Gophers, Planters and Hawaii

Here are some chance experiments with a “large planter” technique or “Can you have too much organic material in your garden?”

How It Started

Our family arrived back in Santa Cruz, CA, tails between our legs after our last disastrous attempt at community living, in Oregon. We had just avoided the Loma Prieta earthquake but as my then-wife commented had endured an earthquake of our own. The house we rented had two substantial drawbacks for gardening. The front yard was low- maintenance, namely paved over with concrete, and the back yard hosted the infamous Santa Cruz gopher which swims through soil like a shark through water, pulling down lettuce and small fruit trees as it goes.

On the plus side we had access to a lot of waste boards from downed fences, decks, etc.; piles of the local clay-like adobe from (re)construction projects; and plentiful organic material from various sources, especially horse stables. Eventually I got around to constructing large boxes with mesh on the bottoms (mesh filched from local dump) filled with the ingredients mentioned above. Ousted from our rental when the landlord decided to sell, we ended up buying a home in Santa Cruz thanks to the very creative efforts of a fondly remembered real estate agent/mortgage broker pair. Our new place had a large overgrown back yard, ideal for a garden in many respects with one major drawback: lots of intermittent shade from some large trees. The planters moved with us and new ones began to proliferate.

The Plan

The pattern that emerged may be summarized as follows: Put down gopher barrier, build a planter on top approximately 6' by 3' by 30” high, pile in branches, wood chips, leaves, any organics handy, cover with dirt of dubious quality, repeat until near top of planter. As decay of the organic material causes the surface level in the planter to subside, add more layers. As time went on the quality of the organic material added improved to more kitchen, garden, stable waste. When a sufficient degree of stabilization was reached, no more dirt was added but a layer of dirt equal to one spade depth was removed into 5 gallon plastic buckets (freebees from local deli), organic material piled in (sometimes after turning the exposed layer of dirt) and then the surface dirt dumped back in on top. On top of that high quality mulch if available.

The result was a non-compacted soil rich in organic material. A good deal of the motivation at this stage was finding a way to deal with all the organic material being generated in the garden. I had not the time, patience or skill to properly compost it. Just burying it was the brute force solution.

Towards the end of my stay in Santa Cruz I was moving into a more Ruth-Stout-like operation of just putting mulching materials on top. Some limitations on this method: Seems it does best with a good underlying soil (which by now had been created) and requires more diligence (or money) in securing appropriate organics.

Starting Again

So now I am in permanent exile in the foreign country of Hawaii (Big Island), the Puna district, only place I could find land cheap enough to buy. Starting over. The soil I have to deal with is thin and irregular lying on recent lava flows. It's strange stuff. Doesn't come from granite or marine sediment. What's free (temporarily) are pallets from which I'm back to making planters. A bit of work and I'm making them huge! 40” high and sides multiples of 4'. We'll see how this madness turns out. At least I think that 40” is more than the pestilent wild pigs will be able to negotiate.

Oh, about too much organic material. That was a problem in Mendocino County, due to symphylans encountered by some friends there, but I think the planter technique holds promise of remedy so the question remains open for my garden.