On 01/18/2015 01:16 PM, songbird wrote:
Todd wrote:
...

it's winter, i have time, long post ahead... : )


I remember Songbird wonderful advice about just go straight to the
ground and skip the raised beds -- get a lot more space. And she
really struck a cord.

it's better to not make assumptions about gender on
the net when you don't know for sure.

the use of "they" in that case would be more appropriate
(FTR i am male if that makes you feel better).

Oops. My Bad. Songbird sounded like a girl. I will
think big gnarly songbird next time. (I thought
Higgs was the wrong gender for the longest time too.)


But, no one is successful with that out
here due to the decomposed sandstone. If I were to do my whole
back yard, the cost of importing good topsoil would be greater than
the raised beds.

what is your usual annual rainfall?

6 inches

are there high winds

Yes, up to hurricane category 1 (95 MPH +)

very often?

Cat 1, about once a year.
35 to 55 MPH about once a month.
5 to 25, twice a week

Our last big one blew leaves up again chain link fences
and then blew the fences over. It was fun to walk in,
except for the dirt in your eyes.

The wind is hell on fences.

sunshine, freeze thaws, etc?

Freezes up to the end of May. We are told not to transplant
outside till the second week of June. I put my tomatoes pots
out in the day and bring then into the garage at night before
I transplant them.

October is usually our first freeze. (Man zukes look pathetic
after they freeze.)

We are the High Sierra Desert Plato

is your primary
source of water via irrigation?

Yes. Deep well water from an aquifer that comes out of
Lake Tahoe (about 200,000 years ago). It is very good
tasting. And, it has a small calcium content. Sometimes
there is chlorine in the water, most not though.


bringing in topsoil can be a short term solution, but i'd
hope that you've figured out your water and wind flows and
reshaped appropriately before doing that. it makes no sense
to bring in stuff that will wash or blow away.

That is why I was looking at raised beds. Maybe about a
foot and a half high with the dirt only going up about
a foot. Spritz them with water when a big wind comes up.


with a limited budget you can get reasonable results by
adding some clay (3 - 5 percent) and using whatever organic
weed seed free materials you can scrounge (shredded cardboard
boxes can work just fine for starters -- use those that are
plain as possible with the less printed on them the better
or only black ink printing). and the garden will likely do
much better if you don't scatter resources widely and thinly.
pick a space you will use the most and work on improving and
understand that process first. each year you should have an
improving soil profile as more organic materials break down
and get recycled. always have something growing even if it
will be turned under later

Sounds like a job for Garlic. I have about 15 of them going
now that seems to adore this cold weather. Fresh garlic
from the garden is truly a delicacy!

Of course everything from your garden tastes better.
(I presume you have heard my theory about why folks
don't eat or like produce.) Well, except turnips:
YUK!

(peas, beans, soybeans, radishes,
buckwheat, turnips, winter wheat, oats, barley, beets... many
seeds are available in bulk from a farm supply store or a
grain elevator for not that much money).

I am always battling grass, which I turn over twice in the
winter and cover up with compost in the spring, right
before planting


around the edges grow deeper mining plants like alfalfa to be
used as a cover crop, source of trace nutrients and mulch when
you chop them back (they may need a few years to get established).
sometimes it may be good to plant some seeds in very deep and
narrow tubes and let them grow where you can make sure they
are kept moist before planting them out. depends upon your
conditions and if you have a rainy season, if you can irrigate
during dry spells, etc. with alfalfa having a deep tap root
established in the second and third year it can then usually
survive some of the dryer spells.

I have been using purslane for that: hold the ground down
in the wind and the moisture in. And I make salads out
of it to die for.


for larger areas practice water retaining strategies as they
also retain any topsoil you may be forming elsewheres. into
and around these features you can plant your other organic
material producers (native adapted shrubs, trees, or anything
else you can find to grow that will survive being trimmed back
once in a while, your larger sprawling garden plants are often
better off kept away from the regular gardens anyways as they
tend to take over if given a chance). use those trimmings and
plant remains as garden mulches or compost material sources and
to keep the soil covered as much as possible. hedges for wind
breaks are also very important for arid climate growing.

I am afraid to plow my diseased zukes (white powder on them)
for my tomatoes, for fear of all the diseases they get. But I
have no such fear of grass.

Good news! I am the only one that did not get those stinking
squash bugs this year. I have had them in the past.



never export organic materials (via wind, water or harvest)
if you can help it, grow as much as you can and chop it to keep
the soil organic content high enough to help keep the soil moist.
all paper products that arrive here don't leave (unless they
are the plastic coated types which i don't recycle) they become
worm food and then garden food once processed.

