my native dirt. One step at a time though.

To combat compaction in the future, I'm going to practice "top dressing" with my native dirt. What always happens is that eventually with these beds, things decompose so much that the top 4-6 inches becomes pure compost. This sounds awesome, but its really not. It retains a shit ton of water, and the roots struggle to even breathe let alone grow. The compost is quite "compacted" when this happens too. It can be dug up easily with a shovel, but attempting to push a finger will prove difficult.

Anyone ever seen filo dough for baklava? Extremely skinny dough, so thin you can see through it. The thin dough is layered 25-30 times, if not more, then baked.

Imagine this thin dough is compost. Over time, once it gets layered enough, gravity will take hold and combine with the water retaining properties of the compost. As a result, the no-till ends and you have to dig the bed and start anew. I believe that by "top dressing" with my native dirt every month or two, I can mitigate compaction for a while, if not potentially eliminate it outright. We'll see.

Regardless of all of that, the trees cover up way too much of this area during the winter. Likely just be mostly greens on this side of the yard during winters.

Every part of the yard has its own "microclimate", and these microclimates change with the seasons. Once I can learn more about the individual microclimates in my yard, I can plant more effectively.

For the time being, I'm literally just sprinkling seeds all over the place and seeing what happens.

Click to expand...

Its the leaves man. You need to be mixing in the fall leaf drop in with your soil. Depending on the type of trees around some of those will take some time to break down. The leaf mold + compost should be outstanding and should also keep your soil from compacting down.
Have you tried cover crop between every other round? Something that grows quick, dont use shit for nutrients, got some hard driving roots. May spare you having till your holes so often. You got worms in these holes right?

But yeah, your right, too much compost is a bad thing. Thats what the leaf mold is for. Layering it inbetween the compost will keep it from getting that crumbly humas top layer. Course so will all that wood mulch your spreading around.

Found an old bag of radish sprout seedlings that I forgot about. They're a cover crop similar to clover, but they have a nice radish flavor to them. Tasty little sprouts, and will make the beds look much nicer once they all sprout.






Pretty nifty what 3 months can do, really puts things in perspective. And makes me both hopeful and excited for the future. Every seed planted, every hole dug, every compost pile turned, every cage put up, one step at a time I will be closer to having my own produce department in my backyard. Once I've got that, then I can look into getting some chickens ;p

Never have to pay for food again is my goal. Not only that, but the quality will be the freshest possible.



Some sprouting action from some of the greens, good amount of them getting eaten on. Planting some of the radish seeds to hopefully act as a diversion for the other greens. This area doesn't get much sunlight, so about all its going to be good for is greens. Better than nothing though! Plenty other space around to use.



Sugar Peach peppers seem to be doing well. Going to be fun seeing what kind of sauces I can make with them. Lima Bean is getting pretty torn up, but still producing. Good amount of bugs everywhere, but things are still producing and doing well from the looks of it. Seeing more predator wasps and lady bugs finding their way here, lots of neat spiders too. Few more seasons and pests won't stand a chance back here once the predators and herbs start taking hold.

m4s73r said:

Its the leaves man. You need to be mixing in the fall leaf drop in with your soil. Depending on the type of trees around some of those will take some time to break down. The leaf mold + compost should be outstanding and should also keep your soil from compacting down.
Have you tried cover crop between every other round? Something that grows quick, dont use shit for nutrients, got some hard driving roots. May spare you having till your holes so often. You got worms in these holes right?

But yeah, your right, too much compost is a bad thing. Thats what the leaf mold is for. Layering it inbetween the compost will keep it from getting that crumbly humas top layer. Course so will all that wood mulch your spreading around.

Click to expand...

Hey man, I wish I had leaf mold! Mesquite and Palo Verde, so not much leaf mold to spread around. Just a bunch of tiny ass leaflets that Why I'm using the wood chips, they've been quite a lifesaver for me. Not much of this existed back here prior to May/June of this year, excluding the one old bed I mentioned earlier. Got a ways to go still, but that's ultimately the goal is leaf mold.

Eventually, I'd like to not have to go anywhere or rely on anything for my garden to continue. The wood chips are just a temporary means to get a consistent supply of leaf mold to use. Its going to take time, but I'm just along for the ride, and its fun to watch things change out here on a daily basis.

Funny you mention worms, I'm actually in the process of sifting and getting a new bed going for them. Only have one 30g bin going at the moment, the bulk of the worms I ordered are still in the beds for the most part. I did put a handful of worms in each of those outdoor beds, just not any of the holes. Though I am finding worms as I dig regardless of that.

