Wow, I am amazed! And you didn’t double dig or spade it all over, so how exactly did you achieve this fluffy deep layer? Just by letting nature take its course over time?
Wow, that’s a great insight! It would make sense, and it would also explain why so many crops respond so well to urine. It makes sense, because that’s a sustainable resource humans always have available, and it’s easy to apply, and it’s disease-free. If its only downside is plants learning to expect it (which is probably worth it to most people if the plants also give consistently higher yields), why not use it?
This is interesting.
Apparently the reason Miracle Grow crystals are blue is because of copper sulfate, which is a fungicide and bactericide, so it will kill most beneficial soil life.
If all of that is accurate (this blog doesn’t cite sources, so that is an “if”), that seems like a good reason to not use Miracle Grow: it creates dependency by actively killing soil life that would make the plants require less fertilizer!
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I don’t know for sure how it happens, but the “nature takes its course” is my best guess. I think that if the worm holes and old root channels are left open, they just keep gradually filling with organic stuff from above.
When I first planted those great big daikon radishes the top 8 inches or more of root stuck out of the ground but now, they don’t. I think leaving them and turnips and the roots of things like dandelions and curly dock and clary sage to rot in the ground did the job. The only reason I ever dig that deep is to transplant the volunteer trees that I sometimes let grow for a year or two and it just keeps getting easier to do that.
I have noticed a couple drawbacks to the process that I’m figuring work arounds for.
One - is the trees, they get way bigger, way faster than they used to and even though it’s easier to dig them up, it’s more disruptive to whatever else is growing nearby. I have a peach tree in my cow pea patch now that came up last year and looks like it could hit five feet tall, I should have moved it last fall but didn’t. It still won’t be hard to move this fall but right now it’s shading my plants and it’s droughty this year so I’m sure its hogging water. I may just cut it down. The whole problem could be solved just by pulling them up while small, but I love trees and hate to do that.
Two - is moles. Used to they left those tell-tell raised trails and were easy to track. Now they can move around in my beds and get by with it for a while before I find out they are there. I’m keeping the paths clear and compacted as possible so if they hit one of them it tips me off. Being kept bare and hard packed I excepted the paths to resemble concrete by now, but they don’t, so whatever is going on underground apparently extends into them too.
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This is fascinating, thanks so much for the reply!
Also, earthworms and other bugs eat all that food you set out for them, and poop it out below ground. It’s all that microbiome stuff. There is a huge amount of life beneath our feet. It only makes sense that over time they would turn their home into a place where they feel comfortable. Deep rich soils which hold water well and aren’t compacted.
If they can’t change it to fit their needs, they either leave or die.
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You know what? That makes perfect sense! Every species remodels its home to be more comfortable!
This thread is fascinating because it’s a microcosm of one of the biggest dilemmas humanity has faced since the very beginning: do we prioritize total quantity of yield, or do we prioritize the least amount of time spent per unit of yield?
Time is a resource just like everything else. If it takes you 12 hours of constant labor just to eat that day, it makes sense to come up with less time consuming ways to do the same work.
If you have a lot of people to feed and plenty of resources, it makes sense to prioritize yield. But you don’t get to that point without the advances of prioritizing time. Otherwise we would still be using planting sticks.
Yeah. The goals aren’t always mutually exclusive; in fact, they can sometimes work hand-in-hand. It’s in those times when they are mutually exclusive that you have to make sure you know your top priority.
Yes, time is definitely a resource! And so is calories. We tend to forget that in our well-fed modern era, but if you’re spending more calories to get food than you are getting out of that food, it’s a calorie deficit, which is not a sustainable thing.
The most for the least is what I’m after. I’ve downsized, consolidated and altered technique, while productivity has not suffered. I do grow considerably less than I used to, but the reduced harvest and the reduced amount of land, time and effort are not proportional.
I do sometimes use a planting stick or my finger. Usually because I can’t find my hand trowel, or it’s raining.
So in other words, you’re applying the Pareto Principle? 
Very wise! 
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What an interesting thread! Great to read all the ideas. The older I get (I’m 70 now), the less interest I have in anything requiring work. For example, now I only dig to plant or harvest. I’ve always used mulch and now I try to grow it as close to where it is needed as possible, though I also have access to as much hay as I want since we grow and harvest our own. We compost our humanure plus a few extras but that doesn’t go far. The chickens are in a deep litter system, mostly, and we use scrapings from their run to top dress garden beds occasionally.
We do use store-bought organic fertiliser for our tree/shrub seedlings as these often have to be in their trays for a year or more (we use 40 cell Hiko trays) and they use up whatever nutrients are in the original potting mix in 6 months or so.
I occasionally get enthusiastic and water the veg with a seaweed mix but that’s pretty rare. All in all, our ‘fertilisation’ regime consists principally of mulch and green manures with occasional muck from the chicken yard.
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