Hello All,
We are have begun to augment our acreage in north easter Arizona. (Approx 40 acreas). We have really really deep sand. Its like a beach honestly, but much finer sand. Its river bottom, in an area where a river used to be many moons ago. Our acreage is up high in the hills with amazing views. Basically we are beginning to shape the property one acre at a time. We have pinion pine and lots and lots of juniper.
We have lots of cattle roaming in the area and we collect all of the manure as we can. Our plan so far is to add a very very thick layer of manure into the the sand by discing it in lightly. Then adding a great deal of straw that we put through the hopper part of our chipper. We then want to add lots more of organic matter as well, likely in the form of bulk compost soil bought by the truckload from a nearby place that makes it. To top that we want to bed down more straw and let it all just do its thing with daily watering. We also plan on adding wood chips super finely chipped since its a potential resource right on the property.
Thoughts on this plan? We don't want to add chems, but we need to get soil going instead of this sand that holds no water or nutrients because those things have no organic matter to be stored in.
We have sooooo much dry downed juniper wood all over the property as well that we will lilely do some hugelbeds as borders for pathways and along terraces.
Please share your thoughts.
---Roo
