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Soil, Compost & Mulch

More Flood questions

17 years ago

Now that all the flood debris has been removed, the holes filled in and the rye is coming up, I have a few more questions. After the initial flash flood on the property, the Susquehanna River rose and flooded nearly all our Market Garden for 3 days. When the water receeded there were thousands of big fat night walkers dead on the bare ground. The crows had a feeding frenzy for a week or so eating the drowned bugs in the fields. Now I notice that the soil has an off oder and that there are very few insects in the soil. How can I get the natural organisms back into the soil? Can I buy soil innoculant enough to cover 4 acres? How can I incourage nightwalkers and soil organisms to come back into my fields? Will compost be enough?

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Comments (9)

bpgreen
17 years ago
The smell is probably because when the area flooded, it became anaerobic. Now that it is no longer flooded, air can get to it and the smell should go away.

I don't think you'll need to add any innoculant. Adding compost and other organic matter should be enough.

I assume that nightwalkers are what I refer to as nightcrawlers (earthworms that come out mostly at night). If so, there are probably plenty of eggs in the soil that will hatch once the soil dries enough so they won't drown, especially if you add lots of OM.
dchall_san_antonio
17 years ago
Anaerobic is right. The reason the smell is off is you lost a lot of your soil microbe species. You can get them back with compost or compost tea. Compost tea is 1,000 times less expensive, so I'd start with weekly spraying (at 5 gallons per acre) along with a single application of whatever cheap ground grains you can get at your local feed store (@ 5-10 pounds per 1,000 square feet). See what used coffee grounds you can collect in your town. Apply coffee at the same rate. You'll want to dry the coffee grounds to measure the weight and to apply. Spread them out in the sun on cardboard to dry.
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maggiemae_2006
17 years ago
momma, organic matter!

You haven't answered if you have access to municipal compost?
Considering your circumstances you may be able to get it free from someone even another city.
bpgreen
17 years ago
The compost tea sounds like a good idea, and is probably a better inocculant than what you'd be buying.

David--Did you read the earlier thread about this? She lost several inches of soil in the flood. Do you think the single grain application will be enough help? I would think she'll want to bring in lots more OM to try to build up the soil.
mommagoose
Original Author
17 years ago
Hello again . I do not live in a town that has leaf collection but our county landfill does make compost .The land fill is about 30 miles from me , however, kinda a long haul.
The Farmer whose property is next to mine had over 100 round bales ( Approx 1200 pounds each) wash away in the flood. About 20 of them ended up on my property. He said I can have the bales for mulch. My problem is I do not have the equipment to move the bales or unwrap them.
When I get them moved, I plan to use them for sheet compost on the worst damaged areas. I am also going to save 3 bales to mulch between my asparagus rows ( Ihave 500 plants). I am not sure if the asparagus is still alive although there are still fronds where the bed was.
My ad on Freecycle has netted me 4 manure piles free for the hauling and my farmer neighbor will drop off and spread cow manure over the composted haylege once its spread. I may be back in business!?
I have had two customers tell me they will take all the cucumbers and melons I can produce next year. You can't imagine how that makes me feel. At least I have some loyal fans.
Thanks for your help. Its nice to be able to share the burden with others. I felt so alone when this crises first happened.
Linda
pablo_nh
17 years ago
Best of luck- my heart goes out to you there. The cuke buyer sounds like a dream. Man- it's hard to NOT grow cukes in my limited experience.

Find yourself a zucchini buyer like that and you can retire early :)
maggiemae_2006
17 years ago
Check with the compost facility, they my give it to you if you explain your circumstances. They may know someone who hauls from them, a "walking floor trailer" is best, again if you find someone they may help with reduced cost for shipping or free.

I owned a compost facility and gave organic matter for many situations, even hauled it myself. Allow people to be generious out of knowledge.
kqcrna
17 years ago
mommagoose: I'm so glad that things seem to be looking up for you. Good luck!

Karen
bob64
17 years ago
I am sorry to hear about your disaster. When I lose just one tree or one flower it bugs me.
The best I can think of (besides suggesting that you consider the advice already given on this thread) is as follows:
If you have areas that are not so damaged bordering yours you can make a sort of organic matter path from the other properties into yours. This will allow the worms and microherd will follow the food/OM from the other properties to your OM path and on into your property. Local landscapers and arborists, etc. might also be willing to drop off truckloads of organic matter for you (make sure it's all dead before your spread it around). Chipped stuff is best of course. It sounds like you are also growing a cover crop which sounds very wise under your circumstances. You might also want to look into whether you have any insurance that covers this.

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