Thank you for the many helpful posts here. My beds were filled with 'topsoil' to about 12" below the bed line, and then the remaining 12"+ was filled with mushroom plant compost. Every year except last year, as the beds reduce (of course, esp. with much of them being compost), I have another half-load of compost delivered, which adds anywhere from 8-12" of compost to the top of all the beds, plus I refill all my big containers, and stick the rest in a rolling lidded trashcan where I keep extra soil to use as needed. Last year I did not garden at all. From the September before, nothing was done at all. So a lot of stuff stayed as dead when winter hit, then quite a bit of stuff reseeded come spring, so the bed all year was filled with the mix of dead stuff from the previous season and live stuff from the current year, plus weeds from being ignored. Now, all of that together is dead. My intent just like directed at last, there -- I am gradually digging out the top of the beds and containers where the weeds and their main roots are (bearing in mind, for all I know half these 'weeds' were fruiting plants at one time), and tossing those in one of my 3 compost bins, leaving the others for real compost (thanks for that advice). In the buckets, all of which were destroyed by the horrid freeze we had awhile ago (everything cracked or shattered depending on its material), I dig out the bottom part of the soil, which looks surprisingly good to me though I haven't Ph tested it, and I put it in my good-soil-bin for now. Once I finish all the buckets (I have 9x 32-gal ones and 6x 21-gal ones to dig out and it's slow going frankly, given everything is nearly frozen, but I'm working on it!), then I will do the beds. THEN I have to add new soil or something. I don't mean the whole beds need new soil, I mean like the top 12" or so of everything (beds, big-containers, pots). So I was thinking, since I already 'have' soil, that a 'soilless mix' seems sorta pointless. On the other hand, surely having about 12" of 'soilless mix' on the top, with 12" of soil underneath, probably isn't going to hurt anything, I hope. One thing I wondered is, if I add a soilless mix to the top (I'm looking at something like Al's recipe), with pine bark fines + perlite + spaghum peat, the fact that in some respect this could end up mixing with some of the soil as I put it in, would this be a problem? I heard someone say somewhere that mixing soilless and soil mixes, depending on their makeup, could result in something rather like mud-cement LOL. I don't know that I can afford enough of the ingredients for Al's mix to actually handle all my beds and major containers and planters. I'd like to but it is sort of unlikely. So I was wondering if getting more compost -- either mushroom compost again, or some from my own bins (hence my question about how to deal with the green/brown and breakdown more quickly), to mix in with that, would be more practical in the end.

Gotcha! I grow quite a few native plants myself, whether intentionally or unintentionally. Unintentionally, a lot of larval host plants are natives, so I grow them for that reason. But, intentionally, I like the natives because they are adapted to my environment and consequently, I choose to grow many of them. I stray towards non-natives when it comes to annual nectar plants, like Zinnias, Cosmos, Mexican Sunflower, Moonflower for my moths, Ipomeae quamoclit (Cypress Vine), Tropical Milkweed, non-native Cleomes, and more I'm sure. I continue to add more natives each year, though. I'm not strict about what county in Oklahoma they're from, though, just so they are native to my state. I don't know that we even have a source that reflects the counties in which the natives here are found. Think I've got your instructions down pat now, so thanks again for your help. Will let you know how it works out for me. Susan

