City boy showing his stupidity here

The questions are: What implements would best work the good stuff into the soil? Plow? Disk? Something Else? What sizes? Even though it is sand and dust, it is compacted and not loose. How deep should I go? As this is a desert area, got any suggestions as to stuff to add to hold moisture?

Obviously, I'm just looking for excuses to play with my tractor, but I do want to accomplish something at the same time.

As see it if North Americans don't look after the vegetation on their land better than what is being practiced, we may have a another dust bowl. Even the land that does have sod on it is being mowed of almost weekly, in the name of neatness. All of that mowed land is very suseptable to evaporation.

We have today groups of people wanting to save and preserve just about every endangered species of animal of bird on earth. Yet no gives to much thought to our plants, the only one that will replenish our oxygen. We better think about this one, at the current rate we use oxygen.

• Southwest Desert Gardening

Really, I bought the M because it had a Farmhand front loader. I've been moving structural iron and side-sheets for a steel building. Even with wheel weights, the back of that M gets rather light on the ground when hauling a stack of side sheets. I could not move the roof sheets and didn't try.

So, I figured as long as I had the tractor anyway...

I am assuming that you currently have a mix of cactus, sage, and pinon pine, with some sort of grass here and there. Each has its place in the desert, and removing any of them would require some compensation to keep what little soil you have in place.

Most real farming in the desert involves irrigation, which requires that you have or can buy water rights. Do you have irrigation facilities on the place? If not, getting them could be costly.

Could you contact your county agent for some sort of conservation plan? Where are you located?

steve

I like sage a bunch, and I've only got one. They smell great, and they grow best when you leave them alone. I would love to get more started. (Any hints out there?)

Very little yucca, thank goodness. They're a pain, literally, and they spread very fast.

Many of the little leaf-ear cactus. I like those, and would transplat them before working an area. They're easy to work with. I did this when putting in my barn. Gotta watch where you walk, because of the little seed-pod-sticker things.

I've never messed with Pinion Pine. I've got none on the property. Can you give me more info on them? Good wind break? Draught tolerant?

6' or 8' disk. Run it very shallow. OK. Dry fertilizer. I assume I would need go easy on the fertilizer, to avoid burning in our low moisture conditions. Seeder. OK, I'm with you. A nearby feed store has draught-tolerant grasses available. I'll bet they would have some advice, too.

There is a little Case VA nearby that needs an engine, but has a sickle-bar. It really needs a home. Can't have too many tractors. :-) I could also do my ditches. There was an H up the road with a sickle bar, but I really don't trust the seller.

Finally, and most importantly... THANK YOU! Feel free to contact me via e-mail if you get more ideas. I can use all the help I can get.