About a month ago I trimmed our mulberry trees to encourage new growth and extra fruit production. It seemed such a waste to throw the branches in the compost pile so I looked for a suitable place to plant 10” pieces of the branches to grow some new mulberry trees. I found two neglected parts of our garden where I could push the branches into the ground by hand. I was very surprised at how easily the mulberry sticks went into the ground with just hand pressure. This soil was compacted clay subsoil almost as hard as rammed earth two and a half years ago!!!! Now it’s turned into about 12” of topsoil.
keyline
Drought Busters: Restoring Desertified Desert Grasslands
Busting Drought for $10 per Acre from Christopher Gill on Vimeo.
“We call the combination of wild animals, planned grazing, water harvesting, and Keyline subsoiling “Drought Busters”. Drought Busters is cheap, fast, poisons no plants, kills no animals, and increases the numbers and diversity of both. Drought Busters can’t make it rain, but it will make actual rain more and more effective, which is practically the same thing.”
Keyline Cultivation for Rapid Soil Building
Here’s an update about the keyline cultivation system that I covered in a previous blog post titled Restoring Degraded Land. Building soil on degraded land is one of my biggest passions lately, because this is what the world needs now. Scientists say it takes nature between 100 to 1,000 years to form an inch of topsoil, depending on local conditions. The keyline system can form 4″ of good topsoil in 3 years by chiseling grooves in the ground with a simple farm implement.