[PaulO]

Originally Posted by lurley

Have you tried sweet potatoes?

Thanks for the recommendation! I will absolutely plant some next year. Just curious: have you noticed some being more drought tolerant than others?

Originally Posted by tuk50

Pardner, you really need to start working in composted manure every time you plant something. It (cheaply) provides a lot of good things your (farmed for gererations) soil needs.
Potatoes need a low ph soil (pine needles) if available and red types seem to do better here in Tucson than others. Sweetpotatoes are great like lurley said. Many years ago my grandpa rotated onions one year and sweetpotatoes the next in eastern Okla. where our soil was a good sandy loam with no irrigation. Cowpeas (your blackeye peas) are something that should produce great in what you describe. This is a good article from Clemson University and can give you an idea what will grow with less fertilizer and what vegetables need more. Hope this helps some. http://www.clemson.edu/extension/hgi.../hgic1254.html

I about forgot to mention that if there is a cattle pond around, the mud or dirt around the edge where the poop washes into the tank when it rains is very rich in nitrogen and will make a great fertilizer applied at only about 1/2 in to 1 in before working up your seed beds. Another great fertilizer I use here is from the feed store. Both cottonseed meal and/or alfalfa pellets (you can google them for nutrient value) are about 15dollars per bag here. I use about 25 lbs per 1000sq ft at beginning and as side dressing again when plants start blooming.

Admittedly I haven't tried onions yet, but plan to do that this fall.

I have been fertilizing some using the "complete organic fertilizer" recipe mix promoted by Steve Solomon, although I dropped the phosphorous component after I got the soil test results. I got it out of his book, Gardening When It Counts (it's a great book, by the way). The main ingredient is cottonseed meal. I haven't been applying a whole lot of fertilizer, though it probably ends up being similar to how much you use. What I think the biggest problem with my soil is that it is dry. It forms a hard crust, it doesn't get regular water, and it doesn't retain water. Most types of vegetables I plant never even germinate.

So you're right: what I need is organic material. If I had a truck or trailer or some way of hauling it (or a bunch of cash), I might not be making this post. I did haul what was likely 100-200 pounds of composted manure in a large plastic tote in my car, but it doesn't go far in a large garden like mine--I'm spacing the plants out so they have less competition for water. In preparation for next year, I'm hauling a couple of full wheelbarrows of humus from the forest floor. I'm also working on composting (The Humane Handbook was an enlightening read!) but it takes time to make a lot. I am also planning to spend some money on inoculating the dirt with mycorrhizal this year. I know over time the soil will eventually be built up to a point I can grow more of the sensitive vegetables. The plan over the next year is to get some goats and ducks, and that will help too.

In the meantime, I'm hoping to add vigorous vegetable varieties to my list of reliable food to eat.

Originally Posted by mcsee

Paul, when you had your soil tests done, did they give you any idea on why there are such differences with Phosphorus, Potassium, Magnesium and Zinc levels. In a field, 150ft isn't a huge distance, so it just has me curious to see why they are different.

No, they didn't. The only part I left off was the "Cation Exchange Capacity (CEC)" and "Base Saturations". And some of their recommendations as far as fertilizer. Would you like to see any of those?

I can post pictures, video, google maps, etc if you like to take a gander.