Burning Garden

[desertlady]

I have a friend that he burns his garden after the season ends. He says it helps get rid of unwanted weeds, pests, and old volunteer veggies and seeds. I have never done this before ! I always tilled them up good every year.! It got me thinking maybe sounds like a good idea , or maybe not! whats your thoughts? By the way dont burn your place down !

 

[catjac1975]

It sounds like a good idea but I have read just the opposite. The rust is grinding in my brain to recall the reason why. Seems like it has to do with killing the live important...The more skilled scientists can tell you better than I.

 

[thistlebloom]

I agree with Cat, it destroys the beneficial soil microbes.

Somebody else with a scientific turn of mind will have to elaborate.

 

[hoodat]

It also wastes a lot of good organic matter that should be returned to the soil either by digging in or composting.

 

[897tgigvib]

Burning the garden after the season might have some times to do it, when it'd be the best thing to do.

If there was a particular bad infestation of some disease or bug that might overwinter in the ground, then it'd be a good thing to do.

These days beneficial microbes can be store bought. They come in a bunch of different kindsand mixes.
They are
certain soil bacteria that are not at all harmful to humans or animals, and,
certain fungi that they call MYCORRHIZAE.

Burning the material is second best to composting. Much of the nitrogen goes up in smoke, some of the phosphorus is made into a quicker release form, and potassium gets concentrated. Calcium mostly remains and gets concentrated, some as quick release, some slow, and some unusable, but affecting the ph. Some to many garden soils become more acidic each year. Lime helps a lot, but ash also can help redcuce acid soil. Each ash is different with ph. Some trace minerals get concentrated,

getting sleepy...

 

[desertlady]

Thanks for the interesting information ! I am just gonna stick with good old fashion tilling.

 

[digitS']

The soil can be a vast "carbon sink." Whatever carbon that goes up into the atmosphere with a fire, could have gone into the soil.

Marshall mentioned the loss of nitrogen. As long as farmers could get cheap N fertilizer by burning natural gas for nitrogen gas from the air to form ammonia, they were happy to burn fields and reapply (dump) N on the fields.

Burn, burn, burn . . . Losing nutrients into our precious air then burning natural gas to make ammonia out of air, it doesn't make sense.

Steve

 

[897tgigvib]

Someties I don't type clearly.

I would only burn the garden if there was an infestation of bad bugs that overwinter or of some weed that would be nearly impossible to remove.

I got an infestation of those grey cabbage aphids. I did not burn. I used lots of Diatomaceous earth, and am rotating out the Brassica genus for a few years.

 

[digitS']

I am known for the times when I make a forceful statement, then back away from it.

Watch me . . .

I often have a bag of seedy weeds for garbage pickup. Where does it go? To a "waste to energy" plant, to be burned . It is the best course I can think of . . .

I hate those cabbage aphids! If they are bad enuf - the plant will begin to rot! After thinking about giving up on cabbage completely, I've gone to only having the savoy type this year. Their somewhat open habit makes it easier to spray the aphids .

When I worked at the greenhouse, we used to bury perforated steam pipes into the beds and kill everything in the soil with steam from the boilers. One year, I ran the pipe outdoors and steamed 2 beds in my garden . Man, I had the most fertile soil! For a couple weeks, until all the decomposing microbes & earthworms were gone . . .

I've burned acres and acres of grass fields after the seed was harvested. All the time, puffing on a cigarette . . .

I have been known to associate closely with slash & burn agriculturalists, for long periods of time . . .

I've sterilized & contaminated soil by stacking a big pile of slash on it and burning . Literally killed everything and had a big bare spot when I planted pasture seed on that ground.

Once, I carried a propane tank and burner out into my veggie garden. It was about sundown and I really felt the need to kill weeds in paths before they went to seed . . . I had my neighbor, who had never seemed to pay any attention to me before, out nervously pacing her deck - watching the whole time! She did talk to me a little after that. Not about burning but, probably, just trying to keep track of what I was up to out there . . .

Steve

 

[OldGuy43]

Seems to me that I read somewhere that the burning of the first stand prairie was an important part of the natural order during the days of the buffalo herds. Don't know if that has any bearing on this topic, but just thought I'd throw it out there for consideration.