Og Duzle

Julie E. Johnson wrote:I have finally acquired two very small paw paw seedlings and I am wondering if you might have any tips on how to plant them and when to plant them?  I live in East TN. Which is zone 7 .  Any info would be appreciated.  

Paw-paws don't like direct sun/wind swept areas although I have 3 that are planted in just such a location and they survived to the point of two of them bearing fruit this year (but in a hot, dry summer - they will suffer - which will slow them down, sometimes considerably). In their natural form, paw-paws are usually found in partial shade near water such as creeks. Do note that to get fruit you will need two different paw-paw varieties. I am in Virginia (7a).

Eino Kenttä wrote:If they grow well, lingonberries would make a neat groundcover. Around here (northern Scandinavia) lingonberries, bilberries and a couple other acid-soil berries are so common in the wild that no one attempts to grow them. Where lingonberries do grow, they tend to form quite dense populations. Since they are evergreen, if you got them well established they might shade out the buttercups' new growth in spring? Don't know anything, just guessing.

Also, aren't buttercups a high-nitrogen indicator?

Buttercups inhibit other nitrogen fixers around them and are usually a sigh of low calcium / acidic soils. if you want to get rid of them - you can try simply liming the soil as the first step (which is not what the OP wants in their situation!). Buttercups will fix/store calcium themselves (which is why they appear in low calcium soils).

Well, at least this is what I know

B Permie wrote:

Greg B Smith wrote: The pics below are composted wood chips that were put down 2 plus years ago. Also pictured is the compacted clay.  Zone 8 Central Mississippi...

I know it's a long shot but is there an update to this situation? I am in almost the exact situation, north central MS, at least 4 ft of clay, and I've been working on a solid layer of organic on top. The area had zero top soil when I moved here. I've now got about 7 inches of leaf and crass clippings that have been breaking down for a year or two, and it seems like this year things are growing well enough in it..

There is still a very obvious divide between clay and organic, and I don't know if it is worth fighting or not. I feel like "punching through" the clay would be an excercise in futility due to the depth, and I wonder if my best bet is to just bring in some soil to mix in and just garden on top of the clay? Or just keep waiting as the crawdads and fireants keep bringing up mounds of clay into the compost.

I live on top of clay as well

Clays do not generally have a problem with fertility and organic matter - both of which they are rich in. The problem with clay is density, aeration and waterlogging. Adding organic compost on top of clay is in my humble opinion not necessary. What is necessary is to grow deep rooted plants (long term) / cover crops and in the interim - broadforking. It is OK to plow/till the clay ONCE - to bust it up and start the process of no-till growing the soil upwards - but long term you want root penetration by perennials. Clovers, docks dandelions etc. - are all perennials with deep roots that bust up / aerate the soil - mow them short, cover them with plastic (OK to do once just like plowing) or cardboard or thick straw/old hay and plant straight into it - the soil underneath is likely to be not so compacted. On the "short growth cycle" side to combat compaction - radishes (daikons) and various cover crop mixes that contain them. Working clay is a multi-year process (just like working sand) but IMHO "enriching" clay with more organic matter is like wearing a sweater on top of a jacket... IMHO a lot of people get on the "compost train" and that's OK but what you can also do is smart rotation of plots with cover crops grown year round in some of them while others are producing - and smartly terminating said cover crops or simply letting them die off naturally. For example, buckwheat does not survive cold weather so it is an ideal summer cover crop to scavenge phosphorus into the soil for the next crop - which could be wheat mixed with clover and trefoil (which will scavenge nitrogen) - followed by sunflowers after wheat harvest (sunflowers scavenge nutrients from deeper in the soil), followed by a period of 1-year long cover crop rest for the same plot.

p.s. the straw from your wheat harvest can be re-used as mulch, sunflower stalks can be used to build a honeybee hive box etc. etc.

There are apple varieties that are resistant to cedar rust and there is a supplier in North Carolina that sells at least one of them - the variety is "Liberty". I have also had luck with Arkansas black rome. Growing fruits on the east coast is not simple - stone fruits such as peaches, apricots etc. are susceptible to all sorts of fungal diseases and bacterial cankers etc. I have had much more luck with plums - they seem much hardier at least in my little corner of SW/central Virginia.

