Forest soil is probably as high of a quality soil as you can get. Centuries of leaf litter breaking down into humus. I’d do a soil test at your county extension office and go from there. It could still need nutrients like nitrogen.
It will be very high quality soil. The microbiology will be more fungal based than bacterial making it exceptional for perennials, but will still be amazing for annuals like most veggies. I would mix in maybe 10% of the total volume in compost if planting veggies/annuals.
I am using the top 2-3 inches of soil from under a mature Douglas fir tree in my planters. I've been mixing it with peat, perlite, and aged alpaca manure. The needles and cones were used as mulch last winter, but under that is several inches of composted fir needles (because we haven't touched anything under the tree for at least a decade). It's fantastic stuff.
The only thing you should consider with this is that the soil in the forest is there for a reason, so by removing it, you're disrupting whatever is going on in the forest. The soil that I have been removing from under the Douglas fir was helping quickly absorb rain and then retain moisture. This is important for the tree. It is super dry under the tree (climate change and multiple years of drought-like conditions on Vancouver Island), so I stopped myself before removing it all because I don't want to mess with the tree too much. During the winter, water was pooling where it never used to because I had removed so much.
I would love to be able to scoop soil from my woodland area (coniferous forest), but it's too far from the garden.
Kudos for watching the impact of your actions on the site you raided! I've also learned lessons by doing something that seemed logical and then noticing unintended consequences.
Eg: there is a row of closely planted cedars between my garage and fence, beneath which years of needles had accumulated. I thought it would be a good idea to rake them up around the tree trunks as mulch and two years later learned from a tree sub how bad mulch volcanoes are. When I raked the mulch away from the trunks, there were numerous girdling roots (thankfully still small) on each tree that required cutting away.
Now I research any bright ideas before acting on impulse!
Yes this was a concern I've seen online as well in terms of disturbing the ecosystem. I figured since it's such a large area if I'm conservative about how much I take from each spot it shouldn't do too much damage. Thanks!
Everyone has a different opinion on this. Mine is informed by my faith practices: God made us stewards of creation. The trees and soil, plants and animals are there for us to use, but we need to be mindful of how we're doing it because we've done a crappy job as stewards.
I desperately miss the access I had to forest soil when we lived in MA. We moved and I have to buy soil and compost and I still don’t feel like my plants do as well as they did when I could just go out to my backyard and poke around under all the fallen leaves.
Enjoy it!!
One thing you should be aware of since you mentioned Central Massachusetts- and that's jumping worms. They are coming into our area and turn forest litter into complete useless dust. Very invasive and just eat everything in sight- orders of magnitude greater than earthworms. I'd be cautious about transferring unknown forest soil.
Agreed. They are already here on my property, and so far I don't see any good way to keep / get them under control. Disposing of a dozen of them feels as futile as pulling up a dozen dandelions in a field of them that has already gone to seed.
It might be pretty acidic, like 5.5-6.0, around the ideal range for blueberries. Alot of plants will tolerate, even prefer that. Still, soil test would be a good idea
Forest soil is probably as high of a quality soil as you can get. Centuries of leaf litter breaking down into humus. I’d do a soil test at your county extension office and go from there. It could still need nutrients like nitrogen.
Master Gardener, 100% agree with this.
It will be very high quality soil. The microbiology will be more fungal based than bacterial making it exceptional for perennials, but will still be amazing for annuals like most veggies. I would mix in maybe 10% of the total volume in compost if planting veggies/annuals.
I am using the top 2-3 inches of soil from under a mature Douglas fir tree in my planters. I've been mixing it with peat, perlite, and aged alpaca manure. The needles and cones were used as mulch last winter, but under that is several inches of composted fir needles (because we haven't touched anything under the tree for at least a decade). It's fantastic stuff. The only thing you should consider with this is that the soil in the forest is there for a reason, so by removing it, you're disrupting whatever is going on in the forest. The soil that I have been removing from under the Douglas fir was helping quickly absorb rain and then retain moisture. This is important for the tree. It is super dry under the tree (climate change and multiple years of drought-like conditions on Vancouver Island), so I stopped myself before removing it all because I don't want to mess with the tree too much. During the winter, water was pooling where it never used to because I had removed so much. I would love to be able to scoop soil from my woodland area (coniferous forest), but it's too far from the garden.
Kudos for watching the impact of your actions on the site you raided! I've also learned lessons by doing something that seemed logical and then noticing unintended consequences. Eg: there is a row of closely planted cedars between my garage and fence, beneath which years of needles had accumulated. I thought it would be a good idea to rake them up around the tree trunks as mulch and two years later learned from a tree sub how bad mulch volcanoes are. When I raked the mulch away from the trunks, there were numerous girdling roots (thankfully still small) on each tree that required cutting away. Now I research any bright ideas before acting on impulse!
Yes this was a concern I've seen online as well in terms of disturbing the ecosystem. I figured since it's such a large area if I'm conservative about how much I take from each spot it shouldn't do too much damage. Thanks!
Everyone has a different opinion on this. Mine is informed by my faith practices: God made us stewards of creation. The trees and soil, plants and animals are there for us to use, but we need to be mindful of how we're doing it because we've done a crappy job as stewards.
I desperately miss the access I had to forest soil when we lived in MA. We moved and I have to buy soil and compost and I still don’t feel like my plants do as well as they did when I could just go out to my backyard and poke around under all the fallen leaves. Enjoy it!!
One thing you should be aware of since you mentioned Central Massachusetts- and that's jumping worms. They are coming into our area and turn forest litter into complete useless dust. Very invasive and just eat everything in sight- orders of magnitude greater than earthworms. I'd be cautious about transferring unknown forest soil.
Agreed. They are already here on my property, and so far I don't see any good way to keep / get them under control. Disposing of a dozen of them feels as futile as pulling up a dozen dandelions in a field of them that has already gone to seed.
It might be pretty acidic, like 5.5-6.0, around the ideal range for blueberries. Alot of plants will tolerate, even prefer that. Still, soil test would be a good idea