Charolett Knapic

I'm wondering if it would help to add native tree chip mulch to the soil to help get a mycelium network throughout the soil layer to help keep that soil from sliding/washing down over time. You might need to add some form of nitrogen at first since the mulch breaking down uses nitrogen, but that's easy to accomplish. I've never done it though.

I'm definitely and introvert and love country life and yet I've ended up in the middle of Wichita, KS. with almost an acre of food forest, home and a cafe building. I've also managed to have goats and chickens with paddocks. All paid for from my gardening business, which worked great as an introvert. (My Beautiful Day Cafe went down with covid, of which i relied on extroverts to do my socializing. )
I'm "retiring" and folding my businesses into Green Street Urban Homestead Sanctuary, a non profit 508c1a spiritual ministry, reverencing nature as an expression of Creator. I'm not advertising, in order to keep interest slowed down.
Yet, still, people, one at a time, come round and admire or offer to volunteer in the gardens. I'm keeping my boundaries by setting 2 mornings a week for classes or homesteading with people. Eventually, there will be a person that can garden with people or give classes without me being there.
If people come to my door unscheduled, I don't have to answer it. I also have a camera set up. When I'm out working in the yards, teenagers, mom's with strollers, rough looking guys with grilled teeth, even folks in their cars stop to say how they love seeing the animals and gardens. If I don't feel like socializing, I don't make eye contact and I keep portions of the yards hidden from view. And I've learned to excuse myself gracefully or not as needed.
Rather than going out for community, they come to me. So far, so good!

If you lay male Buffalo sod, it doesn't go to seed. It's more expensive, though.

I have a friend that seals her chinaberry soap up in small jars while it's super hot and it keeps very well.


Have been making really effective psoriasis 'poo by boiling up chinaberries (in the neem family), straining then using.
Works soooo much better than any store bought 'poos, even all then natural ones and it's effects last days longer.
Doesn't seem to keep well (week without refrig) but I just make smaller batches.

Everyone around here hates the chinaberry (invasive) but I'm finding many uses for it. Nice wood that cures up very light and is strong. Coppices and pollards like crazy and super fast grower.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melia_azedarach

Clusters of stone attract snakes and lizards. Even stacks of materials for future use can become a home to them. Stuff like bricks and wood, especially if there is a little space between things.

In my gardening business, I've found that native tree chip mulch layered 6" deep (absolutely no sun shining through) will smother most weeds. If you have Bermuda grass or perennial weeds like dandelion then lay cardboard first, in high summer when the Bermuda grass start to grow well. If you lay cardboard down at any other time, it will be broken down by the time the Bermuda grass starts growing. Or you can lay plastic and then mulch. Leave for a couple of years and then remove the plastic. The mulch seems to last a couple of years. If the soil is really hungry it usually only lasts a year.

I use leaves for animal litter. I use it in my goat barn for deep winter mulch, in the chicken next boxes ( although daylily leaves are the best) and to cover animal poops in their yards. I try to never leave bare soil or excrement visible.

I also leave any base suckers growing around the main trunk so that critters eat them before the trunk is easily accessible.

My goats like to eat the fallen leaves and the leaves are easy to spread over the poops in my deep mulch goat barn.

As long as your plants dry within 4 hours before night there won't be fungal problems from watering late in the day. If you have to use a sprinkler, use one that puts out large drops of water to avoid evaporation. These solutions have worked for me. I once read an article in The Avant Gardener that tests showed plants did better when they were watered when they needed it most, which is when it's hot and dry in the middle of the day.
And of course we do what we can do, when we can do it.