Growing with purely peat, pumice, compost and worm castings?

kratos015 said:

Cover crops are great, you can even use them during the on-season. In some instances, things like Comfrey and other deep-rooting cover crops can become invasive and quickly take things over. However, simply yank them up by the roots and compost them so that they don't hog all of the soil and resources from your main plants. Same principle with weeds, actually. Unless they're interfering with my main plants, I always leave weeds alone.

I live in the desert, so I sprinkle my native dirt and sand over my compost and amendments after a while. The native dirt and sand mixes in with the compost and helps to stall compaction. The humble little earthworm will do loads more for soil compaction than anything else will.

You're certainly right on the money though, roots will provide food for your worms as they decompose, and the roots combined with your worms will help prevent compaction for years to come. The roots will also "work" the soil when they're alive, constantly moving through the soil and "digging" through it very similar to what the earthworm does.

Literally anything with roots can achieve this. However, like you pointed out, deep-rooting plants or plants with larger root masses will achieve this much faster. One of the many reasons why trees are so important. Naturally, things like tomato or melon roots will do far more for one than something small like spinach or lettuce. Regardless, so long as there is constantly roots "working" the ground, you can avoid compaction for many many years to come. With enough worms, you may never even see compaction at all. Consider all of the forests around the world; compaction is not a problem for any of the plants in a forest. Loads of roots and worms take care of that.

Keep in mind with cover crops though, they'll fixate Nitrogen into your soil and sometimes that can put a damper in things. Definitely don't want too much N being fixated into your soil during bloom. However, what I do is simply plant my cover crops after I cover the soil with woodchips. The cover crops grow out of the wood chips, and the N being fixated from the cover crop is perfect for composting the wood chips. Eventually, as the cover crops die down and decompose with the woodchips.

Unless the cover crops interfere with anything in my garden (very rarely), I don't even yank them from the ground. I just let them keep growing, go to seed, and let them die off naturally. They'll turn into compost, and ideally seed your garden so that you don't need to purchase any more cover crop seeds.

Hope that helped!

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Thanks Kratos, very interesting! Very helpful info as well.

As a side note, regarding roots in the forest and compaction, one thing I heard in Mexico was the concept of a "guardian tree" or "mother tree" I believe it may have been called. Usually the largest tree in a section of forest, with roots that go deepest, into an aquifer possibly, and then transfers water throughout it's root system (which can be many hundreds of feet(?)) to the surrounding smaller trees and vegetation.

If one cuts down the "guardian tree", the whole surrounding region of vegetation and trees will suffer.

Not sure if there's any truth to this, as it was an anecdotal story, but an interesting concept nonetheless.

RenaissanceBrah said:

Thanks Kratos, very interesting! Very helpful info as well.

As a side note, regarding roots in the forest and compaction, one thing I heard in Mexico was the concept of a "guardian tree" or "mother tree" I believe it may have been called. Usually the largest tree in a section of forest, with roots that go deepest, into an aquifer possibly, and then transfers water throughout it's root system (which can be many hundreds of feet(?)) to the surrounding smaller trees and vegetation.

If one cuts down the "guardian tree", the whole surrounding region of vegetation and trees will suffer.

Not sure if there's any truth to this, as it was an anecdotal story, but an interesting concept nonetheless.

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Woah man, that's a trip! Cool story for sure. Interesting thing about "folklore" from civilizations as old as Mexico; there is typically much truth in them. The "guardian tree" definitely makes a lot of sense. It is something I have personally witnessed in not just my yard, but the desert straight across from me. Living out in the desert, there is a lot I've observed.

Don't feel the need to read the following, but these are things I've learned observing the way things work natively in the desert. I do my best not to be so long winded, but you never know what information will help someone.




Just consider the roots of the "guardian tree", and more importantly, how far they not only reach out, but also how deep they grow. If you'll allow me to, I'll get into that concept below when talking about observations I've made about living in the desert and observing the root masses of things that grow out here.



The absolute most important thing about trees that large is their root mass, like you said. But not just transferring the water, but imagine the soil web living around those huge roots! The soil web is likely hundreds, possibly even thousands of years old, just as the roots are.

