Dry Farming in Urban Spaces
Facilitators: Laura Deal & Nick Canino
Description: This focus group will discuss principles and practices about dry farming in urban spaces.


We have folks from southern california, whidbey island, east coast transplants, and more!

Question on raised beds: add a load of compost mix? Is wood chips on top of that workable?
Nick: if there is enough space between the top of the soil and the lip of the bed, it should work, but if you have to stack them on the top they will just spill over.

Question: When to add them?
Nick: At any point in the season if they are going to be left to decompose. It can be done around seedlings if you work delicately. The church garden does their annual mulching in November after their last harvest.

Question: is it not labor-intensive to plant through all the mulch?
Nick: It can be, especially with transplants, and you have to be careful not to let fresh wood chips fall into your soil and rob your plants of nitrogen. Direct seeding is usually done in rows so is not quite as intensive.

Question: What are the considerations for the size of the beds in raised bed gardening? What is a good height or width?
Nick: Yes, it also matters how the bed connects or doesn't to the soil below. In this climate, raised beds are not always a great option. Elevating the soil and having it exposed more to heat does reduce moisture retention. Generally, the larger the volume the better, and if you can do something like kugelkultur, that will help retain moisture. I generally advise to plant directly in the earth. 

Comment from Sally: Had difficulty with their melon transplants last season. So if you are planting something that really is fairly sensitive to temperature, would it make sense to pull the mulch back to get a little bit more warmth in the soil, and re-mulch them as the soil warms up later in the season?
Nick: I had taken some soil temperature measurements, and what I found with my probe was that the deep mulch garden at the church was pretty similar, with perhaps a 5-day lag, compared to soil temperatures at our main farm. The chips themselves, as they are breaking down, may be generating a little bit of heat that helps them acheive this. But there is a lot more to know about whether the depth of chips makes a difference. Deep mulch also seems to be a great breeding ground for slugs, which is one of the biggest pest challenges for this kind of gardening.

Question: How do the roots interact with clay?
Nick: They prefer sandy, loamy soils to clay, but you can force the roots down by doing things like not watering. Extremely hard clay might not work for this, but even if you start with clay-heavy soils, every year that you continue to add mulch and increase your population of soil microorganisms and organic matter percentage, your clay will turn into a 


Questions about dry farming in the Inland Empire of CA near Yucaipa, is it possible to improve soil health with chips if there are only 20 inches of rain annually, and how would you go about applying the mulch - also should you use lawn clippings/debris or just wood chips
Nick: Try to avoid lawn clippings or debris if you don't know the source because they are much more likely to contain pesticide and chemical fertilizer residue. Try to get chips from arborists and apply them 10'' thick to retain moisture, during the fall ideally and see if they will stay wet long enough to break down and improve soil health. Try to documebnt before/after soil tests if possible to see the improvement. 

Question about chip planting technique and row spacing, irrigation when planting etc. 
Nick: We dig trenches with a maddock, spaced out a few feet to avoid backfilling the neighboring trench with the excavated chips, then put our seeds or starts in. Starts always get a cup or two of water regardless of soil moisture status or rain, seeds are often planted with no additional water, relying on rainfall or soil moisture to spark germination. All seeds/starts are set out in April-July, there is nothing planted in the mid summer or fall - one downside of deep mulch is that its difficult to establish fall/overwinter crops with this dry farming technique. 

Question about cultivars that did well for eggplant and pepper -
Nick: Eggplant was Diamond, Peppers that did pest were Criolla de Cucina, Early Long Orange, Murasaki, Jimmy Nardellos, and D'espelette

Question about rats in urban areas and best crops to plant for school gardens in Corvallis - 
Nick: Rats are a problem at one of our locations but not at the deep mulch garden, they only seem to have interest in the compost pile and don't care as much about trying to burrow in our chip piles to make nests or anything. Best crops for kids are all the large seeded crops that readily germinate in the chips despite less-than ideal planting methods - squash, beans, peas, corn (careful of wind lodging in loose chips), sunflower, nasturtium are all good options for kids that are easy to plant. Tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant from transplants are also easy and good for the youth

Thanks to everyone who participated!