Fire pit recovery?

[santaman2000]

......RV, I read it years ago, that the soil was virtually free from the worms, but that the immigrants brought them over with the dirty agricultural implements. Is that wrong?

“Wrong” is a severe understatement. Worms are (and always have been) so plentiful that they were a major food source for some desert Southwest peoples from Pre-Columbian times through the mid 19th century.

 

[Janne]

Were they?
Poor people. But maybe they taste better than the species the Europeans introduced?

Eartheorms are very gritty and bitter tasting.

 

[santaman2000]

Were they?
Poor people. But maybe they taste better than the species the Europeans introduced?

Eartheorms are very gritty and bitter tasting.

I’ve no knowledge of any species of earthworm being introduced. It’s possible there were some, although the used farm implement theory seems unlikely(colonists would have brought new implements or made them on site and later immigrants would have brought none at all.

 

[Janne]

https://ecosystemsontheedge.org/earthworm-invaders/
https://www.newscientist.com/articl...-threaten-growth-of-new-north-american-trees/

 

[santaman2000]

https://ecosystemsontheedge.org/earthworm-invaders/
https://www.newscientist.com/articl...-threaten-growth-of-new-north-american-trees/

Still finding it difficult to believe. However the rootballs do make a more likely conveyance than farm implements.

 

[Janne]

https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9105956

That article is interesting too.

Footballs? I do not think footballs were that common in the luggage of the immigrants? Rather made on site?
Did the early immigrants play football after a hard day of breaking ground?

I imagine that is the difference between the recovery time of the fire place area.
Worms or no worms.

I used to burn a lot of gardening waste on the ground both in UK snd Sweden.
Recovered (with soil turning snd do on) within a cople of months.

 

[santaman2000]

.....Footballs? I do not think footballs were that common in the luggage of the immigrants? Rather made on site?
Did the early immigrants play football after a hard day of breaking ground?.....

Thanks for pointing that out. Auto-corrupt changed it. It took me three tries editing before it accepted the right word.

 

[Janne]

Rootballs - yes for sure!

The Columbian exchange worked both ways. When people talk about invasive species, they never think of beneficial (for us) movement of animals and plants.

 

[z_bumbi]

Make some ditches across to speed up the recovery, fill with soil, twigs, grass or other organic stuff. The last step is to take a leak over the whole area.
Coal is a sink för nitrogen as in it soaks it up and then released it slowly and until its fully charged it will continue soak it up.

 

[santaman2000]

My grandson just finished clearing an acre of bush. The resulting windrow of brush was approximately 100 feet long, 7 feet wide, and 5 feet high. It took 2 &1/2 days to burn by only burning a pile at a time in a 8 foot circle. I’ll let you know how long it takes the ground to recover. With our soil and climate I expect before the end of the summer (that’s been my past experience here anyway)

 

[Janne]

That patch will take lots and lots of beers and weeing!!!!


I guess a lot depends on what type of ground the burn is on, the recovery rate.

 

[Robson Valley]

Also depends on how close he got to actually "ashing" the scrub far beyond the charcoal stage.

Logging debris piles are constantly heaped up and tended as they burn, to keep the size down.
Those ash piles last for decades. They gradually release useful minerals for forest regen.
Instead of a caustic flood that you would see by spreading the ash all over the site.