Once upon a time on usenet George Shirley wrote:
On 8/12/2015 6:56 PM, ~misfit~ wrote:
Once upon a time on usenet George Shirley wrote:
Just about O dark thirty we gratefully received about half an inch
of rain in less than an hour. Weather folk keep saying more is
coming but I haven't seen anymore.

It's amazing how much the plants perked up with just that much rain.
Temperatures dropped rapidly from 104F to the mid-nineties, making
it much better here and the AC isn't running as much as it was.

Naturally there aren't many plants left in the gardens. We still
have the sweet chiles and the eggplant plus the two new yellow
squash but all the others are now mowed and in the composter. We
need some cool weather to get out there and add our amendments to
the raised beds and stir them into the whole bed. I'm putting in a
goodly amount of peat moss again in hopes it will help to hold the
water for the plants to use. That and some really good compost is
about all that we need to replenish the beds.
We seeded some earth worms from Territorial back in the spring just
as the soil was warming up. Pulling the lima beans yesterday
exposed some nice sized earth worms who immediately dove back under
the planting medium. Hopefully they will colonize the whole
property eventually. Nothing much going on here but hiding from the high
heat levels.

Speaking of amendments I have a suggestion that may or may not help.
At the least it's food for thought.

Background; I'm an invalid with spinal problems and I take morphine
several times a day to ease the pain enough so that I can care for
myself (and my garden - somewhat). A nasty side-effect of morphine
is constipation and, for a few years I had a prescription for
psyillium husk powder (Metamucil) to mix with water and glug down
several times a day. It helped but didn't completely fix the problem
- it took a total diet change to do that, making my own extremely
high fibre bread etc. So I didn't cancell my prescription of psyillium
until I was sure I
had the problem sorted. Then I found myself with about a dozen 750g
packets of the stuff. I don't know if you've seen or used it but it
absorbs many times its weight in water. When I was wondering what to
do with it all I was reminded of that water retaining gel that was
all the rage here a couple decades ago - 'add some to potting mix and
reduce frequency of watering
plants' sort of stuff.

I hate throwing things away so did some Googling and it seems that
it's been used in trials in India as a soil amendment with great
success. (Psyillium grows in India and of course large parts of the
country are arid.) I did a few of my own experiments too. You don't
need a lot - a couple teaspoons to a bucket of soil is plenty. Mix
it in well and it really helps the soil to retain water for quite
long periods. I was amazed how well it worked for me, experimenting
on some 'soil' I had in a raised bed that was too free draining.

I read that, being organic it will break down over time but
apparently no moreso than peat and you need far less psyillium per
square foot than you do peat and it's *much* cheaper per square foot
too. I've read where you've mentioned how poor your soil is and just
thought I'd throw this out there. It may be worth buying a packet or
two from the drug store (get the unflavoured 'natural' stuff) and
doing a trial plot? I still have a few kilos of it here (did I
mention that I hate throwing things away?) but it would cost too
much to make it worth sending to you, it's quite cheap to buy.

Best,

Thanks for the advice, just happened that one of the ladies at our
church lost her husband and then moved in with her brother, also
widowed. She gave us all her stored food and in the batch was a huge
container of psyillium. Will give it a try. We shared most of the food
with other church folk.

Good that you've got some already, it can't hurt to try. One thing - make
sure it's mixed in well before wetting or it'll clump together. Experiment
with some soil in a bucket, that's what I did.

Cheers,
--
Shaun.

"Humans will have advanced a long, long way when religious belief has a cozy
little classification in the DSM*."
David Melville (in r.a.s.f1)
(*Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders)