i_am2bz said:
I'm reposting this as a separate thread, since I was inadvertently highjacking someone else's post - sorry!! :/
My biggest problem is our land is entirely CLAY (North Carolina, where nothing grows but tobacco & cotton), so we actally had to truck in decent soil & put it in a raise bed. How could I manage that on a larger scale...?
THAT is your first problem. The three biggest feeder crops are tobacco, corn and cotton. The "Old South" practically destroyed all of the topsoil growing them. But I think I can help!!
My grandfather had to, by necessity, become a master gardener during the Depression. He lived in Cleveland, home of brick-making clay soil. He had a job, but no income (kinda like being laid off for a LOOONNNGGG time). He and his neighbors gardened in tracks of land meant for homes, but no one was building. They also hunted.
How did he do it?
He laid down any animal manure and compost he could and worked it into the soil. I wanted to do the same with my 1/4 acre of clay--that's what happens when they bulldoze flat housing developments-- in town (before I moved to 18" deep, 5 acres of old farm topsoil.) I just thought it was a fey thought, until my mother told me that he had done that exact thing.
I've been studying up on composting and last winter I cleaned out my (horse's) stalls and laid it on my garden. I tilled it under, created raised beds on top of it, but I put all of my 65 tomato plants in the ground without raised beds.
The only crop having trouble is my cucumbers, but that's because I've overwatered them. Still, they are producing.
I have 1 pear tree, which has about a dozen little pears on it right now, & 1 apple tree with NOTHING. I would LOVE to grow more fruit, and have some nut trees. I've read they're hard to grow (nut trees). I would dearly love to grow strawberries, but also read they're hard to grow.
If it is an established tree, it can start having "feast and famine" years. I have one of those, and only have 12 apples on it this year. Last year it was loaded. If you can strip about 1/2 of next year's fruit, you will start to get a regular amount every year. (This is according the "Illinois Gardener" and somebody's question just this week!!)
Oh, & a good share of the back yard is the septic system, so obviously I couldn't grow trees there.
I wouldn't either.
You'll have good grass, there, however.
Get on the phone and find out the best deal to get cow or horse manure. I can tell you that horse owners ALWAYS have too much manure, and stables don't like to have to pay to have it hauled away.
When you finish mowing and when your garden is finished, build some decent compost piles. You can compost any vegetable, but avoid meats and fats. Composting is preferable to chemical fertilizers because compost creates a microbial world living beneath your soil that continually feeds your plants. Chemical fertilizers have to be constantly reapplied. You can compost around your fruit trees, too.
So, to surmise. Get the manure and mix it in your clay. Get the composting going and add it in your garden ANY TIME.
Can they be grown from seeds okay?
...I am in USDA hardiness zone 7b...annual precip in inches is about 55 (sorry, it doesn't break down by dry/wet seasons). Avg 1st fall frost is in November, last spring frost is in mid-April.