How we do living soil when we start off, we're attempting to "cultivate" microbiology within our soil. Literally giving the soil life. It is something that we need to create and facilitate when there is no life in the bales of Peat Moss/coco, or the various amendments available..

But with such large trees (and root masses by proxy), you can effectively "tap in" to a soil web that already exists, and has likely existed since before many of us were even born. Dig up the top soil around any large tree and you'll see what I mean; has that lovely compost smell that is associated with a living soil. The biggest lesson I've learned since using living soil would be this; it is much easier to tap into something that is already there, as opposed to attempting to create it by yourself.

It is also about what you don't see, as opposed to what you do see. In this instance, the roots of the "guardian tree". Imagine a humongous soil web living underground; a massive civilization that we cannot even see, let alone fathom, that spans dozens (sometimes more) feet in diameter! As a result of this, one could literally do nothing but dig a hole and throw a seed/plant in it. Eventually, the roots of the new plant/seedling will meet up with the 10-100ft diameter soil web established underground centuries ago. At that point, success is guaranteed.

Take these photos of my backyard, and the desert behind me, for reference.





Two very interesting things I'd like to point out about the photos above.

1) The trees in my yard are the same Palo Verde and Mesquite trees that are way out in that desert field in the back. Yet notice how much more vibrant and healthy the ones in my yard look.

2) Look at the ridiculous amount of trees out there in the desert; growing with nothing more than water from monsoon season. Sometimes going many months without water, yet they still survive.


Whether it is my backyard, or the desert behind my yard, you can see the concept of the "guardian tree" working. However, what is really going on is that all of the tree's roots and, more importantly, the microbiology attached to them, are all working in tandem with one another.

The trees in my yard look better because I've spent the last year not only growing plants in my yard, but watering constantly and consistently.

Interesting thing about the desert; the desert is actually the perfect place to grow plants. The only thing that native desert is missing is organic matter, and water. Many attempts at growing here will be met with plant death. However, those plants deaths are not in vain, as they will eventually decompose into organic matter that will sustain life in the future. Then once a consistent water supply is added, you get amazing growth.

Same principle with the roots vastly spreading out underground. The roots from my trees are likely underground everywhere, covering every sqft of my yard with roots completely out of sight. I can dig a hole, sift the native dirt of large rocks, mix the sifted dirt with soil from my pile, refill the hole, and get near instant and guaranteed success. Why? The roots, and the enormous civilization of microbes living underground that my new plants "tap in" to.

What's more, consider the drainage of desert dirt and sand. Not sure if you've ever witnessed intense monsoon rainfall, but it is very humbling. See that street there in the photos above? It turns into a literal river, and I'm not even exaggerating. It becomes a literal river; 1-2 ft tall river completely covering the street to the point where you can't see it, and that flows so quickly that it can carry a car off with ease.

But more astonishing than the rivers from the rainfall? How quickly all that water drains. Within 6-12 hours of the monsoon storm, the water is completely drained and underground.

Water always follows the path of least resistance, right? That means that underground in the desert sand/dirt, there is a literal path of "least resistance" that the water will always take. This results in all of that water pooling underground, resulting in an underground reservoir of water. This is how the desert plants survive, the underground reservoir of water!

The only plants that survive out in the desert are cacti, and the Palo Verde and Mesquite trees. Why? Their enormous root masses! Not only do all of these huge root masses intersect and interact with one another, helping each other out, but their huge roots are also large enough to dig into the ground deep enough to find those underground reservoirs of water!

And by large roots, I mean it. Mesquite taproots can be up to 150-175 feet long, and their roots can spread to nearly 50ft in diameter! Even more interesting? Mesquite and Palo Verde aren't technically "trees", but rather enormous legume plants. So, 150ft deep with 50ft radius, one mesquite tree can potentially have up to 27500 feet in root mass, and by proxy a 27,500 foot soil web to "tap in" to!

And remember how I mentioned they're legumes? They do in fact fixate Nitrogen into the soil! Just consider how much Nitrogen is coming from a root mass that can potentially be that large? Not as great as it sounds, unfortunately. I planted 3 raised beds near a Mesquite tree, expecting benefits of shading, but not knowing they were actually legumes and not "trees". They all had excess Nitrogen levels, no matter what. If anything grew in those beds, they'd never bloom due to the high N levels. And that's if they even grew. Mesquites can drink up to 20 gallons of water per day, so they'll take loads of water from any plants nearby.


