So I'm building a garden...
First, we are in high ( 7500 ft) dry ( 17" in a good year) New Mexico in a drought. Our
native rocky soil is so hard my small backhoe has serious trouble digging, forget about shovels.
The garden area was a 40x60 pit I dug out to level
greenhouse and house, average 3' deep, which was then completely filled with
wood. ( crushed brush, shredding debris from a 9 acre fire safety thinning, rotting pine, etc. It is in a shallow ravine so it catches runoff and all our graywater, (where we are now building a vermiculture bin to process the outflows, 5000 wigglers go in today) I am bringing up earth from what will be our 2nd catchment
pond and covering, grading the hügelkultur bed, have 8-10" soil on it now,planning on a foot or so before terrace building. Since it has about 3' fall top to bottom, will use more logs to terrace. ( Pinyons keep dying, sad.)
So My plan is to install soil/manure mix behind the terraces, cover this with composted 3/4 shred wood from nearby recycler and let it all age for a more months possibly a year while I double
fence it all for
deer.
I have on hand about 8 yards of aged horse manure from a certified stable, Just picked up 6-7 yards of 5 year aged cow manure (grass fed also) And I can get far more from the same source. Then 7 yards of wood shreds mentioned above. That's pricy, but will use as top dress only.
So how deep can I layer the manure? Is 6" too much?
Should I
lasagna that with my clay soils?
