Update May 8, 2017

Here’s a late entry – an update that I started last week but never finished…until today…

We are well behind schedule with the veggie garden while we wait for the correct sized gates to arrive (we ordered 5’ wide and received 3’ wide…too small to get in and out with the tiller, etc.). Thankfully, the warm and sunny weather provided an opportunity to work on the herb and fruit garden. We are expanding the overall size and will be installing a higher fence (once we get the gates) and will be adding blueberries, pear and fig trees. We also wanted to remove the existing pressure-treated raised beds and landscape fabric and rebuild new beds for our strawberry patch. For this we decided on using Hugelkultur (German for hill culture). This is a raised bed system where you dig a trench, pile up wood and other biomass, then cover with dirt for planting. The added wood acts as a sponge and can provide moisture during the warm and dry parts of the year. Also, as the material breaks down, it adds to the soil structure and provides some warmth through the composting process.

Building the beds would be a lot easier if I had a tractor with a dump bucket or a skid steer. Instead I made do with a shovel and the good-ol’ dirt scoop on my 60 year old Ford 8N. Thankfully we have lots of wood piles around the property that we can pull from for the wood debris. We also have the clay soil from the trench we dug and have also brought in Cascade Compost to complete the soil layers.

Before – Raised beds were placed on top of landscape fabric. They are also pressure treated so we needed to remove them to comply with organic practices

dirt and fabric removed…

Started to build up the woody debris… Eventually this will be a mound that will be home to our strawberry patch

For more info about Hugelkultur, see:

https://richsoil.com/hugelkultur/

https://www.permaculture.co.uk/articles/many-benefits-hugelkultur

https://permaculturenews.org/2010/08/03/the-art-and-science-of-making-a-hugelkultur-bed-transforming-woody-debris-into-a-garden-resource/

Meanwhile, we received our turkeys and have also added an additional 15 hens to our flock. The turkeys arrived last week and we were short one bird. They must have had a rough time in shipping as we lost four more bird in the first two days. Thankfully we received credit for those five and the remaining 9 are healthy and growing nicely. We added another 15 hens – 5 each of Rhode Island Reds, Black Australorp, and Buff Brahma. They are lively and growing – hopefully they will begin laying in time for the Fall.

We are selling Eggs! This was the first week of egg sales. We have some subscribers who will receive eggs every other week for 20 weeks (at least). We also sell a la carte – that is you can buy eggs without committing to 20 weeks of eggs… If you would like to purchase some of our eggs, email us or call to arrange pick up in Graham, WA.