Todd wrote:
songbird wrote:
Todd wrote:
....
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

pretty arid climate.


are there high winds

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

arid climate and frequent winds means your wind
breaks are very important. this helps cut down on
evaporation losses and should be a part of your
overall site design (along with considerations for
fire control if your area is prone to fires as
high winds and fires can be a real extreme hazard).


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.

yep, that is a part of why growing wind breaks can
be a bonus, whatever organic materials they can collect
become humus in time.


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.

sounds like you have a similar start of the season
to us. we don't put the delicate plants out until
the last week of May. our first frosts can happen in
mid-Sept, but sometimes can go later.


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.

so probably not inexpensive either in terms of
infrastructure and energy to pump it around.


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.

the surface of the soil should be mulched in your climate.
you're losing a lot of water via evaporation and those
winds. even if you have to cover it with a layer of
cardboard with holes poked through it for the plants
and nothing else that will help a great deal, but a layer
of mulch on top of the soil is going to be more useful
than about anything else you can do (other than wind
breaks and a bit of clay).

i would not use raised beds in an arid climate where you
may have hot summers and wind. why expose your plants to
more wind and higher temperatures? you'll lose your water
faster and the worms will either die off from getting too
hot or they'll dry out too much and go dormant or again,
die off. thermal mass, water holding capacity... look
up the surface area in a gram of clay and compare that
to sand. when i say that adding a little clay will be a
big help i'm not kidding.

to me raised beds are useful only if you have accessibility
issues and must have the added height to be able to garden
(to me i'd rather crawl on the ground and i have as i
consider it a nice place to explore, i have a nice pillow
to sit on when i need to get that close to the ground and
that pillow also saves the knees some wear). otherwise i
consider them expensive, material intensive, more work and
all those edges have to be kept up (weeded around or
installed in such a way to prevent weed intrusion into the
raised beds).

if you took 1/4 of the money you'd spend on raised beds
and put that towards some clay and added organic materials
you'll be 3/4 ahead and have a larger and more productive
space.


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!

garlic takes time to finish and can be in the way of
other plantings if you are doing a more traditional
garden style of managed plots. it makes a better
edge plant or something to put in odd spaces that
you might not have plans to use for about a year (fall
to mid-to-late-summer).

the worms do love garlic remains when i add them
to the worm bins. garlic roots, stems, husks, bits,
all eventually get eaten up and turned into great
stuff. they don't eat the living bulbs though, so
i have to cut them up first. since i dry everything
first the garlic bits get dried too. like carrots
they rarely rot when they are drying.


....
(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

if you are removing it and not replacing it with
a different plant you're wasting time and energy.
in an arid climate you want your soil covered no
matter what. a weed is just as good as any other
plant if you are not using that space. clip it
once in a while (before it goes to seed) and use
those clippings in your gardens. free organic
material.

as you work on the site, there are places where you
can remove the grass and replace it, but you always
want to have a replacement plant going instead.

when i convert a grassy area here the way i do it is
to dig up the sod in chunks and turn it upside down and
bury it deeply enough that the remaining roots won't
be able to reach the surface again (or if they do there
will be a barrier in place so that they cannot survive).
sod like this is a very nutrient laden material. the
worms will break it down as it rots. wonderful stuff.
for burying depth here for most of our grass species
that means about a foot and a half. we have a lot of
clay which tends to help smother things well. in a
sandy soil i'd probably go deeper or make sure there is
a good cover to prevent regrowth. a layer of cardboard
with mulch over it can do that in an arid climate and
should last a year or two. by that time you've either
killed off the grass buried that deeply or whatever
does come up can be dug up again and dried out before
composting it.

actually, in an arid climate digging up the grass
roots and exposing the sod to the sun for a few weeks
will likely do in about any grass species i can think
of. then you could compost it before using it in
the gardens.


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.

yeah, that's a good cover, we have some here that
wanders around. worms love it, good compost material.


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.

you don't need to bury them the same place you have
a garden. you can keep a reserve area for burying
things like this and over the years that will help
improve that soil too. the soil critters can deal with
fungi and fungal spores just as well as bacteria. in
a few years you can shift areas and plant squash or
other plants in there and they'll likely be ok. if
powdery mildew is in the air it's not something you
can always completely avoid. around here it's a late
summer thing and by the time it shows up most of the
plants are alreay past their most productive stages
and are finishing up anyways. i don't spray any of
it and all gets buried. haven't noticed it being
worse or better based upon that, but seems to be
more heat/weather related.


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

squash is about one of the favorite things we
grow here. our crop last year wasn't too good.
i didn't like how it was planted but my advice
was ignored so ... next spring we'll be putting
it in a different place. we'll see how that
goes.


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.

any of the brown craft papers are usually ok if they
have not been otherwise treated. they use that sort of
paper for the leaf bags around here.


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?

sure, why not? i used to bury the larger
northern pikes caught under the rose garden.
they were very healthy plants.


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.

by hormones i was thinking birth control and
the age related bone density or menopause types,
but there might be others i'd not want to put
into a garden.


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.

yeah, i can't get it to go here either, but if i ever
live alone and have a garden to work with then i'll
start trying out various methods of using it.


