Today, I weeded the veggie garden. Additionally, I hoed more rows of beans for the rows that didnt germinate. I laid out fencing to put up tomorrow around the beans. I put fencing against the rows of cushaw plants. I have rows of corn and cucumber to post and string up as well tomorrow.
In my other garden, I cut back the weeds around the blueberry plants and started pylling up old lettuce and radish plants. Still, I have much work there to do in order to rotate crops from spring to summer crops. It was a busy day, and it all starts again tomorrow to work.
Cucumbers in grow bags & potatoes growing in buckets
Always, I will show you all the beautiful blooms that emerge this spring and summer. And my many photos of the flower garden exposes my obsession. Little poems I write about my flower garden defines my love for them...
Yellows, whites and pinks
Glowing twists and turns love to keep
Unfolded blankets from shells they sleep
Shakes and shrivels they turn to weep.
In my last post, I showed you the arbor I crafted out of tree branches, sticks, and ivy, and I continue to do small garden projects and crafts, like with this toilet and bottle garden.
The toilet is simply a piece of trash that doesn't appear aesthetically pleasing in a yard, but I am crafting my yard and garden to have a trashy artistic appeal, and the toilet serves a purpose to grow some pretty flowers.
The bottle garden too is trashy. The bottle garden is made up of Ale8 bottles, beer bottles--can you get more redneck than that?
The bottle garden is in progress, as I continue to add more glass bottles to frame the rest of the garden bed. This bed is full of mint, and MANY weeds, so I'm going to add mulch.
Bottle garden
Beside the bed is a patch of Hibiscus and Phlox, and I would like to sow a thick layer of artichoke seeds and other big beautiful plants. In front of the mint bed is a mulberry tree, two aronia berry plants, a goji and grape vines.
This small space is already packed full of plants, and even down from those plants is the 5 peach and nectarine trees seen in the picture here.
I'm obsessed with these trees because of the delicate pink petals. This picture encapsulates Spring--bright green grassy yards against bright blue skies filled with rain to drown brown thickets.
In yesterday's post, I said I planted crops to replace those that we lost from the bugs and drought. Dispersed among the remaining plants, I directly sowed lettuce, spinach, carrots, and swiss chard.
Yesterday, James spent most of the day cleaning out the rain drums of food dye. Then we took the drums to my grandparents' house to attach to the gutters on their roof. As James was working on that, I transplanted tomatoes in front of the beans. Behind the clusters of beans, I planted a long row of Marketmore Cucumbers today. It was another good day for planting vine crops, so I figured I would get out the cucumbers at least. James managed to assemble a quick lean to trellis structure for the cucumbers to crawl up.
Also, today, I planted a row of Okra in between a row of beans and squash.
Birdhouse gourds
Because it was a good day for planting vine crops, I wanted to plant Luffa and Birdhouse gourds.So, when I got home from my grandparents' today, I made two trellis structures of different recycled materials. One was an arbor made with the wood from my 25 year old baby crib. With this, I planted Luffa underneath. The other trellis is the metal spring from the baby crib, which I am using to let Birdhouse gourds grow up. The left picture below shows you the structure for growing Luffa; and the picture to the right is a metal trellis for the Birdhouse gourds.
All trellis structures were made using free, recycled, and reused materials. The trellises I have made so far were small to my height, and the only other materials I used were wire cutters and some wire for tying corners and posts together, which I also used a hammer to beat the posts in the ground. These trellises are simple and require no power tools. Even a child could make these structures.
For the last two days there has been a break in the bitter cold weather. In fact the Sun has graced us these past few days, so I have been working outside. On Tuesday, James and I hauled several tons of gravel back-and-forth to put on the driveway. Then Wednesday and Thursday I collected leaves, humus, degraded wood chips from the woods to put on the garden.
The leaves were added to some of the Hugelkultur mounds. As you know these have four steps: Layers of Logs/sticks, twigs/small wood debris, leafs/mulch, then compost/soil on top. I have a total of 10 Hugelkultur mounds (four finished, four halfway finished, and two a fourth of the way finished). The four halfway finished mounds already have layers of logs/sticks/twigs/leafs; and in the upcoming days or weeks I will add the soil and compost on top. The other two mounds are only logs/sticks for now, and I will need to add small wood debris before adding leafs. After adding layers of leaf material, I will then add soil and compost. The process can be finished very quick, however the weather has not permitted me finishing the mounds until closer to Spring.
The picture below is one of my Main Gardens which has been revamped to Hugelkultur mounds. In the picture I am pointing to the garden that noticeably has 9 protruding mounds. (The other Hugel mound is in the front of the house which is our longest Hugel bed, which you can see in this video: Hugelkultur bed phase 2).
