Invasive plants are Earth's way of insisting we notice her medicines. Stephen Herrod Buhner
Everyone learns what works by learning what doesn't work. Stephen Herrod Buhner
Be joyful, though you have considered all the facts. ~Wendell Berry
Be joyful, though you have considered all the facts. ~Wendell Berry
Invasive plants are Earth's way of insisting we notice her medicines. Stephen Herrod Buhner
Everyone learns what works by learning what doesn't work. Stephen Herrod Buhner
pax amor et lepos in iocando
Anne Miller wrote:Lucky you to have bentonite soil.
How large of an area are we talking about?
I would suggest starting with perennial vegetables:
https://permies.com/t/142540/perennial-vegetables/Growing-longevity-spinach-zone
https://permies.com/t/155668/Jerusalem-artichokes-Chinese-water-chestnuts#1219692
Melissa Ferrin wrote:Check out Desert Harvesters for some ideas on what plants to grow.
Anne Miller wrote:Creosote bush is one of my favorite bushes on our property in West Texas. It has pretty yellow flowers and the fruit is helpful for the wildlife.
This bush also has medicinal properties and can be made into teas and salves.
I would love to see some of the work you have been doing.
Leslie Moody wrote:We also are loaded with saltbush, it is common in disturbed soil (6b NM). Birds love it, grasses are growing around it, holds the dust down and gives the rabbits somewhere to hide. Ours is over 5 feet tall in places, we’ve been trimming it with a hedge clipper along paths and it just keeps on keepin on. Also makes great kindling, and provides shade in our chicken run.
We’ve planted during monsoons, just don’t over extend yourself cuz you will need to water during the dry spells. Mulberry is doing great. Native grasses and wildflowers too. Plants of the southwest has some good seed mixes, but see what else grown in natural/wild areas nearby, if there are any.
Victor said, "This herb seems to heal nearly any skin condition, from bad insect bites to fungal rashes. It also makes skin and hair feel very good.
The favored species for human consumption is now usually garden orache (A. hortensis), but many species are edible and the use of Atriplex as food is known since at least the late Epipaleolithic (Mesolithic).
Common orache (A. patula) is attested as an archaeophyte in northern Europe, and the Ertebølle culture is presumed to have used it as a food. Its seed has been found among apparent evidence of cereal preparation and cooking at Late Iron Age villages in Britain
Invasive plants are Earth's way of insisting we notice her medicines. Stephen Herrod Buhner
Everyone learns what works by learning what doesn't work. Stephen Herrod Buhner
Skyler Weber wrote:Awesome work on the swales, Jadie. I was curious about what are the dimensions of the swales - depth, width, number of swales, and the distance between. I second all the recommendations and would like to include a couple more options for dryland nitrogen fixers; sagebrush, curl leaf mahogany (aka desert mahogany), russian olive, and apache plume.
But, please.... please don't start clearing your creosote and saltbush. These indicate that you have salty and alkaline soil and really are your only hope for neutralizing that salt by binding it in organic matrix. Saltbush is also extremely nutritious, and was prized by the Navajo for cattle feed. Sheep, cattle, and goats would love to eat the stuff and it will even keep you alive in a famine. Secondly, these bushes put salt particles into the air and help with cloud formation and ultimately in rainfall. These bushes are also ready-made windbreaks, and having lived in west Texas, I know the wind is crazy there. You said erosion had been a problem, well then you need those roots to stay in place. You are going to need mulch out there for your tree starts and gardens, and these bushes are your only source. Instead of clearing them, pull off their dead parts, leaf litter, and chop and drop their errant branches to get what you need. As your system evolves, those saltbushes will naturally start to fall away and be replaced by the next succession. I am seeing this on my own property, as the prickly pear is beginning to catch a fungus and die as the soil moisture increases. Be patient, and move slowly.
