Being new to high desert gardening means we have to amend the soil to meet our needs if we want to accomplish building a healthy ecosystem to establish a garden. One of the first steps we are taking is to make sure our vermicomposting system
( which we brought over from our smaller homestead in California) is healthy and ready to go come spring time.
I admit I am not an expert on vermicomposting and at this time we have a very small worm bin made from an old deep freezer but it seems to be doing well in the freezing cold temperatures here and the worms are thriving. I did try setting up totes to expand the worm farm but those were not insulated enough and they froze despite being in a shed.
Come spring time I will sift out worm castings and along with my other compost (chicken manure, horse manure) we will begin the process of soil amendment. We plan to dig deep trenches, sift out the rocks, and add the amended soil back to the earth. Our planting of vegetables, herbs, and flowers will begin. We will also add shade cloth structures to protect the garden from the harsh sun.
Basically we are a work in progress on our path to a thriving garden and farm nursery but it all starts with the worms 🙂
