Hugelkultur in my raised beds

I survived the flu!

So i decided to celebrate by going out and doing some good ole manual labor!  Nothing like being house-bound for over a week to make me go mad.  

The "Hugelkultur" thing is a fancy name to an old technique of simply burning wood and debris under your garden to help maintain moisture and improve soil quality by adding lots of organic mulch and wormfood!  In fact, this is not the first time I have used this technique in this same raised bed!  

Depending how much wood, the size of the wood pieces, and other factors, about every three years I dig in more wood.  This time I did discover some of the wood pieces hadn't quite all rotted up yet, but they were close enough.  This time I added a considerable bit more wood to the mound.  Also added some leaves that didn't get to the curb last fall.  

The soil quality is much improved where I have done this in the past.

You can still see some raw clay here in the dirt i dug out from deeper down and along the edges of the bed.

Here it is all filled back in and ready to plant

I still need to put a fence around this - the dogs LOVE to dig in fresh soil!

Also, I don't trust this weather - damn near hot recently - and then cold and windy just days later.  This doesn't bode well for the fruit trees this year!

New fur-babies!

We got new dogs!

Wednesday and Thursday Katherine had been talking about 2 dogs she had seen online that were adoptable.  She really wanted to go see them, even though they were at a shelter near Philly.  So Thursday afternoon we headed out (not great timing - Memorial day weekend, rush hour, hot, etc).

The trip back was not near as bad as the trip up.  Still took some time though

Nice sunset.  We didn't get home  until about 9:30pm 

This is a really nice shelter and the staff are wonderful!

We got there after about 3 hours and they let us have some time with the pups.   they were bath very shy and poor Sugar was quite scared and timid.  We got good vibes from both though and Katherine gave the green light.   We bought some stuff for the dogs while we were there.  Leashes, collars, cages.  They gave us a bag of puppy food each and some old towels/blankets for the cages.  It was a special for memorial day weekend; 2 for 1!   So we got out for under $500 for everything!  These pups are neutered, have their shots and even have a chips already installed.  We even got a health information folder on each dog!  We have a vet appointment this upcoming Wednesday to get a better idea about their health, just to be sure.  Frisco's got some stitches from being fixed that don't look great (he keeps licking at them) and Sugar's ears look a bit red.

Sugar Getting comfy!

Aww, first night in new home.  Passed out 

Sugar getting some water

Playing dog games!

More dog games!

We have a little barrier at the top of the stairs to keep them from the downstairs and the foyer.  Frisco looks so cute peeking up over the barrier!

Shih-Tzu's are known to be energetic and needing exercise.  Frisco must have two dogs inside of him - he is pure energy!

Sugar, checking this plant out

Frisco, in a rare moment of not moving

Sugar, resting soundly after chewing on new toy

Air Conditioning, Raised beds and new plantings

I was planning on going to the farm this Memorial day weekend, but we thought it a better idea to stay home and let the dogs get used to us.  Also we thought that driving them that far so soon would add to their disorientation.

In anycase, it was hot here and I was tired of the portable AC's inefficiencies.  Those roll  around units just don't bring them temperature under control like the window units do.   So I got two new window units - one for my office and one for the living room.   They installed fairly easily (heavy - but not like the old window units) and they are super efficient. They maintained house temp nice and cool during hot weekend (it got almost to 90F).

After taking care of some dog issues I was able to get some plants in the ground.  The peppers and the one eggplant I had were transplanted into a raised bed.  I had room left over in that bed so I planted some more eggplant seed.  They seed was obviously not germinating well, so i just dumped the last of the packets into the soil.  If too many come up I will just thin them.  I did the same with some tomato seed in the "kale" bed.  I had only used about 2/3'rds of the kale bed so I used the rest for tomatoes. Finally, I re-spaded the raised bed next to the woodpile and planted about half of it with cucumbers.  I left the summer squash seed up at the farm.  I will bring them back next time we go up and plant a few hill in the cucumber bed.

I had to put some fencing up around the beds because the dogs think its super fun to dig in them!  I left the fencing off the potato patch, but I also found that the dogs will plow into them when playing, so I am starting to place some fencing around them as well.

The Kale and Collards are looking good.  

Potatoes on left, about half of right bed is planted in cucs

peppers and eggplant on left, Kale and tomatoes in center, potatoes on the right.

I made some Kale crackers with some of the kale that I thinned from the bed.

