Calli's Conundrums

[calliandra]

Ah and since we're talking, @ShLUbY - the fiddleheads
I ended up missing the moment to harvest, but did get some pix at least
here some different stages of sprouting



and then they feather out pretty fast!



So based on those, and along with that spore-bearing leafthing they had
( )
would you say ostrich fern or, meh, maybe something else?!
Cheers!

 

[calliandra]

And morels!

After I found those lovely morels in our garden, I found others, not half as lovely, even though prolific, on the grounds of the new buildings I live in - a space of the type I call green deserts: you see green plants and stuff, but there isn't a bird or insect in sight or earshot
Anyway, it was landscaped last October/beginning of November.
So, spurned by a conversation with @iHearAll , I set out to see what soil, what plants were around them to, perhaps, find some consistent element that could help with trying to grow one's own.

Alas, I found I'm at way too basic a level, with amateur equipment and dubious sample preparation practices, to be able to really find out anything truly significant lol
Apart from getting the feeling that the method per se is not adequate in this case. Because I'd like to know where the fungus docks onto, for example, meaning the soil would have to remain undisturbed, and we'd have to have a way of seeing the fungal matter and how it is dispersed in the soil....

So that said, might as well share what I saw, FWIW
In the end I had 3 sites

• the original by the peonies & lilac,
• the "disturbed" ones in the newly landscaped grounds,
• and some more I found growing next to my wood chip pile.

I took pix of their habitat, and samples of the soil they were growing in, directly from around a rubbery sort of extension of the stem - and even tried sampling that rubbery thing, though I had to really tear it apart to get anything I could dilute in water.


Not sure about those roots in there either - this is the rubbery thingie off a "disturbed" one, and there wasn't anything growing right next to them that would explain them growing there as they were...

This is where they were growing -


a north-south cut between two buildings, not much sun (max a few hours in the morn), perhaps a bit of warmth getting stored in the gravel/rocks and the cement border they grew on:



No special vegetation... so these defo aren't mycorrhizing



And the substrate is a few cm of bark chip mulch on very clayey soil.
Which turned out to be waaay more bacterial than I would assume mushroom grounds to be

...as far as I could tell...


(actually this one is better than most views I got - it has something that may even be a spore in the middle)

I really have trouble with these soil samples, as compared to the compost and ACT I mostly examine, especially on account of all the minerals in there.
And here's where my main insecurity about my sampling comes in - do I let the debris settle enough to make the sample even worth viewing, or do I lose the heavier components, giving me an inaccurate impression (and losing the consistency of taking the sample at x time after mixing?
Or should I be diluting these soil samples where all this mineral matter gets so much in the way that I have a really hard time recognizing anything in there... though usually that is done only for the bacteria counts
@ShLUbY? Anything you're learning at uni that could point me in the right direction on this?

Examining the stuff that made up the rubbery part, which was more fungal than the soil outside it, I actually did dilute, once (i.e. take 1ml of the 1:4 diluted soil and dilute 1:4 with water again) - to see if I could find any protozoans? (I hadn't seen a single higher-troph creature - that I could identify as such without question, in either sample)

OTOH, from what I've read over at iHearAll's about morel cultivation (https://www.rollitup.org/t/a-mediocre-shroom-garden-thread.938012/page-2#post-13465469), it could be that those sclerotia were already in the substrate they brought in last fall, and that the temps/moisture this year was just so perfect they sprouted anyways?

Moving to the other two sites, the vegetation growing around them, and how they were growing in the soil:

The pine-rose-lilac site:

Vegetation
oh these were overripe btw, and starting to smell really strong (as opposed to the lovely aroma of the peony ones, and the distinctive smell-less-ness of the "disturbed" ones)

And how it was growing -the rubbery thing sitting on the root of the pine tree (that had died last year on account of - probably - an airborne pine virus - and had gotten cut down last fall):


The soil more fungal and structured - full of microaggregates - than over at the other site



Oh. I've run out of picture allowance for this post....

 

[iHearAll]

And morels!

After I found those lovely morels in our garden, I found others, not half as lovely, even though prolific, on the grounds of the new buildings I live in - a space of the type I call green deserts: you see green plants and stuff, but there isn't a bird or insect in sight or earshot
Anyway, it was landscaped last October/beginning of November.
So, spurned by a conversation with @iHearAll , I set out to see what soil, what plants were around them to, perhaps, find some consistent element that could help with trying to grow one's own.

