Another long hot & humid day but there is always something that needs to be done. I know how hard it is growing figs in a cold environment and what it takes to protect them in winter months having grown up in NY. This Is what I do for my Garden in summer months. Helps keep weeds down and solarizes soil from what I read helps with RKN if any exists which I have yet to detect anywhere on my property. ( I Just need A Hug and A Pat on The Back, Oh and A COLD BEER ) Wife Is working lol




And a Fig picture showing a breba ripening on My Black Unknown

That soil looks very nice compared to mine, 20 20 years back the builder stipped the farm we sit on and they sell the top soil only to grade back several inches. So over the years i amended with many coffee grinds, egg shells , peat and some potting soil here and there its a little better and i grow some things. Started late this season all seeds and just sowed in a row of romaine and will due some more for fall weather crop.

By the way Sal i see some room along that fence and around part of garden for some fig trees , might even bring in some shade for garden?
lol

Sal, I like your method(without the beer). I've been wanting to solarize my soil for years to kill weed seeds and have just never got around to it. This reminder comes at the perfect time for me to do this before Fall garden. Can't wait to see that breba ripen. Here's a Hug & a Pat on The Back. And that's as close as I'm getting,lol!

If you really want to see some poor soil, come to the North Georgia Piedmont.  It was no doubt good soil hundreds of year ago, but centuries of growing cotton, poor soil management, and then the top soil was gone, leaving little but rock hard red clay that would barely grow weeds.

But what I want to tell everyone is that even if you start with soil that poor, you can greatly improve your soil with some time and effort.  After 10 years of adding as much organic matter as we can find, it is starting to look great.  The main garden soil is now brown/black and growing great crops all organically.

One of our main amendments is wheat straw.  We put it down heavy in the Spring to mulch tomatoe, potato, pepper, etc., plants (greatly reduces both weeding and watering) and then till it in every year, along with leaves, compost, wood ashes (not too much of the wood ashes at a time though), etc.

So there is hope, even if you start with poor soil, but good, healthy soil does make all the difference.

Best wishes to all.

John
North Georgia Piedmont
Zone 7b

You're right John, with a little hard work it can be done. When I moved onto the property I'm now on, it was nothing but what we call black jack, which is heavy dark clay. Now 5 or 6 years later, after adding every bag of leaves and grass clipping I could get my hands on, I have great soil that needs no fertilizers. Every fall I collect bags of leaves in the neighborhood and all my grass clippings and till them in. While the plants are growing I just spread it between the rows and till it in between the seasons. Works great and not much work.

I have a typical desert soil of decomposed granite with very little organic matter, When dry it's hard as a brick. However over the years, each winter, I have turned into it 'barn sweepings' [manure and sawdust] gotten for free from a local horse stable, which has made a real difference. I am fortunate I don't have the West Side's sand, or in some places in the Valley, mostly clay. 

Hi Gene and Paul.  Building good soil is like building a bank account, but maybe even better.  I grew up in Northen Indiana, were the soil as amazing, rich black top soil on top of peat moss bogs.  So when we moved to Georgia, the rock hard red clay was pretty discouraging, but with some time and effort, you really can dramatically improve your soil.

Like Gene, I am very happy to haul away the neighbors leaves, and Paul is making the desert bloom with what others discard.  In the hands of a real gardener, lowly manure and yard waste become rich black good in the garden.

Hope you are having a great summer.

Best wishes.

John
North Georgia Piedmont
Zone 7b

OK people. Lets talk about Desert sand!
Anziani
Zone: HOT

I would think the same principles apply to desert sand just like any other soil. The more organic matter, the better it retains moisture. It's made a huge difference in this SE Texas sticky black clay(we call it Gumbo, Gene). In reverse of desert sand, in heavy clay it loosens the soil and lets it drain better(we don't need any help with water retention,adds nutrients, and draws in earthworms. I really have to keep after it or the benefit of it soon disappears. The extension office here advises against adding any sand as it will turn into near concrete when dry.

I have zero experience with desert soil, but I would think that no matter what the problem, more organic matter is a good solution.

As the soil gets better, the earthworm populations increase dramatically, which also helps to speed up the process.

I saw somewhere in a post something about a product called a clay buster, but I can't find it anywhere.  Does that ring a bell for anyone?  I'd like to get some of that stuff if possible.

Vivian

Hi Vivian.  There is a product marketed as "Clay Buster" here in Georgia, and we have used it.  It's basiclly just tiny pine bark pieces.  Works fine, but also check the prices against other sources of pine bark fines at Lowes, Home Depot, etc.  Any organic matter will work fine to help break up the clay, and the more you can put in the ground the better.  If you are adding a lot of pine bark though, consider adding some lime or wood ashes as well occassionally to help balance out the acidity of the pine bark.  Some people check ph alot, we really don't.  And for 20 years that has worked just fine.  But we do add a little wood ashes and lime here and there, along with all the leaves, wheat straw, home made compost, etc., we can get.  The more organic matter the better.