I have been offered goat poop by a friend.

take as much of it as you can use. if they
aren't feeding those goats bad stuff then you're
into some really prime organic material.


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 actually wasn't sure that was you in that other group.


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.

i thought Mars was iron oxides (Venus is acidic)?

the real challenge right now is that we really do not
know the minimal size of any recycling system that will
work for the longer term. we have only one example that
we know works and that is the earth and sadly it seems
we're more bent on destroying large chunks of it before
we really understand it.

some smaller examples of enclosed systems have taught
us some things, but they have not been really used well
enough to answer these sort of questions.

there have been some enclosed glass orb systems that
have gone for many years but nothing with larger animals.

until we have a clean long term energy source that is
also reliable space exploration or any chances to have
growing and large environments in space is going to be
limited by proximity to the sun. that doesn't get us
out of the isolated pickle we are in, but it at least
does get some of us off planet and in my opinion that is
a worthy start on the ways.


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?

if you don't have chickens to eat the shells then
sure, i'd put them in the compost pile or the worm
bins or bury them in the gardens. your soil may be
fairly alkaline already, but if you keep adding
organic matter then the egg shells will be a source
of calcium for the plants and animals.


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.

overgrazing is a large part of the reason why
most of the middle east is barren where it used to
be able to support fields of grain. of course it
did not help that the Romans came along and turned
those areas into grain exporting regions, but that
was only a part of that story. they are doing
great work in learning how to restore such lands
now, if enough people could be allowed to do it
and not harrassed or killed by the radicals it
could do much to feed the peoples who are there.


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.

gotta have the other things too (sunlight and moisture).
but yeah, the soil is your footing, treat it well or be
wiped out.


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?

you don't have that much water to worry about that often.
containers should always have some drain holes, but those
holes are ingress points for critters or weeds so they
may need to be covered by metal mesh or some other hardy
material so extra water can drain out.


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?

your soil needs some organic material in it to help
hold water. add some clay, add some of that goat manure
and mix it with your surface soil, dampen it enough that
it can rot for a few weeks, then any other extra organic
materials you can scrounge (large flats of cardboard can
be used as edges or to control that grass you talk about).
plant through the holes and watch the moisture level so
that it doesn't dry out near your seedlings. you only
want to use as little water as possible in your climate.
drip irrigation for some of your larger plants and
desired bushes or trees might be needed until they are
established.

but basically you want most of your organic materials
up on top so they hold what little water you have in the
garden. a nice thick layer of mulch is good for arid
climates. the worms will work at the bottom of it and
gradually incorporate it into the soil. i much prefer
for them to do the digging for me if possible, but for
a first shot at a garden i will do some digging to bury
organic materials to help jump start the system.


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.

i wouldn't as i've said above. extra expense and
no real benefit when you can spend much less for what
does count more.


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).

around the edges put down a layer of some weed
barrier to keep the grasses from edging in down as
deep as those grass root systems tend to grow. saves
a lot of BS later. and a weed barrier underneath the
DG to keep any randomly sprouting seeds from having
an easy go of it. put the DG down deep enough to
discourage easy seed germination too. we use a fairly
thick layer of crushed limestone here and it keeps
most of the weed seeds that blow in from ever sprouting.
our biggest problems are intrusions from the sides if
we haven't put down a good enough edge or the morning
glory seeds.


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?

if you can get it for little cost you can use it to
create water flow breaks that will slow down any run off
and allow it to sink in instead. always want to decrease
erosion and encourage water retention for arid landscapes.
if you don't have anything growing this material will
work as well as any other for holding topsoil in place
until you can get something growing there instead.
easier to move than larger rocks.


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

powdery mildew most likely. here it is a late summer
disease that shows on plants that aren't resistant to
it or those that are weakened or on the annuals which
are in decline.


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

keep on reading and studying what you can and do what
you can, learn from experiences and always keep eyes open
to observe what is going on.

if you get time to read a more layered approach try the
basic permaculture books you can get from the library. any
of the originals are worth a read. and much is available
on-line too. i'm always looking for examples of
restoration for degraded or difficult sites and they now
have some good ones that you can see the results.

i think the stuff that really got my interest was to
start thinking in terms of flows, energy, wind, water,
stacking functions, etc. keyline water retention
strategies are amazing when you start studying what
can be done to control erosion and spread water flows
around and to restore compacted soils.

there's really no end to what you can keep learning
and studying. i'd rather do that than watch tv anytime.
some people spend time in bars or churches, i spend most
of mine reading and gardening. i'm not the smartest
person here by far, i forget plant, animal, etc. species
names about as fast as i learn them. but since i know
that's not my strength i try to think of things in
terms of systems and layers and that is where it fits
well with permaculture or agroforestry or other land
restoration techniques. overriding principles are always
to keep it simple so that anyone can do it and to use
as minimal inputs as possible so that you don't have
to move so much stuff around or buy so much of what
ends up becoming useless garbage.

while i'm meandering:

for even more facinating reads get into ants. they
are amazing creatures (like worms but even more
complicated in their diversity and distribution).
almost as complicated as humans and have a large
impact upon the world that most people rarely notice
other than to think of how to poison them.


songbird