Re: mulch in the sahel...raised vs. sunken beds

Bargyla Rateaver (brateaver@earthlink.net)
Tue, 19 Oct 1999 22:20:55 -0700

I mentioned raised beds only because that was one of the things someone
brought up, apparently from Mollison's work.
No, my father built his beds RIGHT beside the river, in the arid country.
He dug out land and used that to make a low all, berm maybe it should be
called, right on the edge of the river. So all his planting soil was really
lower than the river level. It was there that he made the raised beds, so I
suppose one could call them lowered raised beds !! No, he did not make raised
beds on the ordinary level, which would indeed be, as you said, too dry for a
raised bed there.
For trees, like fruit trees, he dug, at that same level, down deep to make
a cone-shaped hole, the point of the cone way down deep, and the top of the
cone at the garden level. At the deep bottom he planted the tree. Then around
the periphery of the top of the hole, the soil level, he inserted cuttings at
an angle so that when rooted they would grow inwardly, over the hole opening.
They would shade the growing tree. It was really not country.

Edna M Weigel wrote:

> Bargyla wrote:
> (snip)
> > Gathering leaves, mounding to make raised beds,
> > wouldnot ever be done--just too much effort.
> (snip)
> It sounds to me like the sahel is a desert or at least arid land.
> If so, I wouldn't suggest a raised bed. Sunken beds work so much better
> where water is hard to come by. Even the Master Gardeners in Phoenix and
> Tucson can quote the reason why serious gardeners MUST have raised beds;
> to get the soil to dry out and warm up faster in the spring. Too bad
> that some of them haven't figured out that drying out and warming up
> faster in the spring ISN'T desirable in the desert. I am constantly
> amazed when someone here in the desert talks about gardening plans and
> says something like, "We're going the whole nine yards--raised beds and
> everything--just as soon as we can get them built." That means they've
> read all the books written in other parts of the country. I agree with
> Dennis' recommendation of Bill Mollison's Permaculture book.
> Best regards, Edna
>
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