I hope Susan is right and that El Nino will give us all some drought relief. Sometimes El Nino brings us a really wet summer....does anyone remember the summer of 2004? It wouldn't quit raining here at our house. Other times, though, El Nino peters out in April or May, so I guess we'll have to keep our fingers crossed. What worked for me in the summer of '06: Lots of mulching. Mulching early and often. Watering very early or very late in the day to minimize evaporation. Using soaker hoses and drip irrigation. Grouping plants together with similar needs, that is....put all your "thirstiest" plants in one bed and give them more water if they need it. Growing more stuff in containers. Water gardening is great, but I did have to keep adding water to the smallest pond so it wouldn't dry up completely. I moved all my water plants to that one pond and let the big ponds dry up. Planting mostly native plants and a few very well adapted non-native plants. One of the most important things I have done these last few years is to observe how all the native plants on our acreage react to the weather. I watch to see which ones are the hardiest, which ones come back even after going dormant and losing all their leaves. I try to learn from the native plants, and it guides me in making decisions about what to plant and what not to plant too. In the veggie garden, I always try to have plants in the ground as early as possible in the spring so they can produce before the hot weather and lack of rain kill them. I evaluate the veg. garden in mid-June and decide whether it is worth it financially to continue to water, or whether to turn off the hose and finish out the summer with 'dry-land' gardening. I do always put a few tomato plants and pepper plants in containers so I keep them going by watering them even if I let the rest of the veg garden go dry. I select varieties carefully. Vegetables that have been grown for many years in the southwest do better for me than many of the modern-day hybrids that guzzle water. The same is true of many flowers. And, I'm hoping for a grasshopper year this year EXACTLY like we had last year. It was our best year ever as we had hardly any grasshoppers at all. Our county had lots of grasshoppers, but they weren't at our house. I think the guineas had a lot to do with that. Also, I've put out semasphore every other year or so, so it is probably well established on our land and is doing its job in keeping the grasshopper population down. My poor guineas had to range far and wide to find the grasshoppers they wanted to eat. Luckily my neighbors are very tolerant and didn't mind having the guineas coming over to eat their ticks and grasshoppers. As far as I know, except for the vegetable garden which mostly died after I quit watering it in late June, I didn't lose many plants. I did lose some of the common big green elephant ears that were in dry shade. And I lost my banana shrub. Plants that survived the drought of 06: Native redbuds (I watered them once a month, just when they seemed about to die. I usually don't water them at all.) Native oaks, hackberries, pecans, willows, walnuts, hickories, ashes, some sumac, wild blackberries, wild grapes, trumpet vine and elms all survived (unirrigated). The native roughleaf dogwoods and persimmons suffered greatly and had lots of leaf scorching and lost some but not all leaves. They didn't die though. The wild plums that grow along all the fence lines here in southern Oklahoma all died, or at least went dormant. We're waiting to see if they green up in the spring. The Mexican plums handled the heat well. Native cottonwoods had a little dieback near the top of the crown, but were otherwise unscathed. Understory plants in the woods did better than prairie plants in the meadows in full sun. Guess the shade helped them. These included black cherries, American beautyberries, indian currants, redbuds, black haw viburnums, virginia creeper, greenbrier and poison ivy (in the shade they lived, in the sun they died), possom haw hollies, `and many others I can't identify. The river oats grasses went dormant exceptionally early. All the prairie grasses went dormant early and many wildflowers did the same. However, the native sunflowers hung in there all summer as did the milkweeds and a few other flowers like the greenthread daisies. Some of the plants we've planted in the yard around our house that did well: desert willow, chaste tree, four o'clocks, American cross vine, sweet autumn clematis, Burford hollies, southern wax myrtle, cannas, verbena bonariensis, purple wintercreeper, the low, spreading ground-cover type junipers and Madam Galens trumpet creepers. Most sumacs along the roadside went totally dormant (we thought they were dead) and then revived in the fall. Some Eastern Red Cedars turned brown and died but some didn't. As far as the ones that survived...they'll be dying soon as we continue to cut them down and remove them. With our large wooded area, this is an ongoing job. We had a small amount of rain at the end of July and then again at the end of August. This caused many of the wildflowers that normally bloom in spring/early summer to suddently sprout and bloom. Maybe they were there all along, but were dormant and so we hadn't noticed them. The fall bloomers like liatris amd goldenrod and helnium and the little fall asters started a little late but put on a great show. Of course, it doesn't take much water to keep them happy. The plants that surprised me the most? Eggplants and my sweet peppers and hot peppers. Long after I stopped watering the veg garden, they were flowering and fruiting and carrying on, business as usual, in spite of the drought. They were still fruiting when they froze in late November. Okra, sweet potatoes and back-eyed peas fared better than most of the other veggies. On the edge of the garden, the white-flowered daturas (aka jimsonweed) hung on through the heat. The devil's claw did not. The black-eyed susan vines got really sad looking after I stopped watering the veg. garden (they grow on the fence that surrounds it), but stayed alive and put on new leaves and new flowers in the fall after small amounts of rain began to fall. They were tougher than I expected them to be. Sadly, despite my best efforts, the bermuda grass DID NOT die. Hoping for a better year, courtesy of El Nino, in 2007. Dawn

Hello, I live along a creek in No.Cal. that runs into the county reservoir. We are in severe drought conditions. The creek dries as soon as rain stops. I have a long narrow 4 acres that completely parallel the creek 1 side & road the other. I have huge thickets of wild blackberry & massive amts. of poison oak & stinging nettle. 10 yrs. ago I had goats; otherwise I have left it all alone so wildlife has refuse. Now medically unemployable & have become more interested in hurgenkulture. I want to cut the dead oaks, over grown 50'Xmas trees and place them along the creek bed. I will being cutting the willow trees & bringing up to dry. If I spray brush be gone numerous times, when poison oak is dried & dead I lay the logs in piles over where p.o. was, cover with dried willow sticks & other dead sticks, compost, leaves, manure, dirt a few inches of top soil; will the poison oak grow through into my hugelkultur gardens. Ultimately my goal is to plant almost 1/10 mile of creekbed with these beds. They are drought resistant gardens for as the trees stumps hold water & release it they eliminate almost all watering. I plan to plant gardens most distant from the house with blueberry, currants, gooseberry and grapes. Then potatoes, onion, garlic, melons, squash and finally nearest gardens with tomato, peas,beans, and other daily veggies. Would it be best to use product that sterilizes creek bank soil killing poison oak, nettle & blackberry first? My husband is a firefighter & on the big wildland fires has gotten systemic poison oak. I always pray he doesn't get it in his lungs. Many of the firefighters have become highly sensitized. Thank you, Moni