Improving "Fill" Soil....Din Dang

[cheeryble]

Hi there I will be getting a lot partially raised with what they call din dang or "fill". This is the sort of reddish/yellowish sandy cheapest option usually used for raising the level of rice fields.....though of course it is the natural soil in many places. I believe this regular fill is poor quality. (Interested in people's experience about this!) I am aware one can buy what they call din dam or black dirt, but I believe it's a much more expensive option. I believe the difference in price for me could be well in the six figures. My questions: 1. Is it possible to add minerals/fertilizer/whatever to din dang to improve it's ability to grow vegetation? 2. Would one need to amend the recipe for trees/grass/etc? thanks Cheeryble What's the recipe?

[WatersEdge]

Hi cheerybie,

One of my favorite topics,

as I have a yard that a year ago was stark bare hard fill clay.

I have covered it steadily in coconut husk which I pick up free from local wholesalers.

To them it's a disposal problem.

To me it's enough top quality mulch to cover my entire yard.

I pick up corn cob debris from the local granary,

always cheap, and this week they just gave me a bunch for free.

I feed the good grade of this to hogs, so have their waste blended into the parts they can't eat.

The cob fragments are absorbent, so the best part of hog waste doesn't get away.

I buy piles of Mung Bean hay from the farmers in December,

when it is nicely divided in a good animal feed pile with another pile of coarse straw.

Rice Hull is easy to handle and generally abundant for cheap or free.

Look about your area for any plant matter that someone else doesn't want.

Be prepared for people to think you are not well.

It is crazy to spread stuff like that out on the ground they will think.

Spreading it over the surface is a start,

but at some point you need to work it down into the soil.

If the area is large enough for equipment to enter, plow it under

I find trenches are a great multiple purpose method.

Any raw organic material requires Nitrogen to decompose.

Materials with good animal feed value contained will decompose nicely on their own.

Protein = Nitrogen = Good Animal feed = Fast decomposition

While materials void of Nitrogen will change very little for a long time.

Eventually contact with soil microbes and water will decompose most anything.

By extreme example,

Lay a stick of bamboo out on the ground and see how long it takes to decompose.

Bury it in the dirt and watch it vanish

As you build the soil, you need to move dirt anyway,

so move it with design to get much greater results.

I've cut trenches with water level bottom,

0.50 x 0.50 meter

filled with partially degraded coconut husk,

mixed roughly with clumps of clay mixed throughout.

then ridged a bit above surrounding surface level.

This simultaneously solves any drainage problem, as surface water is free to seep into the ditch.

As it does, it is absorbed into the coconut sponge, where plants can easily reach it as needed.

Since the bottom of the ditch is level, water in excess from one point will slowly balance throughout the entire trench.

Space these trenches according to your intended crop of the future.

I have mine on 1.5 meter centers.

If I was building on a slope, I'd cut the trenches on the contour.

The usefulness of packed water retention trenches on a hillside is easy to anticipate.

If you add fertilizer to the trench as you pack the plant debris in,

it will be preloaded for maximum growth.

As mentioned above, go heavy on the Nitrogen to accelerate decomposition.

[cheeryble]

Hi cheerybie,

One of my favorite topics,

as I have a yard that a year ago was stark bare hard fill clay.

I have covered it steadily in coconut husk which I pick up free from local wholesalers.

To them it's a disposal problem.

To me it's enough top quality mulch to cover my entire yard.

I pick up corn cob debris from the local granary,

always cheap, and this week they just gave me a bunch for free.

I feed the good grade of this to hogs, so have their waste blended into the parts they can't eat.

The cob fragments are absorbent, so the best part of hog waste doesn't get away.

I buy piles of Mung Bean hay from the farmers in December,

when it is nicely divided in a good animal feed pile with another pile of coarse straw.

Rice Hull is easy to handle and generally abundant for cheap or free.

Look about your area for any plant matter that someone else doesn't want.

Be prepared for people to think you are not well.

It is crazy to spread stuff like that out on the ground they will think.

Spreading it over the surface is a start,

but at some point you need to work it down into the soil.