Consider that I live in the low desert in Southern Arizona, so one's mileage may vary depending on their own environment and/or circumstances. That said, I recommend everyone study their native plant life; learn what it does, how it works, and how it will interact with your garden.

Truly sorry if this wall of text was more than asked for, but one can never know what information will be useful.

All the best, and as always, happy growing to anyone reading!

kratos015 said:

Woah man, that's a trip! Cool story for sure. Interesting thing about "folklore" from civilizations as old as Mexico; there is typically much truth in them. The "guardian tree" definitely makes a lot of sense. It is something I have personally witnessed in not just my yard, but the desert straight across from me. Living out in the desert, there is a lot I've observed.

Don't feel the need to read the following, but these are things I've learned observing the way things work natively in the desert. I do my best not to be so long winded, but you never know what information will help someone.




Just consider the roots of the "guardian tree", and more importantly, how far they not only reach out, but also how deep they grow. If you'll allow me to, I'll get into that concept below when talking about observations I've made about living in the desert and observing the root masses of things that grow out here.



The absolute most important thing about trees that large is their root mass, like you said. But not just transferring the water, but imagine the soil web living around those huge roots! The soil web is likely hundreds, possibly even thousands of years old, just as the roots are.

How we do living soil when we start off, we're attempting to "cultivate" microbiology within our soil. Literally giving the soil life. It is something that we need to create and facilitate when there is no life in the bales of Peat Moss/coco, or the various amendments available..

But with such large trees (and root masses by proxy), you can effectively "tap in" to a soil web that already exists, and has likely existed since before many of us were even born. Dig up the top soil around any large tree and you'll see what I mean; has that lovely compost smell that is associated with a living soil. The biggest lesson I've learned since using living soil would be this; it is much easier to tap into something that is already there, as opposed to attempting to create it by yourself.

It is also about what you don't see, as opposed to what you do see. In this instance, the roots of the "guardian tree". Imagine a humongous soil web living underground; a massive civilization that we cannot even see, let alone fathom, that spans dozens (sometimes more) feet in diameter! As a result of this, one could literally do nothing but dig a hole and throw a seed/plant in it. Eventually, the roots of the new plant/seedling will meet up with the 10-100ft diameter soil web established underground centuries ago. At that point, success is guaranteed.

Take these photos of my backyard, and the desert behind me, for reference.

View attachment 5124630

View attachment 5124631

Two very interesting things I'd like to point out about the photos above.

1) The trees in my yard are the same Palo Verde and Mesquite trees that are way out in that desert field in the back. Yet notice how much more vibrant and healthy the ones in my yard look.

2) Look at the ridiculous amount of trees out there in the desert; growing with nothing more than water from monsoon season. Sometimes going many months without water, yet they still survive.


Whether it is my backyard, or the desert behind my yard, you can see the concept of the "guardian tree" working. However, what is really going on is that all of the tree's roots and, more importantly, the microbiology attached to them, are all working in tandem with one another.

The trees in my yard look better because I've spent the last year not only growing plants in my yard, but watering constantly and consistently.

Interesting thing about the desert; the desert is actually the perfect place to grow plants. The only thing that native desert is missing is organic matter, and water. Many attempts at growing here will be met with plant death. However, those plants deaths are not in vain, as they will eventually decompose into organic matter that will sustain life in the future. Then once a consistent water supply is added, you get amazing growth.

Same principle with the roots vastly spreading out underground. The roots from my trees are likely underground everywhere, covering every sqft of my yard with roots completely out of sight. I can dig a hole, sift the native dirt of large rocks, mix the sifted dirt with soil from my pile, refill the hole, and get near instant and guaranteed success. Why? The roots, and the enormous civilization of microbes living underground that my new plants "tap in" to.

What's more, consider the drainage of desert dirt and sand. Not sure if you've ever witnessed intense monsoon rainfall, but it is very humbling. See that street there in the photos above? It turns into a literal river, and I'm not even exaggerating. It becomes a literal river; 1-2 ft tall river completely covering the street to the point where you can't see it, and that flows so quickly that it can carry a car off with ease.

