Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

permaculture - [permaculture] heavy clay and cover crops, more on shade

permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: permaculture

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Rain Tenaqiya <raincascadia@yahoo.com>
  • To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [permaculture] heavy clay and cover crops, more on shade
  • Date: Sun, 15 Mar 2009 12:35:28 -0700 (PDT)

Loosening up heavy clay with cover crops is very slow.  Our native grassland
here is composed primarily of grasses and clovers, in other words, cover
crops.  The soil is too tight and dry for the production and integration of
much organic matter.  Forking and irrigating it could help.  Gypsum might
also help, though I hate mined inputs like this.  Dumping a foot of organic
matter on top would definitely make a difference, especially if it was forked
or disced in after a couple years, but getting this much material can be a
challenge.  Pioneer trees are basically the simplest solution, though a very
slow one.  Larry mentioned planting root crops like daikon, chicory, etc.,
and this is also helpful if you have the water for irrigation.  The solution
depends on what you have available.
 
I forgot to mention olives and citrus as other trees that can produce well in
the shade of Mediterranean climates, in addition to the usual suspects.  I
have lists of plants and their sun/shade needs in my book, West Coast Food
Forestry, which is available from me or online.
 
Rain



>From dickpiercedesigns@gmail.com Sun Mar 15 21:53:40 2009
Return-Path: <dickpiercedesigns@gmail.com>
X-Original-To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
Delivered-To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
Received: by lists.ibiblio.org (Postfix, from userid 3002)
id 1C78A4C025; Sun, 15 Mar 2009 21:53:39 -0400 (EDT)
X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.2.3 (2007-08-08) on malecky
X-Spam-Level:
X-Spam-Status: No, score=0.0 required=5.0 tests=HTML_MESSAGE,
REMOVE_BEFORE_LINK autolearn=disabled version=3.2.3
Received: from yw-out-1718.google.com (yw-out-1718.google.com [74.125.46.157])
by lists.ibiblio.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6FF0E4C019
for <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>;
Sun, 15 Mar 2009 21:53:31 -0400 (EDT)
Received: by yw-out-1718.google.com with SMTP id 6so624422ywa.60
for <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>;
Sun, 15 Mar 2009 18:53:31 -0700 (PDT)
MIME-Version: 1.0
Received: by 10.220.100.142 with SMTP id y14mr1183639vcn.73.1237168411042;
Sun, 15 Mar 2009 18:53:31 -0700 (PDT)
In-Reply-To: <25834.38836.qm@web38104.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <25834.38836.qm@web38104.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Date: Sun, 15 Mar 2009 20:53:30 -0500
Message-ID: <d3fa65910903151853k21234054g55a216edd8cb610@mail.gmail.com>
From: Dick Pierce <dickpiercedesigns@gmail.com>
To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
X-Content-Filtered-By: Mailman/MimeDel 2.1.9
Subject: Re: [permaculture] heavy clay and cover crops, more on shade
X-BeenThere: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.9
Precedence: list
Reply-To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
List-Id: permaculture <permaculture.lists.ibiblio.org>
List-Unsubscribe: <http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/permaculture>,
<mailto:permaculture-request@lists.ibiblio.org?subject=unsubscribe>
List-Archive: <https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/permaculture>
List-Post: <mailto:permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
List-Help: <mailto:sympa@lists.ibiblio.org?subject=HELP>
List-Subscribe: <http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/permaculture>,
<mailto:permaculture-request@lists.ibiblio.org?subject=subscribe>
X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 16 Mar 2009 01:53:40 -0000

Greetings from the TX Blackland Prairie - the black Gumbo Clay capital of
the world. It is [literally] a rough row you hoe - we know a bit about it.
All of the remedies/methods mentioned below are good/great. A few to add to
the possibilities:

-here there is [or was] a lot of new construction - up to 40% of our waste
stream is construction waste and a majority of it is old drywall and new
scraps - 100% gypsum except for the paper. Most sites here would love to
have folks agree to pick it up, will keep it separate - they cut down on
tipping fees and dumpsters. There are machines that shred and crush it. Bad
news is you've got a lot of land to cover - good news is there's a lot of
gypsum wallboard scrap and demo.

-in CO I inherited a garden full of pig weeds. They all had a rather deep
tap root into some rather tough soil. They also were so big and round that
they fairly well shaded out other weeds, so when you pulled the pigweeds,
the soil was loosened to 6-8 inches and it was almost clear for planting.
Then later, I read a book named "Weeds", by J. C-------oner - he had a great
picture of potato roots following the path forged by a pigweed. Their
standard practice was to leave or encourage a healthy pigweed every 4 feet
or so in their potato fields to break up the heavy soil and help the potato
roots.

-you'll need to seek other opinions and the literature, but aerobic compost
tea and its army of billions of soil microbes does wonders on our crops and
pasture land. In my experience, It is the only sane economic path to take
for compost on acreage. And, if we are to believe Elaine Ingham and others [
which I do] these critters are the secret of the work that compost does.

I hope that these vignettes help.

Dick Pierce

On Sun, Mar 15, 2009 at 2:35 PM, Rain Tenaqiya <raincascadia@yahoo.com>wrote:

> Loosening up heavy clay with cover crops is very slow. Our native
> grassland here is composed primarily of grasses and clovers, in other words,
> cover crops. The soil is too tight and dry for the production and
> integration of much organic matter. Forking and irrigating it could help.
> Gypsum might also help, though I hate mined inputs like this. Dumping a
> foot of organic matter on top would definitely make a difference, especially
> if it was forked or disced in after a couple years, but getting this much
> material can be a challenge. Pioneer trees are basically the simplest
> solution, though a very slow one. Larry mentioned planting root crops like
> daikon, chicory, etc., and this is also helpful if you have the water for
> irrigation. The solution depends on what you have available.
>
> I forgot to mention olives and citrus as other trees that can produce well
> in the shade of Mediterranean climates, in addition to the usual suspects.
> I have lists of plants and their sun/shade needs in my book, West Coast Food
> Forestry, which is available from me or online.
>
> Rain
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> permaculture mailing list
> permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
> Subscribe or unsubscribe here:
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/permaculture
> Google command to search archives:
> site:https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/permaculture searchstring
>
>
>


--
DickPierceDesigns@gmail.com
SE-NE (summer) & Austin, TX (winter) cell- 512-992-8858

Please check out www.permie.us for courses:
Jan. 10, 17 -Citizen Gardener - Austin
Jan. 15 -Thursdays, through April 16 - PC Course for Homeschoolers
Jan.31/Feb.1- Start of Weekend PC Design Course - Through Mar. 22 - 10 days
mid-April -2-day PC Basics - Boston
late-April -2-day PC Basics - Martha's Vineyard, MA
mid-July -12-day PC Design Course - S-NH
mid- Sept -2-day PC Basics - MV-MA
mid-Sept -12-day PC Design Course - MV-MA


-Dick's PC-Bio. on www.permie.us
-You Tube Dick Pierce for video clips




Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page