I discovered that I was growing a giant berm of great topsoil almost by accident. When we planted the grapes on the southeast facing hill we dug in about 4 inches of duck manure into the eight terraces running 100 feet along the hill and planted it to an organic soil builder that featured peas, vetch, barley, and lots of bell beans, (also known as fava so more on that later.) This was not to cover the soil but to build it from the top down, using our own free energy source, the sun to grow soil. Sound to good to be true. Just see what one year can do!
Our first crop of cover was planted in February and was arm pit high in about 120 days. In June we mowed and turned it under and planted again. This time aggressively irrigating it for and even faster 90 day crop which was again mowed tilled and planted for the winter. Now in January after feeding batches of fava to the chickens for winter snacks we have another giant pile of biomass waiting to be used.
Each time we till a little more topsoil sloughs off down the hill so to our surprise just below the vineyard is a growing 15" berm of super rich, fluffy, sandy loam top soil. How big is that? About 14 cubic yards of soil, enough to fill a large 10 wheel dump truck.
It arrived via gravity just in the nick of time as we are planting more blueberries just below this mountain of soil and have used it to amend the planting holes adding a bit more high test compost from Sonoma Compost. Our hillside of blueberries should be very beautiful as the year warms up as the are known for colorful leaf and blossom displays. I will post photos as it progresses
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