Any sheet-mulching gurus out there....?

[TygrBright]

If so, please help me out here. We moved into a 1-yr-old home in Santa Fe, and the lot had no improvements except streetside landscaping. In our neighborhood, we have adobe soils, which are great for building houses from and not so hot for building gardens. Adobe sheds water rather than absorbing it, compacts easily, and if it DOES get saturated will not drain, it just slowly dries into, well, adobe brick.

Most people who landscape lots in new subdivisions here spend the vast bucks needed to hire a professional firm to (essentially) plop a 'landscape' on top of the lot, and then shell out the further bucks needed to maintain and replace said 'landscape.' The pros come in and dig big holes to plant a couple of trees, with chemically-amended topsoil for fill, then dump more chemically-amended topsoil on the planting areas and put in perennials and annuals which require constant replenishment of the chemical amendments because the topsoil layer never really bonds into the adobe it's dumped on. Then they gravel-mulch over everything except a little square of grassy stuff or a couple of small bark-mulched areas, and that's it. Fooey. Not for me.

Being a gardener, the first thing I concentrated on was, 'how do I turn this adobe stuff into REAL soil?' It can be done, I know from seeing some wonderful gardens around here.

A column in the local paper started me on sheet mulching. This guy's recipe/instructions went like this:

1. Wet down the area and spread some kind of organic soil-builder/starter nutrient in a thin layer, scratch it in with a rake.

2. Wet THAT down, then put a layer of cardboard or newspaper 20-25 pp thick down, with ends overlapping completely, and water it.

3. Spread a 2-3-inch thick layer of composted manure on top of that, and water it.

4. Put down a 6-8-inch layer of straw and water it, and tread or roll it down and water it again.

5. Thereafter, water it often enough to keep from drying out altogether.

According to this guy, in a year or so everything will have composted itself into a friable soil bonding and penetrating into the adobe, and starting off the transformation of the adobe into a living soil.

What did I know? I'd never tried this before, I took his word for it, and did the above in two areas of the lot in mid-April. Shame on me for not doing more homework. Sheet-mulching experts will have already figured out the flaw in this method:



Yep. I'm guessing these nice grassy weed seeds were in the manure, but they could easily have been in the straw, too. Either way, I'm stuck with them now and worried. I want to do something to stop 'em before they set seed and the problem never goes away!

I dug down to check the progress of the composting:



The cardboard appears to be totally decomposed in spots and thin and mushy elsewhere. What I'm wondering is, can I just turn the whole lot over now, as deep as a spade will go, and then lay a nice thick layer of composted bark mulch over the top and let it "finish" over the winter? Will it continue to compost and make real soil that way?

Thanks for any insight or experience anyone can offer!

frustratedly,
Bright

[politicat]

1. Short answer - yes, it will continue to compost and yes, turning it now is

okay.

Take the "weeds" to the local community college, county extension office or nursery and get them identified. Those might be local grasses, and if so, you want to preserve them, not ditch them. Local grasses are adapted to local conditions and will stay green without watering while imported grasses will require more water.

Of course, if you want really rich, deep soil, repeating the process now is a good idea, too - just layer another series like you did the first. This is what I do with my garden, and I have some ungodly rich soil out there now -- I can feed the city on what my three zucchinis, two lemon cucumbers and four tomato plants are producing. Loaves and fishes in my back yard!

[NMDemDist2]

2. sounds good, if you want to kill off any seeds in your hay

cover the whole mess with black plastic while it's still hot hot and it should sterilize the seeds

and what Pcat says is right, one more layer and next spring you may have some good stuff to work with

add something with trace iron in too, this soil is notorious for low iron

:pals:

[TygrBright]

3. Any suggestions on organic sources of trace iron?

I don't trust Hollytone and other chemical iron supplements, a lot of them are contaminated with other yucky stuff.

hmmmm.... just dump down another layer might actually work, if I can dragoon my college-student helper into a couple of Saturdays before he has to start classes again. Maybe turn over what's there and rake it out, then just repeat the process.

Theoretically, what goes on top is STRAW, not hay (at least I buy STRAW from Santa Fe Greenhouses, and I don't think they'd slip a ringer in on me...) but I have learned the hard way that even "straw" is never completely free of weed seeds. However, if I put it down in late August or even early September, new sprout-ups of grassy weed stuff shouldn't get far enough to set seed before frost, and if I turn it under again in early spring I can probably get away with it.

I don't think those are "native grasses" in any desirable sense, I've had a pretty good gander at most of what's natural here and that stuff looks a dead ringer for crabgrass to me. The tipoff was the running start it got as soon as we had rain AND hot days. In any case, my planting plan for that area doesn't include grassy groundcover, it will be mostly native shrubs and some clumpy low-water use perennials with a gravel mulch, eventually. I'd like forestiera all along that bit, it is so pretty against brown stucco and berries up nicely for the birds, and my feeders are over there, it's one of two 'BOS's, that's 'Bird Observation Stations.'

Boy, do we have hummingbirds now! I have a hard time keeping the feeders full and they are such fun to watch!

appreciatively,
Bright

[NMDemDist2]

4. maybe put the black plastic down now and kill off the seeds then

in fall when it's cooler do your layers again??