I only use EWC for my plant starts, don't really top dress or make teas with it or anything. Use it to fill plant cells for my seeds, or solo cups. Anything in pots gets a 50/50 of EWC/soil. Cocoons seem to be putting in enough work for me, I find worms often when I'm transplanting. Either in the cups/pots themselves, or when I'm yanking a plant out of the ground. Surprised to see them even doing so well outdoors here in the desert lol

Went for another woodchip run today. Looks like the wood chipper processed someone's palm tree clippings or something similar in nature. Looks more like shredded palm tree leaves than actual wood chips. Much different than the usual pick up I get, more straw like in consistency and looks nothing like wood chips.

Should be a huge boon to me. I plan on dumping my entire truck bed in the yard ASAP and grabbing more of it. As they say, one man's garbage is another man's treasure. I've been building a garden out of it!

Transplanted 4 plants that were getting a little too large for my liking in the veg room. Wanted these guys out here on the 15th, but I'm not in the slightest bit upset to push things ahead if the plants are going to grow appropriately.



The woodchips you see on the top and left of this photo are the same ones I applied with the outdoor plants I had when I originally posted this thread.

I've yanked the plants that were once there, and dug new holes to create a new "row". Everything I had to dig up to plant the new plants had to go somewhere, so I made new holes.



The hole you see on the bottom is how the hole above used to look 6 months ago.

As you can see, I'm digging 5 gallon sized holes in my established rows. The 5 gallons of soil I dig up, I'm using to start new rows. The woodchips have decomposed quickly, many things here seem to be.

I'm a bit at a loss at this point, truth be told.

Usually, I have an excess of growing space/soil and not enough plants. Now, I have a surplus of not only plants, but soil as well.

Once you get a living soil set up, it is capable of compounding! Use that to your advantage! One doesn't need to be good a grower, one just needs a proper living soil.


I'll get more photos as soon as I can. I've been getting so caught up out here that I'll take photos and forget to post them for days at a time, and by then, it is time for new photos lol


Ultimately though, this thread isn't about photos for me. This definitely proves useful for me as a grow journal, both for notes and inspiration. Always important to remember where one came from.

That said, I personally believe it is unacceptable that we have mediocre quality produce/meds when a living soil makes it so easy to produce! I mean, takes meds for instance guys. How many of you have been satisfied with dispensary purchases? Isn't your homegrown better than most dispensaries "product"? One's homegrown meds are superior for the same reason one's vegetables are superior, it isn't commercialized, and was also cultivated to your personal tastes.

Imagine getting the same satisfaction from producing your own food! I'm legit getting more of a kick out of the non-medical aspects of my garden more so than the weed itself. Sure, this is all a lot of work. But if the end result is a personally cultivated produce department in my backyard, with a dispensary's selection of strains for meds, the work will all be worth it.




As of now, my plans are to mostly prepare for spring. Weed is pretty standard, and figured out. I have enough plants to grow through Feb, but I'm also in the process of vegging out the plants/taking clones for the next season's weed crop.

My main focus here is produce, and capitalizing on this particular time for my climate.

I'll be getting some new starts going here in the next month, that way they're ready to transplant into the ground by mid February. The berries will all be planted too, and I'll have the bananas outdoors as well.

Found a source that is selling 3 year old grape vines, so I'll be procuring some of those within the next month as well.

Seeing as winter is coming, and the medical part of the garden is figured out, all that is left for me to do is work the land through the winter and get new starts going.

Can't wait to see what happens in the coming months, and its been both motivating and humbling to see just how much things have changed in my back yard in the past half a year.

Thanks for stopping in, as always!

Digging that Aloe in the top left!!
So after looking at that pic that has your boot in it, and seeing how your just growing in rocks it looks like, Whats keeping you from just doing some raised beds on top of that? Especially now that you are generating more and more soil.

When I lived in southern colorado, thats what we had to do. living on the side of a mountain in the desert doesn't leave much to grow in. I tried to get a perma-culture going on in my back yard naturally. Ended up make some raised beds.

m4s73r said:

Digging that Aloe in the top left!!
So after looking at that pic that has your boot in it, and seeing how your just growing in rocks it looks like, Whats keeping you from just doing some raised beds on top of that? Especially now that you are generating more and more soil.

When I lived in southern colorado, thats what we had to do. living on the side of a mountain in the desert doesn't leave much to grow in. I tried to get a perma-culture going on in my back yard naturally. Ended up make some raised beds.

Click to expand...

