Message #118 - THE_HERBALIST 
   Date: 03-03-96 13:08
   From: Buckmeister
     To: Trav'ler
Subject: Echo, echo, echo!!
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@MSGID: 93:9301/15 31399eef
Greetings and Salutations, Trav'ler!


Tuesday February 27 1996 11:11, Trav'ler wrote to BUCKMEISTER:

 Bu>> Please chime in and where your hailing from.

 Tl>   Hello from San Antonio!

 Ah, another person from the area, Eileen(?) I hope that is spelled right is
in the general vicinity as yourself.

 Tl>   No, I haven't posted here before, but I've about 7 months of back
 Tl> messages saved with all kinds of wonderful advice. :> (ok, so I lurk
 Tl> too much. :>)  I'm retired AF and have finally gotten a place where
 Tl> I can dig to my back's discontent.

 This is part of my reasoning to post the echo, echo, echo.  To bring out
some of the folks who do lurk and to bring them into an environment that they
would feel comfortable in(actually I stole the idea from Song Bird our
moderator). What it does is give all of us a starting point in which to
converse in.

 Tl>   My interests lie in vegies and herbal (both cooking and medicinal).
 Tl> The only prob is the soil I've got here is primarily caliechee (sp?)
 Tl> clay.  I've spent the last 2 days in a bed (garden type) turning in
 Tl> leaf mulch, potting soil, sawdust/chips, and the little bit of sand I
 Tl> had available, and so far all I've been able to accomplish is to
 Tl> double the volume of clay I have to plant in.  What I'm in need of
 Tl> here is advice on how to bring up the soil to a *loamy* stage that
 Tl> will hold water better. (we're about to go into strict water rationing
 Tl> here in S.A. as we haven't had rain in close to 60 days. :< )  Any
 Tl> ideas on what else I can do to improve the soil??

 A couple of other items you may want to add to the soil is gypsum and
sphagnum peat(the bale stuff). These along with what you have should keep the
soil loose enough for a good vigorous root growth on the plants.  Getting
from point A(the clay) to point B(the loam as you want), is going to take a
while so don't get too flustered from this years results.  Something that you
are doing is making a bucket out of the area of the garden.  Clay doesn't
assorb moisture as readily as your loam, but with the area surrounding being
clay you have a pit so to speak.

 This is good except when you have massive amounts of rain, then all you have
is a pond basically.  After the plants are in it is advisable to mulch
everything, what this does is help delay the evaporation process a bit and
your plants won't be as stressed when there are long periods of little to no
moisture.  Depending upon the type of garden area you are preparing
for(vegetable verses herbal) will dictate to you what type of mulching you
would want to do.  A garden the is for single season crops(hence your
vegetable garden), you would more than likely could use grass clippings,
newspapers, leaves, or any number of mulches that can be returned to the soil
which would add more nutrients back to the area.

 The herbal garden you would want to use something that would last a bit
longer is you plan on not disturbing the soil very often, this might include
shredded bark, landscape bark, a matting with cover(like rock), or you may
want to leave the ground bare and add leaves during the drier times.

 Bu>> still here and not  gone to the internet and left us poorer folks
 Bu>> behind<G>.
 Tl>   Uh, internet??  Isn't that what the fish are suppose to do?? :>


 If I didn't know better, there is another retired Air Force person that
would have said the same thing.  :)

May you be watched over and protected
Blessings,
Buckmeister

... To boldly go where no sane man has any business

--- D'Bridge/GoldED 2.50.A0611+
 * Origin: Bucky, he came, he saw, he planted..... (PodsNet 93:9301/15)
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