Every time you have a "fight" with some sort of "undesirable" plant ("weed") - ask yourself why the particular plant is where it is and what is it trying to tell you. If I were you, I would do a soil test to see what is missing. Is your soil poorly drained (likely)? Is it too low or too high in potassium? What does your "soil life" generally look like around your blueberry patch? Dig up a shovel load or two and take a look. IMHO, the whole acidic thing with the blueberries is a bit overstated but buttercups do like acidic soil so it is obvious at least part of the reason why they keep coming back

If you want it to be as simple and cheap as possible - look into a Kenyan top bar hive or a Sam Comfort hive. That looks like a very small swarm (likely a secondary swarm) so lower chances of survival. Your post is 4 days old, by now you have either caught them or they found a place to live on their own.

It is going to be a tough going producing off land in West Texas (I am speaking of the part I have experience with, which is Brewster county). Not to say impossible but be ready to not have a rigid mentality about things. What I mean by that is - when we started our journey (not in West Texas), I was adamant about not using external inputs - at all. Pretty quickly learned to pick my battles and that my end goal should be no external inputs but the journey to that goal may include them

Water rights in your area - are there any cattle ranches nearby? If you start digging canals and collecting ground runoff into ponds - is anyone legally entitled to that water or is it yours? If you are OK to dig canals and make ponds - make sure they are some distance from your abode. Otherwise your pond will attract everything that lives around - including a ton of rattlers...

David Baillie wrote:So much of this is local. if its on clay with no gravel layer yeah the tube wont do much. hunt cracks, ventilate from low down, maybe even redirect your cold air return a little higher. Good luck. Short of being there that about all I got.
Cheers, David

Thank you for all your help!

All of my colonies are in Lazutin hives and I have a very high survival rate (but all my hives are wild caught swarms and I don't rob them except for our own use, I also rarely disturb and do no treat/feed syrup). We live in an area of Virginia (USA) with a lot of rock in the clay soil and have plans to build stone hives using the slipforming technique. My worry is excess humidity in summer. We do get a lot of rain. I can totally see how these hives work in dry climates. In fact, if you have seen one of the best documentaries to come out of my homeland - "Honeyland", you will see that the main protagonist keeps bees in stone "hives"...

David Baillie wrote:

Og Duzle wrote:

David Baillie wrote:So, the vapour barrier gets installed on the slab itself all the way to the edges of the walls and the edges are taped to the walls themselves. Is your basement finished or just plain poured or block walls? Radon tends to migrate in through the edges of the slab where it touches the cement walls, cracks in the foundation and any penetrations especially sump pump wells. Its a heavy gas so wants to stay low until the hvac pulls it up. Most mitigation involves sealing all cracks and penetrations,  creating a sealed layer using a membrane then applying a small amount of negative pressure to it. Often times sealing an existing sump pump well with a tight cover and adding a low power suction ventilator will reduce amounts below detection levels.  Here is an article on a pro job. You can diy most of this and get good results. Those radon fans are awesome though much better then a $40 duct fan that I've used before.  https://www.proremodeler.com/how-retrofit-radon-mitigation-system

I understand. Thanks! The basement is unfinished and it was leaking water when we bought the house. I used hydraulic cement along the edges of wall/floor contact to seal the line of contact alongside the whole wall perimeter and I painted all the walls with one of those 15psi resistant paints three times. Now I do not have water intrusion anymore. When we were buying the house I insisted on a radon test (locals laughed, this is a rural area) and it came back high (I shudder to think what the rest of the people in the area are ignoring). I had a radon remediation "system" installed, which is basically a pipe that is drilled through the slab into the ground with a fan pulling the radon out (supposedly). I find that it is not very effective.

Nice! so you are most of the way there. Did they seal along the perimeter and cracks? did they do the sump well if you have one? I have worked in dozens of fixer uppers but have only owned two houses both of which i built. I don't think I could do it any other way (a wee bit pickey I'm told)

No sump pump which is odd. The company that did the radon remediation is local but this is a rural area so competence and motivation can be an issue and we were new.... The soil is thick clay and I suspect that the house has been put on a clay pad with no gravel underneath the slab (the whole house looks like it was built by family/extended family and feels like money was an issue). When it rains heavily and for days, you can literally hear the gurgling inside the radon remediation pipe, which obviously means that water is moving underneath the house alongside the clay (is what I am guessing) and likely ponding underneath. I only sealed around the perimeter wall/floor contact. I guess I should start hunting the cracks...After reading that article you posted above, I am thinking a sump pump should have definitely been in the play.