Adapting Homesteading Mindset to Extreme Desert

Well, I only know a little, but since I had an interest in the subject I have learned some.

Many of the desert natives grew a special type of corn, one where the lowest part of the stem was unusually long. That meant they could plant the corn in holes that were perhaps 12 inches deep?????? They would put 3-4 kernals in every hole and space the holes every 3-4 feet.

They would fill in the holes as the corn grew up, which kept the roots deep enough so that they could still reach moisture. The soil was light in that area of the desert, and easily worked.

They would plant as early as possible in the spring to take advantage of the winter moisture, and the soil would dry over the summer from the top on downwards. The corn roots would (hopefully) follow the moisture down, and so stay watered for as long as they needed to be. The corn fields were not irrigated.

The towns were clustered around what few water sources there were, of course. People and livestock need drinking water, and they DID irrigate their home gardens by carrying water in buckets. Their gardens had squash, I think beans, and I forget what else.

There is something to be said for effort applied.

I have seen strong evidence that a little success in desert agriculture will lead to a slight change in the actual micro climate of that isolated area and that rain will actually fall slightly more frequently over the green......and incrementally increase that tendency as the green expands.
Maybe it's all scientifically explainable; maybe it all stems back to an old spiritual partnership that man was intended to have with the elements.
I'm working on it.

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“I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.” Barry Goldwater.
III

hmmm if i'm not mistaken there is a Texas girl moving to Michigan soon, Maybe you could take her place in Texas????? you two should get together..

finding a creek in the desert, isn't that going to be a bit difficult?

just looked up terlingua and it averages highs over 90 degress SIX MONTHS OF THE YEAR. and about 11 inches of rain. how can you count on water catchment with only 11 inches of rain a year. and with 90+ degrees 180 days a year, how can you keep it all from evaporating?

I know some do it, there was that utube video someone posted of a couple who has done it for decades but man oh man.

for a compost toilet I'd probably just use an old fashioned pit outhouse! the only reason to not use one is bad weather (rain or snow). you won't be getting any of that! thats all my grandma had when I was growing up. had to dodge the bees, wasps, yellowjackets, bumblebees, but guess you'll just have to worry about scorpions and rattlesnakes. put it far enough from the house you don't care about the smell and move it once the pile gets a little too close for comfort seriously, you couldn't smell hers even in july in tennessee until you opened the door er, they average over 50 inches of rain a year there, btw. ----ED humid and thinks stink fast !

man on man. hey, weren't they having the worst drought since the 50s even last year? I just read the novel the time it never rained. scarey stuff to this easterner well, I'm from Indiana but feel in this discussion like I might as well be living in a rainforest compared to there!

I'm thinking you would need to use waffle beds in that area, not raised beds, wafflebeds have indentations, plants in the indentations and watered close to plant, I do this in my area in a modified way, i build small dykes around the plantings and flood with a hose so that i don't have to water the whole area, just where needed.

Do a search on Zuni waffle garden, should show illustrations or pics.

Ed

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"Agriculture is our wisest pursuit, because it will in the end contribute most to real wealth, good morals, and happiness."
Thomas Jefferson to George Washington 1787

I've spent probably half a year (in total visits and field camps) in the Big Bend area... I'm intimately familiar with the Terlingua area.

I know you know this, but Terlingua is in one of the driest places in the US... it's a desert. Life doesn't exist very well without water. Living can be easy there... but doing anything beside's living, get's difficult. If the world ended, I daresay life in Terlingua would be tenuous.

Good points... Isolated. Great Scenery. "Mostly" dark skies. And, isolated!

Bad points.... Isolated (from all services, including 'help'). Security (I recall seeing some very unsavory {more unsavory than me, and back then, I looked like Dusty Hill from ZZTop, that hadn't bathed in two weeks > headed to the Hot Springs for a 'soak') characters. Some of these folks, if I met them now, I'd be pulling the hammer back on my hog-leg.

