Hey guys, Derrick here from Back to Reality. And
by the looks of things I'd say the growing season might just be officially over. But that's ok because today,
I’d like to really quickly share an observation that we made toward the end of the summer.
However, I’d also like to preface it by saying that this information is mostly anecdotal.
It wasn’t based on any sort of intentional experiment, and the results were not at a
large enough scale to draw any definitive conclusions from.
However, we still found it pretty interesting, and so I wanted to share it with all of you as well.
So, as our regular viewers know, we grow a lot of garlic, and over the past few years,
we’ve been slowly increasing our growing area and experimenting with natural techniques.
And it’s because of these changes over time that we made this interesting observation.
You see, during our first season, we prepared our bed by first mowing a small portion of
our natural field, laying out some cardboard, and then spreading thick rows of mature compost.
The garlic cloves were then planted directly into the compost and covered with mulch.
Now, this proved to be an excellent method for establishing a new bed, but during our
second year, when we first chose to expand our growing area, we didn’t have enough
compost to spread out for the rows.
So, that’s when we came up with another idea.
Simply flipping the sod to expose the topsoil underneath.
The garlic cloves were then inserted directly into the soil and once again covered with mulch.
But throughout that second growing season, we ended up leaving the first bed, the one
with the compost, completely empty, and allowed it to go fallow.
So like the field around it, it quickly became overgrown with native plants.
But due to the drastically increased fertility from the compost, the grasses and wildflowers
grew much quicker and larger than those adjacent to the bed.
Then, for the third year, wanting to expand our growing area once again, we used the same
flipped sod method, but this time over top of the remnants of that first bed, which meant
that this section ended up with layers of mixed in organic matter.
There was the original top soil, followed by a layer of compost, then decaying sod,
another layer of compost, and finally more topsoil.
But this is where it gets interesting.
Because, while laying out the mulch after planting that year, we ran out of fresh hay
toward the end.
So, for half of this row, we ended up using hay that had been laying around for a couple of years.
It was old, moldy, and partially broken down.
But it covered the soil just as well as the fresh stuff, so we didn’t really put much
thought into it.
However, by pure happenstance, that left us with an interesting opportunity to observe 4 slightly different growing conditions.
Natural topsoil covered with both fresh and old hay, as well as compost-amended soil also covered
with both fresh and old hay.
Now, throughout the season, things looked pretty similar for all 4.
I mean the weeds grew more aggressively on the edges of the compost-amended soil, but
otherwise, all of the garlic plants looked about the same.
But when it came time to harvest, on the other hand, it was a completely different story.
Because there was a very noticeable difference in average bulb size.
But before I tell you the actual results, I’d like to first really quickly discuss what
my hypothesis would have been, if this were an intentional experiment.
For starters, since all four growing conditions included mulch, they would all share the usual
benefits of that technique, like moisture retention and weed suppression.
However, while mulching does increase soil nutrients over time, that benefit wouldn’t
necessarily be seen during the first year.
Therefore, I would assume that the two compost-amended options would produce larger bulbs than the
non-compost options.
After that, I think it would be fair to assume that because the older mulch was partially
broken down, it would be slightly more likely to release nutrients into the soil below.
And so my hypothesis would be that the age of the mulch would make a difference, but
the true deciding factor would be the inclusion of compost.
Meaning that in first place, we would have old hay and compost, followed by new hay and compost.
Then old hay without compost, and finally in fourth place new hay without compost.
But that’s just my opinion, so if you would have ranked these differently, please let me know.
Ok, now for the actual results.
Turns out my hypothesis was correct at least for first and fourth place.
Old mulch and compost was a winning combination, and new mulch without compost just couldn’t
compete, at least in it’s first year.
However, what we thought was really interesting was that the non-amended soil covered with a
layer of old hay actually produced even larger bulbs than the mixed in compost did.
So, it would appear as though the actual deciding factor was the age of the mulch, and not the
inclusion of compost.
And that was a pretty big surprise.
But again, I think it’s really important that I emphasize the anecdotal nature of these results.
It’s entirely possible that there’s something else going on here.
For example, the old hay came from a different source than the fresh hay, and while neither
were sprayed or fertilized in any way, they could have certainly be made up of a different
variety of plants.
And therefore result in different nutrient ratios as they break down.
It’s also possible that this section simply received more rain water or sunlight than
the rest of the rows, however I can’t see any reason or evidence to support that.
Or maybe by some very strange coincidence the cloves that were planted in this section were
genetically superior in some way, but again, I think that’s unlikely.
Anyway, we’ll do our best to duplicate these results in an intentional experiment in the
future, but for now, we’d really love to hear what you guys think about it.
Any alternate theories that we might not have considered?
If so, please let us know in the comments.
But in the meantime, thanks for watching.
And we’ll see you soon.
Oh yeah, sorry there’s one more thing.
We’ve never actually mentioned this in a video before, but I’d also like to thank
those of you who have chosen to support our channel on Patreon.
We genuinely appreciate it, and it really does help.
So thank you.
And we’ll see you soon.