Soil Moisture!

[james dilley]

How do you prepare your Soil , So it will retain Moisture?? I have the New area I broke up. And leveled out. I put the Rows in. Not planted yet. I watered it well today. I Am hopeing that I can build up some moisture and help the roots in return go futher into the soil for Nutrients. I'll water it Again B-4 Planting. I Am just glad its Not A real large plot this time!! So how do you rate the moisture in your soils???? I Am doing this as the water table is down right now!!!!

[DoubleD]

Lots of organic matter that is decomposed and "spongey".

[EDDIE BUCK]

I agree with all the OM I can get including covercrops and never plow or till unless it is absolutely necessary and never when its to wet. Eddie

[Windy in Kansas]

Organic matter is the best answer to water storage in soils. I have even hauled off unsold books from a library Friendshop sale to run through my chipper/shredder in order to add to the soil. It takes a lot of time as you have to remove the covers and tear the books into smaller chunks that the machine can handle.

For some crops I also dig a hole with post hole diggers and mix material in with the soil that came out along with fertilizer before using it to refill the hole.

I have also used cross linked polyacrylamides for their extreme water holding capacity.

When first setting up one large garden area in sand on land just purchased I got fire sale prices on sphagnum peat moss at the end of the growing season and used that.

Leaves are an excellent source of organic matter if you can get enough of them. One year I gave some boys a small stipend for each bag of leaves they provided and returned the bags for refilling. Finally their dad put the idea in their head to only fill the bags half full in order to get more money. I paid them for the batch I picked up and gave them the life lesson that cheating doesn't pay as I wanted no more of their half full bags. They were being paid to rake the leaves by parents and neighbors so my extra was just icing on the cake. I used over 200 bags of leaves that year and it made a wonderful difference in the soil the following spring.

[Paquebot]

Since you're dealing with caliche, that's usually highly alkaline. In addition to the normal recommendation of organic matter, add peat moss. That will assist in retaining moisture as well as reduce the alkalinity.

Martin