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Old 09-11-2006, 06:53 PM   #10 (permalink)
momoese
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Default Re: preparing soil for bananas outside

Quote:
Originally Posted by wim View Post
Wow, thank you for your answers!

Momoese,
If you went 4 feet down to mix organic mather in your soil, how do you do that practically? 1 foot deep that's a tree spade deep, 2 feet down is more dificult, but not impossible, but 4 feet, how do you do that ?

Joe,
I had never heard of terra preta before. I've read all the articles you referred to. It sure sounds more than promising.
From what I've read, no-one was able to recreate terra preta by simply adding charcoal to soil. In the tests they added 20% (weight) of charcoal to the soil. That's a lot of charcoal if I have to go 4 feed deep!
Have you tried it ? How did you do it? What are your experiences?
My wife and I picked up shovels and started at one end digging down and making a huge pile of dirt. Then we mixed the organic matter in with the dirt that we were digging ahead of our selves. We slowly made our way across the area where the Bananas were to be planted. It was totally insane and I don't know that I would go quite that crazy again. We also did it for our Bamboo area, again just an insane amount of work, but boy does the Bamboo like it!
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