sevidra
Rockaway, NJ
Zone 6a
January 24, 2008
3:22 PM | I've seen "Plant densely for bunching" on a couple of carrot seed packets. What's that mean? When I planted densely, I got really funky looking twisted little carrots - though that might be my soil.
I finally learned what my soil is called. "Dense, Rocky Clay". *snicker* Gee, I couldn't figure that one out - stuff makes forms from yer boots if you walk in it when it's mud, and the rocks in one 5X5 foot area I dug out (down to about 1 foot deep) were sufficient to surround said area with a little rock wall.
If the stuff weren't so impregnated with unnatural garbage (bits of plastic, chunks of glass, metal can tops, this place is a landfill), I'd use it for making pots!
So I have a problem. I checked pH, and it ranges 6.8-7.0, not a bad pH for food crops. But there's so much garbage in it! I think my landlord (and the one before him) have been leaving it as practically a landfill for years. And I'm stuck here til June or July, so it's what I have to work with for my first year of serious gardening.
Like it or not, this is what I have.
Now, I will have a plot of nicer soil elsewhere, with plenty of water (too much for taters, but great for melons, squash, and such). So I'll be putting melons and winter squash and corn there. Anything that _really_ can't handle my soil can go there, as can anything that takes more than about 60-70 days to harvest. However, I do need to use the land at home as well, at least until midsummer, when I'll be able to do a second-harvest thing for some stuff at the new place (and likely in significantly nicer soil).
I'm planning for carrots and cucumbers and lettuce, cabbages, radishes, some kohlrabi, zucchini and yellow summer squash, and a handful of beans and peas. I will have pots full of tomato plants all over - can't do those in the ground, they take too long. Besides, I can control soil conditions better in the pots. I'll be doing herbs as well.
The big question:
What can I do for the soil, given that I don't have a few years to amend it properly, don't want to use huge numbers of chemicals, and have this horrid nasty clay to work with?
Aside from screening out the rocks and chunks of garbage, that is, which I'm already doing between ice periods this winter.
Should I buy hay to use for mulch or till in in the spring? Should I bother to do anything besides dig it up a bit?
-Sev |