[gardeners] Re: You have rocks??

asidv@fbg.net (gardeners@globalgarden.com)
Sat, 5 Dec 1998 20:41:02 +0000 

Martha Brown asked:
> Rocks???  Sand???????
> 	Is anyone ever pleased with what nature has provided <VBG>????

Probably not.

Martha, you may have -- free and with my eternal blessing -- all the 
rocks you care to dig and haul away. To one whose soil is one-quarter 
to one inch of leaf mold which is (according to the company that dug 
our well) followed by 160 feet of limestone, flint, and granite -- a 
plethora of sand sounds good.

WE buy sand! YOU buy rock! I think it is Mother Nature's way of 
insuring that we all continue to strive. I've watched Catharine
augur holes for bulbs and plants but when she suggested I try it at 
my digs I was faint with laughter. 

The first time I tried to plant a one gallon size of Texas Mountain 
Laurel, a neighbor heard me cursing and said, "To plant a tree, FIRST 
you gets your dynamite." And added, "But now that you've got your 
septic in, if you blast you'll crack it. Guess you'll just have to 
keep working on that hole with a pick." She meant a German pick: it 
is a spike six feet tall -- made of tempered steel -- a wedge on one 
end and a point on the other.  You lift it up (I'm just 5' tall) and 
suddenly drop it, point down, where you want the hole to be. Repeat 
ad libidum, ad nauseum. The wedge end is used to pry up the "crumbs" 
of rock you create. Example: it took my NGP nearly 4 hours to dig a 
hole to anchor the mailbox post!

Still, having gardened in the West Texas desert at one time, I know 
you feel you are dumping "organic material" into the Black Hole of 
the Universe in an attempt to create the "friable" of fiction. But, 
six of one, half a dozen of the other. Perseverance, thy name is 
gardener.

Pat, in the Texas Hill Country (the country of 1100 springs and 1100 
varieties of rock)




> 
> Martha who purchased and loaded and unloaded and placed tons (literally at
> $200.00 per ton) of rock by hand for paths and retaining walls in my
> bottomless sand.  
> M Brown
> NW Oklahoma, USA
> USDA Zone 6b,  Sunset Zone 35
>  
> 
> ----------
> > From: Carol Wallace <gardenwriter@columnist.com>
> > To: gardeners@globalgarden.com
> > Subject: Re: [gardeners] Big Max, Little Max??
> > Date: Friday, December 04, 1998 11:52 PM
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > Michael & Bambi Cantrell wrote:
> > 
> > > Catharine,
> > >
> > > Rocks?  In the soil?  You mean there are places with rocks in the soil?
> > > Like where you would hit them with a shovel or drill?
> > >
> > > My, my...  Some folks really do have it tough...
> > 
> > Bambi,
> > You mean a pickax and pry bar aren't part of your regular garden tool
> > assortment? We've built whole walls and paves paths with what I dig up
> each year
> > just trying to plant in the cultivated area. Frost has even heaved large
> > fieldstones into the nice, originally stone-free raised bed area.
> > 
> > I can't imagine a garden without rocks. I guess that's why my mattock is
> one of
> > my favorite garden tools.
> > Carol
> > --
> > Virtually Gardening
> > http://www.suite101.com/topics/page.cfm/75
> > Suite 101 Home & Garden
> > http://www.suite101.com/userfiles/79/gardening.html
> > 
> > 
>