Dealing With Rocky Soil

[Joseph Lofthouse]

I have been offered a field for next growing season. I'm attaching a photo of what the soil looks. I grew a small test plot in this field this summer. How in the world would I deal with the soil? I am used to working with silty-clay. My current weeding tools (hand held hoes) don't work with the rocks. My current tiller is damaged by the rocks, and the tines bend. The weed load is different because the rocks interfere with cultivation. Suggestions?

[petitvilaincanard]

Sept 1, 2013 10:55:21 GMT -5 Joseph Lofthouse said:

I have been offered a field for next growing season. I'm attaching a photo of what the soil looks. I grew a small test plot in this field this summer. How in the world would I deal with the soil? I am used to working with silty-clay. My current weeding tools (hand held hoes) don't work with the rocks. My current tiller is damaged by the rocks, and the tines bend. The weed load is different because the rocks interfere with cultivation. Suggestions?

That looks difficult.
I think that plowing and stirring this soil has to be limited to a minimum.Plowing takes the stones to the surface.I know well,I was a haymaker before.The only fields where I didn't have stones in the hay ware those with natural prairie,that were never plowed.After 5 or more years of semipermanent prairie(mostly alfalfa)the amount of stones on the surface were greatly reduced.
In the ideal case you should convert to a sort of permaculture.
If the soil is permanently covered with vegetation,with lots of organic matter permanently on the soil,the stones will sink down in the dirt,or rather the soil will grow on top of the stones.
I reckon this is difficult weeding.You should have a permanent groundcover with typically white clover,which is partly destroyed before planting after which it will recover.
This can work with species with big seeds like most cereals,beans,favas and squash,but things like carrots and direct seeded onions will be difficult.It can work well for everything that is planted from nursery plants.

Ask oxbow farm he has spectaculair stony soils too.

[richardw]

Yes i take my hat off to Tim how he manages to garden with his stony soil.
Growing in that kind of soil Joseph may need a whole new approach like growing in mulch and little cultivating.

[steev]

I think I recall you saying you have limited access to organic matter; nevertheless, I think your time would be best invested importing OM, rather than trying to cultivate that "soil". Perhaps there are plants you can sow that will produce lots of OM in some part of that, which you can use to build beds in another part. I think I'd concentrate on long "raised beds" of OM ASAP, just to get it working over Winter. Don't know what you have available, but I think cut cornstalks, branches, brush, topped with squash vines, tomato plants, leaves, more easily rot-able stuff.

You might want to invest in a broad-fork, to loosen things beforehand.

There is also the approach of "planting in a pot", which is how I do trees on the farm's back acres; I dig a good hole, wire it against the gophers, amend the dug-out soil, plant the tree, using the amended soil; essentially, the tree is planted is a "pot" set in OM-free mineralized crap. So long as you're dealing in large-enough plants, this might work for you, squash, tomatoes, melons, things like that, even without the wiring, amending, et al.

BTW, I've wondered whether the paper pots didn't work in your planter because you didn't have enough wraps of paper, or what? I still think that should have worked. Oh, well, shoulda, woulda, coulda, didn't.

[richardw]

So what happened in the end Joseph,did you take up the offer to use this piece of land??

[Joseph Lofthouse]

I kept the small rocky test plot, so that I can learn to garden in that type of soil, but I didn't take a bigger chunk of it. The 3 plots next year add up to 1/2 acre. This year's fields were 3 acres but I only planted about 2.5 acres. Part of it had such a bad rhizomous weed problem that I left it fallow, didn't water it, and tilled regularly to try to kill the weeds. That took care of the Johnson's grass, but not the bindweed.

[steev]

Weeds happen! There's some very vigorous, seedy grass in one of my planting lanes; I've no idea what it is, but I'm pretty sure I'm not gonna like it.

[flowerweaver]

Joseph Lofthouse that looks just like our soil! Here are photos of ours:
myfolia.com/journals/130537-our-soil-even-though-i-cringe-to-call-it-that

Not that our 'soil' has ever been great, at least it had microbial life before the 2010 drought in which we received no rainfall for 11 months and our well was dry for six of those. We tried Fukuoka's no-till methods for several years without success. Because we must irrigate, the sparse grasses overtook our crops and it was tedious and labor intensive to get on our knees to cut them back with shears. The crops were not very productive.

Much to the horror of our permie friends, we recently tilled this stuff, removed the larger rocks, and planted cover crops. It's not like we removed a lot of grass root mass like in the midwest dustbowl; there's really not much topsoil to lose. We have some--but not a lot--of OM we can add including our own compost, chicken and donkey manure, and biochar. We've been spraying with compost, manure, molasses, and vinegar teas in an effort to lower pH and bring the soil back to life. To us it seemed like the green manure was the quickest way to build the soil. So it will be interesting to compare notes.

[Joseph Lofthouse]

Jan 20, 2014 11:44:53 GMT -5 flowerweaver said:

To us it seemed like the green manure was the quickest way to build the soil. So it will be interesting to compare notes.

Yup. People are always telling me that I need to add organic matter to my soil. Where is that going to come from? As you say, "I live in an arid land." Easiest to obtain organic matter is what I grow myself. That's also the most trustworthy. I know where it came from and that it hasn't been poisoned. I had a dead spot in one of my fields where the previous tenants had fed the animals. Organic matter didn't do any favors to that spot. It took about 4 growing seasons for the poisons to dissipate so that it could start acting like the rest of the field.

[flowerweaver]

That happened to a local friend of ours, too. He composted some free horse manure and put that on his garden, only he didn't know the animal had been eating hay sprayed with weed killer. He couldn't use that plot for a couple of years. For the same reason I don't want outside inputs.

Arid land farming is a whole 'nother animal.