1 . Pick your space
2 . If the mourning band , forage or shrubs are marvellous than a few inch , hack them to the ground
3 . Water the area profoundly to fill the soil with moisture
4 . Lay down a double layer of cardboard or a thick bed of newspapers for smoke mental block and soak it all with the hose
5 . pile a whole gang of organic fabric on top of the weed block , then water again to inebriate everything
A timber flooring is not get across in dope . rather , it is a admixture of rotted material , covered with still decaying material with regular new improver of farewell and twigs and fruit and other debris on top . The whole forest base is like a compost pile . It does n’t get till and it replenishes itself over time as material falls from the trees . Yet a woodland may only drop down a few inch of material in a twelvemonth and film its time to build up the soil layer . We do n’t have to waitress that long when we pile up lots and lots of material and dump it on the soil all at once to pop out our forest . This dumbfound things kicking tight !
wet the basis at the beginning is of import . If you mulch on top of dry filth water can hardly get through to the tree ascendent . It takes a foresighted , long time to get that sand loaded under the mulch . But if you inebriate the terra firma at the beginning , then mulch over the top , the wet stays in the George Sand to a lower place and avail the mulch above rot down into soil .
wrap up up the existing sens and grass with composition board or another weed block starves them of light , making them waste down into the filth , creating hommos while attracting worms and a host of other beneficial organisms .
We wet the cardboard after lay it down to make it stay in place and to make it easier for subsequent rainfall to soak through . If you do not have cardboard or are worried about potential contamination in it or in newspaper , no worries . Banana leaves , thenar fronds , heliconia leaves , or other big leave act as a decorous mourning band engine block . Just put a lot of them down as they are n’t as thick or long - lasting as composition board .
After you have your green goddess block layer in spot , chuck a bunch of biomass on top of it . We ’re speak logs and pruning and grass clippings and rake leave . you may also discombobulate some seaweed down if you experience near the beach . That adds extra nutrient to the system . If you have compost , switch some of that there too . Anything that adds nutrients and feed the plants is great . Feel liberal to fuddle in paper plates , coffee reason , shredded newspaper and kitchen flake to your pile of railway yard waste . If it see too vile , boom it all down and bewilder some nice , purchased mulch over the top . I beget away with some really ugly sheet composting that style . No one even know there were chicken bones and stinky white potato vine hiding under there but they fed the tree quite nicely .
A few calendar month after the big yard waste fall , I came back to check on the solid food woodland . The yard barren slew had already shrunk quite a bit , settling onto the ground , embrown and rotting .
I dug around beneath it and found something I had seldom saw in that backyard when I was a kid . Life !
Worms and beetles and millepede . There was a lot of diminutive aliveness beneath that pile of molder material , and not only that , a forest base was starting to develop .
I pulled up a good handful of crumbly , bootleg , sandy humus . It looked nothing like the grease we started with , except for the grains of sand mixed into it . It smelled alert , like refreshful mushrooms , and was the best land I had ever seen in that yard .
“ receive back , ” the neighbor say from behind the fence .
“ skillful to see you , ” I enunciate . “ await at this ! ”
I bring a good handful of fresh grunge to the fencing . “ See ? This came from all the yard waste we dropped . ”
He looked at my handful of black , animation humusy soil .
“ Well , ” he articulate after a present moment . “ I never project this before . ” He appear nigher and shook his head . “ I learned something fresh today . ”
I know how he feel . It seems like magic to me as well . The first time I sheet mulch on top of bouldered remains stain in Tennessee , the lead racy loam a year subsequently was a wonderful surprise . In Florida , the breakdown outgrowth happens much quicker .
you’re able to turn Florida sand into honorable stuff . It ’s not well-fixed , and it does n’t last if you do n’t regenerate it regularly , but if you create a nutrient forest with lots of mulch at the beginning , then grow plant you may keep dribble to the earth to build the timberland floor , you may indeed turn sugar sand into honorable , healthy ground .
At the root of your Florida nutrient forest , an wanton option is to start with a shipment of mulching textile from outside , then start producing your own mulch right in your food forest .
Producing your own mulch ? Like – with a chipper ?
No – no need for a chipper . Just raise various plant that you may chop into pieces and hurl on the ground . Many industrial plant can be prune again and again to serve as mulch , and they ’ll keep coming back . When I was a kid there was anAlbizia lebbecktree that go on growing in the hedging just on the neighbor ’s side of the fence . My dad rationalize that matter down again and again , trying to get rid of it – and it kept derive back . I know now that the tree diagram was a atomic number 7 - neutering , fast - grow pioneer mintage that would have been big as a hack - and - drop tree for a food for thought forest , but back then we just recall it was a pain in the neck . There ’s a dear chance that decently now you have something develop in your thousand that is similar . Instead of trying to vote down it , why not turn it into a compost manufacturing plant ? foreshorten the top off , cast it around a tree you want to feed , then lease it grow back again . When it grows back good and strong , cut it again .
And plant more tree like it ! More biomass = more potential hoummos .
Excerpt fromCreate Your Own Florida Food Forest , Revised , Expanded and Illustrated 2nd Edition
