As another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.
I have allowed you to learn of our Pioneer Garden, to teach you of survival methods in how to gain the million dollar knowledge of survival.
I inform you of soil, things which never crosses most of your minds as everything is dirt to you, but dirt is of many personalities, including your lawns which will have different soils sometimes within feet of each other.
The soil in our garden is a pig sty literally. Our soil structure is a gravel to mostly clay which is off yellow. On top of this our soils vary from black grey clay to black grey sand, with loam mixed into the mix.
Our Pioneer was filled with rocks dumped in from the "hog pasture". It was filled with dirt dug from a 60 foot well, which was dug by hand, by a little man about 4 foot tall, who had a little shovel as my Grampa told the story.
So the garden has a mix already, but is mostly sand, as the tanks would run over, the pigs would lay in the mud, and the heat would burn the dry matter out of the soil, and convert it from loam into sand and clay.
The garden is about 32 feet by 40 feet this year. We doubled it from last year in removing the sod I had planted by hand to get things to grow in it, as it was too small. This garden could use another 16 by 32 feet as it is cramped. So I hope for an expansion next year, as I already eye surveyed it, and it has enough slope for my watering practices.
I like inclines for a garden as I can water on one end and it runs to the other in trenches.
Our well is free water for a 1000 dollar pump I paid for years ago, but the sand eats water like water through a sieve. It is part of the building the soil with manure compost, as loam holds moisture almost like clay, but clay when it dries out turns into a brick. Loam keeps clay from becoming a brick, and is the sponge in sand to keep the water from running through or evaporating.
Too much loam, and when it dries out, you get poofy fuzz that will not hold water at all, until it soaks up, and it blows away.
This plot of land has been abused for generations. I'm the first person to actually care for it, and attempt to bring it back to life. It is doing well in most of the area now, but the pocket gophers from the neighbor turned it into an extremely rough area, which when I get the money for a tractor with a scoop, I will level it back off again.
As for watering, we had some very hot and dry weather. What was easy to water last year in a deluge is a reality that this dries out to concrete in spots as the sand does not hold moisture and the clay makes it hard pan.
In watering, I was still getting conditions like the above, but when we received a half inch of rain, the garden started behaving again as if it was wet. By the end of June we had only 8 tenths of rain for two months, so things were not going good soil wise. By July we received about an inch and half of rain, and that is where my deep watering immediately appeared, as the garden looked soaked.
There is a ratio I have worked out in deep watering, that when I do this, the garden does grow, sometimes just holds on, but when we get 3 tenths of rain, it is like an inch of rain due to the watering. It is why I plan watering. Sometimes in hurricane winds and 95 degree heat, I just have to water which burns leaves and water spots them, but I water in afternoon or evening, depending on mosquitoes. That way the plants will have almost 15 hours to rehydrate in the night. When I water like this, the sun is not stealing my watering.
Half your water is gone if you use a sprinkler right away. I use my thumb over the pressure hose for a large displacement on the sides of the plants or in the trenches. It gets a great deal of water to the plant and does not waste it. On hot days I will only lose about 10% at most which is wonderful and the areas will redampen in the night.
The reality is in this, when I deep water, 3 tenths will make an inch in rain, if it rains another 3 tenths, that will make it to 2 inches of equivalent rain and another shot of rain will push it to 5 inches.
That is why with an inch and half in two different rains, the garden is must soaked yet, two days later. The sand is behaving in the higher humidity and the clay is holding the reserve. I will do better in building this soil as I do on all my land, but for now, here am I learning that this garden is working with me in keeping wet, if I will just get it through the drought periods. That is of benefit in knowing what my dirt will do, as not all dirt acts the same even in sand and clay.
We have a friend who gardens in gumbo and she has potatoed her garden out, meaning if you keep raising one crop in it, it will deplete the soil. You have to add compost and you have to rotate. I'm ok in virgin soil, but I already have begun adding compost this year to help the soil hold water. I used to when I had a tractor, would dump over a foot of compost shit on my garden. That was cow shit, and it grows things pretty, but broken down hog shit, with sand is a really good garden medium. It has to be compost though or it is too hot, meaning too much nitrogen in it, and it will burn the plants.
Chicken is worthless as shit for a garden, it is too hot and it provides little dry matter to help keep the sand together and the clay molecules apart.
As God has worked this out, I hope for no dry rot this year in the potatoes, as dry rot comes from uneven watering, even though we had large potatoes. Even in a flood of last year that problem arose. Some people like Aunt Betty had potatoes the size of golf balls, as the dry spell hit when they were setting on potatoes, she did not water, and all that work was not worth a shit.
It is why I water like a religion as I do not go through all of this work to skimp on water and end up with nothing for all that work.
So God now has it very wet as the potatoes have blossomed and are sitting on.I have some 3 foot tall plants even in the trenches. I will still be watering even if it rains, as when it is wet it is best to stay wet and with the sand structure in this soil on top and below, I can not water enough to flood or harm the plants. I also put compost in the trenches for the spuds, and when it was dry, it was a bitch trying to get it wet again as it will float up. Dirt has put a layer on top of the compost so all is holding, but it must stay wet to keep a balance on the potatoes, and in 90 plus degree heat, there is not a great deal of margin between stress and dead plants.
One more thing, you can not use raw manure on potatoes, they will get scab.
So I conserve water by watering. I amplify water I do use, when rain is given by God, as working together, we get a great deal of moisture to the plants and they are thriving in the heat, when other plants just languish. When the rain comes, the plants have nothing to make up, and are already to explode in growth.
I was watching my favorite gardening neighbor's plot this year again, and our potatoes were actually catching up to his, which were planted 2 weeks earlier and in all honesty our other plants surpassed what they planted, and that is because we water the blessing into our plots.
So water by looking at the weather, make sure you do not let your plants stress to drooping, so they do not recover after sundown, and amplify your watering by God's watering as this produces the yields you are looking for and it saves on your time in watering.
Once again, another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.
Nuff Said
agtG
