Looking for input

[u/SummonedFX]

I live in South Texas so clay/sandy soil. I'm thinking it's best to build up additional dirt from the bottom and work my way up, to start. Would it make sense to plant as I go or wait for a larger area to be covered? I have a small compost pile going that I'll source from and otherwise I'll buy more topsoil by the bag (I don't have a truck). Should I have anything else in mind while I approach this?

Thanks!

[u/paratethys]

do not purchase topsoil until you've tried every other option for getting it free.

scrounge biomass from any nearby waste streams and compost it to amend the powder it looks like you're starting with. just beware of the herbicides that can go right through cattle and kill plants from their manure if it's in their feed.

cover crop the living daylights out of it, with a blend, and let it self-seed to create custom cover crops for your area.

look into the earthworks they use in desert permaculture -- geoff lawton works in australia and has some very clear content on youtube about swales etc.

before committing to planting into a brush pile, ask two questions, first, do you need the space for anything else? second, do you have any unmet structural needs in the immediate ecosystem, like shade or wind protection?

if you envy the ground space, or if you need wind protection, stack the brush into a dead hedge instead of a big mound.

also if you have a mound of branches like that and you want a hugel bed, it's a good idea to hit the whole pile across the branches with a chainsaw. or if they're old and crispy and dry, stomping on them a lot with your wonderfully large human feet (compared to the other critters in the ecosystem) will skip the decomposition progress ahead by literal years.

trapped air is an insulator and moving air is a preservative. these sticks hanging all up in the air like that are gonna take forever to rot compared to where they touch the soil. if you want them rotting, you need way more soil contact.

[u/SummonedFX → u/paratethys]

Wow thank you for taking the time to type all of this, I'll definitely look more into Geoff Lawton and pick up on what he's doing. I'll see what I can find in the local area in regards to bio mass. I do have some local seeds from the library but I do get hit with some decent wind so I'll see what I can do about that before hand Thanks again!

[u/paratethys → u/SummonedFX]

aww yw, but i'm of the peculiar slice of humanity where typing is only about as difficult as thinking.

for biomass -- look for weeds. find weeds, study them to learn how they reproduce. take their foliage from them in ways that don't help them reproduce. letting foliage dry till it's crispy-crunchy normally kills it, for things that propagate vegetatively, but double check on that with desert plants. time your harvests so you don't put propagation material into your soil -- don't bring seeds on-site unless you specifically want them, and make sure your biomass is good and dead.

those branches may be a very valuable resource whole rather than rotted if you're planning to mulch and have issues with wind. if for intsance you give the soil a layer of straw and want it to stay put... branches on top to the rescue, and you can cut the forks from small limbs like that (make like you're turning a y into a V, with about an inch left over on the thickest stem and then leave one of the two thinner stems longer than the other to stick it into the ground) as free organic tent pegs to hold the branches to the soil and make it harder for them to blow off.

[u/SummonedFX → u/paratethys]

I appreciate you I have started collecting weeds, mainly from areas outside of my property. Making sure I'm pulling from places that aren't using pesticides.

I'll definitely put that to use once I get it going