PDC LESSON 4.6 SOIL – USE GROUNDCOVERS

                

                   

PERMA COURSE AGRO-ECONOMY

PDC LESSON 4.6 SOIL – USE GROUNDCOVERS

Use Groundcovers

As a result, there are designs in Permaculture systems that provide feedback loops that can be modified as needed. The best examples of Permaculture can be found in the tropics, in the food forest garden. Living mulches or ground covers are often used in Permaculture systems and these act to give the ground a cover from the hot sun, maintain soil moisture and create mulch. Ground covers also help keep weeds away. Creating and maintaining humus is most important in a soil management program. It’s a constant process.

 

Compacted and poorly drained soil will lack the microbial populations needed to process organic matter. It may just sit there and not really break down.

This is where knowing how to make good compost becomes so important.

A well-made compost will inoculate the soil with organisms that will eventually lead to the decay of all organic matter.

Soil life in the form of micro-organisms such as mycorrhizae, moulds, yeasts, and fungi are needed to start this break down process. This is not unlike our own intestinal tracts where millions of micro-organisms live within our gut.

Around 1 ½ kg worth for the average adult! These micro-organisms are needed to break down the food we eat. Enzymes are a type of protein that needs minerals to do the job of decomposition and they break down complex compounds into simpler sugars. They are the first digesters of our food, and so it is with soil. The soil is in fact the stomach for the plants. All the ‘digestion’ of food occurs in the soil so that the plant’s feeder roots can take its nourishment directly from the ‘stomach’, the soil. People, animals, and soil all need enzymes, bacteria, moulds, and fungi to digest or bring about decay or decomposition.

Life is brought forward into death to bring about energy and renewed life. This truly is the dance of life.

Decay organisms need a pH range from 6-8. If your soil test comes up with a lower pH that means it is starving of organic matter.

ext from the roots, Elisabeth Ferkonia (Aus.) PDC studied with Bill Mollison,