Huachuca Experiment

[Webstral]

Today, I finally moved some of the concrete slabs in my back yard and started planting. I gave up on trying the full method in my favorite source book and just did a “poor man’s” version. Instead of completely turning over the soil in a 5x20 bed, I turned over the soil in a 6x6 exposed area. Instead of digging out a first 12” layer, then softening a lower 12” layer with a D-handled garden fork (?) designed for this purpose, I only went 12” deep and shifted all the soil across the surface of the plot. I did not have any compost, so I didn’t add any. I didn’t companion plant. The only thing I put into the ground was sunflower seeds. I may add some crimson clover, which will be good ground cover and add nitrogen. This is similar to what many of the survivors in SAMAD will be doing during their first planting. Proper tools will be short, as will be instructors. Thank God for literacy. It will be interesting to see how this all works out.

If I can make the time, I’ll expose another patch of soil and plant corn, beans, and pumpkins. A neighbor planted her own potatoes for Thanksgiving and reported that they were excellent. One advantage I have over many of the folks trying to grow their own food in SAMAD is that I’m starting with good soil. Weeds used to grow prolifically in my back yard. The soil is brown and relatively loose. In many parts of SAMAD, the new gardeners will have to loosen the soil by watering it intensively, then waiting two days before trying to start turning it over and breaking it up.

[Webstral]

I'm going to have a go at garlic, too. I thoroughly enjoyed the results of my first attempt at back yard garlic. The garlic was so incredibly flavorful that a single clove of backyard garlic was as potent as a half-dozen store-bought cloves. The complexity of the back yard garlic flavor compared to store-bought variety was beyond comparison.

[Raellus]

Assuming your profile tags are current, the climate in which you are conducting your experiment is both cooler and wetter, on average, than the climate in most of southern Arizona. I know that you know this. I just what to reiterate how impractical most forms of agriculture are here without extensive irregation, and that means importing significant amounts of water and transporting it over long distances. I know that you have considered this but it bears repeating simply for its value as an adventure/plot hook. Controlling access to water for irregation will be crucial for any major polity hoping to exist in the region. Even with alternative and/or "taditional" forms of agriculture, irrigation will be necessary to supplement the minimal precipitation and the nearly non-existent surface water sources here in Southern Arizona.

[Cdnwolf]

Must be nice to be able to start planting early... have to wait until May 24 before its safe for me to start gardening. I love growing herbs and spices and when the world comes to an end they would grow in value.

[Targan]

How deep do you have to go in southern Arizona before you hit the water table? Is drilling deep wells a practical option or is the water just too deep/non-existant?

[Raellus]

Originally Posted by Targan

How deep do you have to go in southern Arizona before you hit the water table? Is drilling deep wells a practical option or is the water just too deep/non-existant?

It depends on the exact location but wells are a practical option, for some water needs. My house is one of five on a well which, coincidently, was on the fritz this afternoon (must have been the pump again). I had to drive the family into town to shower at the folks' house. Anyway, there are so many wells pumping so much water out of the ground here that the few rivers that used to run year round here all dried up decades ago. There's only a couple left now and they barely qualify as streams. The water table has dropped dramatically over the past century. "Recharge" programs pump water back into the ground but never enough to replace what's pumped out. Perhaps, in a T2K scenario where 2/3 of the greater Tucson area population have died or been driven off, the aquifers will have time to recover somewhat.

At the moment, much of Tucson's water is imported via the Central Arizona Project canal. It's by far the biggest "river" here.

[Webstral]

The water table can be found at varying depths. In the San Pedro River Valley (where Huachuca is located), the water table is fairly close to the surface. In 1997, the water table was significantly closer to the surface than it is today. Tucson was completely reliant on ground water until the CAP was finished, with the result that the water table was much further from the surface at the start of 1998.

Rae, you are completely right that water is going to be a defining issue in SAMAD. Much of the life of people tending their intensive gardens is going to revolve around getting water to the plants. Traditional irrigation is out of the question in most locations. Drip irrigation relies on pre-Exchange hardware. For the first couple of years after the Exchange, water is transported from a water head (well, tap still connected, etc.) to the plants. In some cases, this is a long way. Some ingenious folk fashion tanker bicycles--bikes with trailers which carry 55-gallon drums. The cyclists ride at night for six months of the year, delivering water to the fields where it is needed. Gardeners then fill containers on trolleys, carts, wagons, or backpacks and distribute the water by hand. It's a hard existence.

To make matters worse, the soil is awful in a lot of locations. Though the San Pedro River Valley used to be grassland, overgrazing towards the end of the 1800's turned the area into scrubland. By 1997, the good grassland soil is long gone.

Despite all-out efforts, the first harvest of 1998 is deplorable. Fortunately, the weather supports multiple harvests per annum (provided there's enough water). A few crops make a huge difference in the quality of the soil, according to folks who have studied this approach in other semi-arid locations. Also, the people who are not tilling the soil can work to improve the water distribution system so that less labor goes into getting water from Point A to the Point B and more goes into improving the yield.

Dryland agriculture is possible, though it's a risky enterprise. Winter rainfall amounts to several inches--six to seven. The land generally slopes towards the San Pedro. Controlling the run-off so that it soaks into the ground where the crops are being grown can add a few crucial inches to the total accumulation. This calls for some earth-moving. Obviously, somebody is going to be busy figuring out how to make the most of the scarce manpower when it comes to constructing berms to direct runoff out of the arroyos before it gets to the San Pedro River. Several years ago, I posted some findings on how other folks in the Third World grow crops in semi-arid climates. I won't repeat it here, other than to say that in some cases the contour of the land is exploited to multiple the precipitation that soaks into the ground where the crops are being grown, mcuh