sb country n news-its all about the soil

SB COUNTRY N NEWS-ITS ALL ABOUT THE SOIL

it doesnt matter where you live in the world
if you garden
its all about the soil
how much nutrients are in the soil
providing all the soil needs
to grow healthy plants
now at my garden plot
thats all veggies

now this is what my plot looked like at the beginning
when i took over
it had sat there for sometime uncared for
it is near the area where the kids classes are taught
there had been a lot of traffic over part of it
over the months before i got to it

the soil when you dig into it is sandy clayey like
if you dig very far
its like aspphalt
in fact i used the rock bar
never thought i would use that again after selling mine
when we moved from texas
to loosen the soil enough so i can dig deeper into the ground

now i moved to sb one day and planted my garden the next day
so
in a hurry
i added several inches of compost to the soil
added a good organic fertilzer that had all these goodies in it
including good bugs like fungi and bacteria
knowing that there didnt appear to be much soil structure
to the soil
no real evidence of rich soil like i had in texas
it was grey looking
like my hair

now according to long term gardeners here
there is a lot of nutrition and minerals in the soil
just not as much nitrogen in the soil
so
i added nitrogen
hand watered the garden
i was quite surprised how well my garden looked
but
i knew i needed to work on the soil to improve it
my goal
is
like in texas
i only use my hands to garden with
no tools like shovels rakes etc
i knew i had work to be done

so as i end the summer garden
i decided to get ready for a fall winter garden
it lasts a long long time
remember it doesnt ever freeze here
i cant wait

so the first thing i did was pull up anything that
wasnt doing its job
i kept my peppers my eggplant my squash one tomato
my green beans my purple hull peas
out went three struggling tomatoes swiss chard kale
a real struggling basil
thank you jf for giving those peas to me

the rest got removed
so i decided
im going to do my beds like i did in texas
its dry here
much drier than texas
sb gets 1/3 of the water that autin does

my bed is 10 ft wide
so i took a 1 foot swath down the middle
dug it to the depth of two shovel depths
about a foot and half

filled it with mulch left near the garden by local landscapers

the soil i removed will be added to the rest of the garden bed later
to provide more depth to the soil
making it a more of a  raised bed

what this does is provide me a path to walk on while im gardening
leaving me 4 ft on either side to plant my garden
instead of walking and packing down the garden soil
i am walking on layers of mulch
which over the next year will gradually decompose into
compost
the life blood of the garden

as this path composts down ill add more mulch

next spring or summer ill dig it out and put it onto
the garden as compost

this 1 ft swath will also add a 1.5 ft deep trench
to act as a water sink when it rains
it also will stay moist down deep
allowing moisture to osmose over into my garden bed
allowing eventually roots like tomatoes peppers
eggplants broccoli kale etc to run deep down
underground to this swath
sucking up the moisture during dry times

this is a method i learned from listening to a lecture
from a dry land organic gardener in austin
who uses only rainwater in his garden
he uses very little water
but
produces an abundance of veggies that he
sells via his farm

so
even though i have access to all the water i want to use here
i pretend i am in texas
conserving every drop i can
i only hand water my stuff
i dont use drip or sprinklers

it makes me use less water
it makes me put my shadow in the garden
a must for being a successful gardener

here is part of this weeks harvest

remember i try to plant only what we will eat
and try not to have to put things up very often
like canning or freezing

now we have
started freezing our peppers
made some of our own pesto

next time
how i am preparing the rest of the beds for the winter garden

it doesnt matter where you live
this method of improving your soil
works

the organicgreen doctor