But more astonishing than the rivers from the rainfall? How quickly all that water drains. Within 6-12 hours of the monsoon storm, the water is completely drained and underground.

Water always follows the path of least resistance, right? That means that underground in the desert sand/dirt, there is a literal path of "least resistance" that the water will always take. This results in all of that water pooling underground, resulting in an underground reservoir of water. This is how the desert plants survive, the underground reservoir of water!

The only plants that survive out in the desert are cacti, and the Palo Verde and Mesquite trees. Why? Their enormous root masses! Not only do all of these huge root masses intersect and interact with one another, helping each other out, but their huge roots are also large enough to dig into the ground deep enough to find those underground reservoirs of water!

And by large roots, I mean it. Mesquite taproots can be up to 150-175 feet long, and their roots can spread to nearly 50ft in diameter! Even more interesting? Mesquite and Palo Verde aren't technically "trees", but rather enormous legume plants. So, 150ft deep with 50ft radius, one mesquite tree can potentially have up to 27500 feet in root mass, and by proxy a 27,500 foot soil web to "tap in" to!

And remember how I mentioned they're legumes? They do in fact fixate Nitrogen into the soil! Just consider how much Nitrogen is coming from a root mass that can potentially be that large? Not as great as it sounds, unfortunately. I planted 3 raised beds near a Mesquite tree, expecting benefits of shading, but not knowing they were actually legumes and not "trees". They all had excess Nitrogen levels, no matter what. If anything grew in those beds, they'd never bloom due to the high N levels. And that's if they even grew. Mesquites can drink up to 20 gallons of water per day, so they'll take loads of water from any plants nearby.


Consider that I live in the low desert in Southern Arizona, so one's mileage may vary depending on their own environment and/or circumstances. That said, I recommend everyone study their native plant life; learn what it does, how it works, and how it will interact with your garden.

Truly sorry if this wall of text was more than asked for, but one can never know what information will be useful.

All the best, and as always, happy growing to anyone reading!

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Thanks Kratos! Definitely interesting to read and always good to hear reference points and people's own anecdotal observations.

I have a friend who is thinking about growing out in the southern california desert, looks very similar to your pictures, so probably similar habitat. He might actually have a guardian tree on his property now that I think about it... a huge tree somehow flourishing out there in the desert, literally the size of a small apartment building.

Thing is, there's no one out there to water them, but maybe we can plant some landrace afghani indicas and see if they can survive. Or some acapulco gold landrace seeds too.

If you are interested in the soil food web, I highly recommend Rudolph Steiners's work on biodynamics, sounds right up you're alley. Truly amazing stuff.

Also, I think you'd be very interested in KNF (Korean Natural Farming). They harness the microbiome of ancient soil food webs via simple home biochemistry to give amazing results. On reddit they showcase KNF growing - amazing results, but a bit advanced for me at the moment. One day I will get into it, I'm still learning about no-till and worm farms for now.

Stay in touch, and let me know if you need any more info about those things. Glad to find someone else interested in these subjects!

RenaissanceBrah said:

1) I have a friend who is thinking about growing out in the southern california desert, looks very similar to your pictures, so probably similar habitat. He might actually have a guardian tree on his property now that I think about it... a huge tree somehow flourishing out there in the desert, literally the size of a small apartment building.

2) Thing is, there's no one out there to water them, but maybe we can plant some landrace afghani indicas and see if they can survive. Or some acapulco gold landrace seeds too.

3) If you are interested in the soil food web, I highly recommend Rudolph Steiners's work on biodynamics, sounds right up you're alley. Truly amazing stuff.

Also, I think you'd be very interested in KNF (Korean Natural Farming). They harness the microbiome of ancient soil food webs via simple home biochemistry to give amazing results.

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Hey man, forgive the delayed response, you know how life gets. Not only a joy to talk to others about one's own passions, but bouncing ideas of one another is crucial for development. Love discussions like this; especially since you never know who they may help down the line in a few years.

Hope you don't mind, I segmented your paragraphs so I could address them individually. I know I can be long winded at times, so I find the organization in text really does help.



