Step Two can be summed up in one word: Digging.
In order to add new fence posts, we have to dig holes at least two feet deep. Posts come in 8-foot lengths; we need 6 feet of height to our fence in order to deter the chickens from hopping over, so we’ll put two feet in the ground, which will give us the required fence height. Digging holes two feet deep is no joke with our heavy, 100% clay soil.
Side note: Did I ever tell you about the time I did a soil texture test for our property? It’s a simple procedure, and if you’re interested, Clemson has a great tutorial. The goal is to get a rough idea of the percentage of sand, silt, and clay in your soil, by separating out the particles. My sample never separated out. It remained a thick, oily, dark sludge. 100% clay, baby.
Anyway. Digging the post holes takes many tools, lots of time, and mental fortitude. I tend to dig until my hands are about to fall off of my wrists, and then I go do something else for a while. Tom and I have been taking turns and we are making progress, though it’s slow going.
The second kind of digging is not strictly necessary, and in fact I would normally not do it at all. I think you know that I support no-till practices; I don’t normally dig at all in my garden unless I need to plant something or harvest something. I believe that letting the soil maintain itself is the best way to encourage lots of biological diversity, and I would never willingly disturb it.
HOWEVER. These raised beds have been in place for almost ten years, and all my crops have been failing in them lately. I felt it was time for a deeper look. So I took my trusty garden fork and dug them over. And what I found, completely infiltrating every bed, was this:
Roots. Thick roots, thin roots, single long roots going from bed to bed, clumps of short roots, every size and shape of root you can imagine. Basically these beds are acting as a beautiful source of nutrients and water for a nearby tree. Which tree, I’m not sure. It could be the pine in my header picture (Pinus thunbergii, or Japanese Black Pine), which is just on the other side of our fence in our neighbor’s yard. I don’t think that tree gets any supplemental water, and so it would make sense for it to come into our yard seeking some. But the tree doesn’t look as good as it should with getting plenty of water. So it could be our valley oak (Quercus lobata), which was planted by a squirrel twenty years ago and is now a thriving, enormous, and healthy tree that we have to have pruned every other year. However, that tree IS getting regular water, as I have a lot of perennials planted underneath it. So who knows? Both types of trees grow deep tap roots for their water supply, so this shallow, vast root system is a bit of a mystery.
What I AM sure of is that this issue has definitely contributed to the crop failure that I’ve had in these beds the last three years. The soil seems dry, even with daily water; seeds have trouble germinating; and the plants that do manage to make it here are stunted and do not produce. So not only is it getting hotter and drier on this side of the garden, the compost and water were going mainly towards supporting the established root system of an enormous tree. No wonder nothing grew!
This discovery only cements my choice to change this area over to perennial fruit and nut trees. They will have a large enough root system that they can compete with the big trees, and in fact might work well in symbiosis with the big trees as part of a network.
Speaking of networks, while digging over the beds, I found a ton of mycelium and fungal hyphae; this is good news and makes me very happy. I was sorry to disturb it, but it’ll grow again. I also found lots of fat, happy worms, which means the soil biology here is healthy.
Step three will be building the actual new fence. More soon!