[spotlightin83]

where i now live in arkansas, the soil is very rocky. I now want to know how to successfully grow a small to large garden in this type of soil just incase i ever find myself stranded for awhile where rock is abundunt and soil isn't any suggestions??

[ColcordMama]

It's gonna depend on just how big and how many rocks we're talking about, huh? I did a lot of backbreaking work removing rocks from the large garden I put in 10 years ago and my garden, after soil prep, was wonderful. I even used the flattest rocks to make paths around the rows. You'll have to be really diligent getting anything larger than, say, softball size out of there or you're going to damage your rototiller blades and your plant roots will have a hard time penetrating the soil like they should. If you simply can't remove as many as you need to, then consider just taking away the most prominent ones on the surface, just to level the soil, and putting in a raised garden. Or you could do container gardening, which would probably be the easiest in the long run. You'd need lots of potting soil and those big black pots that plants and trees come in from the nursery. Maybe you could find a nursery that would sell you some old but still usable ones. Right now I have tomatoes, peppers, Swiss chard, carrots, beets, radishes and mint in containers and they're all doing very well. I wouldn't ordinarily grow carrots, beets or radishes in containers but they were on seed tapes I made and act as spacers and row markers for the slower-germinating Swiss chard seeds. An added advantage of container gardening is no gophers bother my plants, and if I need to, I can move the pots back to a sheltered area to protect from hail, sudden freezes, etc.

One of the big benefits of making raised gardening beds is the fact that they are raised, giving your back a big rest. If you go raised beds, make sure you don't make them too big. You want each bed to be sized so you can reach all the way to the center from any side, or else you're going to have to step onto the soil to reach the plants in the middle. You definitely won't want to be stepping onto carefully prepared raised bed soil, because that will compact it, and the only real alternative would be to lay a board across from bed side (heavy logs or 4x4s) to bed side, and use it to support your weight.

Having many smaller raised beds gives the advantage that you can do plants in groups: one bed for herbs, one bed for salad greens, carrots, onions, spinach, one bed for tomatoes, one bed for corn (which has to be planted in blocks--not long rows--anyway) pole beans (climbing up the cornstalks, a perfect ancient space-saving trick!) and squash, sprawling on the ground beneath the beans and corn. That corn-beans-squash thing is called the Three Sisters and is a very, very old gardening technique that exemplifies intensive gardening. Do research on intensive gardening to find out more, how crowding certain plants discourages weeds and boosts production.

I hope this helps. Rocky soils can be so unforgiving, with rocks coming up to the surface almost like they're growing down there. Hey! Maybe that's where the term rock garden comes from, huh? LOL

[swamprat]

I think you have two options in rocky soil; 1. remove the rocks or 2. used raised beds for your garden. Before you think you said a large garden you should go to the library or a bookstore you can get a copy of Mel Bartholomew's "Square Foot Gardening". If you use his methods you can raise a tremendous amount of vegetables in relatively small spaces.

I have done so for years and am always amazed at the amount of food we get from two 8' x 16' gardens. If I were to do it again I would make four 4' x 16' gardens due to the ease of working in the center of the garden without having to walk around in the raised bed.

[Baldninja]

I would suggest using pots/planters. In a SHTF situation, you never know when you may be forced to abandon your current home, and you'd certainly want to be able to take anything of value with you, which a living, food producing plant would certainly be. No, it's not the most efficient way of gardening, but it does provide you with the ability to grow on the go, so to speak.

[ColcordMama]

I agree with Swampy on the Square Foot Gardening book. *high five* Excellent reference!

Baldy makes a good point about container gardening. Actually, container gardening can be extremely efficient. No garden pests burrowing up to make a meal of your roots, you can grow virtually anywhere, even inside the house* with grow lights, and you can take it with you if necessary, like he said.

