by pa_friendly_guy » Wed Jan 18, 2012 10:04 pm
I do not water. I may haul a couple of buckets up to the garden when I plant the plants, and maybe for a day or 2 after planting. I rely on the Good Lord to water after that. I mulch heavy with grass clippings around all of my plants and pathways. I have an old Alis Chalmers 18 hp mower that has a leaf vac and cart behind it to suck up the grass. It runs off a pully drive from the tractor so I do not have to maintain another internal combustion engin. I have quite enough of those already. That is the reason I bought that particular unit. The garden holds water all year, it is always moist under the grass. An old Italian Gardener I know told me " If you mulch when its wet it will stay wet, If you mulch when its dry it will stay dry. So I mulch after a rain. You have to remember that I live in South west Pa. We have good rain fall here, Aug is often dry and some years we dont get any rain for 3 weeks or so, maybe even a month at times, but that is rare. June and July generally get good rain fall to keep things moist. My wood was not very rotted when I put it in, I would expect a slightly better result this year. My tomatos did like they always do in a new bed, Great, they were over 6' high and produced well. I did see a difference in my bean plants. Part of the row was double dug and improved, part was not. You could see a line in the row where it started and stopped. The plants were bigger, taller and healthier where I had put the improved ground. My neighbor thinks I am nuts for doing all that work and sifting out the rocks. He pays to go to the Gym every day, I work in the garden for free. He does feel that my garden does better than his does, his comment was that I don't tend the plants, I tend the soil. I liked that thought. The plan has been working very well for me over the years. My screen takes out large rocks down to about a quarter, it lets a nickle or dime through. The sand stone is very soft and some of it I can break up with my hands. Alot gets pulverized going through the screen. So I feel that I am retaining alot of minerals in the soil. The deeper I dig the harder the rock becomes. When I built the house I had to jack hammer the corners of the foundation the back hoe couldn't dig them. That is why I stopped at 28" in that area, it was just too hard to dig any more. Some areas of the garden I have gotten down to 32" or a bit deeper. My goal was 36" deep but I have not been able to get that deep in most areas. Tomato and pepper roots run deep, I wanted a place for them to go. You can see what rock is in my sub soil, where is no way the roots could get through that. So I sifted them out. I enjoy the process, it is relaxing for me, and I do not over do it, I stop and rest when I get tired or winded.
Never doubt that a small group of dedicated people can change the world, indeed it is the only thing that ever has.