Man what a Mess

[3KillerBs]

Great just what I need, another ongoing, never to be completed project

If we all finished all our projects the sky would probably fall.

Building up your yard with free mulch sounds like a great idea. In your climate it ought to compost nicely.

 

[Ascholten]

Im hoping so too, I mean i don't see how it can hurt any, better growing soil? The garbage we got now is all the crap they dug out of the retention ponds so mostly shells silt and sand, so a little organic matter I dont' see HOW it could hurt any at all!

Aaron

 

[3KillerBs]

Im hoping so too, I mean i don't see how it can hurt any, better growing soil? The garbage we got now is all the crap they dug out of the retention ponds so mostly shells silt and sand, so a little organic matter I dont' see HOW it could hurt any at all!

Aaron

Yep. Extra organic matter can't hurt -- at least once it ages past the "steal all the nitrogen" stage.

We don't even have the Chicken Palace finished yet and I'm making plans to run the grow-outs over the bad parts of the yard (we have fine, hard-packed sand with occasional patches where thin layers of white porcelain clay have been brought up in lumps by previous tilling and/or digging).

 

[Ascholten]

This used to be dairy land but like any good dirty sob, the developer, scraped all the good topsoil off and sold it for good money I am sure. Then they dig out the retention ponds to hold all the rain / runoff water. That dirt, well you can't call it that anymore, It's clay, lumpy crap with a lot of iron in it, silt, sand, and shells, lots of shells and coral'y garbage. They spread that over your yard, throw about half an inch of something black on it,and cover it with sod real fast, and that is what you got to work with when planting ANYTHING. so yes, the first few years for anything is really challenging, to get it in, get it settled, get it's roots spread out enough to make it stable and be able to grab water out of that silt. Water surprisingly runs through very poorly (hence all the flooding)

When I plant my fruit trees Ill dig a hole about 1.5 to 2x the diameter of the pot, put a bag of manure on the bottom or other similar goodies, drop the tree in and bench up the area around it by packing some good top soil, or mulch or zoo poo, and compress it down to hold the tree where I want it, then stake it all around for about 6 months until it gets it's own support roots out.

When I mow, I use a mulcher, and you'd hope / think the mulch would just go down and eventually add up right? Well it don't. I thinks it makes its way down into the storm drain.

My grass is mostly bahia with some centipede that managed to survive the bahia. it does surprisingly well in the garbage soil but can get invasive real fast.

Interesting fact, when bahia goes to seed, about a week and a half to two weeks of not mowing (Ask my HOA how we know this :/ ) the chickens absolutely LOVE the black seed that forms on top of the stalks.

Aaron

Edit: so im thinking 6 inches of fresh mulch, give it a year or two should crunch down into about 2 inch of good stuff. fill in low spots, spread around trees, just spread it around and eventually everything should get it's share and built up. If not, well then I got good mulch to throw chick weed / perrenial peanut into for the girls.

 

[Boise-girls]

Another nice gully whumper hits. got over an inch of rain in half an hour. The yard was already saturated, it's a literal swamp now. Not too many places to move the coop where it's not ooky gooky and mooky.

I got the IBC cage pulled back, they can free range until this dries out a bit.
Ironically, they are roosting on my boat, because it's dry... gotta love florida.

Ill have to spray it down when stuff dries out a bit and fan it dry so it don't get moldy. That's another Florida problem, mold.

Aaron

I will never again complain about how dry it is in my part of Idaho! Well, except for increased wildfire potential and water scarcity. But it's sure easier in terms of chickens!

 

[3KillerBs]

This used to be dairy land but like any good dirty sob, the developer, scraped all the good topsoil off and sold it for good money I am sure. Then they dig out the retention ponds to hold all the rain / runoff water. That dirt, well you can't call it that anymore, It's clay, lumpy crap with a lot of iron in it, silt, sand, and shells, lots of shells and coral'y garbage. They spread that over your yard, throw about half an inch of something black on it,and cover it with sod real fast, and that is what you got to work with when planting ANYTHING. so yes, the first few years for anything is really challenging, to get it in, get it settled, get it's roots spread out enough to make it stable and be able to grab water out of that silt. Water surprisingly runs through very poorly (hence all the flooding)

When I plant my fruit trees Ill dig a hole about 1.5 to 2x the diameter of the pot, put a bag of manure on the bottom or other similar goodies, drop the tree in and bench up the area around it by packing some good top soil, or mulch or zoo poo, and compress it down to hold the tree where I want it, then stake it all around for about 6 months until it gets it's own support roots out.

When I mow, I use a mulcher, and you'd hope / think the mulch would just go down and eventually add up right? Well it don't. I thinks it makes its way down into the storm drain.

My grass is mostly bahia with some centipede that managed to survive the bahia. it does surprisingly well in the garbage soil but can get invasive real fast.

Interesting fact, when bahia goes to seed, about a week and a half to two weeks of not mowing (Ask my HOA how we know this :/ ) the chickens absolutely LOVE the black seed that forms on top of the stalks.

Aaron

Edit: so im thinking 6 inches of fresh mulch, give it a year or two should crunch down into about 2 inch of good stuff. fill in low spots, spread around trees, just spread it around and eventually everything should get it's share and built up. If not, well then I got good mulch to throw chick weed / perrenial peanut into for the girls.

Given time, chickens ought to be able to improve any sort of soil.