Best wishes.

John

North Georgia Piedmont
Zone 7b

Hi John,

Thanks for the info.  I guess I've already used a clay buster because when I planted my inground trees they had all kinds of garden topsoils mixed in that had chunky stuff in them that includes pine bark as well as bags of soil conditioners which have a lot of organice pieces in them.  It's created some nice black soil under the tree.  I may need to put some garden lime under the tree, just a bit, anyway.  That might help the fig drop, or not.

Isn't it so satisfying to create rich, loose, friable soil where there wasn't any?

Vivian

"Isn't it so satisfying to create rich, loose, friable soil where there wasn't any?"

Hi Vivian.  It really is.  There is something almost magical about starting with barren ground and creating a rich, healthy, thriving mini eco-system.  In 10 years we have seen our property go from rock hard abused clay with one dead tree and nothing else but scattered weeds, to a thriving oasis of healthy life from the earthworms in the ever darkening and richer soil to the many birds that now call our many beautiful trees home.  And while I sometimes have mixed feelings about the birds (when they are eating our fruit) they too are part of the blessing of life that comes with improving your soil. 

We have also planted dutch clover everywhere from the orchard to the lawn.  Lawn purests would recoil in horror at that, but we use no chemicals, including no chemical fertilizers, and the dutch clover has done an amazing job of pulling free nitrogen from the air and putting it into the soil, and helping to break up and enrich the soil.  We now have a good mix of grass and clover that is transforming the whole property back to healthy soil at a very low cost.  A 10 pound bag of clover seed and a little innoculent has done amazing things, and we have some very happy bees as well.

Best wishes.

John
North Georgia Piedmont
Zone 7b

John,  What is an innoculent?

Vivian

Vivian, have you tried gypsum to loosen the clay soil? My veggie garden I worked in two bags of top soil and 2 cubic feet of vermiculite in to my clayish soil. I need to get another bag of vermiculite to add to my veggie garden. It only lasted 17 years.

Hi Vivian.  Clovers have the ability to capture free nitrogen from the atmosphere and fix it into the soil, thereby improving the soil and making the nitrogoen biologically available to other plants (including figs!).

But to do this, the clover plants work in a symbiotic relationship with bacteria.  If you dig up a healthy clover plant you can actually see little nodules (tiny bumps) on the clover roots where the bateria are at work.  The "innoculent" is a dry, powdered bacteria that you mix in with the clover seed before planting.  Iti's inexpensive, you don't need much, and you can usually find it in a small bag right next to the clover seed in a local garden store (or order it online).  I'm not sure it's absolutely necessary to add the innoculent, as there could already be suitable bacteria in your local soil for the clover to partner with, but it's cheap insurance so I always use it when planting clover seed to improve soil quality and fertility.

Amounts vary of course, but in some studies nitrogen fixed by acre per year ranged from 70 to 275 pounds per acre.  Over the years, that's a lot of free, organic, bio-available nitrogen for your plants for very little intitial investment.  I think I spent about 25 dollars all together, and you may not need 10 pounds of clover seed.  We mixed the clover seed and innoculent in with the grass seed when we overseeded in the fall.  It ended up great, an easy care, soil improving, healthy organic lawn and orchard grass with pretty little clover flowers scattered here and there, but the pure grass lawn purests have probably fainted by now if they are reading this.

Best wishes.

John
North Georgia Piedmont
Zone 7b

LOL John!  That's funny.

Thanks for explaining about the clover, very interesting.

We have regular clover all over our yard in the Spring and I like it.  It's the waterweed I hate.  That stuff is so stubborn.

Vivian

We like the clover too, and don't even mind the dandelions.

I've never even heard of waterweed, but I'm sure it's not good.

What drives us crazy here is a tough, highly invasive grass that spreads by underground roots (like bamboo) and strangles out everything else.  I was told the English brought this grass from India and planted it here to feed cattle back when this was an English colony, and everyone has been trying to keep it from taking over their gardens ever since.  We call it "wire grass" or "King George's Revenge."  We were able to get rid of the English, but their grass will apparently torment us forever.

Hope you have a great summer Vivian.

Best wishes.

John
North Georgia Piedmont
Zone 7b

John/Georgiafig..   That English import may be the universaly hated Johnson Grass. I have fought it from a farm in No. Texas to the red clay near Augusta ,Ga.
   And, gypsum will help divide the clay platelets , takes time, tho'.
  And, in spite of all , our Figs continue to survive !  Hoorah!!  Fred