If the area is large enough for equipment to enter, plow it under

I find trenches are a great multiple purpose method.

Any raw organic material requires Nitrogen to decompose.

Materials with good animal feed value contained will decompose nicely on their own.

Protein = Nitrogen = Good Animal feed = Fast decomposition

While materials void of Nitrogen will change very little for a long time.

Eventually contact with soil microbes and water will decompose most anything.

By extreme example,

Lay a stick of bamboo out on the ground and see how long it takes to decompose.

Bury it in the dirt and watch it vanish

As you build the soil, you need to move dirt anyway,

so move it with design to get much greater results.

I've cut trenches with water level bottom,

0.50 x 0.50 meter

filled with partially degraded coconut husk,

mixed roughly with clumps of clay mixed throughout.

then ridged a bit above surrounding surface level.

This simultaneously solves any drainage problem, as surface water is free to seep into the ditch.

As it does, it is absorbed into the coconut sponge, where plants can easily reach it as needed.

Since the bottom of the ditch is level, water in excess from one point will slowly balance throughout the entire trench.

Space these trenches according to your intended crop of the future.

I have mine on 1.5 meter centers.

If I was building on a slope, I'd cut the trenches on the contour.

The usefulness of packed water retention trenches on a hillside is easy to anticipate.

If you add fertilizer to the trench as you pack the plant debris in,

it will be preloaded for maximum growth.

As mentioned above, go heavy on the Nitrogen to accelerate decomposition.

Fantastic answer!

Briefly running out now, but I'd like to know more about adding chemical fertilizers as a start as that could perhaps be mixed with the fill when it goes down, the organic stuff later as I can get it.

I feed the good grade of this to hogs, so have their waste blended into the parts they can't eat.

You mean they don't have dinner plates and a toilet?

[Foreverford]

I think you may have missed the point here. WE is an extremely knowledgeable fellow and has assisted us many many times on this forum so hopefully I can give him a payback here and answer your question and maybe save him a bit of tapping. He has discussed this method previously and used it while growing crops on the tops and sides of the hills. He then reverses this by putting the hills in the trenches and grows on top of this beautiful decomposted material and does the same thing again adding organic in the new trenches that he has leveled out where his hills used to be. The fertilizer with Nitrogen that he suggests that you add to the organic matter in the trenches (he is using the pig urine and feces) will speed the decomposition process and help it all turn into din dam. That fertilizer can be organic or chemicals but what you need is the nitrogen to break down the organic matter otherwise it will actually take the N out of your soil to assist in the breakdown and you will lose N to your plants if you are growing. Your idea of adding fertilizer say something maybe like 15-15-15 to the fill dirt or on top of it will give you some results immediately if you were thinking of maybe planting a crop like rice immediately over the newly leveled clay soil but as people are starting to learn it is a downward spiral of salting the ground with chems and then needing even more every year at always rising prices as the soil will continue to lose its fertility and tilth due to non-sustainable methods.

WE shows you his method and it is very labor intensive and requires good sourcing to be economically feasible (getting the organic materials free or at a low cost) and you can use his formula with 100% organic methods or combine with some chemical fertilizers to increase the soil fertility or your poor soil. You will probably want a soils test as I'm sure some form of calcium would be a good start to be able to put immediately on the clay soil to get some positive results with minimal labor and cost involved. Check the threads on Calcium in this forum and the organic one also ass each soil test will show what forms and combinations may best benefit you. The formula from WE is fantastic and in reality there is no way you will ever improve your soil and go towards getting it to be din dam without putting literally tons of organic compostable materials into the soil. One I would highly recommend and a very satisfying one is to plant sun hemp (pah teung) as a ground cover and disc it in when it flowers or chop it down and leave on the soil if there is more wet to keep it alive and let it grow again and start to flower. One thing is that you will have to get some manure into the ground first to get the right microbiotic life in the soil and then this legume like others will avctually take the nitrogen (air is 79% N) out of the air and fix it on their roots so you will get the green manure of the plant and the added benefit of the N from the atmosphere working to make your soil more fertile. Many people are able to get 50 kilos of this seed for free from their Ag departments as they are trying to promote farmers to use alternate methods to chem fertilizers. You will see it growing in just a few days, very satisfying. You may find some very useful threads in the organic section under their pinned articles for improving soils as I believe recently I read an article there where WE explained this method of his in a bit more detail and I think he was very generous with his time to spell it out again for you here. About 5 or 6 of the first 8 pinned topic are quite relevant to what you are asking for. Obviously the size of your plot determines how and what you may use and how you may do it most expediently and cost effectively. Good luck and Fords Forever For Food For all