Alas, I found I'm at way too basic a level, with amateur equipment and dubious sample preparation practices, to be able to really find out anything truly significant lol
Apart from getting the feeling that the method per se is not adequate in this case. Because I'd like to know where the fungus docks onto, for example, meaning the soil would have to remain undisturbed, and we'd have to have a way of seeing the fungal matter and how it is dispersed in the soil....

So that said, might as well share what I saw, FWIW
In the end I had 3 sites

• the original by the peonies & lilac,
• the "disturbed" ones in the newly landscaped grounds,
• and some more I found growing next to my wood chip pile.

I took pix of their habitat, and samples of the soil they were growing in, directly from around a rubbery sort of extension of the stem - and even tried sampling that rubbery thing, though I had to really tear it apart to get anything I could dilute in water.
View attachment 3927415

Not sure about those roots in there either - this is the rubbery thingie off a "disturbed" one, and there wasn't anything growing right next to them that would explain them growing there as they were...

This is where they were growing -
View attachment 3927417

a north-south cut between two buildings, not much sun (max a few hours in the morn), perhaps a bit of warmth getting stored in the gravel/rocks and the cement border they grew on:

View attachment 3927418

No special vegetation... so these defo aren't mycorrhizing

View attachment 3927419

And the substrate is a few cm of bark chip mulch on very clayey soil.
Which turned out to be waaay more bacterial than I would assume mushroom grounds to be

...as far as I could tell...

View attachment 3927423
(actually this one is better than most views I got - it has something that may even be a spore in the middle)

I really have trouble with these soil samples, as compared to the compost and ACT I mostly examine, especially on account of all the minerals in there.
And here's where my main insecurity about my sampling comes in - do I let the debris settle enough to make the sample even worth viewing, or do I lose the heavier components, giving me an inaccurate impression (and losing the consistency of taking the sample at x time after mixing?
Or should I be diluting these soil samples where all this mineral matter gets so much in the way that I have a really hard time recognizing anything in there... though usually that is done only for the bacteria counts
@ShLUbY? Anything you're learning at uni that could point me in the right direction on this?

Examining the stuff that made up the rubbery part, which was more fungal than the soil outside it, I actually did dilute, once (i.e. take 1ml of the 1:4 diluted soil and dilute 1:4 with water again) - to see if I could find any protozoans? (I hadn't seen a single higher-troph creature - that I could identify as such without question, in either sample)
View attachment 3927424
OTOH, from what I've read over at iHearAll's about morel cultivation, it could be that those sclerotia were already in the substrate they brought in last fall, and that the temps/moisture this year was just so perfect they sprouted anyways?

Moving to the other two sites, the vegetation growing around them, and how they were growing in the soil:

The pine-rose-lilac site:
View attachment 3927426
Vegetation
oh these were overripe btw, and starting to smell really strong (as opposed to the lovely aroma of the peony ones, and the distinctive smell-less-ness of the "disturbed" ones)
View attachment 3927427
And how it was growing -the rubbery thing sitting on the root of the pine tree (that had died last year on account of - probably - an airborne pine virus - and had gotten cut down last fall):
View attachment 3927428

The soil more fungal and structured - full of microaggregates - than over at the other site

View attachment 3927431

Oh. I've run out of picture allowance for this post....

What is the current temperature in your area? Has it changed much in the past month?

 

[calliandra]

..so continuing
And finally, the beauty queens haha
quick memory lane pic


their rubbery thingie was growing straight into the peonies


I didn't want to unearth the whole thing, was already feeling bad about a bunch of disturbances I was creating all over the place anyways. It was clear enough that that was where they were going.

And a take of the soil here - more fungal still
Aggregates at 100x


and a view at 400x for comparison, a few rounds there I almost put down as non-mineral


As for temps in the garden - the pine-roses area is 3m away from the warmest house wall in the whole yard, the peony-lilac ones were probably more sheltered than warmed... my impression is that in terms of location, it doesn't take much, it's the ambient temps and humidity that are going to make those morels sprout or not (tis the same with other shrooms too, innit?)...

As for location in terms of vegetation, I took a chance and planted the second of the "disturbed" morels next to one of my peonies, and did the same for one of the pine morels that was right in the middle of the lawn and sure to get mowed.