[FloridaPat]

5. A book that might interest you: Lasgna Gardening. Pretty much

the same thing as the sheet mulching. IN a year the soil underneat is getting better.

[bluethruandthru]

6. I've been Lasagne gardening for years.

My soil is clayey (is that a word?) and rocky. I put down sheets of wet newspaper, cover it with grass clippings, bagged topsoil, peat, manure, coffee grounds, shredded leaves, whatever I can find. I make sure it's at least 5 or 6 inches high. I plant in it right away then cover it all with bark mulch. I have several very fertile beds. As time goes on, I put down extra layers of wet newspaper prior to mulching in areas that have lots of weeds. It's a fast way to get rid of weeds and improve the soil too.

[LWolf]

7. I would

turn over what you've got growing there, and perhaps add some sand if you can get it cheaply and easily. Then I'd start again with lasagne gardening. I don't think the grass is a big problem unless it is bermuda, or some other grass that spreads with runners. You can cover your straw/grass with another layer of cardboard, and that's that. You can even do that now, without turning anything into the soil, if you like. I'm just thinking that I'd add a little sand to help with drainage in that adobe soil.

I once lost a pair of cowboy boots to wet adobe; I was about 10, trying to catch some horses in a pen at the bottom of a hill. Plenty of organic matter in that adobe, what with the hay and manure. I stepped into the muck and sunk up to my knee. I pulled my foot out, leaving my boot behind. the mud closed over the opening, and that was the last I ever saw of that boot. So I'm standing there, one foot in the air, no boot, hands full of bridles. I put the foot down, forever ruining the sock, and pulled up the other leg. Boot stayed behind. I caught the horses in slimy socks, and hosed our legs down once I got them out, winter or no. Come summer, when the ground hardened into rock, it was a smooth, unbroken expanse without even a little bump to show that, somewhere in the deeps rested my boots.

That's why I was thinking sand, lol.

[NMDemDist2]

8. LOL great story LWolf!

how's the house coming? did you hear we moved from PHX to rural New Mexico? so I am doing a total house makeover too

hope the kidlet and your mom are both well and that the "girls" are enjoying their new digs

:hi:

[LWolf]

9. I think I heard about your move;

I hope you're lovin' it.

Things are interesting here. On the positive; kid and mom are both doing very well. Girls are well settled, and we've added a flock of hens and sheep to the place. Some fruit trees, too; probably a futile effort, since fruit trees don't bear well here. Hard, hard freezes in the winter, late spring frosts, with frost possible 365 days a year, sandy soil for 2 feet, with a layer of solid rock under that...apparently not fruit-growing paradise, lol.

The house? Suffering from neglect, as I'm still working on fences, barns, etc.. I'm way behind, and have way too much to get done before the onset of winter. Work starts up again in a couple of weeks, too. Whew!

I've never been to New Mexico. Tell me all about it!

:hi:

[NMDemDist2]

10. I'm practically in Texas actually. Closer to El Paso than Albuquerque

so it's desert too. Sandy soil and hard water. lots of limestone around and skies that go on forever it seems.

We bought a 3b/2b 1360SF mobile home on one acre about 6 miles south of Carlsbad. Carlsbad's (pop. 25K) 2 claims to fame are the Caverns and the Pecos River. Lots of ranching, hay, peppers and pecans around here as well as natural gas, salt and potash mines.

we are loving it!

we get most of our rain in the summer (about 12" a year) with mild winters and warm summers but not tornado country really. check the DIY group for several threads on my saga LOL

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=287

here's a pic off my back deck of one of our summer storms rolling up from Texas



and here's a pic of the kitten that "came with the house" She adopted us and she's a sweetie. We named her "Squeak"

[NJCher]

11. Squeak is a doll!

Lucky you, to inherit a kitten!! She is really precious. Give her a nuzzle for me, will ya?




Cher

[feminazi]

12. Is there any reason I couldn't do this to prepare my soil for groundcover?

For those of you who may remember, I have clay soil from hell. I've removed some of it from the perimeter of my yard this summer and replaced it with weedblock, bark and container plants. That leaves the middle of the yard which is currently old, dead sod because the sod was laid on top of the clay without any preparation of the soil that I can determine.

I'm looking for an easy way to replace the dead sod with a low growing, low maintenance ground cover. But I want the soil to be properly prepared this time. Shouldn't sheet-mulching work for this, also?

Thanks.

[bluethruandthru]

13. Absolutely

I would put down wet newspaper several sheets thick right on top of the dead sod. Then add compost, bagged topsoil, whatever organic material you can get and build up a nice thick layer. You could let the pile "cure" until Spring...or plant right on top of the pile...and mulch around your plants. I've done it both ways and it works great.

[feminazi]

14. That's about what I was thinking.

I planned on letting it "sit" over the winter and planting in the spring. Thanks. I can't wait to get out there and cover the ugly sod with newspaper. I will look so much better!

[TygrBright]

15. That should do just fine...

...but as a poster upthread noted, sand is an important addition in wet clay soils. Maybe mix in with the compost/manure layer. Let it cook slowly through the winter and you've got plantable soil in early spring.

confidently,
Bright