PS Just read your post again and it appears that you may want to try to add something to the soils as they are being delivered before they spread and level. I think this would be very difficult as the money is made on speed of delivery and there are not many truck drivers that you can control very well in regards to their dumping and then your tractor operators in regards to his leveling the faster they do it the more money they make. this is a tough time of year to get soils as the rains have started and you can run into some real messes. that said there are people still doing it and you may get lucky, we haven't had three days without heavy heavy rains in the last 6 weeks timing will be everything. Lots of factors to consider , how deep of fill you will have; how deep are they excavating to give you fill; what was the land used for before (the source of fill) to name a few.

Hi cheerybie,

One of my favorite topics,

as I have a yard that a year ago was stark bare hard fill clay.

I have covered it steadily in coconut husk which I pick up free from local wholesalers.

To them it's a disposal problem.

To me it's enough top quality mulch to cover my entire yard.

I pick up corn cob debris from the local granary,

always cheap, and this week they just gave me a bunch for free.

I feed the good grade of this to hogs, so have their waste blended into the parts they can't eat.

The cob fragments are absorbent, so the best part of hog waste doesn't get away.

I buy piles of Mung Bean hay from the farmers in December,

when it is nicely divided in a good animal feed pile with another pile of coarse straw.

Rice Hull is easy to handle and generally abundant for cheap or free.

Look about your area for any plant matter that someone else doesn't want.

Be prepared for people to think you are not well.

It is crazy to spread stuff like that out on the ground they will think.

Spreading it over the surface is a start,

but at some point you need to work it down into the soil.

If the area is large enough for equipment to enter, plow it under

I find trenches are a great multiple purpose method.

Any raw organic material requires Nitrogen to decompose.

Materials with good animal feed value contained will decompose nicely on their own.

Protein = Nitrogen = Good Animal feed = Fast decomposition

While materials void of Nitrogen will change very little for a long time.

Eventually contact with soil microbes and water will decompose most anything.

By extreme example,

Lay a stick of bamboo out on the ground and see how long it takes to decompose.

Bury it in the dirt and watch it vanish

As you build the soil, you need to move dirt anyway,

so move it with design to get much greater results.

I've cut trenches with water level bottom,

0.50 x 0.50 meter

filled with partially degraded coconut husk,

mixed roughly with clumps of clay mixed throughout.

then ridged a bit above surrounding surface level.

This simultaneously solves any drainage problem, as surface water is free to seep into the ditch.

As it does, it is absorbed into the coconut sponge, where plants can easily reach it as needed.

Since the bottom of the ditch is level, water in excess from one point will slowly balance throughout the entire trench.

Space these trenches according to your intended crop of the future.

I have mine on 1.5 meter centers.

If I was building on a slope, I'd cut the trenches on the contour.

The usefulness of packed water retention trenches on a hillside is easy to anticipate.

If you add fertilizer to the trench as you pack the plant debris in,

it will be preloaded for maximum growth.

As mentioned above, go heavy on the Nitrogen to accelerate decomposition.

Fantastic answer!

Briefly running out now, but I'd like to know more about adding chemical fertilizers as a start as that could perhaps be mixed with the fill when it goes down, the organic stuff later as I can get it.

I feed the good grade of this to hogs, so have their waste blended into the parts they can't eat.

You mean they don't have dinner plates and a toilet?

Edited June 8, 2011 by Foreverford

[cheeryble]

Thankyou for another great answer FF and thanks again WE!

WE Yes if I can complete on this land (though this will apply to any land I buy) I must start letting everyone know they can dump anything greenish or brownish at my place. Better get use of an old pickup too, with manure and what have you I'll be like Kountry Kuzzin from the Freak Bros.