1) Prior to 2016, I lived in the Inland Empire of Southern California. Way different than growing out here, but I'll get into that in a minute. Not trying to get your buddy's location, I highly value discretion. That said, if you're saying that your friend's potential property looks like mine, then he must live closer to the Arizona border than he does the coast.

Thing about Southern California growing, there are those on the far west side along the coast (sea breeze winds and the humidity that accompanies it). Then, there are those closest to the Mojave desert, either bordering Arizona and/or Nevada. I'm guessing if your friend is considering property that looks similar to mine, it is closer to the Arizona border than it is the desert.

He likely does have a guardian tree, and in fact, coming from your description of what the "myth" describes a "guardian tree" as, that would seemingly imply that any large and old tree is a "guardian tree" by proxy. I believe this is true, based on what I pointed out in my last post. A 100 year old tree has a 100 year old soil web. 1000 year old tree has a 1000 year old soil web. And so forth. So, any tree that has been in place for decades, if not centuries, should almost always be left alone.

Compare a tree (more specifically, a tree's roots) to that of towns and cities. A tree that is 10-50 years old is akin to that of a new city being developed. A tree that is 100-1000+ years old though? An entire metropolis of life exists underground around every single root that belongs to this tree.

A tree the size of a small apartment, and in my climate? I'm inclined to believe you're talking about a huge ass Mesquite tree. Does it have thorns? Not all Mesquites do, but thorns are a telltale sign.

If no thorns, what about the leaves? See the photos I posted, how the tree on the left has purely green leaves, and the trees on the right have yellow flowers blooming? The tree on the left is a Mesquite; the two on the right are Palo Verde. The only tree I can think of that survives in the desert and lives to be the size of an apartment building would be a mesquite tree; they can grow to be 50ft tall with a width of 40+ feet, or, about the size of an apartment/condominium complex.

2) When you say "no one out to water them", I'm guessing you're talking about the weed? It's doable, but will take a shit ton of trial and error. Your friend will need to experiment with a wide variety of strains that can handle going without water for very long, and land race strains are certainly a good place to start. They can take abuse, and despite the "hype" of all these new "cookie", "cake", "glue", etc strains, landrace strains can still hold a candle to these new "hype" strains. I'm only in my 30s, so I don't have a right ranting on "these new strains", but the fact is that I've smoked mexican brick weed that has better taste and potency than 50% of what you find in a club.

For landrace seeds, look into "Ace Seeds". They sell seeds on Attitude, but I'm sure they do other banks as well. Ace has legit landrace strains, if you're wanting to go the landrace route, I heavily recommend them. Look for anything with "Mexican Sativa" or "Afghani" in it. White Widow also does incredible out here (not landrace, but still). I'm growing more seeds of a strain called "Super Shark", which is a White Widow cross from 710 Seeds (also Attitude). Name sounded stupid, but it was a freebie, and one of my best performers of my last crop. Fat buds in 30-40F desert nights in the winter, so I imagine it can hang in the summer too. I'll be able to say for sure in another few months.

If watering is an issue though, definitely go with landrace strains native to your area. Try to avoid the hybrids, more complications that way. Out here, old school strains based off of landraces like Afghani, White Widow, Skunk, Northern Lights, Haze, and so forth will do amazing out here. Mexican sativa will also do well out here, as the name implies.

Fact is, out in the desert, a "simple" strain like Widow or Skunk grown out to 100% of it's potential in the desert will always outperform some fancy Cookie or Glue strain out here. Not only will yields be better, but potency as well. Sure, Cookie and Glue strains can get "high" THC numbers, but that isn't outdoors. And the fact is, I've grown more weed outdoors than I have indoors, and good outdoor weed is on the same level as indoor. Plenty of people here with more experience than I have will tell you that quality can be grown outdoors, and in brutal conditions. The key is in strain selection.

3) I'll have to look into him, its a name I'm unfamiliar with, but I'm always eager to learn and absorb. Most of my information stems from reading various 200-400 page thread with Clackamas Coots posting in them, as well as my own personal failures and successes.

I could be WAY wrong here about KNF, and you, or anyone else please correct me if my thinking here is off base.

I've done very little research on KNF, so I can be wrong because I'm just making assumptions.