So we'll see if they come back there next year

But there was no one constant that could be relevant to observe when trying to cultivate these guys, at least as far as I could see - and rightly so, from a nature vs. man perspective I think it's really cool that we don't "get" these guys
Sorrryyyy and cheerios

 

[calliandra]

What is the current temperature in your area? Has it changed much in the past month?

it has changed drastically over the past few days - from summerly to deep winter
lol
I get what you mean though - yes we had an especially warm March, that started out really moist and then became and stayed warm with night temps sometimes around 11°C, very unusual for this time of the year.

And phenologically, we are 3 weeks ahead of the normal natural rhythm - the lilacs are blooming, usually they do that beginning in May.

 

[ShLUbY]

i have found blond morels under wild multiflower rose bushes here in the states, and have heard people reference to finding them near lilacs (though I never have). those black ones i would say would be europe's version of a "landscape morel" which is likely saprophytic. I definitely find grey/blond morels under gymnosperms (eastern white pine, one of my favorite trees to hunt them).

lol if you posted the soil being ripped up in a morel mushroom forum people would be beating you with a stick followed by burning you at the stake lol. most of the hunters are of the "cut and don't pull them out"

however, many of those hunters are not very educated in the ways of how biology works.... so until i see some firm evidence showing that they don't grow back when the mycelium is disturbed.... then i'll be a believer. for now i really have no opinion on the matter. i simply cut them away to keep all the soil intact with the ground, and out of my mushroom back and off my mushrooms lol.

thanks for sharing your experiences I love this place!

 

[iHearAll]

So I'm learning right along with you.

Here's the two basic mycelium types. Rhizomorphic and tomentose.
Rhizomorphic is the vein forming type and recent studies have found that when rhizomorphic mycelium is the main vegetative body, the mushroom production is greater. Also found (not by me) that if tomentose mycelium is pulsed with a high voltage for a ten millionth of a second, only once, it will begin to form rhizomorphic mycelium. So would lightning strikes on a tree even improve fruit body production? Another question for another time.

What sort of microorganisms can be found? Are they similar to our organic gardening favorites, lactobacillus and yeast? How deep below the surface is that body you dug up? Would frost make it that deep down in the peak of winter?

So many questions !!!

 

[ShLUbY]

So I'm learning right along with you.

Here's the two basic mycelium types. Rhizomorphic and tomentose.
Rhizomorphic is the vein forming type and recent studies have found that when rhizomorphic mycelium is the main vegetative body, the mushroom production is greater. Also found (not by me) that if tomentose mycelium is pulsed with a high voltage for a ten millionth of a second, only once, it will begin to form rhizomorphic mycelium. So would lightning strikes on a tree even improve fruit body production? Another question for another time.

What sort of microorganisms can be found? Are they similar to our organic gardening favorites, lactobacillus and yeast? How deep below the surface is that body you dug up? Would frost make it that deep down in the peak of winter?

So many questions !!!

us morel hunters pray for those lightning storms in the spring, as they do seem to "make the morels pop".

 

[ShLUbY]

Ah and since we're talking, @ShLUbY - the fiddleheads
I ended up missing the moment to harvest, but did get some pix at least
here some different stages of sprouting
View attachment 3927409
View attachment 3927410
View attachment 3927411
and then they feather out pretty fast!

View attachment 3927412

So based on those, and along with that spore-bearing leafthing they had
(View attachment 3927413 )
would you say ostrich fern or, meh, maybe something else?!
Cheers!

the first two pictures is when i would have harvested them looks like classic ostrich fern to me!!

 

[iHearAll]

i have found blond morels under wild multiflower rose bushes here in the states, and have heard people reference to finding them near lilacs (though I never have). those black ones i would say would be europe's version of a "landscape morel" which is likely saprophytic. I definitely find grey/blond morels under gymnosperms (eastern white pine, one of my favorite trees to hunt them).

lol if you posted the soil being ripped up in a morel mushroom forum people would be beating you with a stick followed by burning you at the stake lol. most of the hunters are of the "cut and don't pull them out"

however, many of those hunters are not very educated in the ways of how biology works.... so until i see some firm evidence showing that they don't grow back when the mycelium is disturbed.... then i'll be a believer. for now i really have no opinion on the matter. i simply cut them away to keep all the soil intact with the ground, and out of my mushroom back and off my mushrooms lol.

thanks for sharing your experiences I love this place!

I have never seen one in the wild, nor in person... At all... Wow..

