My little hobbit wife has transformed part of my back yard into a high-yield garden using bioentensive gardening techniques. (Pics to follow.)

We live in the desert, in dead, sandy soil; she and her son have carved three 5' x 20' plots (and are preparing more) and have grown about half of what she needs to supply veggies for the family.

Bioentensive gardening is a technique to enliven dead soil; our soil is sandy, basically useless for anything but weeds. We've been harvesting kale, lettuce, bok choi, snow peas, Asian greens, carrots, and radishes and are expecting cabbage, onions, garlic, Navajo popcorn and Navajo watermelons*. Also, tomatoes, bell peppers, squash and zucchini. Lettuce up the ying-yang.

She waters using waste wash water, using organic, gray water safe wash soap.

She's currently planting Molokheiya (Egyptian summer spinach), arugula, Good King Henry specialty greens, French sorrel, Rugusa Rose, Blackcap Raspberry, and hazelnut.

She's also experimenting with green and brown cotton, and indigo.

Here is a link to the web site of the author she likes most.



*These are from the reservation; her son has a CIB number and can get these.

Pics follow! (Sorry for the quality but you know... "potato" pics are appropriate!)

Bare, weed-infested earth (other part of back yard):



One 5' x 20' plot, dug out and revitalized with mulch:



Some of her produce:



More produce:

Nice.
I am experimenting with permaiculture.
Nothing exciting to report yet.

Tag for updates as I will be farming in Florida sand soon.

Potato pics will probably be only thing I can grow!

I think you'll do much better than potato pics! Bioentensive gardening starts out by enriching the soil by digging it out about 1 foot, mixing it with mulch and fertilizer, and then putting the soil right back. One interesting note is that by enriching the soil, it becomes too rich for many indigenous plants (i.e. weeds). My wife reports that she doesn't do much weeding at all; most of the weeds she pulls are from the fertilizer (1 year old horse poo) she mixes in.

This seems like the Hugelkultur gardening but without the logs being the lowest level in the stack?

Read quite a bit on that form of gardening and really like the way it works to hold moisture etc.

I'm a bit surprised she is getting seed growth from the horse manure after a full year of composting. That seems to be the magic number to kill off the seeds from my reading.

She says that the manure is too "hot" before then, it burns the seeds. It works pretty well now, we've  brought 2 pickup loads down from her friend's house of 1- and 2-year manure, and it works pretty well.

Did she grow the potato you used to take those pictures?  Lo.  Just kidding.  Very cool.

She retrieved the manure from an open pile, so it didn't get very hot from natural decomposition.

eta

Okay, I was confused about what she said about seeds... she doesn't have pasture seeds from the horse manure. It all died in the manure pile. Turns out she's collecting seeds from the veggies in her garden-- "seed saving" for self-sufficency.

She also uses Neem oil instead of insecticides. Gets it from the local tree nursery; she sprays it on the bugs and they immediately retreat.

Neem Oil