posted 2 years ago
Hi, Joshua.
We all made lots of mistakes at the beginning. The point is to learn from these failures and try more things. Learn not only that you can't do something, but why it didn't work, so you get an idea on how you could make it work next time.
When I started my project, I was very motivated, I designed several guilds and went to look after the plants I wanted to plant. It turned out I didn't have the money for that kind of project, and I wasn't able to find cheap substitutes. Then, when I got my hands on a few species, I discovered that I didn't know a damn about growing plants. Next, as I slowly learned, I hadn't enough water resources, specially harsh with the draugh we are currently enduring.
After two years I was expecting to show some promising results, but reality is very different. But still... I'd say I've learned a lot from the mistakes.
For example, I no longer directly seed. My soil is not wet enough for that kind of luxury. I may grow a few seedlings, let them grow long roots, and then plant them in the soil with the little irrigation I can provide, then they have a small chance to survive.
I learned we have a dead season in mid-summer: that's two to three weeks where everything you planted which is not shaded or heavily irrigated just dies. If I want to succeed, I have to plan on harvesting before that date, and wait for planting new things after that period.
About your experiences, there's a lot to learn from them, not just avoidind the things you failed.
- A raised hugelkultur is not suited for dry climates, you may try a sunken hugelkultur instead. It has more work, you have to dig quite a lot, but the moist holds better. It doesn't help with the wind, though. You will need to build a living fence if you need to pacify winds.
- Irrigation must be done very very gently when your soil lacks structure. Use you hose 'mist' or 'spray' functions, and make short and frequent passes to prevent erosion. For building structure, best thing is allowing weeds to settle, then cutting them by the base before they got to seed. Spraying compost tea also helps, if you have it. Once you get good structure, you can irrigate as if it was soft raining. If you irrigate as if it was a hard rain, then you could damage your garden the same as a hard rain would do.
- I don't have dogs. Maybe you can find someone who helps you to educate him not to dig in your garden? If that is not possible, then fences might be your only choice.
- If you seed in dry soil, chances are that most of them become eaten by bugs. Weed seeds survive because there are millions of them. If you sow millions of seeds, even in dry soil, some of them will still be alive when rain comes. So you have two strategies here: either wait for rain (a soaking rain) before seeding, either make seedlings from seed, and wait at least one year before planting your trees on the ground.
- There are two types of tree seedlings: forestal and gardening. Forestal seedlings have only one year, the seedling array is very thin and long as to promote long roots, and you have to plant hundreds of these seedlings (they are cheap) and forget about them; the ones that survive will be there forever. Gardening seedlings may be five to six years old, grown in normal pots, they have more surface roots but struggle to get water on their own, so you have to irrigate them as needed. As long as you care for it, it will survive.
- Potatoes are tricky. They will rot easily in a soaked soil, so they need to be planted in rows above ground level, but then, they require some water. So far, I wasn't able to grow them in my drylands setting: I don't have enough water for the traditional method, and they couldn't stand my sunken bends when it rained. I may try growing them in bags. Some day.
- You mentioned soaking you hugel from the base so the humidity goes to the top. That wouldn't work. Water goes up by capilarity, it's a force that sucks a liquid into a 'pipe' structure, but it has to fight gravity force. Depending on the type of soil, water may rise 15 to 20 cm (8"?) by physics. Plants and funghi may pump water up too, if they reach it. You can use it to your advantage. You can take fresh leaves and stems, which hold some water that was captured from underground, and place it over the plants you want to get some extra humidity.