Quote:
Originally Posted by Worth1
I'm doing better than I thought. 
None of my stuff goes to the city dump just trash.
Even the countless sticks that fall out of the trees and the leaves get chopped up and put back in the soil as nature intended.
Tomato plants get solarized on the driveway and some how vanish. |
Yeah, the issue with plant material that goes to the dump, it tends to be rotting anaerobically among the trash and therefore emits methane instead of the (small or balanced) amount of CO2 emitted from an aerobic compost process. The cool thing I learned about compost, it's the organisms that live in that fresh soil which also are able to sequester carbon in the ground. No till without added compost may not sequester much (if any). I'm sure that depends also on specific soil and moisture conditions, eventually we'll get the full picture but science takes time alright.
Your Texas heat must be great for incorporating leaves and sticks into the soil.
The structure of tree litter is such that it is naturally aerobic as it slowly breaks down with fungi involved. I have so much sticks and brush from conifers around my place, we used to burn yearly. Have not done that for quite a few years but the slowly decomposing needles and branches don't make a very hospitable soil at the end of the day - except for conifers of course. I'm trying a hugel approach now in the area near the house, trying to make some soil with a compost over fir branches. Got some bags of maple leaves from my brother's place too, which are desperately needed to make this old clay a better place for some food trees to grow. Funny how all trees seem to make the kind of soil they needed themselves! Nature's way, you got it.