All rocks and no soil, a gardening challenge!
Category:
gardening among the rocks | Posted:
Sun Aug 27, 2006 5:07 am
My gardening challenge is simple but enormous. I live on a rocky prairie. On land that, when my grandparents came out West, made them roll their eyes and keep on moving to found a town on more friendly soil. Seriously! The ground here holds onto marks made in it for a looong time, and running through what is now my goat pasture are a set of ruts that were probably made by a horse drawn wagon!
Anyways, that part of my place I maintain in wildflowers. I have to mow the whole thing 2 or 3 times a year to keep the nonnative brush down, but as long as my riding mower holds out, it isn't too bad. And if the weather would go back to my old familiar mild-and-rainy, the wildflowers will go on doing well. I have everything from meadowlarks to california quail, wild bunnies to porcupines visiting my bit of prairie, and I love it. But, to create a green fire break near my house, and to continue developing my Pseudo-Japanese garden near the evergreens, is a really huge challenge. If I plant a tree, and at the same time a friend with decent soil plants a tree, within a very short time the difference is obvious. A crabapple I planted here 15 years ago is far more spindly and scraggly than I would like!
So, I raise bunnies. Not only because, well, I adore bunnies, but also because they produce a nice fertilizer. I let it pile up & compost for a while, then spread it around the garden. So I'm gradually getting a bit of actual soil going. But I still have a long way to go.
I plant my veggies in raised beds. My sweetie built these almost 15 years ago, and they are rotting slowly despite being cedar. Gonna have to work on that. They have landscape fabric under them to keep the soil from washing away.
Whew, that's enough for one night. Hope it rains soon, the wildfires around here are getting scary!
This blog entry has been viewed 581 times