As long as civilization is around, it'd be alright, for living... I'd forget about raising enough food to eat.... if the world stopped spinning, you could probably hold out a long long time, if you stockpiled tons of grub, and didn't let the neighbors to the south devour it all.

Go down in July, or August, when it's 117, go out and move rocks for a few hours, emulating what you'd do if you were attempting to grow crops, and then make a decision. There's a very good reason why Big Bend isn't as settled as Houston... it's inhospitable to life. Very very little water to be had.

I'd love to own a couple hundred thousand acres out there... would loved to have 'gotten' the Christmas Mountains Ranch.... without the deed restrictions.

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Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity. Seneca
Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival. W. Edwards Deming

Texican, if I make it down there, and as long as the porch at Terlingua's Trading Post is still making music, would you come visit me?

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I LOVE DONUT BALLS

i dont like to think tooo much before i speak ... heehee ... i like to be just as surprised as you are.

A trip to Chaco Canyon might be invaluable.

Ima comein in late on this, but, seems to me, iffn ya rapped in a bucket, and put it on a peace of ground, and then next year garden there while you used another piece of ground for the waste, a person could build up 2 garden spaces over time. Ya dont have to dig a hole, and with evaporation, I wouldnt think it would smell any the worse. U end up with dyhidrated fertilizer

I need help visualizing what you are describing to me, FarmboyBill.

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I LOVE DONUT BALLS

i dont like to think tooo much before i speak ... heehee ... i like to be just as surprised as you are.

Have you done any research on permaculture? There are people in desert areas that only get three inches of rain a year, average (which means some years they don't get any) who are successfully using permaculture methods to grow their food. One of the key things is to make sure that whatever rain does fall on your place, stays there!

Kathleen

No ma'am I haven't looked into it, I don't think, but I will ... thank you.

I know I have been looking into how an aquaponic system would work ... a system that makes use of a cyclic pattern to feed fish AND gardens on a continuous basis.

And I would think I would need some kind of breathable shade or shelter to protect my plants from scorch and wind.

I do know, whatever I do, I will have to be even more creative (and diligent) in recycling greywater.

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I LOVE DONUT BALLS

i dont like to think tooo much before i speak ... heehee ... i like to be just as surprised as you are.

Mark off 2 sizeable squares of land fit to garden in. When u take out a bucket of - - it, dig a 6in deep hole and dump it in it. THEn, do that about 3ft from the last hole, throughout the year till youve covered the garden. If u got more - - it than garden space, put it inbeween the rows, specially where u know your going to raise corn.Get u 3 pigs, say round the first of the year. As u can see, youll have to fence off the garden. Ive seen electric used. Never successfully. Dig a foot deep hole inbetween . and put a 1/2 gal shelled corn in it/them. The pigs will break out the ground the around the holes for a foot or more inbetween. Theyll find any roots rocks, bugs ect, and stir the soil. Keep them round till your ready to garden. Sell 2 and butcher one. The 2 will pay for the cost of the pigs, and the grain u fed them, hopefully. Its called humanure gardening. I dont do it anymore, and i cant tell u why I dont. Just got away from it.

Can't comment except on the raised bed suggestion. In hot dry climates, you can go with sunken beds, but raised beds require MORE water, are HOTTER, and the wrong way to go.

If I was to solve the soil problem, that would be to bring in a load of soil, plant intensively, only locally successfully grown varieties, and take advantage of any/all water collection options. Then, adopt the most successful local methods.

As far as all your unanswered questions, I'd go the sources themselves, the residents!

OR, WA, CA, CO, WY...When it comes to extremes, I've been there, and I think I should probably stay right here in the PNW.

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Christie Acres
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Deserts are deserts because all the organic matter has gone. Thus only fine, sand like material is left which doesnt hold water or nutrients. Your priority has to be getting organic matter, compost, back into the soil, even if you have to buy it in. The more organic matter you have, the better the water retention abilities of the soil.