It is the beginning of February, so this month will be a time to finish adding the final layers of soil and compost to all 10 Hugelkultur mounds. By the time I complete the mounds at the beginning of March I will be directly sowing Kale, Radishes, Beets, Carrots, Lettuce, Onion, Peas, Spinach, Broccoli. Of course you can see my Garden Calendars for All USDA Gardening Zones for each vegetable and specific planting dates: Garden Calendar for ALL USDA ZONES 1-11 (When to grow different vegetables & Moon phases.
As these vegetables grow throughout April and May, it will be time to replace them with Summer vegetables like Peppers, tomatoes, eggplant, etc. I also have a picture of my 2015 Garden Layout which will show you what vegetables I am planting together in accordance to Companion planting (preventing "pests" and adding nutrients), and in relation to where the Sun hits the garden: Layout of 2015 Spring, Summer & Fall Garden using polyculture, pest prevention, & companion planting. The post includes pictures of my Garden layout for 2 of my 4 gardens. I have yet to decide what I am growing on my other two gardens. It will depend on how many seeds I have left. I know I will have many vegetable seeds left. If you haven't seen my seed inventory, go to the post here: Seeds I bought for 2015 Garden.
The Hugelkultur beds are assembling quickly now that I have help from James. He has been placing smaller pieces of log that will decay sooner into small Hugel beds (which will decay over 2-3 years); and rearranging the larger pieces of log to the larger Hugelkultur mound (which will decay over 3+ years). Below, I show step by step pictures so that you get a visual understanding of my process... In the first photo is the Hugel bed in front of my house. First I lay cardboard on the ground, then large pieces of logs or limbs, then twigs/sticks, leaves, then topped with seven inches of black natural mulch.
In this photo I have pieced together my process with three rows of Hugelkultur mounds. You see that I have placed the logs first, then sticks, then leaves, then dirt on top.
The next three photos show a large Hugelkultur bed. The particular large mound was dug a foot deep into the ground, then we
puzzle-pieced the large chunks of log into the pit, added sticks and
twigs, then added leaves. The dirt dug from the pit then will be layered
on top of the leaves, which we did for the other Hugelkultur beds.
I
have a video below that shows you the step by step process for the large
Hugelkultur bed with the large pieces of logs. Also in the video I give you a tour of the other Hugel beds in the garden. Watch video posted below:
For over a month now I have collected logs, limbs, and leaves from the woods. I am slow to haul logs through the woods to my house because some weigh as much as 100 pounds. I usually roll the large pieces of log, and carry the logs that weigh less than 50 pounds. Some of the logs that weigh between 50-100 pounds are the ones I drag with a rope. Most of the wood and other tree matter is easy to collect because it's not far from my house, but that means carrying heavy logs for several hundred yards.
James has busted up some of the large pieces of tree. Larger pieces cover the bottom of the Hugelkultur mound, then limbs/branches/twigs are placed in the middle, then leaves are spread over top of the mound. The leaves will trap heat while the logs and sticks retain moisture. Over time the leaves decay over the rotting logs and become rich dirt like the ground floor of a forest. I find this method to be the most rewarding, beneficial, and efficient way to grow food.
Our experiment has been placing logs/leaves in the walkways of our Summer's Tomato garden. Considering we had 10 double rows of Tomatoes, we have made 12 Hugelkultur beds within our garden.
Attached to our Summer's Tomato garden was at least 5 rows of Pepper plants, which we have mulched with pine needles and leaves; but I doubt we turn this portion of the garden into a Hugel bed because it will be too close to the Cob home we're building within the Garden. I posted a video of the Hugelkultur mounds along with the Cob home trench in the video below. The video was from a couple of days ago when I had not added three additional rows of Logs, but you can see the photos afterwards of the progress so far. I will have an updated video soon so that you can get the "full experience" of the Hugel garden.
As mentioned, there are 10+ rows of logs and tree matter. In the photo below are the first Four rows which contain long thin logs.
The photo below shows you the following Four rows covered in leaves. These four rows are the Middle rows, which are nearly completed, while the other rows contain only large chunks of logs.
In the next two photo are three rows with large pieces of logs.
The photo below shows you the last couple of rows.
Yesterday I collected the three logs you see in the photo below. Essentially, I rolled each of them from the woods to my house. The biggest chunk was nearly 100 pounds and the other two were 60-70 pounds. James then busted the logs into smaller pieces, which will allow them to decompose much faster.
It's difficult to show you the entire garden in one frame, which is why I highly recommend watching my videos that I post on Youtube. The goal here is to transform the 13 rows into 13 Hugelkultur mounds. Once we limbs/branches/twigs/leaves over the logs, we will then add mulch/dirt/compost and other material which will help quickly break down tree matter into soil.
One other Hugel bed I am working on is seen in the next two pictures. The bed is approximately 3 ft wide, 3 ft tall, and 15 ft long. Weeks ago I began placing long, thin logs at the bottom of the bed, then sticks, twigs, then leaves. After several layers of leaves, I added Natural black mulch on top.
