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Q8: Amish Style Gardening. 8 weeks exactly the corn is growing In the veggie organic shed, the standard is the same (200mm high) and the corn is over 700mm high ! Longer over view The mung beans are doing OK Some mung beans had Phosphate omotic burn - bother :( Hard to do organic things using chemical fertilizers Yet some mung beans are doing very well This bed got ploughed in and dry straw added, to make the soil richer. Another view of some beds going well ie: the tomatoes. Though I noticed lots of tomato leaves browned and dead - I suspect chemicals falling out of the sky killed them.. Another view of organic corn ! The osarge orange is doing OK - and insecticide tree. Snow peas getting old Some snow peas more lush than others Metal boxes with legumes growing little but OK. The straw is decaying. When you dig into the decaying straw, it feels silky to the feel, like clay except no soil was added - only straw - strange ? Some metal boxes with sorghum growing like mad The soil shed with traditional corn growing in 3rd place - about 500mm high. A longer view of the traditional soil method. A patch of lucerne at the other end of the shed. The older cow manure soil growing in 2nd place, some is pulled out for greens for the chooks and geese. -----update--- The corn is tasseling, very tall. Over 5 feet high. The old soil for the potatoes, had mung beans raked in And than I noticed it was too heavy No longer light and fuffy The straw breaks down into hard, silky soil like stuff. So I got some light sand and chopped it in with a tiny garden hoe. The soil is now a sandy loam. The bush mulch is gone. It is not traditional soil, made entirely of straw some sand some bio charcoal some wood Ash decomposed bush mulch - bark, leaves and soft wood pulped in wood chip A view of tomatoes in 100% cow manure Gone too hard as "soil" and too wet The whole bed needs pulled out and made into a sandy loam Nobody tells you straw (including 100% cow manure) turns into a dense, silky water logging hard sunstance. So you need sand or bark chip or chacoal or pumice to keep the material light and fluffy for potatoes and soil microbes. Lots of comfrey growing on side. I got a bucket of seaweed soaking in water, diluted to a weak tea And watered some rows with It Some plants got glossy and more growth, others like spinach leaves did not like saly on their leaves. Over all the affect was great ! Metal boxes with plants growing out of the straw material. Another metal box with green material growing nicely From straw (wood ash, sand and lots of grass straw) By lots I mean about 4 feet thick rotting down to 6 inches. It took watering every day and 5 months of this method of cold compost to get the straw material into a soil like substance. When you dig deep into it, the straw is mostly gone and apart from mostly sand in your hand, the rest feels silky, sticky like clay almost, except no mud or clay exists - it is all straw some bush mulch and wood ash and grass straw. Purple lines show sand and straw stems Rest of material looks "soil like" Close up of the material in my hand to be continued Amish Style Gardening

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