Re: No-Till
- Subject: Re: No-Till
- From: C* N*
- Date: Tue, 14 Dec 1999 11:57:40 -0800 (PST)
Date: Tue, 14 Dec 1999 06:13:37 -0800
From: Richard Starkeson <johnsaia@dnai.com>
It sounds like you got great results from your "no-till". (I hope you
saved the dirt from the sod you cut out - in this locale that top few
inches is the best soil you have, and the only thing approaching
"topsoil".)
I used it to make a mound in the front yard which doesn't look bad now that
we have some landscaping rocks around it (haven't had much luck with the
plants so far but there are a few). My soil is fine for much deeper than a
few inches and the sod only had an inch of soil at most anyway.
When your finished, it sounds like you have a soil that you can keep moist,
but it is still clay underneath your layer of organic material. A lot of
plants really don't do well in clay; I'm not surprised that Bett' s roses
did fine - a lot of roses and most trees of that family do OK with their
roots deep in clay.
I've had mixed luck as well. But a lot of my troubles have to do with my
inability to follow through on plant care (I'm disabled). Transplants
don't get watered, bermuda grass takes over, I can't do much snail
handpicking, etc. I've had better success with perenials than with
annuals.
Plants that have done well: blackberries, raspberries, strawberries, other
berries (yes, even blueberries), corn, passion flower, roses, figs, apples,
pears, citrus, mulberry, artichoke, hibuscus, scented and regular
geraniums, saffron crocus, wild onions, oxalis (ha ha), freesias.
Plants that have done poorly: avocado, eggplant, peppers, asparagus, most
squash.
Plants that do so-so: tomatoes, peas and beans (they grow well but I need
to get ones resistant to the diseases I have), azaleas and rhodies.
I think if you had used mostly wood products (such as chips, ground bark,
etc.) instead of manure, your amended soil would have stayed friable, and
not dried into brick.
The manure is free the wood chips are not. I have used some wood
chips/shreds though. We used to chip our excess wood with the neighbor's
shreder (along with her tree trimmings) but it's been broken for about a
year now. We have a bunch of mulberry and maple leaves to spread each
winter and those help a lot. We'll take any organically produced organic
matter we can.
The very best mulch/admendment in the world is compost. We make our own
and have a reasonable amount of it, but what gardener truely has enough?
Michael, I agree with you on rhododendrons (hardly a mediterranean plant) -
I would never plant a rhododendron in the ground here, but plant them above
ground, in their own bed of firbark.
Mine came with the house. They will do loads better once I get the drip
hoses I bought in the beds for next summer. My SO is really bad about
watering and the sensitive plants die or do poorly.
Cyndi
_______________________________________________________________________________
Oakland, California Zone 9 USDA; Zone 16 Sunset Western Garden Guide
Chemically sensitive/disabled - Organic Gardening only by choice and neccessity
_______________________________________________________________________________
"There's nothing wrong with me. Maybe there's Cyndi Norman
something wrong with the universe." (ST:TNG) cyndi@consultclarity.com
http://www.consultclarity.com/
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