Speaking of fungus, we had an interesting experience with one of our cucumber plants. I bought some copper refrigerator coil to use as a support for some cucumber plants, figuring that it was reusable and therefore more economical than wooden stakes that would rot after a short use.
I plunged one end of the copper coil into the ground, and then twisted it around in a direction that I thought the plant may enjoy growing. Then I cut the coil and plunged the other end into the ground. I crossed this with another piece of copper coil to make something like a tent. I tied some twine from the crossing point and down the sides to support and lead the cucumber plant upward.
To our amazement, the cucumber plant that had the greatest amount of copper coil in contact with its leaves has lasted about 10 times longer than any of the others. It is still putting out new growth and bearing cucumbers after all the other cucumbers and squash plants have died, and even though the fungus is eating it up too.
This makes some sense, in that the only control that I know of for the fungus is a copper fungicide spray (I did not buy the spray because it is not an organic product, it is hideously expensive, and it only works for a very short time anyway). So I hope some of you will try this too and let me know if this has worked for you, or if maybe what happened with that one plant was just an anomaly. This bears some more research.
Also, as I recall, Jerry Baker ( ??America's Gardener ? ) of PBS used to recommend putting pieces of metal rod (cut-up clothes hangers, actually) vertically into the ground in the garden. He said that it channels static electricity, which helps to fix nitrogen in the ground, just like lightening does on a much larger scale. So the copper coil in our terra preta is probably also helping to fertilize it too.
FISH FARMING
You may want to consider another project in conjunction with your terra preta garden. It is possible to use flushed-out fish pond water to irrigate and fertilize a garden, or to cycle that pond water through hydroponics vegetable trays. If it is used with hydroponics, the water can be returned to the fish pond because the plant roots will have cleaned it, and there is no need for an additional filter. However, I think that it is better to use the water for ground irrigation instead of hydroponics, because I believe that the trace minerals in the terra preta soil make the food more nutritious than what you can get from even the best hydroponics arrangements.
And of course, the fish should be the kind that you can eat rather than the decorative, expensive and utterly useless koi. If your land is subject to a lot of flooding, then you should only raise native fish so that non-native fish do not inadvertently get released into the wild.
I have learned that tilapia are easy to raise and they are native to just about everywhere in the world and so they may be a good choice for you; however, they are difficult to breed because they require a huge amount of space for breeding.
We are limited in space for a pond, but we may someday have a small catfish pond near the patio in the grassy people part of the yard. That is, if they turn out to be easy to breed; I haven't started the research on that as yet since we have many other projects to complete before putting in a fish pond. If any of you have advice about this, I would be very happy for you to write to me.
And of course, some of the garden vegetables and leaves can be used to feed the fish, and any parts of the fish that are not eaten can be buried in the garden for fertilizer. This results in a nice closed system where each part supports another and you get double and triple use out of each part.
You could also consider keeping chickens to roam through your garden to eat the insects and also to provide eggs, as well as being mobile sources of fertilizer for the garden. Also, the eggshells are high in calcium and can be recycled into the soil. And here's a weird but effective-sounding strategy that someone once told me: hang a chicken feeding cage over the fish pond; and as the chickens eat the grain, their fecal matter drops into the pond and is eaten by the fish, so that you actually get **two** feedings out of the same amount of grain!
YES, WE CANNED
If your terra preta is as productive as ours has been, you will be overwhelmed with delicious produce and the pleasant dilemma of what to do with it all.
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