There are neighbours keeping cows and buffalo nearby, I'll be like Uncle Ralph who used to watch out for the coal delivery horse to drop and load then run out with a shovel!

Once again running out the door will have to get into this in more detail soon

....but yes excellent idea to get soil tested.

Where would I go for this?

You are right I was thinking of dosing the soil with fertilizer as it comes., even if it was just a bit to give things a kickstart. Not sure how I would do this.....how well does it have to be mixed, or when it gets well wet does it kind of mix itself soaking through? Certainly do not want to make it overrich and therefore toxic to growth that would be a disaster.

To set the scene this is by no means a farm, it would have a house and the lot is nearly a rai.

All being well I may raise the rearmost end about 500m2 by 2 metres (it's set quite low behind a raised river track) May also raise some of the rest a metre, so say about 1500cu m. I would avoid too much filling by having a large area of pond in front, maybe even a quarter or a third of the land. The ponds will be a main feature, I like them, and nearby ponds seem to stay full and there's a river just outside for filling.

Any ideas about mixing as the trucks come?

Cost of fertilizer?

Would it contaminate the ponds?

Although I am in full accord about mixing organically as it goes along this seems a possible starting point.

Thanks

ps: This din daeng has always struck me as poor sandy stuff but I am told it is dry clay.

Does it has water sealing qualities for ponds or are there different degrees of clay?

Edited June 10, 2011 by cheeryble

[IsaanAussie]

For me you do not need to fertiliser the soil, you need to condition it. A lot of people will disagree with me, but my opinion these days is to get the soil right and let it feed the plants, forget the application of fertiliser to feed plants. Most fills are very low in humus and the lack of carbon based materials leads to the soil becoming compacted. It needs to breath. The problem here is caused by excessive use of chemical fertilisers which drop the natural biology level and salts remain with most of the NPK values leeched out or trapped in a form that plants cannot use them. If you want a decent start try using loads of biochar which can be incorporated with a ripper or even a rake, or just turned under with a plough drawn behind the tractor doing the leveling. Members of this forum have reported getting a 6 wheel load of biochar for under 4,000 baht. Fully loaded the 6 wheeler I use has a capacity of about 24 cubic metres, so under 20 baht per cubic metre. As to quantity, 1 rai is 1600 sq metres. If you use 50mm of biochar coverage, you would need 80 cub.m. or 4 truck loads.

Your new soil would have better aeration, hold moisture better and have had a biological kick start. The biochar will remain in the soil and start its work as your gardens etc develop.

Isaan Aussie

[Foreverford]

IA has got you dialed in. Stay out of the way of the trucks and dozer till you get your land like you want it and then start from the top and condition the soil from the top down. the only thing you could maybe do is put the biochar on first then let them dump on top THEN put four more loads on top of the fill. Don't worry about where the house goes as this won't bother athing in that regards. Forget the chems you have one rai a very easy and inexpensive project to manage so by all means go organic with it as it is what you want i believe and is very easily and quickly able to be acheived on a small manageable plot such as yours. Read the post on EM in the organic pinned articles I spoke of before and you can make your own extremely inexpensively and just get out and start sprinkling it over the ground when a nice light rain has come or is actually raining gently or put it on and water it in. Have fun making earth, that's what farming really is a;ll about the seeds know qwhat to do you just need to give them the right earth to be able to do it in. Farmin and Fillin with Fords Forever

For me you do not need to fertiliser the soil, you need to condition it. A lot of people will disagree with me, but my opinion these days is to get the soil right and let it feed the plants, forget the application of fertiliser to feed plants. Most fills are very low in humus and the lack of carbon based materials leads to the soil becoming compacted. It needs to breath. The problem here is caused by excessive use of chemical fertilisers which drop the natural biology level and salts remain with most of the NPK values leeched out or trapped in a form that plants cannot use them. If you want a decent start try using loads of biochar which can be incorporated with a ripper or even a rake, or just turned under with a plough drawn behind the tractor doing the leveling. Members of this forum have reported getting a 6 wheel load of biochar for under 4,000 baht. Fully loaded the 6 wheeler I use has a capacity of about 24 cubic metres, so under 20 baht per cubic metre. As to quantity, 1 rai is 1600 sq metres. If you use 50mm of biochar coverage, you would need 80 cub.m. or 4 truck loads.