I also suggest that if you go containers, you make SURE you plant a continuous-producer, not a one-timer. A one-timer would be onion, lettuce, carrot, radish...any plant that when you harvest it, that's it. You have an empty pot. (No snarky comments about the carrots, radishes and beets I have in pots right now, please. Those are row marker and spacer plants, used because they come up faster than the other plants and are necessary to show me where the plants are, and to take up the space between the other plants.) A continuous producer is a plant that just keeps making what you need, even after you harvest. Zucchini is a really good example. Plant a dwarf zuke in a five gallon pot and as soon as you pick off a zuke, the plant makes another (or three more!) to replace it. Swiss chard is another excellent example. To harvest the big meaty leaves, you pull off the outside ones without damaging the stem. The plant pumps out more from the central growth bud. In a temperate climate (like here, near Phoenix) chard is a perennial. Right now I have Swiss chard in pots that I planted in spring 2007! When the forecast calls for a freeze, I just go out and throw an old blanket over the pots.

*growing a veggie plant that produces fruit from flowers, like for instance tomatoes or zukes, inside the house means you have to expose that plant to pollinators such as bees, flies, etc or the plant will never set fruit. Put the pot out on the back porch for a few days. If you just can't to that, then you'll have to do the deed yourself with a small paintbrush.

[cowgirlup]

The soil here is very rocky. Our garden space still hs one area where about a foot and a half down is a huge rock. Too big to get out so we built up the soil over it.

Taking out the surface rocks and then building a raised bed is a good bet along with other ideas mentioned.

Please keep in mind that a lot of plants take 60 days or more to produce veggies if you are counting on being able to feed your famiy from a garden in an emergency.
You are also at the mercy of the weather so you should start now so you know what works in your area.

[Baldninja]

Oh, yeah, in planters you can certainly avoid a lot of the issues you contend with in a garden. I only meant that it would take much longer to go from pot to pot and deal with every plant that way, versus rows in a garden. But, yeah, in some cases, as with my food, in a SHTF situation efficiency won't always be my number one priority. If food is scarce, I'd prefer know that I can quickly uproot myself and move on, while being able to quickly and easily load up all of my food and take it with me. It also gives you a pretty decent leg up when arriving at a new destination and having to begin anew. At least you've still got those plants you brought with you producing food.

Also, to go with ColcordMama's suggestions, you would want a plastic pot, not a clay or tile one. Clay and tile are probably better from a growing aspect, but if they were to crack or worse, break, you'd be pretty well screwed in regards to the plant that was in it if you are traveling. Plastic is far less likely to break and therefore could, for example, survive being dropped, whereas a clay or tile pot, if dropped, is usually done for.

[ColcordMama]

Amen to everything Baldy said. Good show, brother! Old black plant pots from a nursery are really the best way to go from several aspects. They're much lighter and easier to move than clay or the fancy heavier plastic ones that cost so much at Lowe's and Home Depot, and they're specifically built for efficient plant growth, with the proper size drainage holes on the bottom and nice hand holds built into the rims on the really big ones. Maybe a local landscaping company has a pile of them out back and they'll let you root around and help yourself.

Don't forget that you can grow a type of fresh, delicious vegetable in a jar in your kitchen in just two days if you're prepared and know how. I'm talking about sprouts, folks. All you need are seeds suitable for sprouting, a jar, and something to strain water from seeds, like a section of old pantyhose or a piece of nylon netting. It's important that you get UNTREATED seeds for this. Google seeds for sprouting to see what I mean. You wouldn't want to be sprouting and eating seeds that were treated with chemicals. Alfalfa, broccoli, radish, even wheat are all good sprouted. Wheat is especially interesting. Alfalfa is great. It's extremely difficult to sprout mung beans, the one you think of when someone says "bean sprouts," so don't even consider it.

To sprout your seeds, put a tablespoon or so of seeds in a washed-out mayo jar, add water to cover, swish around, then cover the mouth of the jar with net and drain off the water. Shake the seeds down into a clump so they can keep each other moist. Put the jar in a dark place overnight, then repeat the water-swish-drain thing. Your seeds will already have popped open and started growing. Later the second day repeat the process, and if the sprouts look like they're getting almost big enough, place the jar in a sunny spot so the little leaves can green up. For most seeds, they should be ready the next day. Use them in salads, mixed into meat loaf, on sandwiches or in baked goods such as breads and quick breads. I especially like wheat sprouts in bran muffins, and alfalfa sprouts with peanut butter on whole wheat bread is a real treat.