Grady Houger wrote:That's quite the challenge.
So what plants grow well natively there?
Locoweed. Cactus. Goat heads. Tumbleweed. [grin] But also prairie type grasses, sunflower related flowers, echinacea, bindweed, morning glory. Jerusalem artichokes but they take a lot of watering.
Much to my surprise, pole beans are doing fantastic this year, with no critter damage. But the beans are in tubs, and also I put wood in the bottom of the tub as a kind of mini-hugelkultur experiment.
Gourds, squash, and sometimes corn (with lots of protection and constant watering, but there's always ants).
Apple trees with lots of water while getting established (though more have died than survived). I think I'd have a better survival rate with hugelkultur berms to catch runoff -- but I just learned about hugelkultur this past year so we shall see if it makes a difference with the next round of apple trees planted.
I'm experimenting with goji berry now and also an aronia (chokeberry) bush. The latter is in a galvanized garbage pail and doing well. The goji... well. We'll see.
I had a pear tree that lived a few years, produced one pear and promptly died. I have tried cherry and plum trees, and various varieties of apple. Also mulberries. The winters killed all of them.
I dream of trapping water from floods and growing rice or something water loving and short-season.