Carrot "Bunching"? - and soil help question?

I've seen "Plant densely for bunching" on a couple of carrot seed packets. What's that mean? When I planted densely, I got really funky looking twisted little carrots - though that might be my soil.

I finally learned what my soil is called. "Dense, Rocky Clay". *snicker* Gee, I couldn't figure that one out - stuff makes forms from yer boots if you walk in it when it's mud, and the rocks in one 5X5 foot area I dug out (down to about 1 foot deep) were sufficient to surround said area with a little rock wall.

If the stuff weren't so impregnated with unnatural garbage (bits of plastic, chunks of glass, metal can tops, this place is a landfill), I'd use it for making pots!

So I have a problem. I checked pH, and it ranges 6.8-7.0, not a bad pH for food crops. But there's so much garbage in it! I think my landlord (and the one before him) have been leaving it as practically a landfill for years. And I'm stuck here til June or July, so it's what I have to work with for my first year of serious gardening.

Like it or not, this is what I have.

Now, I will have a plot of nicer soil elsewhere, with plenty of water (too much for taters, but great for melons, squash, and such). So I'll be putting melons and winter squash and corn there. Anything that _really_ can't handle my soil can go there, as can anything that takes more than about 60-70 days to harvest. However, I do need to use the land at home as well, at least until midsummer, when I'll be able to do a second-harvest thing for some stuff at the new place (and likely in significantly nicer soil).

I'm planning for carrots and cucumbers and lettuce, cabbages, radishes, some kohlrabi, zucchini and yellow summer squash, and a handful of beans and peas. I will have pots full of tomato plants all over - can't do those in the ground, they take too long. Besides, I can control soil conditions better in the pots. I'll be doing herbs as well.

The big question:

What can I do for the soil, given that I don't have a few years to amend it properly, don't want to use huge numbers of chemicals, and have this horrid nasty clay to work with?

Aside from screening out the rocks and chunks of garbage, that is, which I'm already doing between ice periods this winter.

Should I buy hay to use for mulch or till in in the spring? Should I bother to do anything besides dig it up a bit?

-Sev

Looks like the easiest suggestion is rised beds.

Money is a major problem. Lumber and trucked-in soil would come to hundreds if not thousands of dollars, and we haven't got that. Unless you know of a cheaper way? I'd be open to hearing suggestions on how to do raised beds appropriate to the temporary nature of things here on a skin-tight budget. :)

-Sev

It doesn't have to be very formal to begin with, so you might just want to order a single load of top-soil. Cost should be less than $100.

I wouldn't bother with wood sides initially - just lay newspaper or cardboard where you want to garden to be, and pile on the good stuff. Start a compost pile (if you haven't already). It will take awhile, but within a year, you should have something the plants will love.

Bet there's a farmers market near you - talk to some of the produce vendors.
I traded some plants for several bags of prime mulch to one here. And found a local rented pasture where I could gather (free) manure - only expense was fuel and containers (and some sore muscles).

Also, there should be some DG'ers close - attend the nearest Roundup and get acquainted. I think we are all GREAT and willing to help each other.

Your soil sounds like about the worst possible for carrots.

Bubba. part of the problem is that we won't _be_ here in a year. We're moving out in midsummer. The place we're moving to will have been taken care of, and thus will be far less likely to have problems. However, since we're moving in midsummer, we'll likely not get much summer cropping out of the new place - I'll be starting with fall-planted stuff.

What I'm wondering is, is there anything that would be worth doing, given that it will only be for a few months?

And yeah, LTilton, it is. Amusingly, I got a good 20 lbs of carrots out of the one packet I planted last summer, with no weeding and no care (I gave birth in mid-July, so there was no way I was weeding for the last few months of the carrots' growing, which was basically everything from seed to harvest lol).

So basically, I'm hoping to get at least some edible foodstuffs before we leave and I have to give up for the year, and hoping I can get some help figuring out how to do so.

-Sev

Sev, given your time constraints, would something like the strawbale gardening be a possibility? I don't know how the timing of the conditioning works, but if you can do that before planting time, you might still have enough time for harvesting. There's a whole forum over there with lots of very knowledgeable people who could I'm sure get you started.

You know, I had only considered that in passing. Maybe I should give it a try. *ponder*

-Sev

Good luck w/ your carrots, Sev. I too am planting carrots and my soil is rocky. I've picked out as much debrie as possible. I'm with you on not wanting to spend much money on amendments. The only problem is the carrots are mishapen if grown in rocky soil.

Where is the strawbale forum? I must be over looking it.

Not ideal - but a really quick way to improve soil texture is to add peat moss - A couple of inches or as much as you can afford to dig in. And I use Plant Tone organic fertilizers - I'd add some of that and call it a day. If you're moving anyway...

If you can do as good as you are on that plot imagine what you'll do in a better place!

If there are stables any where nearby, pooh/straw mixture can be mixed straight in and grown in immediately. Horse apples are, after all, just (internally) composted grass.

You might consider mounding the soil after mixing in whatever organic material is at hand. You would have less total area in which to plant, but what you'd have likely would be more productive.

Frank

I'm seconding bales! Easy, ready pretty quickly, and mine were quite prolific. It would also depend on the price of bales (either hay or straw, but not pine straw) where you are, and how much you want to grow.

How about short carrots, that way you dont have to dig as deeply.

I don't mind the digging much, unless you mean pre-planting digging. And we're planning to try some Thumbelina style round carrots as well, to see if they do better.

Will have to see about selling hubby on strawbales, he'll think I've gone loony.

-Sev

Show him some of the strawbale threads and pictures - amazing.

And the straw makes great mulch when done.

Good luck, sev!

Wooo I convinced him!

:)

40 (yes, 40!) bales of hay (not straw, unfortunately, straw was nearly 10 bucks a bale here) are on their way to my place today.

*beam*

So it looks like I need to start posting on that forum and get it together, this is going to be fun. I'm going to plant some in the ground anyway, because frankly, it's too much fun to avoid.

-Sev

I'll be looking forward to your success stories this summer, sev! Hope it goes well for you!

Come on over, Sev! The StrawBales (and I used hay, so don't worry, you'll still be MOST welcome) are going to start to heat up pretty soon. I thought my neighbors would thinl I was totally loony, but my sanitation engineer looked at them and said, "Yup. My Daughter does that". They were well supplied with veggies last year:) Could have to do with the fact that Our Fearless Leader, Strawbaleman, is in NC....