Plants

The forest garden is coming along nicely.

Work has started on 3 more rows. They each have their rock retaining walls (so that each terrace can be leveled off somewhat). And we've put a bunch of branches and manure just uphill from the rock walls for longterm fertility and water retention. The whole thing is also fenced off, with orchard netting and electric fence, as we will soon be moving the chickens in there. We plan to do a compost (and insect) tractor in the rows, so that the chickens can help improve the soil (more on that at a later date).

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As for the first row, it's doing well, but it's about to explode. We've been having very hot (110 degrees) days, with no clouds or breeze to cool them off. All the plants, in the orchard and garden, have been looking a little wilted during the day, but they perk up in the evening and morning. Thankfully, the deep watering system in the orchard and wicking beds in the garden have prevented evaporation, so at least the roots can keep cool. The only ones to really suffer have been the potatoes that we planted out of a wicking bed, of which we've had several casualties. The wonderful news though is that it has started raining. We've now had rain for three days in a row and the temperatures have dramatically reduced. Although we still get a high of more than 100 degrees, it's no longer staying that temperature all day long. The clouds build a little after lunch and they dump about 5 in the afternoon. It's awesome.

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So, with rain season here, we are about to plant a bunch more stuff, both inside and out of the orchard and garden.

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We have also dug holes and set up an irrigation system for some trees around the barn area. We want to use trees, whose leaves and fruit can be eaten by animals, and that will provide shade and protection from the wind (mulberry is a perfect candidate). Maybe we'll get around to that next week.

Plants

Finished wicking beds

We also managed to finally finish our wicking beds this week and make a bed for currants and berries on the overflow to the gray water system (that feeds the inside flower beds).

There wasn't a whole lot to do, but we have had so much wind this month, that we hadn't been able to get to it beforehand.

We emptied the rest of the compost pile we had made for a winter heater for the bedrooms into the both beds, and then finished off the fence around it (one of our dogs had assumed we'd made the bed just for her). We have soil blocks with little seedlings ready to go out there. We have been taking them out each day so that they can harden up a little, before we transplant. Next week we plan to plant.

One sad piece of related news was that some kind of bug or mouse or something ate all our little raspberry seedlings this morning. Hopefully we can make some more come up without too much grief.

For more photos, click here.

South Flower beds

At the base of the huge windows in the living and dining rooms, on the inside, are two flower beds. They take up the whole south wall.

They are made out of ferro-cement – remesh, rebar and lathing that is stuccoed with concrete.

The grey water from the kitchen and bathroom will be routed into these and we will be able to grow year round.

At present, they have coarse gravel in the bottoms, which will help clean the water, as will the plant roots themselves. Once we do plumbing, we will then be able to fill them up with a rich compost soil.

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