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Idaho Gardening

serious soil sonondrum...

8 years ago

At the begining of the season I removed all weeds and old plants. I covered the beds with 4 layers of news paper with a soaker hose under the paper and 4-6 inches of straw on top of the paper. I watered 2-3 times a week for an hour each. My ? is why did my soil get so hard. like a rock when I pulled the paper for last week because the squash was done?

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Comment (1)

Mountain Guardian
8 years ago
When we bought this farm in 2012 come spring I found tarp all over the place around 1,000 sq feet of it overall. When I pulled up the tarp I found a layer of straw under that and then a layer of paper under that. I have no idea what they were trying to accomplish with all that I cleaned up a good 5 truck loads of straw and made a rot pile with it. I am curious where you got the idea of putting down paper and hay from, and why you do that? Might help explain what the previous owners were doing with that.

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I assumed that they were trying to make garden areas maybe clear of weeds? I did notice that the ground beneath all of this was like iron, I had to till and till and till to break it up enough to be garden. Part of my problem was that the soil was nothing but clay, there was no organic compost in it at all. The funniest part was that all the grass was still quite alive though white in color under all of this. If they were doing that to kill stuff off it wasn't working very effectively.

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As for why it was hard, not completely sure other than high clay content in our case, though snow weight here in some places in Idaho combined with moisture may be able to pack soil down as well maybe. Was the soil farily hard packed before you put the material down?

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At any rate, if your soil is compacting for any reason you might add old rotted manure, rotted hay, leaves etc to it, in time and after great quantity that will help. You could also till in some sand into soil to help keep it loose as well.

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One trick I have used is to bore a hole 2 to 3 feet deep and fill the hole with good soil that I mix up and plant the plants into those holes rasther tha trying to get an entire area up to par on soil I simply upgrade the soil right where the plant is going to be. This allows for a smaller amount of manure and good soil to go a lot further. I just use a six inch post hole digger to dig the holes, mine is gas powered and I can do a lot of holes in no time flat. I like to dig down to the spring water table about 30 inches here. The hole depth allows for the new soil to wick moisture from the water up to the roots of the plant.

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Good luck on the gardening, all of my gardening is yet in the house, I have to wait until May to get anything in the ground out here.
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I don't claim to be an expert on this subject, but I'll share what I've read in the book "Gardening in the Rocky Mountains". I'm in the same zone as you (5), so the advice is probably applicable to your garden as well. 1)Begin with a soil test. My local university charges $22 for this service. They will tell you about pH, nutrients, and organic content, and what you should add for optimum balance. 2)(Here I quote:) "Adding organic matter should be an annual process in a new garden. As organic material breaks down and releases nutrients for plant use, it will need replenishing." The author goes on to say that you should add compost, peat moss, manure, etc., in the fall, so that it will mellow over the winter. Work it to a depth of 6 inches, and leave your garden in a rough state. Alternating freeze/thaw cycles will break down the clods, leaving your garden ready to plant in the spring. The author recommends adding 1.5" of organic material to especially bad soil. Your soil sounds pretty good, so you probably don't need this much. I add maybe 1/2" of manure and compost each year, and this seems to work well.
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