Monty Loree

wow... I am impressed that there are many innovative people from Saskatchewan on permies.com  very cool...

I will try the suggestions... I think that I'm seeing that I'm going to have to build some green house type things...


YES!!  I put six inches of wood chips on my yard 3 years ago... when we had reasonable moisture... they worked well and decomposed nicely...  they held the moisture in the ground
Over the last few years of really heavy dryness, the woodchips worked against me.... they dried up and kept the top layer of the soil really dry...

PHONE CHAT?
I would be interested to have a phone chat with any of the Saskatchewan Permaculturalists…   As you can imagine... a year goes by easily and it's hard to learn all of the lessons in the one year...
This dry weather is going to make it so that it will take many years to learn basic gardening, and how to deal with dry...

The one thing that I did well last year:
I planted 50 tomatoes... and by each tomatoe, I put in a 6-8" length of weeping tile... - 4 "  perforated pipe.  So I was getting water right by the roots..
I cut 50 pieces of this pipe... and it worked well for the tomatoes... I was watering 1 hour per night... which got to be tiresome.. but the tomatoes were well watered...
I will probably have to do something like this for the rest of the garden...

Thanks again, and I'm glad to see

Thanks...
I think what I'm seeing is that I need to study every water holding technique possible... hoop houses, mulch... hugelkultur... swales, berms  ….. every possible thing to control and hold water...

Thanks!

Hello,
I love the idea of permaculture, but I just need to learn how to grow a garden first...
I live in Regina, SK … Zone 3
We can grow between June 1 and Sept 15

The last few years it's been hot and dry during the spring and summer.  During the winter, the ground is frozen between November 1 and April 15.
We have a really short growing season and short prep time..

I have been mulching like crazy.  When it rains the mulch holds the moisture nicely, but when it dries out, it dries out the mulch and then it's hard to keep it moist even with tap water.

I have two 1000 liter tanks to collect rain water, but they get filled up maybe once per season... so I am relying on tap water.

Last year, I planted into really nice soil.. lots of humus.... and it was so dry nothing really grew up...

I am certain that there are permaculture principles to learn... so I am asking for help on this...

It seems that on May 30, we need to hit the ground running, and have very limited growing time.. if we make mistakes the season is over quickly.

Any help would be appreciated..... thanks,

Ok... thanks.. I will try that sand/soil mixture...
as far as the lights go... they aren't hot at all.... they are 4ft T8's  … they are cool to the touch...

Thanks for your reply..
how close to the grow lights would you suggest?
and... I have sand... it's currently frozen in the shed, but i can bring it out and thaw it...

should i replant the plants in pure sand?  or sand / dirt combo?

I live in Zone 3 where we have 110 days of growing season.
As an experiment, I dug out some comfrey plants so that I could divide them and grow them over the winter under grow lights.
I started this process on November 13, 2018

I put the comfrey roots in very nice soil with compost, peat moss etc... it's a nice growing environment.
I have the grow lights on 12 hours per day.

I am growing 30 root pieces hopefully into plants.. I want to use comfrey in the yard to help build the soil with chop and drop.

The Problem:
with a few of the comfrey plants they were growing nice leaves.  Now the leaves are dying.
I took one of the plants apart to see what was going on.  I noticed that the root piece hadn't grown any roots yet.. it was just growing the leaves but no roots..

I have watched many videos where people took root pieces and grew viable plants from them.
I don't want to waste these root pieces as I could have just left them in the ground to grow, and they were doing fine...

Is there a way to stimulate root growth?  
If these initial leaves die, can I revive the root and have it grow some more leaves and start roots?

Thanks,