Grow fruit trees, bananas (buy Tissue Culture Bananas) etc. for shade. There are crops that are suited to desert living, you just have to find them. Cassava and Arrowroot are good carbohydrate sources which will grow with little water and poor soil, and propagate easily for multiplication.

Chillies are good for you and well-suited to desert growing, just buy local seed which has been proven to do well in the desert.

Plant TREES Example of Reason Why

Forerunner, People USED to think that the great plains were too dry to make good farms. Then, the geat plains were setled under the theory that "Rain follows the plow". And, for a while it appeared to be working.

Then the dustbowl hit. There is a limit as to how much influence a good plant cover can do.

In a nutshell, increased vegetation DOES ease a desert climate somewhat, but not dramatically. A desert climaate is still a desert climate, and some years that will be the most powerfull influence.

The drier areas of the great plains, I think, have gone in more for winter wheat and grazing, because of respect to the dry climate, and less for corn. In that manner they are more likely to get a good crop because dry years WILL happen.

With irrigation in some areas and a better choice of crops in others the great plains raise a staggering amount of food, but, lack of moisture remains a challenge. It always will be.

Did you know that in my area of Kansas-which is considered to be wetter than the area of Kansas to the West of us- that it might not rain at all for 3 months of the year, from midsummer on? That is actually OK, as farmers choose crops that will be ready to harvest during that dry time. We get rain while the crops are young and growing and it is sunny when it is time to harvest. Crops are good and we all expect to water our gardens from mid-summer on.

Yes, you CAN make the climate a little damper by the wise use of argiculture, but you get a bigger effect by choosing edible plants that produce in a desert climate. I have heard that mesquite beans are edible, yucca was used, Pinion nuts were eaten, Euell Gibbons spoke of a morning glory bush that made huge starchy roots, and so forth. I believe the Apaches did not LVE in the desert so much as they crossed them in some small comfort: hunters might get a harvest of game but it was too dry to get a SUSTAINED harvest of game, KWIM?

Do a search for how things are done in arid environments such as Australia.
When we were there,the use of underground watering systems,water conservation and rainwater storage was very prevalent.

To give some idea,the summer this year was the driest on record for Western Australia,with less than .007 inches of rain in three months.

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https://www.facebook.com/FlipFlopFarms

Interesting thoughts on the dust bowl, dry climes and sustainability.

I firmly believe (for what that's worth) that intense composting/soil husbandry/horticulture can heal a climate. I understand that most deserts around the globe are/were the direct result of man's greed and carelessness in millenia past.
What man can destroy, I believe man can rebuild. I dare say we're betting our childrens' lives on that hope today......

The dust bowl may be a biased example because that is the result when commercialized ag is pushed in an arid climate, rather than the sustainable, lower expectation of produce, high manual labor input horticulture that I recommend.
Focus on building the soil, improving everything you touch, putting ALL ENERGY into that end..... following Euell Gibbon's advice in the mean time, and, eventually, the land will begin to produce for you. Pour your life into such a benevolent cause, never seeking a selfish or untimely payback, and I believe this earth will bend to that benevolent will.

Now, challenge me about doing so at either magnetic pole and maybe I'll have to back off a little.

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“I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.” Barry Goldwater.
III

Ive seen many times here in NE Okla where we didnt get any rain from the last of May/June, till the last of Aug/Sept. I dont think that has been happening lately. Weather patterns are changeing, and they will continue to change with alla these earthquakes going on. BY THE WAY. Hogs probably couldnt live out there, as they dont sweat, and so u would have to provide them with a waller. That takes alot of waller. Without that, they will possibly die of stroke/HA, specially the bigger they get.

U might find a breed of fowl that is a great forager. and sow the corn on the garden area to be. Then take a rake and run it over that area so as to bury soom of the seed a bit underground. If there good foragers, they will dig up the area a few inches, find alla the corn and rid u of all bugs.