I Should Stop Reading "the Research"

digitS'

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I was reading an "official description" of my garden soil type, this morning. The USDA actually put it under "official description!" Seems that the testing was done in 1998 so I'm really behind at uncovering this research.

It is officially "50% gravel." Shoot. I knew that! Officially, it's 50% gravel and "15% cobble" below 7" ... I would have guessed more cobble and try for a cultivation depth of 11". Well, I cobble along as best as I can ...

I made the joke that I was giving up gardening when I posted this picture of ;) "my soil" on TEG, 5 years ago:

4989_early_tomatoes.jpg


;) Steve
 

thistlebloom

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Hey! We have to pay good money for nice rocks like that around here!

I have some large piles I can sell you! No. I'll give them to you, you just have to pick them up. :)
Digging post holes is a workout in this country too, I can tell you.

But in spite of that, look at Steve's garden success! Can you imagine what he could do in deep loam? Scary! Haha.
 

digitS'

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I don't know about that, @thistlebloom .

I tried messing with Palouse soil, about the most productive wheat land in the world. The Palouse is the home of the Appaloosa horse. I think I might have benefited from using lots of horse manure. As it was, my experience amounted to a big zero!

@so lucky , companies do get $ for the rocks. There are gravel pits less than 2 miles from all my gardening.

Steve
 

canesisters

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The appaloosa horse is famous for it's tough hooves - which came from the breeding population living on such harsh, gravely land....
just sayin' ;)
 

Ridgerunner

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Most of the rocks in this pile came from digging post holes and planting trees here. it's not just digging post holes Thistle. Try planting over 100 trees. I piled them up like this to stop my driveway from washing away in a heavy rain. It works pretty well.

In the lower 2/3's of my area the top 18" of ground are full of rocks. The top 1/3 where the garden is located is pretty rock free. That was mainly luck. I did not realize it when I selected what would be orchard and shade trees and what would be garden.

Rock Pile.JPG
 

digitS'

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Actually, the Palouse is windblown loess. It couldn't be softer, @canesisters . I lived there for just a few years.

However, probably the most important use for the Appy was hunting buffalo on the other side of the Rockies. Columbia Plateau Indians hunted there but a lot of horses were sold to the people of the northern Plains. The environment in that part of the world wasn't a very good one for wintering a horse.

To get the horses into and through the Rockies - Plateau Indians had to move them 100's of miles, right up the path of the glacier. Or, where that glacier had been. I bet those mountains had some sort of Indian name, about the same as they do now.

Steve
 

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