How about shopping paper bags. But, most of them have colored
ink on them.


these may upset some folks: fresh road kill is a near perfect
addition to a garden (avoid species which might be rabid or carrying
other problematic diseases), compost it or bury it deeply so that
the critters and your planting won't disturb it and within a few
years it's gold.

How about carp?

of course human manure composting will help increase
soil nutrients too. if your family is healthy and doesn't use hormones
or chemotherapeutics

They breath it out all over you too. And if I am
not mistaken, their success rate it nearly zero.

then composted poo/pee is a valuable resource.
hard to get people to accept it, but there is no reason to not use
such a valuable resource if you can learn to do it safely (the
humanure handbook is freely available on-line). it just freaks
out people though so most gardeners won't do it (but they will use
composted cow manure from sources they know much less about than
their own family, so go figure...). if you build in a long enough
cycle there is no problem from disease organisms and if you are
very paranoid you can even use it as a subsoil amendment (buried
deeply again) and that will cover all remaining issues.

I would never be able to get the human poop past my wife.
I have been offered goat poop by a friend.

I had plenty of human poop under my house when my black line
broke. Well, until the water removal people sucked it all out
and put down lime.

I have said this before, but without your ideas, long term space
travel will be impossible, much less a colonies on the moon.
Mars, we will have to bring EVERYTHING with us as the soil in
soaked in sulfuric acid.

learning about composting and rotting in general is useful
anyways. using worms to process any vegetable wastes, bone
grinding, egg shells,

Should my (organic) chicken eggs shells be plowed under?

how to scrounge materials, asking around
for finding unused fruit trees and other gleanings, many ways
of getting more organic materials if you have the time or
inclination. here we will accept chunks of rotting wood, bark,
sawdust, leaves, twigs (shredded or not) from friends who do
firewood cutting. we don't have termites so there is no problem
from putting these around and letting them get broken down by
fungi, ants, worms, beetles, etc. organic produce stores,
butcher, farm stands, neighbors, ... the list is pretty much
endless once you start looking and asking around.

oh, i've left out the animal angle. the role that animals
can play in restoring topsoil is worth a book in itself. we
don't go beyond worm and soil community type critters here as
Ma cannot tolerate animals of any kind, but i would get a lot
of use out of a small goat and a few quail.

I have seen documentaries on this. You are dead on.

it's often more a matter of what you are willing to do.
i try to keep it as simple as possible here. stopping at the
worm level is a very easy system and doesn't require a whole
lot of extra efforts on my part. if i spend more than an
hour a month on worm stuff it is because i'm goofing around
and have the time. in the winter i have plenty of time.

for some fun reading you can check out the case studies at:

http://www.soilsforlife.org.au/case-studies.html

Didn't look but will. My research confirms what you say.
You must nurture the soil. Your plants can be no better than
your soil.


for ideas of how to deal with degraded or barren land. there
are many other resources and ideas available out there. i tend
to like those that consider the whole system and work at
improving the diversity and basic groundwater holding capacity,
but it is pretty important to also make sure that if you are
doing groundwater holding stuff and there are hills involved
to make sure your geology can support the extra water without
slipping.


Question: when I get around to drafting up my back yard
(LibreCAD), I was intending to leave the bottoms of my
raised beds open so water would not stagnate at the
bottom. Your advice? Put some small rocks down at the
bottom?

Question: when I have been laying down compose, I just rake
it over the top and water it in. Should I be turning over
the soil? Or is on top fine?

I am thinking of converting my tiny garden to a raised bed.
I sure have put a lot of work into nurturing the soil.
I am not liking the idea of covering it up.

By the way, I am thinking of using Decomposed Granite (DG) as
ground cover for the non-growing areas and my gazebo (have
to get something that doesn't blow away).

I like Ponderosa pine for the trees and will plant more.
(Hey, what can I say, they smell nice! You have heard
of Tree Huggers. Well, I am a tree smeller.) They
seem to like growing around granite in the mountains
and I think DG is pretty. My neighbor hauls the stuff
and told me to let him know when I am ready. Any problems
you can think of with DG?


songbird


Do you have any idea what that white powder is on my zukes
towards the end of the season that is killing my plants?

Sorry about the girl thing. Thank you for helping me with
this! You are a Gold Mine of knowledge.

-T