So one of the large issues that I am running into now is the soil. Southern Utah is a desert area and the garden plot I have selected is no different. It is both sandy and loamy. The last time a crop of vegetables was planted in this area was several years ago and the soil is in great need of some organic materials. Furthermore, weeds have taken to the area and are quite extensive. As the garden plot is nearly a 700 square foot area, I am not looking forward to weeding it and in fact it may be too late as I have already tilled the ground working the weeds further into the soil. I need to find an inexpensive way to both nurish the soil as well as rid the weeds. I have some great ideas for next year such as homemade compost piles, earthworms, etc, but all require too much time to implement successfully for this years garden.
I have already ordered 200 red earthworms online, and am looking forward to installing them into the garden, but as it stand the soil would probably not be able to even sustain their life. Earthworms may scare off some, but they work wonders in a garden. They are natural composters and improve the soil greatly. Of course, the improvement is not done overnight. Red earthworms are one of the favorites among gardeners and fishermen alike as they are hardy and resiliant.
Before I can install the worms I need to improve the soil quality, and before I can do that I need to rid the weeds. I have been perplexed the last several weeks, as I have surveyed my garden site, by an annoying and incredibly resiliant weed. I had not seen it before and had no idea what it was, but grew more and more concerned as I saw the weed's fruit (which I only imagined to contain dozens of seeds encased in each one) scattered all over the soil in the garden and surrounding areas. I googled "noxious weeds in southern utah" and found a website that contained several images of various classes of noxious weeds in utah, but I was unable to see my weed. Remembering that the climate of the majority of Utah was quite different than Southern Utah, and that we are more similar to the climate of Nevada, I tried the same search for Nevada. After some searching I came across my weed.
It is called Carolina Horsenettle and is both toxic (to humans and animals) as well as nearly impossible to eradicate. Further contemplating my situation is that the seeds (scattered throughout my garden) can lay dormant for up to 15 years before germinating. There are no effective chemicals or methods to completely remove the problem apart from removing every plant, every seed, and every root and then burning them all. The only feesible manner to do that would be to rent a backhoe to remove the top 3 feet of all the contaminated soil (maybe 2500 surface square feet) and remove it, yet that would be violating noxious weed laws. So I am still contemplating how to best handle that and am running on very little time to arive at an answer. Peas, carrots, onions, garlic, and some herbs should all be in soil no later than the end of this month for St George UT, and the rest of the plants should follow either the last week of March or first week of April at the latest.
I am currently considering laying a plastic tarp to seal the soil in for the entire garden, and then to just cut out holes for each of the plants I am to plant. This would greatly cut down on the weeding I would do throughout the season. It would also save costs on compost to improve the quality of soil because my previous option was to till a hundred cubic feet of compost into the garden soil. With this option I would only need to place a little compost and a few earthworms in with each transplanted plant. I'm sure there are some negative impacts of tarping off the garden. Water scarcity and increased heat (in an already extremely hot region) might be some of the larger issues. I'll have to sleep on that one. More to come...
