Soil improvement

Any desert dwellers here with tips on how you started with your soil improvement? I don't have any trees(yet) and I've throw some cover crop seeds out, but wondering what else I can do.

I would say the biggest thing, besides planting, is mulch. That has made a huge difference for me regarding soil health (have suddenly discovered earthworms in the yard for the first time). If you have the option of Chip Drop I've had good luck with them (though I have heard mix reviews).

We just got another truckload of wood chips, that's been huge like Redshoe said - it's turned our community garden into one big sponge. Pretty amazing to compare how the rain runs off and erodes the bare sand outside, but inside the chips just soak it right up!

They're also being colonized by mycelium everywhere I dig. As the mycelial network grows, it extends the reach of plant roots all across the garden to access more water and nutrients 🍄😃

Compost pile has also been key, we always let the weedy plants like mallow and cowpen daisy grow, and then take cuttings off them to compost. Many of the local plants can help bootstrap your garden carbon before soil has improved enough for cover crops and veggies. These days, grass is about the only thing I pull, everything else I just trim and compost or mulch with.

Well I got some mulch, not enough for the whole yard, but it's a start.

It's certainly a start! What all do you have growing?

I have a texas mountain laurel tree, a dwarf orange and dwarf grapefruit. Which i just put in after my original post.Then I've got a tecoma stans, a couple of texas rangers, a Mexican honeysuckle, sweet potato vine and couple of cactus cuttings. I got another pile of mulch so should be enough to totally fill in the bare spots.

Sounds like an excellent mix and start. Truly can't think of much more that you can do, aside from some cover crop seeds (which you said you already tossed out)… Maybe some blanket flowers or similar flowers that will thrive in the heat?

Nothing like a fresh start, and it looks like you're off to a good one! 😁 jealous of the dwarf grapefruit, yum 😋

I've been out shoveling mulch too, now's the time to pile it on heavy before the heat - sounds like we'll all be ready!

I was just looking into which crops produce the absolute most biomass that will grow (on irrigation) in our climate. Here's what I got in case it's helpful for chop-and-drop and composting:

-Sudangrass (growing this now, have had great success in the past with it)
-Cowpea (they do great for me)
-Moringa (Redshoe has experience with, I still need to get seeds and try again)
-Leucaena
-Sunn Hemp
-Pigeon Pea

Haven't tried those last 4 yet, but I'll report back once I do on how much biomass they produce 🌱

Stay cool out there! 😎