Your new soil would have better aeration, hold moisture better and have had a biological kick start. The biochar will remain in the soil and start its work as your gardens etc develop.

Isaan Aussie

[cheeryble]

Two more great responses which i will no doubt ask more detail on in future, thankyou.

My buy got that much more probable after an informal agreement today to be papered up next week, but as i say if not here then another place it's all knowledge.

I'm starting to think about machinery.

Bearing in mind I'm not a rich man, but don't mind spending on worthwhile things, what is the most useful bit of mechanical I could buy, which perhaps could multitask. Is there a bobcat type thing, and how much? Or a simple old secondhand tractor would be good?

Any other great gadgets (strimmer of course)?

Also starting to think about a "wall" of vegetation on the two sides of the land triangle which border neighbours.

Any ideas for a tree/bush for protection against entry and privacy which would be fairly fast growing, fairly attractive, fairly tight against view, entry etc etc?

Cheeryble

Edited June 11, 2011 by cheeryble

[Canada]

Bamboo

Two more great responses which i will no doubt ask more detail on in future, thankyou.

My buy got that much more probable after an informal agreement today to be papered up next week, but as i say if not here then another place it's all knowledge.

I'm starting to think about machinery.

Bearing in mind I'm not a rich man, but don't mind spending on worthwhile things, what is the most useful bit of mechanical I could buy, which perhaps could multitask. Is there a bobcat type thing, and how much? Or a simple old secondhand tractor would be good?

Any other great gadgets (strimmer of course)?

Also starting to think about a "wall" of vegetation on the two sides of the land triangle which border neighbours.

Any ideas for a tree/bush for protection against entry and privacy which would be fairly fast growing, fairly attractive, fairly tight against view, entry etc etc?

Cheeryble

[cheeryble]

Out of interest how does one top bamboo about 14 foot high?

Is it OK with regular topping?

Edited June 12, 2011 by cheeryble

[drtreelove]

Out of interest how does one top bamboo about 14 foot high?

Is it OK with regular topping?

You can top or shear, but it looks hedged/matted and un-natural. If you want a more natural look, take out the tallest canes, all the way to the base and leave the shorter ones. With this approach you achieve thinning and height reduction at the same time.

[cheeryble]

Out of interest how does one top bamboo about 14 foot high?

Is it OK with regular topping?

You can top or shear, but it looks hedged/matted and un-natural. If you want a more natural look, take out the tallest canes, all the way to the base and leave the shorter ones. With this approach you achieve thinning and height reduction at the same time.

Perfect answer.........and there I had already invented a sort of ladder with a wide piece across the top to spread the load across many bamboos and a foot plank too.

Out of ignorance how do you thin them out? Simply cut the tall ones....or pull them out somehow?

ps: IA and FF I'm doing my homework on biochar etc, and I'm already learning about bamboo. If I get this place it has an excellent water source so perhaps I could run an irrigation line around the back two sides where the bamboo

"wall" will go. Perhaps this hedge line would be best dug out as a trench and prepared to the better quality I want so the bamboo has all the goodies it needs at it's roots.

Edited June 12, 2011 by cheeryble

[drtreelove]

Re bamboo thinning: Visually locate the tallest canes. Follow it down to where it comes out of the clump near the ground (follow by sight or by getting hold of it and pulling, shaking, so that you know you have a hold of the tall one you want). Then cut it off just above ground level with a pruning saw or loppers. I'll post some pics in tree pruning discussion.

