Still shoveling snow but getting ready to plant

This weekend I went on a date with my wife to look for gardening supplies. Yes, I know that that doesn't sound very romantic, but when we both enjoy working in the yard then taking our time, strolling through Home Depot and holding hands without the kids is a romantic event. It is fun to dream about what we would like to do and buy a few things that we can afford to get us going in that direction.

My sweetheart still has a bunch of seeds from last year that she wants to use again, but we wanted to get enough supplies to take one of our garden boxes, add enough soil amendments to get it jump started, and then cover it with plastic to create a makeshift greenhouse. I have a lot of questions about this particular garden box, and I don't know if the plants will grow well there, but I feel that it is worth the risk to try. In this particular box I had chickens living in it for a few months last summer. In anticipation for using it this year, I moved them out so that the manure would have time to compost.Unfortunately this soil has a lot of big rocks so I brought in top soil last year. But good quality top soil for gardening is difficult to obtain around here (Utah is a desert, after all) but at least the top foot or two of dirt has been screened for rocks. Since this new alkaline soil has a high clay content, I knew that I really needed to figure out what to do with it.

I recently read Gardening When It Counts, by Steve Solomon, and got some good ideas. I referred to his table on Carbon-Nitrogen ratios and realized that the shredded paper that I was using for chicken bedding has an extremely high Carbon content (175:1) where the optimal ratio for growing vegetables is closer to 12:1. He says that soil humus has a C:N of 12:1 in every climate, in every soil, so that should be our target for amending soil. If the C:N is higher than this optimal ratio, the microbial population will "burn" the carbon for fuel until the C:N is reduced to match the surrounding soil.

If this comes from added organic material, the level of humus in the soil will be increased, the soil will be healthier, and it will have better tilth. At this point, the Nitrogen in the soil will be available to the plants that need it.Thinking about our garden box, if I still have much uncomposted material mixed into the soil, the microbes will be busy breaking down that carbon and won't release the nitrogen that is needed for the plants until this is complete. (My compost piles haven't been terribly productive with the local deer and our chickens helping themselves to most of what I can add from kitchen waste.) At this point, unless I can rake the paper back out easily, I'll just leave it in the soil and take my chances.

Here are the amendments that I bought for my 5'x20' garden box:

• four bags steer manure (hopefully this will be about a 1/2" layer, C:N about 12:1)
• one bag peat moss (helps add organic material to soil as well as acidifies it a bit)
• one bag perlite (helps in clay soils by preventing compaction and water loss)
• one bag sulfur (acidifies soil... need to calculate actual amount to add)
• one bag bone meal (great source of Phosphorus... need to calculate actual amount to add)
• one bag blood meal (great source of Nitrogen... need to calculate actual amount to add)
• one bag Plant-tone (I have never heard of this product before, but caught my attention because it adds natural soil bacteria with a bit of natural fertilizer to get it started. Hopefully this will help balance the relatively sterile soil that we have here)

Again from the book by Solomon, he suggests adding seed meal as an alternative source of Nitrogen and kelp meal for its excellent balanced source of trace minerals. The kelp meal is also supposed to be really good for laying hens, so I probably will want to get extra for them. I haven't found a local source of either product, so I might have to order them from outside the area. (Agriculture Solutions seems to have reasonable prices for kelp meal as long as you are willing to buy in bulk, but shipping certainly adds a lot to the cost.) From their web site:

• Contains over 60 trace elements utilized by your plants
• Plants develop more extensive root systems
• Greater resistance to nematodes, disease and pests
• Improves seed germination
• Stimulates soil bacteria
• Increases plants stem strength
• Helps plants deal with stresses of drought, high temperatures, and frost
• Increase nutritional value of fruits and vegetables
• Increases shelf life
• Encourages better aerification of soil
• Improves moisture retention
• Helps normalize soil PH
• Improves soil structure

A new growing season looming

There is still snow on the ground, but the weather was pleasant outside. My wife and I were able to take a walk and enjoy the sunshine after being cooped up for several weeks. With that kind of weather, it makes me think more about what is going on outside and how to prepare for the coming growing season. We still have quite a few seeds from last year (hopefully they're still good), but we would like to order a few new seeds to try out.

We live in a desert climate on a hilly, one acre lot with lots of sage brush and natural grasses. Last year we paid to have someone create a few garden terraces and top the rocky, alkaline, clay soil with a foot or two of screened topsoil. Unfortunately, amending the new topsoil with a little organic material wasn't enough and the large garden space we have didn't do very well. Certainly these terraced gardens will eventually prove themselves to be much better that what we started with, but for now it is clear that we need to do something different.

It feels like we are starting from scratch. I have already decided that I want to do things that work for the long haul even if I can only do it a little at a time. Like many of you, we don't have the money to just pay to do everything at once. We'll have to do it a bit at a time as we are able to do so. It is important to my wife and I to make this whole process sustainable and healthy for our family. I have been visiting the local library quite a bit and reading gardening blogs for months now and I think that I have some reasonable ideas to start with. There is just too much to share all at once, so I'll share bits and pieces as I go along. Thanks for coming along for the ride!