Things Goin On.

Our temporary makeshift rain catchment.

Ma and I have been hard at work around the farm getting things ready for the upcoming growing season.  I found an ad from a friend on facebook that had these lick tubs for sale for $5 each.  They will serve as a good part of our water catchment until we get something a little more permanent and then we can use them for tree planters and who knows what else.  Maybe a water feature in the food forest.  Hey, that’s an idea!

This east fence of our garden has been fully sheet mulched and planted with black berries and raspberries.

You will notice there is a fence outside the fence, Well, folks we have goats that free range so everything planted needs protection.  We have a major fence project in the planning stages  that will afford the heathens as well like to call them their very own places. It will eventually afford us the opportunity to do some cell grazing and really take our little farm to a new level.

My yellow weeping willow tree that I got from Fish Taco for my birthday this year.

I know it looks a little on the trashy side but it has to be  protected and we had this old frame sitting around anyhow so it fit the bill. We don’t have very many pretty trees around the place so this one will be a good start and one day maybe I can carve yellow willow spoons and Ma can weave a yellow willow basket.  Sounds like a plan right?

 

3 pears, 1 apple an autumn olive and comfrey planted just below our first practice swale.

As I was digging the big hole for these few trees I was piling soil and my pile ended up being pretty much on contour so since I was shovel happy anyhow I decided to make a small swale.  I suppose it’s not really a true swale in every sense of of the word but it is a mound with a ditch on the uphill side.  Its on eyeballed contour and when I pour it full of water is soaks right in.  So I plan to leave it for now and see what happens.  If anything goes awry I can very easily fill the ditch in and level everything back out but for now I think it will make for interesting observation.

A shot from the other side so that you can see the ditch.

I know, I know, we need to get that mound planted but since we aren’t sure that we will be keeping I think we’ll just sheet mulch it and let it rest until we decide one way or another.  I would like to address something.  I know you real true died in the wool permaculturists are probably throwing a fit right now seeing those store bought soil bags in the background.  I have to be honest you are going to see a certain amount of them in the shots around the OKA at least for the next little while.  We have honestly scaled back this year and we plan to continue that trend to the point where we never have to buy it again.  We are going hard core soil building as of today, but more on that in the next post.

Ma wanted me to show how we’ve been building soil.

Tear back that sheet mulch Ma!

Get right down in there. Look how pretty that soil is.

We really are working on it. Last year after sheet mulching out entire veggie garden and planting into straw ala Geoff Lawton on his Building Soil the Permaculture Way DVD we have reaped the benefits of about an inch and a half more soil in that area.  This year Ma has decided to switch it up and build beds more on contour instead of two long downhill beds.  I  am pretty sure most of our water ended up down at the north end of our garden last year.  I think her idea of laying the beds out like she is will greatly help with water retention.

The start of Ma’s new veggie beds.

I think it’s pretty obvious that there are two beds in the foreground with a sort of zig zig walkway the third one is just started in this pic, you can see where it will be, see the little pile of dirt by the shovels leaning up by the gate post? Further down toward the fence she is going to build a u-shaped bed to fill this area out. You may also notice our irrigation lines are a bit displaced.  I think it will be a fairly easy fix to get our drip system back online once Ma has all of her beds built and mulched.  It should be as simple as a couple of cuts and a couple of 90 degree connections and a plug to complete the job.

 

A shot of Ma’s beds from the opposite direction.

I think our little food forest/garden area is really gonna come to fruition this year.  We look forward to the progress we are sure to make and we are glad you guys are interested in all the new stuff we have working.  Please come back.

Bonus: the storm from earlier in the week that completely missed us.

As it turns out we are in a drought here on OKA, most of Oklahoma is under drought conditions as a matter of fact.  It sure hurts to see rain makers like this one miss you by a few paltry miles.  Drought is just one more reason why permaculture is so important and Ma and I hope to bring it to the forefront of our little corner of the world.  Hopefully we can do our part to spread the word, it really is that important.

Well, that’s about all I got, take it easy.

Pa

Advertisement