Ok, so from my understanding of myceliums ability to regenerate, this is taken from liquid culture propagation, mycelium if disturbed and shredded, forms back thicker and stronger than before, so a "root" if mycelium if damaged and distributed into a greater volume, will take over that given volume and recreate the network. Of course, it would need a moist substrate to grow into.

So anyway in one successful recipe of the US first indoor morel cultivar, they used leaf mold as the substrate and cased it in nutritionles sawdust. I wonder if calis soil is organic matter rich and cased in clay? Then again in thatch and grass/wood chips.

 

[iHearAll]

us morel hunters pray for those lightning storms in the spring, as they do seem to "make the morels pop".

Hot dang I like a good guess

 

[calliandra]

the first two pictures is when i would have harvested them looks like classic ostrich fern to me!!

yay! I have ostrich ferns in my garden!
Thanks haha, when it stops snowing I'll go check if there are still any upcoming

 

[calliandra]

Ah yes, mushrooms seem to be a whole fascinating universe of their own

What sort of microorganisms can be found? Are they similar to our organic gardening favorites, lactobacillus and yeast? How deep below the surface is that body you dug up? Would frost make it that deep down in the peak of winter?

No I didn't see anyone besides more roundish, short bacteria (both cocci and bacilli) and a few hyphal fungi.

The bodies were all in the top 10cm of the soil - which most definitely freezes over in the wintertime - this year we had a cold spell with high temps at -15°C for 2 weeks. MAybe the swingover from that really cold in January to the very warm in March was relevant too...

I wonder if calis soil is organic matter rich and cased in clay?

The soil here is very much clay, yes.
Organic matter, as in still decaying stuff, fluffing up the soil - not so much, though in the microscope pix you could see the increasing amounts of humic acids in the different locations.

 

[calliandra]

aaand to finish up my update @ Conundrum #1: compost tea vs. rust & blackspot
from a few days ago (https://www.rollitup.org/t/callis-conundrums.936771/page-5#post-13467932)

As I was writing that post, the ACT started turning, and when I checked on it an hour later it was starting to smell lightly of dog poo?! lol
Quick sample showed me tons of what looked like lactobacilli actually, so I took out 1L of the tea and continued bubbling it long enough to turn the balance back and get some good fungal growth in there.
Successfully

But first, some pix of the vermicompost used for this brew
aggregates chock full of fulvic and humic acids, fungi, bacteria, and protozoans...


morphologically diverse fungal hyphae in almost every field
and diversity on the protozoan level too.

Here, in the middle, a testate amoeba, which likes to live in higher successional soils (yay)
and a knot of different hyphae tying up aggregates


When the tea started turning, there were all these bacilli in there, yeah getting clumped up into aggregates, but not looking like the parent material:


I didn't add any further food, just took out some of the water to get the rest aerated more.
And that was with a new pump that allegedly does 400l/hr in just 8L of water? should've been enough... so I need to look into that. May switch over to waterfalling it in future...

So after 60 hours of bubbling, I had a nicely fungal ACT,


that was vibrating with flagellate activity, but also had a few giant ciliates whirling around in there too.
But the diversity of them all together made those otherwise alarming signs less alarming:



Yes, a ciliate, but next to an aggregate containing beneficial fungi, and the bigger spheres are flagellates, 2-3 kinds by morphology.

So I was reasonably happy with it in the end, enough to apply it to the roses and the the cherry tree, which also got some watered in after I poked holes in the soil with my digging fork (so about 25cm deep)

And lo!
Here I was, thinking my ACT wasn't being aerated properly, and worms climb out of the vc-residue, meaning they survived 60 hours under water?!


Can you guys hear that guy down there going, maaan am I outa here!
I'm going to start sifting my VC I think

Oh and I was totally dismayed for a bit, when I realized later that I forgot to take a soil sample from the cherry's soil, so we'll never know if there is any change waaah
But also, I am confident we shall survive that

I do however need to review my brewing situation. I should have enough aeration for the tea not to tip.
I was using the airstones that came with the new pump, maybe I should change that (but when I go back to the pet shop, I defo will take a look at the waterfall pumps they have too.)
OTOH, there must have been enough air at the same time, or the worms would've died.

So what else could be going on...
not mixing enough? (anaerobic "pockets" in the water)...
food? it was just 2 Tbsp. of molasses in 8L water...
Will keep an eye on it, as I do plan to reinocculate the potsoil out on the deck now and again.

As far as the conundrum goes, my work is done here.
They have their 3 ACT applications, and now comes the hardest part, doing nothing but enjoy the view.
And then, we'll see

 

[calliandra]

Good start into the day

 

[calliandra]

Conundrum #6
Plant nutrition 3.0? The cycle of living matter

And finally, for the most speculative of my conundrums

Catering to the likelihood that, beyond the ionic absorption of mineralized substances, be they human-imposed salts (plant nutrition 1.0) or a la carte deliveries from microbial friends (plant nutrition 2.0), the plant also takes in whole building blocks it can use for its growth via endocytosis.
From complex nutrient molecules, to whole chloroplasts or mitochondria (not just as an evolutionary process, as is already being acknowledged nowadays (c.f. Lynn Margulis' Gaia Theory, http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/history_24), but actually on a daily-meal basis), to whole microorganisms from which it then takes those cell components and nutrients it needs. So to illustrate the concept, "eating" a bacterium yields several mitochondria which, perhaps with some minor modifications, can be plugged into that new leaf just being built upstairs, or used to divide cells more quickly - whatever they do -- we don't really know
Maximum efficiency at minimum energy cost, sound familiar?
Just a concept that keeps cropping up when you go to study Native American worldviews...

The theory

So Liebig was saying the nutrients need to be broken down aaaall the way to their mineral basis to be usable for the plant.
The logic of the Soil Food Web actually assumes almost the same, just that, given good conditions, a complex web of life is producing these according to the plant's specification (along with doing other things for the plant of course, which rounds off the picture a bit).

Adding endocytosis to the picture however, gives us plants that actually eat members of the soil food web they actively feed (livestock!).
Not a new thought, it can easily be traced back to the Humus Theory proposed by Albrecht Thaer in 1809. And Raoul H. Francé followed it up with examinations of the soil microbiology in 1911..

Research in this direction has continued, if on the sidelines, Hans-Peter Rusch being one of the newer proponents in the 50's and 60's and who explicitly began talking of the cycle of living matter. I have his main work lying about here, but have yet to fight myself through the German, which - surprisingly, given I've only been in a German-language context for the past 33 years - I still read much less fluidly than English.
English-language proponents apparently were Bargyla and Glyver Rateaver, who in their Organic Method Primer Update (published 1993) included photographs of endocytosis in plants. Haven't been able to get my hands, or even eyes, on that though.

But no need to be particularly historical about it, scientists keep finding the same thing, as in a study published 2010, "Turning the Table: Plants Consume Microbes as a Source of Nutrients" (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2912860/)
And there's a blog entry on Jeff Lowenfels' website where he refers to research done in 2013 in Australia that found roots eating whole bacteria and yeasts (http://www.jefflowenfels.com/rhizophagy/).

We'll get there, eventually, I'm pretty sure!


And then, there is the concept of remutation, in which living matter actually doesn't de-compose, but re-composes itself. When, say, a plant "dies", it is the communities that are dissolved, not the single players - which are subcellular and kick the Cell Theory to the curb.
So when the plant goes limp and starts to, as we say, decay, actually, it's the cells splitting up into their subcellular components and reorganizing themselves into new communities - cells, and then perhaps even multicellular ones.

The guy who actually studied remutation in the 1950's was a German biologist called Hugo Schanderl - by a stroke of luck, I found an article online in which he discusses how bacteria emerge from dead plant matter that was grown in sterile conditions.
The article in German: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1438-8677.1953.tb00108.x/abstract
And a quick n dirty translation of the abstract:

Abstract
When plants, grown under sterile precautionary conditions in test tubes on nutrient agar, are killed by brief heating or freezing, and the nutrient base is provided with sufficient hydration, one can observe that even from the corpses of these completely "sterile" plants bacteria emerge.

A simple method is described by which it is possible on the one hand, to initiate a deacidifying plasmolysis and subsequently the development of bacteria at any random point of a compact, healthy plant body. On the other hand, the described method allows us to observe the processes going on in the plasmolised cells day by day, and ultimately to take innoculant samples.

With the new method it is clearly demonstrable that the development of bacteria in decomposing, dying cells originates from within the cells. Enormous amounts of bacteria emerge from the decomposition of all plastids, like chloro-, leuko-, chromo- and elaioplasts. Even the nuclei give rise to bacteria on decomposition.

