May 2013

May brought a flurry of garden bed prepping and planting, as we struggled once again to keep up with more garden than two people probably should have tried to establish (55' x 155', with 45 beds).

Linc experimented with a variety of bed prep and soil prep strategies, keeping records of what was done where, and trying to make sure that there was always a control in each experiment (one half of each bed with minimal prep, the other half with something experimental, be it lasagna gardening, extra compost, no mulch, etc).  For two beds, we work exchanged with friends by helping them with projects in exchange for their help in creating two hugelkulture beds, also called hugelbeds.  These involved digging all of the topsoil out, filling the excavated trench with logs, then brush, then piling the topsoil back on.  We followed up the work party with pizzas cooked in the wood fired cob oven - made for a nice day, and a chance to enjoy a taste of community life often lacking in our modern culture.

 Digging out the beds...

 Cottonwood and elm logs in.

Brush added, dirt on top.

 A finished bed.

That was so much work, that Linc went out and bought an old backhoe on his birthday for future digging projects, and I think we've got a lot of them!  We'll do our best to keep this ancient (1965) machine running!

 Meanwhile, the goat kids grew bigger, and were taught the ropes of the goat gym by nanny goat Phoebe.