For your fill soil situation, you have many good suggestions in this discussion. I would only add, that if I was in your situation, I would start with some pre site-work planning. Sketch your property lines, decide where you will build and make driveway and other hardscape. Get some stakes and maybe some string and line out your building footprints and hardscapes. Under these areas you will not need to improve the clay fill soil. By defining the non-planting areas, you will save money and effort by limiting the soil improvement to where it will make a difference. And then in the proposed planting areas you can fill up to within six to ten inches with the clay, then put down the first 2 to 4 inch "lift" of good soil on top of the clay fill, rototilling or digging in the organic matter, sand and mineral amendments to blend and reduce the defined layer between the two types of soil. (It's not good to have a definite layer of different soil types) Then add the remaining lifts to bring it up to finished grade. Even trees have most of their absorbing roots in the top 12 inches of soil, so you don't need to go to the expense of improving all your fill, unless you have deep pockets.

[andrew55]

Bamboo

Also starting to think about a "wall" of vegetation on the two sides of the land triangle which border neighbours.

Any ideas for a tree/bush for protection against entry and privacy which would be fairly fast growing, fairly attractive, fairly tight against view, entry etc etc?

Cheeryble

3-4 metre high Bougainvillia seems to be better than my electric fence and multi-lingual signs. As I understand that I am merely a guest in Land Of Smiles -Thailand(L.O.S.T), I grow enough Aloe Vera to attend to the wounds of our un-expected visitors. Buxous hedge doesn't work - they go straight through it. Good luck and Chok Dee. As a ps - Don't keep rice whisky about and visitor numbers decrease dramatically..

[cheeryble]

Truly grateful to the expert posters here.

I think the first thing now is to try to get my deal fixed in stone.

Then, even though it can't be completed for some months, if I feel it's really going to be mine I shall look at planting the bamboo as it seems to me likely that the young plants would enjoy a rainy season start followed by the damp but sunny period up to Christmas and beyond. If I could get this start I would likely have a substantial "wall" grown by next Christmas.

What would be an economically sensible size bamboo shoot to use for planting but that would give me a jump start?

Edited June 15, 2011 by cheeryble

[cheeryble]

Hi another question for the experts here about improving din daeng, fill earth...

I have located a source of horse droppings.

As we were chatting the chap said it was too "kem" for some types of trees and they didn't like it one bit. Now this is stable manure so it will be mixed with a lot of pee too.

What do our experts think about this? Does it have a use as it's certainly accessible?

How much to put on?

Also a not far neighbour keeps cows. Could I be buying from him. Also too "Kem"?

Edited July 5, 2011 by cheeryble

[WatersEdge]

Not possible to go wrong on free manure.

Since you have nothing growing, it could not be "too" anything

Urine is the best part for Nitrogen content.

Thus the fertilizer name Urea, which is the synthetic of the original.

[cheeryble]

Not possible to go wrong on free manure.

Since you have nothing growing, it could not be "too" anything

Urine is the best part for Nitrogen content.

Thus the fertilizer name Urea, which is the synthetic of the original.

Thanks WE so you think it's safe eh?

Not free it's 12bt/ bag.

Not sure how many ricebags (hope they're rice bags) in a m3 but maybe 20?

So could be about 250bt/m3?

Not bad I'd say....with a cover of 2 or 3in to be dug into the top layer that would cover say 12.5m2 so 20bt/m2 for adding manure.

ALso thinking in advance about where I can pick up lots of cut vegetation and start a compost heap.

Cheeryble

[oldestswinger]

Fresh horse manure is too 'hot' for many plants. It should be kept for about 6 months before use. After that it's wonderful.

[cheeryble]

Fresh horse manure is too 'hot' for many plants. It should be kept for about 6 months before use. After that it's wonderful.

I pursue this because it's potentially a great and cheap soil improvement.

Hmmm I wonder what hot actually means....something chemical presumably.

If one understood than maybe one would know if say spreading it out thin to the air, a bit of oxidation, would reduce the 6 months to say one month.

I had also thought of mixing it in a few shovels at a time as the fresh vegetation to a compost heap is built up, but time flies and would be nice to get some into the soil quickly.

[oldestswinger]

The problems with horse manure are: 1. It contains very high amounts of nitrogen, and 2. Because horses don't digest what they eat very thoroughly, it contains many weed seeds which will immediately start growing if you put the manure onto the ground straight away.

That's the reason why it should be composted for 6 months, so that the usual composting process can kill the seeds.