tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2569971501728849222.post4385698359427086170..comments2023-10-29T03:55:21.701-07:00Comments on Staying Alive: PREPARING TO GARDENStaying Alivehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12833293437407206880noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2569971501728849222.post-67952900912993034132008-04-11T11:26:00.000-07:002008-04-11T11:26:00.000-07:00I am also blessed and cursed with heavy clay soil....I am also blessed and cursed with heavy clay soil. Cursed, as you pointed out the hard work in starting a garden, blessed, as it is quite mineral nutrient rich, and good in the long run. It also provides excellent building material. Wouldn't want to be without it. <BR/><BR/>So far I have not prepared much of a garden, other things being priority, and being able to still buy food and harvest from the wild (but this year it IS a priority - TOP PRIORITY). My gardening has been mostly limited to container growing and planting out a few fruit and nut trees. The soil was particularly badly compacted where I planted the trees, but what I did was to backfill the hole I dug for the root ball with a mix of the clay, well broken up, some compost and grains of charcoal. I planted them maybe four or five years ago, and they are doing quite well for such a poor position (limited sun too). I can't be sure if the charcoal made the difference, but from what I have seen on TV and read about the terra preta (black soil) of the Amazon jungle, charcoal grit added to the soil dramatically improves the soil. It can retain moisture as well as nutrients, which don't get washed out of the soil too quickly, and also helps to aerate the soil. Here are a few links about it<BR/><BR/>http://www.bidstrup.com/carbon.htm<BR/><BR/>http://www.geo.uni-bayreuth.de/bodenkunde/terra_preta/<BR/><BR/>http://www.eprida.com/home/explanation.php4<BR/><BR/>To get the fine grit size of charcoal, you can put it through an old cast iron meat mincer. Not tried it myself, but seen it on a web page for making black powder, where the charcoal was first ground up to a coarse grit with the above method, and then made into a fine powder with a ball mill. Unfortunately the site is no longer up, and is not currently available in the internet archive. Hopefully the problem is temporary, as the site was absolutely fabulous. Maybe one of you know about it, and maybe know if it has been moved, or the owner wrote a book - it was called <A HREF="http://web.archive.org/web/*sr_1nr_10/http://covenantacres.com/*" REL="nofollow">www.covenantacres.com</A> (the link is actually the link to the list of pages on the internet archive) and all about survival and self-reliant living with masses of practical info. The site was only up for a short time, but had a couple hundred or more pages. Make a note of the site and check occasionally with the internet archive, it is well worth pursuing. The owner is called Dennis Wynne, and is from Texas, lives on a farm called Covenant Acres. If you happen to know him, please beg him to renew the site. <BR/><BR/>OK, back to soil. A few other things I read about starting a garden in hard clay is to use soil busting plants, one being Jerusalem Artichokes (though could be invasive), another one I read about was Snowberry (not a great deal of use for anything though), and Alfalfa, amongst many more. Alfalfa is also a green manure, so may be a good choice. The method I used for planting trees, i.e. only digging a small hole where the plant is going, back-filling with a compost and charcoal mix, can also be used for other plants. That way you are only digging where the actual plant is going, and every year more ground is thus improved. Its the eat-an-elephant-one-bite-at-a-time method. If you plant in succession and under-crop, you can get away with less land, and therefor less work tilling. It may be worth getting a book on Permaculture (PC), as PC is designed for maximum yield and minimum work, at least long-term. It also advocates growing more perennials, as that also means less work in the long run. But however you do it, do get a garden in this year, looks like the S is starting to HTF.adminhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16915238889263579309noreply@blogger.com