The Northwest Green Home Primer by Kathleen O'Brien & Kathleen Smith

Author:Kathleen O'Brien & Kathleen Smith
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Timber Press
Published: 2008-06-12T16:00:00+00:00

Use environmentally preferred choices for imported soil.

If the soil on your site is of poor quality or just plain gone, you may have to import topsoil, preferably with the right amount of organic content for your use. If you have a large site it may be worth hiring a professional to develop a soil specification. Whether you go that route or not, have the actual soil batch you’re buying evaluated before you have it delivered. In addition to the right stuff, you don’t want the wrong stuff either (such as large pieces of plastic, stones, and weed seeds). Depending on its source, you might have to amend the topsoil once it gets to your site, in which case you would use tactics similar to amending site-disturbed soils. If you’re working with an urban lot, structural soil specifically designed to provide breathing room for the roots of trees growing next to sidewalks in narrow lawn strips has been patented by the Urban Horticulture Institute at Cornell University and licensed to producers around the United States (Urban Horticulture Institute 2005, 3).

Whether you consider soil poor is a relative thing, according to Kas Kinkead, who says, “If you have rocky, dry, free-draining soil, you could use plants that are quite happy in that kind of soil, or with a little more patience you could seed with a cover crop and rototill in, or with even more patience you could plant a succession forest.” The latter suggestion is made somewhat tongue-in-cheek since depending on how old you are, it might take the cooperation of your offspring. You start by planting an alder forest and letting it colonize the soil with nitrogen-fixing nodes, then interplant with Douglas firs, cut the alders in five years, replant with an understory of shrubs and small trees, and so on.

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