Thanks man, love the aloe too. Our property has a fuckton of aloe on it, and all over the place. Definitely comes in handy.

Short explanation of not using beds is that, believe it or not, I've found I don't need nearly as much soil as I once thought I did. Once the root balls get to be 5-7.5 gallons in size, they are typically capable of moving freely through my rough and rocky native dirt.

The holes themselves (5-7.5 gallon sized) are filled with actual soil, but everything else surrounding the holes/beds are just the combination of rocks, sand, and clay that make up my native dirt. A 1 cuft sized root mass has no issues moving into the native dirt, in my experience. The dirt isn't as rough once I dig that deep, so that also helps them quite a bit.

The reason I have the beds that I do is because I needed a lot of real estate for growth at the time, fast. Had flats of seedlings that needed to be planted immediately, and before leaving on vacation for 3 days.

Building beds from scrap wood and filling it with pre-made soil only took me 1 day to build and fill all those beds. Roots are roots, whether they're in soil or rocks, so I figured why use more soil than I need?

What you described sounds pretty similar to where I'm at! Low desert, but surrounded by nothing but mountain and desert. Extremely low in native organic matter, but its funny how quickly things grow in these environments once organic matter gets involved. Can't wait to be done with wood chip runs, but I'm also thankful its an option. Otherwise, growing out here would be quite difficult.

Long explanation with context; I only use 5-7 gallons of soil in the holes because I've found that it's the perfect amount of soil for me. Either 5-7 gallons of soil is all the plant's roots needs, or the plant needs more and simply grows its roots out of the soil and into the native dirt.

I realized a handful of years ago that I don't need 15+ gallons of soil to create a large root mass. All I need is enough soil for the roots to grow strong enough and establish themselves. Then, once the roots are strong enough, they go straight into my native dirt with no fucks given. Plant still absorbs everything it needs from its roots, whether its growing in rocks or soil. So I figured, why use so much soil if it still grows fine in the rocks?

15+ gallons of root mass for only 5-7 gallons of soil. Instead of using 15 gallons of soil to fill one hole, I can divide that same amount of soil into 2-3 holes.

I started outdoors many years ago in 25-30 gallon fabric pots. Eventually I was able to finally put things in the ground, and used the same 25-30 gallons of soil in the ground for years. Then one day I'm staring at some of the 100+ year old cacti and trees (well, technically legume "bushes") and was pondering how they got so big in such rough and rocky native dirt.

So the next summer, I only used 15 gallons of soil instead of the usual 25-30. Plants still grew to be the same size. Bigger, in fact. Native dirt is super rocky, but also has incredible drainage. Plants seemed to appreciate the drainage of my native dirt more than the fluff of my soil blend. I've got that 15 gallons of soil down to 5-7 gallons currently. The big outdoor plants in the beginning of this thread only had 10 gallons of soil in the holes I dug for them. They happily grew out of that soil, and into the native dirt. I mean, if there's water there for them, then why not? Everything else will follow your roots; microbes, nutrients, everything.

Soil goes much longer for me this way, by using 1/3 of the soil I used to, I've effectively tripled how much I'm able to grow.


I would have much preferred to have dug 8 individual holes and covered with chips, as opposed to a bed. Reason being is how much soil you save and I get similar results.

Take your standard 4x8x1 raised bed; that's 32 cubic feet of soil you need to fill it, or 240 gallons. Very expensive.

Instead of using 240 gallons of soil to grow 8 plants in a 4x8 bed, I just dig 8 holes with 5-7 gallons of soil. 56 gallons of soil instead of 240 gallons.

Anything with finicky roots likely isn't getting to be more than 5 gallons in size anyway. Things with robust roots like melons, cucumbers, tomatoes, weed, and so forth won't really give a shit after a while. Once those plant's roots get big enough, they'll usually grow through about anything.


Of course, this is just what works for me because of my native dirt. Important to know what's going on with one's own native dirt; what it has and what is missing from it. This will be different for everyone depending on their environment/region. But, working with what you have instead of against it is a game changing state of mind.

Experiment some time. Check out what your own native dirt looks like, figure out what it already has and what it needs to become a good soil. You'd be very surprised at just how little you can get away with buying to make all of this work.

Zero need to buy tons of boxes and bottles of shit. Not by any means attempting to fault anyone for doing so. We all have to rely on outside inputs in order to get things started.

If self-sufficiency becomes one's end goal, the entire process gets much more fascinating. And cheaper too.