That said? KNF seems like extra steps that are necessary for countries that are devoid of spare organic matter. From what I've researched, its the fermented plant juices and the lacto serum, mostly.

For people growing small amounts in tents, or growing in cities/countries with little decaying organic matter, KNF is perfect. However, KNF reminds me of "nutrient/guano teas" in a few ways.

Let's take the fermented plant juices (FPJ from hereon out). From my understanding, and personal experience utilizing the method (and please, someone correct me if my thoughts are wrong here). However, FPJ is about taking plant scraps and "fermenting" it into a nutrient solution in which you only need 1tsp per gallon of water for feeding. Very potent stuff.

Not saying that KNF is "wrong", just that "fermenting" and "decomposing" are two completely different things.

Fermentation: the chemical breakdown of a substance by bacteria, yeasts, or other microorganisms, typically involving effervescence and the giving off of heat.

Enzymes required to facilitate this process may vary from those involved in decomposition. It is a metabolic process that converts sugar to acids, gases, or alcohol. It occurs in yeast and bacteria, and also in oxygen-starved muscle cells, as in the case of lactic acid fermentation.

Decompose: to separate into constituent parts or elements or into simpler compounds

It is the microbial digestion and destruction of dead material that is consumed by the bacterial process. This putrefaction, also known as decomposition is very different from lactic acid fermentation.




So, while both fermentation and decomposition do in fact involve various bacteria, fungi, and microorganisms, the key difference is that decomposing results in simpler compounds. Take guano or manure for instance. Applied directly, can be too hot and burn plants. But, once decomposed, the manure/guano is broken down into simpler compounds that are now more readily and easily absorbed by the plants.

Why do I bring that up? Because KNF FPJ and compost are not the same thing. KNF is loaded with nutrients and tons of amazing stuff. Don't get me wrong, this isn't me knocking KNF by any means. KNF is amazing, and the best part about it is how they made do with what they had. More on that later.

That said, KNF is not the same as compost. The definitions above prove this; KNF simply breaks down, but composting separates into simpler compounds more readily available to the plants.

KNF FPJ and Lacto Bascilus (sp?) are great and all, but they pale in comparison to a pile of compost. Ultimately, I believe KNF was developed by farmers that had to make do with what they had. And, with what they didn't have, like large piles of compost.

Consider this; FPJ is made with leaves, right? Well, so is compost! Problem is, Koreans don't exactly have much land, and by proxy much access to the piles of compost some of us are blessed with.

The power in KNF is how cheap fertilizer can be made for pennies on the dollar. A 1 gallon bucket filled with plant scraps, then fermented will produce roughly the same 1 gallon of KNF fertilizer that will last for an extremely long time. Conversely, that same 1g bucket filled with Carbon+Nitrogen will only create 1 gallon of compost.

1 gallon of KNF liquid fertilizer goes MUCH longer than 1 gallon of compost will.

Again, not knocking KNF at all, and I think its beyond impressive and commendable that they have managed to pioneer the KNF method to ensure successful organic growing. I've done both the FPJ and the LAB from the KNF methods in the past, however I didn't notice enough of a difference to justify using it more.

If people are noticing improvements by using FPJ and LAB, then my guess would be their compost isn't as quality as they thought it was and the FPJ+LAB is picking up the slack with providing life because the compost/soil is completely devoid of life. I have plenty of compost, so that is likely why KNF methods didn't do much for me.

If you have your own EWC, I don't believe any KNF would benefit you much. To me, its just a bunch of extra steps, and I've grown to value simplicity above all else. Urine, Bone Meal, and Langbeinite cover my NPK, as well as Sulfur, Magnesium, and Calcium from the Bone Meal. Plus the Ca from my water. I use TM7 for micros. I have 4-8-4 on standby in case I need it, but for the most part, I only use those 3-4 ingredients the entire way. I don't need anything else, and its made me realize how much time and money I've wasted in the past.



Always happy to have discussions like this, they're great learning and recap experiences for all parties involved, and may even be of use to someone in the future. If nothing else, you can reach out to me via PM at any time. I do my best to reply to things quick, but life has been hectic for me this past year with all the projects I've got going on.

All the best.