RAIN!!!!

Apr 15, 2011 12:05

RAIN!!! We got some RAIN!!! We're all the way up to 3.2" of moisture this year! That would be a bit less than 1/10 of our usual annual amount ( Read more... )

organic, garden, gardening, food, veggies

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stacymckenna April 15 2011, 19:04:39 UTC
I was promised rain this past week but around this corner of the hill all we got was cold and dry. Those weeds in the front walk I was procrastinating on because I was expecting rain have turned into vicious pokey tenacious beasts. I should have done it all last week when I started and they were still at least remotely tender...

This fall's project is relandscaping the front yard in local natives - mostly pollinator friendly varietals for curb appeal. I've yet to figure out how to grow locally sustainable eats without an oak on the property (and at that point, not really room for anything else given our space). I should really get moving on better rainwater catchment systems to help balance it.

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grndexter April 15 2011, 23:28:30 UTC
Ha! One of our projects sometime in the next two or three years is making sure our firebreak is up to snuff. We have about 60 acres of dense mixed deciduous and coniferous (red cedar) woodlands - and people down on the flats seem to like burning off their flat grass land when the wind is up. There are some natural breaks between us and them... but we want to provide a fire line on THEIR side of our forest! There is a LOT of fuel in the woods - it hasn't been burned in well over twenty years. We have some fantastic trees in there and we'd like to keep them. There's one old dead den tree that measures about 4 feet diameter, so our home wouldn't be the only one threatened.

Currently we have a 30 to 40 foot clear area between our trees and the neighbor's trees, and on two sides we have heavily grazed grassland/pasture with vehicle access to most of the property line.

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sms anonymous April 16 2011, 00:32:29 UTC
Remarkable writing. I’ve been reading contents on internet for many days but frankly speaking I never got something really interesting to read out unlike yours.And yes i have bookmarked your site grndexter.livejournal.com

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Re: sms grndexter April 16 2011, 01:37:42 UTC
Thanks for the kind words. And well... among other things I AM a writer...

You wouldn't happen to be a publisher with a story buying budget, would you?

;-D

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Garden skpicky April 18 2011, 00:41:21 UTC
I'm going to say it again: you were right.

Not being able to grow a garden is just another thing in the long list of reasons we never should have bought a house in a subdivision/HOA. There's no topsoil whatsoever. It's 1-2" of grass sod and thatch, then 8 inches of hardpack clay, then sand down as far as I've dug (about two feet). No topsoil. I wish I had bought a house in the country with at least an acre of good soil so I could grow a big garden. We love to garden, we just didn't think about that when we moved here. Oh well. Live and learn.

I got a thing stuck in my door the other day that somebody wants to buy my house RIGHT NOW!!!! I should cal them and say, "Sure, you can buy it today for the appraised value. You were only going to give me 70% of the value? Then stop putting stuff in my door, I may live in an HOA, but that doesn't mean I'm a COMPLETE idiot."

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Re: Garden grndexter April 18 2011, 16:29:42 UTC
If you "plan" to be there for a while, as in say 3 to 5 years or so, there are things you can do to build soil.

This link should get you headed in the right direction.

http://onestrawrob.com/2008/03/rebuilding-topsoil/

Yeah... it's a lot of work... but you'd be improving the world you live in!

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