I have blisters on my hands tonight from digging in the hardened crust of caliche soil that has been compacted for more than a decade without aeration or any organic infiltration. No worms, no ants, no insects or bugs of any kind occupy or utilize this small neglected area of potentially arable land. It has become a still, mostly lifeless patch of barren ground in the urban desert of downtown Phoenix.
I am preparing to install an experimental urban garden in front of my new home in the barrio. I am working in the right-of-way between the curb of the street and the sidewalk in front of my home.
In most suburbs, this is the area that would be a small grassy lawn. In the barrio where I now live there are a few small patches of lawn, but more often there is decomposed granite, desert plants and occasionally native shade trees such as mesquite or palo brea.
Thanks to artists like Fritz Haeg and Amy Franceschini and the growing interest in the principles of permaculture, it is now not such an unusual thing to plant food in this small area of ground.
I’m digging during the hottest time of year in order to prepare the soil to take advantage of the coming summer rains. The monsoon season typically follows the summer solstice, marked by the indigenous populations that have farmed this valley for centuries. The coming rains are also heralded by the brief yet noisy cacophony of cicadas in the trees. I can feel moisture in the air blowing to the east and I see signs of rainfall further west.
One challenging question is whether the patterns of rainfall in metro Phoenix have been significantly changed by the huge increase in surface temperatures of the past fifty or so years resulting from wide asphalt roads and endless unshaded parking lots.
My first task in the new future garden was to remove and reset the water meter cover. When the old cast iron water main was previously replaced, the concrete cover was set back haphazardly on top of the old cast iron water line, which was cut but never removed. The cover shot up at a steep angle causing a trip hazard. I removed the old cast iron line and reset the cast concrete box cover flush with the adjacent sidewalk.
Next, over several weeks, I began to remove the hardened layer of compacted caliche top soil. I used a steel shovel and wheelbarrow to remove about thirty tons of topsoil. The compacted soil surface had built up over the years higher than the adjacent hardscape sidewalks and curb so any rain that fell simply washed away into the storm drain system.
In order to capture the impending rainfall, the area needed to be excavated several inches below the surrounding curb. This work was the next phase and has taken a tremendous amount of sweat equity, leading to the blisters I have tonight.
This small plot of urban soil is the place where a number of threads of information, knowledge, investigation and experimentation come together. Tonight, I wait to see if the summer monsoon rains will come to soak the soil before the first seeds are planted in the ground.
