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im mike good to be here

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im mike good to be here

compostmike 4 Replies 190 Views
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compostmike

compostmike

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Been lurking a bit and figured I should finally make an intro instead of just reading old threads like a raccoon in the compost pile.

I’m Mike. Went through ag science years back, then somehow got more interested in the dirt than the crop. These days I’m mostly into living soil, compost, cover crops, mulch layers, worms, fungal networks, and trying to make a garden act more like a small ecosystem than a production machine.

I’m not really a bottle-chart guy. Nothing against people doing what works for them, but I usually look at roots, drainage, organic matter, airflow, insects, and the general biology of the bed before I start blaming one missing element. Same patterns show up in tomatoes, peppers, orchard trees, pasture, cannabis, pretty much anything with roots. The plant usually tells you something, but the soil was talking first.

I mess around with mixed beds, companion plants, compost inputs, leaf mold, native plants, and whatever beneficial bugs decide to move in. Still learning like everyone else. Half the time the garden teaches better than the books did.

I’ll probably mostly be chiming in on soil, compost, outdoor growing, pest balance, root-zone issues, and organic methods. Not here to preach. Just like seeing plants grow in a system that makes biological sense.

Glad to be here.
 
Welcome to the farm. Sounds like we have a very similar approach to gardening. Looking forward to seeing what your growing. And for the record I hate when raccoons get into my compost pile.
 
Companion planting seems to get treated like decoration now, but there’s a lot going on under that mulch if the system is alive enough.

@Gmix I agree, it does feel like a bit of a lost art. People will spend forever dialing a bottle schedule but not always think about what a clover strip, basil plant, yarrow patch, or living mulch is doing for insects, root exudates, moisture buffering, and soil cover.

@Afterburner I’m with you on the holobiont idea, at least in the practical sense. The plant is never just the plant. It’s roots, microbes, water movement, light cycle, air exchange, insects, neighboring roots, all of it pushing and pulling. With basil near cannabis, I’d be looking at volatile compounds above ground and root-zone signaling below ground. Same kind of thing you see in vegetable systems where basil changes pest pressure around tomatoes, but it’s not always a simple “repels X” story.

Spearmint is interesting because mints can be pretty aggressive chemically and physically, but if it’s isolated in its own container, you’ve removed a big part of that competition. The airborne compounds may still be there, but the cannabis roots aren’t sharing the same rhizosphere or fighting that spreading mint root mass. So I wouldn’t be shocked if it doesn’t suppress much unless the mint is actually in the same soil volume.

@orggrwr appreciate it. I’ll get some grow stuff up once I’ve got something worth showing. Mostly beds, compost, mulch, and watching who moves in before I start trying to “fix” everything.
 
I have spearmint that is very invasive once it's established. So is my rosemary and greek basil all self seeded.
 
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