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Old June 28, 2018   #1
bower
Tomatovillian™
 
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Join Date: Feb 2012
Location: Newfoundland, Canada
Posts: 6,793
Default it's a tad rocky here...

This is a multi year project I've been working on. The terrace I started in 2015. The area is southeast corner of my house near the greenhouse, which is where the natural topsoil from the building site was piled before construction in '91, next to a small natural valley or drainage/catchment area, which does have standing water in extreme rain events.
The excess topsoil - which is a red clay pH 4, was moved over several years in the 90's as a foundation for my raised beds in the main west garden. This soil on its own is like poison to vegetables or any of the many things gardeners normally grow, but it is all we have here above the rock, and farmers considered it a better start than nothing, back in the day. There are many places where there is not even any clay, so... farmers started in the best spots, ridges where there is clay...
The terrace area garden has been neglected after redistributing some of the clay, and never "finished" as a garden although some compost was made there and some things grown on the top. I started working on this area in 2015 mostly because weeds that host mildew - forget-me-nots and red clover are sadly the worst - were providing spores to blow into the greenhouse and messing with the tomatoes.
This pic is from 2015, when I started work on the terrace. The stone steps in the foreground were built many years earlier with the help of a very strong friend. Big rocks!!
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File Type: jpg terrace-2015.JPG (489.9 KB, 128 views)
File Type: jpg terrace-shaped-2015.JPG (291.2 KB, 127 views)
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