Whilst one could laugh and think of that other series of experiments (was it some rotting rat that spawned blowflies?) that asserted autogenesis was a thing, I was reminded of this again when I read Teaming with Fungi, which sums up the most recent research -- and makes several references to things going on with the mycorrhizal fungi that darnedly look like the setup for constant remutations

• for example, how mycorrhizal spores actually contain bacterial DNA:
  

  When scientists examined the DNA that makes up arbuscular mycorrhizal spores, they discovered that a significant amount of the spore mass comprises symbiotic bacteria. One study indicated that as much as 40 percent of the total spore mass contained DNA from bacteria. (p.66)

  So, what's it going to do with that?!
  .. if the fungus lands in an area where the bacterial helpers aren't around, it donates this DNA to those that are to make them mutate into the ones it wants?!
  ...Or, it splits off parts of its own protoplasm, informing it with that DNA, to make that bacteria?!

• Or, how they can exchange DNA with others on the fly:
  

  Scientists have discovered that fungi exchange DNA with other fungi and with other microorganisms. (Don't be surprised, because human bacteria do it all the time.) They seem to do this based on environmental conditions that require some sort of adaptation. This has all manner of ramifications, many of which are being sorted out by lots of further study. (p.34)

So the clues, the hints, the pointers are there.
We'll get there, eventually, I'm pretty sure!

And there are people who say, yes, this is a thing and go to develop a practice, over many years, that caters to these principles - with tremendous success too.

One of these people is Herwig Pommeresche, whose book, Humusphäre (2004, only available in German), is a rant about how easy we could have it, with hardly any effort at all, and what destructive, counterintuitive shit we are doing instead LOL (Actually, it's an impossible read for someone who is already aware of the problems with the way our western world is doing things, but well worth fighting through anyway, as one does come out the other end with an understanding of what we're setting out to do. )

And it IS so simple.
Here's a video I've posted elsewhere before, giving an overview of Pommeresche's system, somewhat in English

 

[calliandra]

Conundrum #6 :: gardening with the cycle of living matter

Trying it out

So last fall, I began preparing the veggie bed designated for the experiment by mixing veggie and fruit scraps, like you'd add to a wormbin,into the soil.

Open a hole in the mulch, loosen the soil if needed, add living matter.
Along the way, I developed a preference for finely chopped stuffs, and for mixing the nitrogen-heavy amendments I was bringing from the kitchen with leaves from the mulch, to balance it out right from the beginning:


mix in about 1:1 into the soil


I call this procedure (and the subsequent microbe party) soilifying, which is the direct translation of "erdisieren", the term Pommeresche uses, and which I find quite appropriate too.

The soil was covered with leaves - and branches, to keep the leaves in and the blackbirds out
View last November - the soilifying bed is in the middle, where the tall tree spinach skeletons stand (and lie, theres a piece of fence securing it all too)


And then came the winter.
Same view (for once! haha)


In March, I set out to do what I have been doing every year there, helping aerate the soil mechanically by loosening it with a digging fork (NO turning, just push in, rock back and forth as needed, and move on).

Pulling the mulch aside, we can see where I got to do the soilifying. Before aerating:


After aerating:


As I was finishing, this guy popped onto the scene (as earthworms do), making VERY clear to me that my job here was done.Like forevvaa



I have never seen an earthworm this size in here before.
Just the visible part there, from where it's coming out of the ground to snout, is 30cms of wormpower!

So what happens next?
The soil got covered back up and has had time to recover since then.

oh and the foremost bed has turned out to be sprouting rucola selvatica (erm, rocket? weird name, so I hope you guys get rucola, which is what it's going to get called from here on), so it's going to become a brassica bed, along with the bed on the right.

The soilified bed will be planted on the front end with a mix of potato and broad beans - the broad beans go in as soon as this cold spell is over, the potatoes soon after.
To the back, I'm going to do onions and try carrots, again , adding some salad, tree spinach, maybe kohlrabi, and following them up with endives and radicchio, perhaps.

And everything will stay nicely mulched up (getting fresh layers as the old stuff gets pulled into the soil), with periodical additions of, basically, fresh worm food leftovers, and protoplasm/chlorophyll water. I will have to put up barriers to keep the mulch in place, and possibly start the carrots on a sort of tunnel to save them from the slugs, oh and baby plants may get some extra watering for a few days.
But that's just about it.

Hoping to grow some lush veggies there!

