How do I make soil ?

[Dean Lofthouse]

Just want to utilise the woodchip we produce and add another string to my bow.

 

How do I make soil, what do I need equipment, land and components wise, such as silage bay, worms etc and what processes are involved.

[Xerxses]

It takes time and energy to break down woodchip...

You can speed things up by adding high level of nitrogen material, which is high in "energy" one problem then is to keep pH levels up....

Best is to mix 50/50 with poultrymanure, thus keeping pH-levels up and enough nitrogen to break down the woodchip which is high in carbon.

[Xerxses]

The mixture will heat-up and you will need to keep an eye on dryness and temperature, maybe hose the heap down to prevent it from self igniting...

[Albedo]

Xerxes knows what he's talking about. I was briefly, a worm farmer in australia and we composted big piles for the worms to munch on.

 

I would just add that the pile needs to be turned periodically as it can become anaerobic thru the composting bacteria using up all the oxygen in the middle, also gets it to break down by moving the outside bits to the middle.

 

Not sure the end result would be soil exactly as there's the mineral component, I guess it would be a type of Humic soil perhaps

[Dean Lofthouse]

I looked at some today which looked to be made up of roughly 1/3 woodchip, 1/3 sand and the other 1/3 looked to be the black solids waste from sewage works ??

 

I was going to build a big concrete bay similar to a silage clamp

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

dean, I think your thinking of compost as apposed to a soil.

 

Youll need to look at the website of EQ waste managment they store it (woodchip) in thin rows and turn daily watering regular, adding grass clippings and mixing in will give you the nitrogen content youll need, and the manure wouldnt go a miss.

 

Soil in the true sense is pure mineral, not vegatable, so soil can not be made from wod chip, woodchip would make a valued contribution to a soil as a quality soild contains around 5-7% organic material.

 

If you realy want to make soil youll be needing clay and sand fractions and it gets complex!

[Xerxses]

That looks like a good size and set up. Valuable and nessesary point is the turning, keeps temperature right and aeration. Another way would be to insert porous pipes (drainage-pipes) as youre layering your mixture of greenwaste and manure/woodchip for aeration and moisture controle.

As Albedo pointed out- this would create a compost or a soil enhancer. In order to call it soil you would need to add sand and/or clay to the product before selling it.

 

Worms will turn your woodchip into "soil" but its quicker if you can get the temperatures up initially and use bacteria (aerobic ones) to break it down and then let the worms have a go at it, when its halfcomposted...

I know experiments has been carried out using fungus to turn heaps into soil. Maybe thats a market for you Producing and selling shrooms?

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

can you not sell it on to the power plants?

 

They collect it from you these days you know, totaly hassle free.

 

or speak to a big local comercial mushroom farm.

 

Or get yourself familiar with the local landscape contractors designers.

[Xerxses]

Oops to slow... Hama beat me to it...

I was just trying to simplify things as compost and soil is often mixed up...

 

Dean, that mixture youre thinking of would work as its a recipe for "homemade soil" you would need a mineral soil underneath that mixture if you intend to use it for growing, that stuff would be "topsoil" with high levels of humusmaterial. The slurry would then be used as "manure" in the mixture.

[Dean Lofthouse]

The "soil" I looked at had been delivered from a topsoil seller.

 

To me it looked like mulch with sand in it

 

It was £45 a tonne, which is where my inspiration comes from