Importance to Wildlife
Big saltbush provides excellent forage and protection (cover) for several wildlife species including Mule Deer and Proghorn. Evidence shows that Big Saltbush foliage and seeds will be eaten by rabbits and small rodents and deer mice ate its seeds. Gorden W. Gullion, 1964, reports that Big Saltbush was utilized by ring-necked pheasants and Gambel's Quail.
It is used to some extent by livestock.
The U. S. Forest Service has an excellent site with detailed information about Quailbush on-line at: Fire Effects Information System (FEIS).
Special Value to Native Bees, Butterflies, Birds and Insects
Saltbush Sootywing, Hesperopsis alpheus, Caterpillar Hosts; Adult Food: Flower nectar.
MacNeill's Sootywing, Hesperopsis gracielae, Caterpillar Hosts; Adult Food: Flower nectar.
Etymology:
The genus "Atriplex" originated in Latin (derived from the Greek name "atraphaxes" or atriplex. The name was applied to the "edible oraches" (the common name of Atriplex is saltbush and orache). The species epithet "lentiformis" is from "lentiform" or lentiformis meaning lens-shaped or shaped like a lens, respectively, referring to the fruits of the plant.
Ethnobotany
Quailbush has been used for food and traded by southwestern United States indigenous peoples.
Cahuilla Drug, Cold Remedy, Nose Medicine, Food, Porridge, Other Soap, Dried leaves smoked for head colds; fresh leaves chewed for head colds; Crushed flowers, stems and leaves steamed and inhaled for nasal congestion, seeds ground into a flour and used to make mush or small cakes, crushed leaves and roots used as a soap and rubbed into articles for cleaning.
Papago Food, Unspecified, Seeds used for food.
Pima Drug, Dermatological Aid, Dried Food, Food, Porridge, Starvation Food, Other, Soap, Poultice of powdered root applied to sores, seeds roasted, dried, parched and stored, seeds pit roasted, dried, parched, added to water and eaten as a thick gruel, seeds pounded into meal, cooked, mixed with water and eaten as mush, tiny seeds formerly roasted and eaten during famines, leaves rubbed in water and lather and used for washing clothing and baskets, seeds used as 'starvation food', seeds used for food.
Yuma Food, Porridge, Seeds boiled to make a mush. seeds pounded, pit baked, ground, mixed with water to form stiff dough and eaten raw.
Be joyful, though you have considered all the facts. ~Wendell Berry
Be joyful, though you have considered all the facts. ~Wendell Berry
Kim Goodwin wrote:Your land sounds very degraded. Do you have any pictures you can share? I know we'd all love to see what plants are there and your work thus far. Sharing pics here is done via the "attachments" tab just below the reply window when you write a reply. Also, are there any buildings on your land? Do you have water, or is this all being done with rainwater?
One thing my husband and I've been doing after listening to more Geoff Lawton talks - he says that in desert restoration, start with succulents and groundcovers immediately. They hold moisture. In our cultivated gardens we use both native and non-native succulent plants, and in the open landscape we are focusing on native ones or ones that are already here. Out in the open we are encouraging and protecting all the prickly pear and cholla we can. We have to protect them from javelina here or they will be dug up and eaten before they get big.
Do any cactus grow by the side of the road in your area? Any pads or branches you can harvest? All you have to do is cut off a pad near the attachment, let it dry one day, and then stick it in the ground at least 2-3 inches. In truth, they can root from just laying on the ground. As for other groundcovers - you will likely see many sprout and grow on their own with the added moisture you are collecting. The variety in the SW is amazing.
You may also want to help those grasses growing with a mixture such as this one Plants of the Southwest - Dryland grasses mix
Grasses are key to grasslands, funny as that sounds. Their roots exude compounds that feed and build the soil biome and tilth. This is like secret sauce for the soil. haha
The acacias and such you mentioned are a great start, too. I'm in zone 8a NM, and we have lots of whitethorn acacia here. It smells like the most amazing perfume when it blooms, which is during and after the warm monsoons. We encourage it around our garden as a windbreak.