All the best everyone.

kratos015 said:

Thanks man, love the aloe too. Our property has a fuckton of aloe on it, and all over the place. Definitely comes in handy.

Short explanation of not using beds is that, believe it or not, I've found I don't need nearly as much soil as I once thought I did. Once the root balls get to be 5-7.5 gallons in size, they are typically capable of moving freely through my rough and rocky native dirt.

The holes themselves (5-7.5 gallon sized) are filled with actual soil, but everything else surrounding the holes/beds are just the combination of rocks, sand, and clay that make up my native dirt. A 1 cuft sized root mass has no issues moving into the native dirt, in my experience. The dirt isn't as rough once I dig that deep, so that also helps them quite a bit.

The reason I have the beds that I do is because I needed a lot of real estate for growth at the time, fast. Had flats of seedlings that needed to be planted immediately, and before leaving on vacation for 3 days.

Building beds from scrap wood and filling it with pre-made soil only took me 1 day to build and fill all those beds. Roots are roots, whether they're in soil or rocks, so I figured why use more soil than I need?

What you described sounds pretty similar to where I'm at! Low desert, but surrounded by nothing but mountain and desert. Extremely low in native organic matter, but its funny how quickly things grow in these environments once organic matter gets involved. Can't wait to be done with wood chip runs, but I'm also thankful its an option. Otherwise, growing out here would be quite difficult.

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Well that would make sense. Most of the feeder roots are near the top. Your traveling root are water seekers. Im always a fan of less is more.

m4s73r said:

Well that would make sense. Most of the feeder roots are near the top. Your traveling root are water seekers. Im always a fan of less is more.

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Exactly. I've just severely underestimated what the roots are capable of. I've been amazed and humbled at just how much "less is more" applies with a living soil. I've spent so little money in these past few months, it's been great

Up here my soil is black. Goes about 2’ deep then straight clay gravel. Roots don’t seam to go into the clay they just follow along the line between them. Adding gypsum is common to help break up the clay. Not sure how that works.

myke said:

Up here my soil is black. Goes about 2’ deep then straight clay gravel. Roots don’t seam to go into the clay they just follow along the line between them. Adding gypsum is common to help break up the clay. Not sure how that works.

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That sounds like northern midwest, Michigan?

Got more plants in the ground today. The two empty holes will be filled when the rest of my veg room plants fill out; I'm thinking the last week of this month or perhaps the 1st of next month. Time will tell.








Took these photos because I was tripping at just how much compost I have from the wood chips decomposing, thought it'd take much longer. In another year or so I won't even need the wood chips at all.



All finished, and absolutely zero signs of transplant shock once again. Wishing I was able to veg these plants out a bit longer, but this is way better than nothing.






This was the stem from the plant I just harvested in the hoop house bed. I yanked the stem out so that I could put another plant in it's place.

See how fat and long those roots are? And how far out of the soil and into the native dirt it went? Crazy!




Clone I took from my volunteer tomato plant a couple weeks ago. Rather than tossing "suckers" onto the wood chips as leaf mulch, I've been letting them sit in cups of water until they root.

This fucker has a full blown tomato on it now. Plant legit got pollinated and fruited while it was in a cup of water. This is definitely a keeper, for sure.


Other than putting some weed plants in the ground, I've been still just waiting around for things to finish ripening.

I'm honestly still a bit overwhelmed at how quickly things have progressed for me, so I'm trying to figure out how to expand and keep things going from here.

My "to-do" list for the rest of the month is as follows.

- Transplant new weed seedlings into solo cups, observe growth.
- Sift compost piles and worm bins. Make new soil with compost, and keep EWC for starts.
- Fill other half of the yard with greens and herbs. Dump herb seeds randomly over woodchips, see what sprouts.
- Dig up old shitty bed, turn it into a good bed that won't need to be dug up anymore. Combine compost from shitty bed with native dirt, fill old shitty bed with new soil, and find holes for the remaining soil.
- Prep parts of my front yard, as well as clearing an unused area in my backyard of junk to get more plants/holes going.


Next month I'll be focusing on getting starts going for spring. Well, February, rather. Can squeeze a couple of months worth of growth out here prior to spring happening out here. I'm going to be ready come spring, I'll have starts ready to go, and some more raspberry and grapes put in the ground.

I want everything. Hell, I hate beets and turnips, but I'm trying to grow those fuckers too. Who knows, maybe they'll taste better from my living soil than they do from stores. Only one way to find out, right?

All the best everyone.

m4s73r said:

That sounds like northern midwest, Michigan?

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Nope ,Canada just east of the Rockies