 

[iHearAll]

I couldn't help but imagine the old English idea of spontaneous generation when referring to the creation of butterflies. At least in the cell's instance there is everything a bacterium needs to molt into a beautiful bacteria. Great read

 

[SSGrower]

aaand to finish up my update @ Conundrum #1: compost tea vs. rust & blackspot
from a few days ago (https://www.rollitup.org/t/callis-conundrums.936771/page-5#post-13467932)

As I was writing that post, the ACT started turning, and when I checked on it an hour later it was starting to smell lightly of dog poo?! lol
Quick sample showed me tons of what looked like lactobacilli actually, so I took out 1L of the tea and continued bubbling it long enough to turn the balance back and get some good fungal growth in there.
Successfully

But first, some pix of the vermicompost used for this brew
aggregates chock full of fulvic and humic acids, fungi, bacteria, and protozoans...
View attachment 3927540

morphologically diverse fungal hyphae in almost every field
and diversity on the protozoan level too.

Here, in the middle, a testate amoeba, which likes to live in higher successional soils (yay)
and a knot of different hyphae tying up aggregates
View attachment 3927545

When the tea started turning, there were all these bacilli in there, yeah getting clumped up into aggregates, but not looking like the parent material:
View attachment 3927546

I didn't add any further food, just took out some of the water to get the rest aerated more.
And that was with a new pump that allegedly does 400l/hr in just 8L of water? should've been enough... so I need to look into that. May switch over to waterfalling it in future...

So after 60 hours of bubbling, I had a nicely fungal ACT,
View attachment 3927559

that was vibrating with flagellate activity, but also had a few giant ciliates whirling around in there too.
But the diversity of them all together made those otherwise alarming signs less alarming:

View attachment 3927566

Yes, a ciliate, but next to an aggregate containing beneficial fungi, and the bigger spheres are flagellates, 2-3 kinds by morphology.

So I was reasonably happy with it in the end, enough to apply it to the roses and the the cherry tree, which also got some watered in after I poked holes in the soil with my digging fork (so about 25cm deep)
View attachment 3927576
And lo!
Here I was, thinking my ACT wasn't being aerated properly, and worms climb out of the vc-residue, meaning they survived 60 hours under water?!
View attachment 3927581

Can you guys hear that guy down there going, maaan am I outa here!
I'm going to start sifting my VC I think

Oh and I was totally dismayed for a bit, when I realized later that I forgot to take a soil sample from the cherry's soil, so we'll never know if there is any change waaah
But also, I am confident we shall survive that

I do however need to review my brewing situation. I should have enough aeration for the tea not to tip.
I was using the airstones that came with the new pump, maybe I should change that (but when I go back to the pet shop, I defo will take a look at the waterfall pumps they have too.)
OTOH, there must have been enough air at the same time, or the worms would've died.

So what else could be going on...
not mixing enough? (anaerobic "pockets" in the water)...
food? it was just 2 Tbsp. of molasses in 8L water...
Will keep an eye on it, as I do plan to reinocculate the potsoil out on the deck now and again.

As far as the conundrum goes, my work is done here.
They have their 3 ACT applications, and now comes the hardest part, doing nothing but enjoy the view.
And then, we'll see

On the resilience of worms. Went camping @ 10k ft elevation, 4 in snow first night, water bottle froze in tent last night, yet when I broke camp, a fatty the size of pinkey (well 1/2 the size) was calling around. He got harvested, then I went about 1000 ft up in elevarion pulled a soil sample from under the snow at the base of recently bear clawed aspen, and there were atleast 2 in the sample. Gven that only 2 survived in my bin I think I will stick to harvesting wild ones and letting them fend for themselves in my compost pile.

 

[calliandra]

high time for a gaggle of updates!

Skipping over a bunch of shit storms, I've finally gotten round to building some structures in the garden. Amongst those,
bean poles over the

alfalfa patch

It has been snowing, so there hasn't been much growing going on - yet
I did take a sample last Monday, but then besaid shit storms, and when I finally found the peace of mind to examine them, it had been 6 days - and usually the cut-off is around 3.
And still!
I did find a bit of change going on.
This time, I took the samples from soil right next to the plants, as close to the root system as possible, to see whether there are fungi developing or not.
And lo
Fungal hyphae starting to make aggregates


sprouts


not sure what the worm egg-looking thingie is there (I still really need to get my cysts and co. sorted! )
but it can't be an egg worm, this is at 400x mag


Looking back at the sample taken before the mycorrhizal spore application (https://www.rollitup.org/t/callis-conundrums.936771/page-2#post-13434764), I like what I'm seeing