Of course, mesquites will pay you back in many dividends. I've read they produce more nitrogen than the acacia, and they also shift the soil pH underneath them as they grow and shed their leaves. Mesquites seem more effective nurse plants than acacia and they produce a lot of food for animals.
In the meantime, as rains fall and water soaks in, you will see all sorts of wildflowers begin to grow. You could seed with wildflower mixes, but in my experience also in zone 8a aridlands, the ground is full of seed just waiting for enough moisture to fall and collect. Different ones will germinate at different times of year, as some like cool soil, others only germinate in hot soil. It's magical.
Our plant succession plant for our location is a little different than yours, as your land sounds more degraded. We have many acacias and mesquites here, Mormon tea, native wolfberry, some cacti, and even a lovely ocotillo. Also in the ground are many native grass seeds and so many wildflowers that sprout in the areas water collects. We also have lots of chamissa (rabbitbrush, Ericameria spp) and isocama spp. short-lived perennial, shrubby wildflowers. These are very drought resistant and provide food for animals here, and loads of compostable material for us.
So our list starts maybe a little higher than yours on the succession strategy? Not sure without pictures.
What we are doing that might apply to your situation:
Cactus - still included, because our land here was denuded of cacti, possibly through overgrazing
Mesquites In our case they are already here, just need encouragement, water catchment. Some are tiny stumps in the ground from years of desperate rabbits.
Palo verdes These are native here, but you might be getting to the range where they would freeze out? I think they are barely zone 8, in my opinion. Maybe someone else in Texas can share about them? They are very, very low water use and make beautiful filtered shade. The pods are edible like peas or beans. And the variety known as Jerusalem Thorn is supposedly the tastiest; I haven't tried them yet. Jerusalem thorn also requires the least water according to plant list I've looked at. And like many tough, landscape restoring plants, these are loathed by many people. The thorns. The desert is prickly, may as well embrace that I say. :-D
Native nut trees and plantsThis may be early in the succession, but these plants take so many years to grow and fruit that if the water is there we feel it's good to get them in earlier rather than later. This may not work for your site. For our sites we are planning pinyon pines and AZ walnut. We only have the AZ walnut in so far - the previous owner put them in and sadly, they require a lot of water to get started. I don't recommend that one. I haven't found a source for the pinyon just yet, so those are being bumped to later. For medicine instead of nuts, Arizona cypress also falls into this spot for us. Those are very drought tolerant.
Black Locust - Even with the mesquites, I believe we still need some faster growing legumes to help speed the succession. Some people use honey locust, but I've read it requires more water. Black locust can live with a minimum of 12-13 inches according to Extension reports. Black locust has the benefit of having toxic bark, so I think this makes it a little easier to protect from rabbits in the very vulnerable early years. We still cage or use tree tubes.
Leuceana retusa - These are wonderful forage tree, so they have to be protected from rabbits and such initially. They will freeze to the ground in very cold years and sprout back up. Also called Golden Leadball Tree. Native to some parts of Texas and NM.
Native oaks To re-establish the savanna that once was present here. (you can see in old pictures of cows or people resting under oaks scattered among the grasslands)
Then we go into Jujubes, mulberries, Mexican Elderberry and other drought tolerant, lower water use, fruiting plants.
In the pictures below, you can see that some of our trees get irrigation. Those in the picture are part of the food garden - they are trees surrounding the food garden to add nitrogen, windbreaks, and make shade.
The palo verdes are in a drainage ditch created by the past owner to keep this house from having water pool around it.
The drainage ditch was totally bare until we replanted grass (dug from next to the house where we were starting garden#1) in vegetative lines to slow water in that ditch. It worked and a bunch of native plants filled the ditch the next year (including an acacia that sprouted on it's own, it's the taller shrub on the side, with reddish bark and no leaves) .
We added rock lines to the grass lines in year 2, to slow things further.
This year (year 3) we put in the palo verdes. They've needed watering about once a week to get started, but now that the monsoons have begun I think they may be fine.
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