I re-tried a recipe for Kale crackers that I had used a couple years ago.  I think its the same recipe - or very similar anyway.  Its basically 6 C Kale, 1 C almonds, 1/4C nutritional yeast and seasonings.  Here is a link to the actual recipe (which I only vaguely followed): Kale Cracker Recipe  They did turn out super yummy!  I will make more this year, I am sure!  These are nice nutritious and have no processed food ingredients.  We are trying to eat better - removing as much processed foods from our diets as we can stand.  I would still like to produce everything that we eat, but that's just not possible yet.

Planting peppers - finally!

Warm Enough

I got home form work tonight and decided it was finally warm enough outside to plant my peppers!  I have been wanting to get them out for sometime now - several of them have died in the pots (turns out they were too wet and rotted off!)   I prepped the last raised bed and planted most of the pepper plants that I had (there are a couple left - may be needed as replacements.)  I put a total of 18 pepper plants out.  While I was at it I also put out 4 of the Jerusalem Artichokes that I am trying this year.  I am going to put some out up at the farm too.  Just an experiment.

Here are some pics:

The final raised bed!  The Peppers are in!

See the artichokes?   Meh - bad picture.  See the video!

And here is the video which I will use to remember which plants are which! I wish I had done this last year - I lost track of a lot of plants last year!  Remember: Good record keeping makes planning easier!

Progress on the raised beds at the "city house"

I prepped the last 2 of the raised beds at the "city house".    I didn't plant anything in the middle bed right away - I am reserving most of it for the peppers!   I did plant some more Spinach in the front end of it though; Katherine likes her spinach and I wasn't growing any!  The spinach in the first, little bed, doesn't look like its doing anything.  I re-planted some in the little patch, but thought I better hedge my bets by planting more in the middle patch.   While I was at the replanting of the spinach, I went ahead and "transplanted" some of the kale, collards, mustard and even cucumbers!  There were multiples coming up in some hills while other hills had none, so I evened things up where I could.  I don't know how well they will transplant, but I thought it was worth a try - especially since we are going to be getting rain for the next couple days.

Here is a video describing the onions I planted in the far left bed:

Here are some pics of the beds:

Final, "left" bed, ready to plant!

I put in some onion (yellow) sets (and 3 cloves of garlic!)

This is the middle bed, ready to plant - saving this for peppers and greens rotation.

The first, narrow bed, plants are starting up!

The narrow bed, some plants are seen here, but they are patchy.

Narrow bed, spinach doesn't seem to have caught on.  Hmm

The far right bed with row cover on it.  I saw squirrels and birds in it and noticed that several of the new plants had been snipped off!  I put the row cover on, but still noticed a squirrel trying to get in and messing with the cover!

Here is a video I made to document the locations of the plants:

NOTE: I have taken the row cover off of the far right bed because I am afraid that the heavy rain they are predicting may cause the cover to crush the plants.  Fingers crossed that the squirrels don't destroy it!

Vacation summary

Yep, I had last week off and spent it up at the farm!  LOL - it was no vacation!

The main reason for taking "vacation" at this time of year was to plant the order of trees and plants that had just arrived for me from the county conservation district group.  The county gets these plants at a discount from local nurseries and then sell them at a discount to people to raise some money for conservationist projects throughout the county.  Anyway, this year I got a "small" order consisting of 6 honeycrisp apple trees, 4 plum trees, 25 elderberry seedlings, 10 blueberry seedlings,  and 12 grape vines.

Blueberries:

I used woodchips to amend the soil and to mulch around the berry plants to keep the weeds down.  I have two of each variety that was available from the county.  To document where I planted each type of blueberry, I took this video:

Elderberries:

Next I planted the elderberries.  I got 25 more this year, more than I really needed to fill the space I have, but they only sell them in packs of 25.   Before I planted the new berry plants I examined last years plants to see if they were alive or dead and needing to be replaced.  While I was checking the plants, I removed the plastic weed protection since it was obvious that the plastic was blocking the berries from spreading.  Elderberries, evidently, send out runners like bamboo and thats how they propagate.  When I was looking under the plastic I noticed many dead branches where the berry plant was unable to get light and died.  So I removed all of the plastic protectors from the old berry plants, noting only one of the old plants showed no sign of life.  I planted most of the new plants near the old plants, filling in where I could.  Then I used wood chips to surround the all of the plants (new and old) to help keep the weeds down (and help me locate them later if the weds grow up too fast for me to keep under control - that happened last year!) .  I had 8 plants left over so I took those and planted them out in the field near a puddly-problem area.  While trying to plant those berry plants, I found out why water puddled there: CLAY!  The puddly area was actually a problem 

because there was only about 2 inches of topsoil on top of almost pure white clay.  I might find a use for that clay later!

Apples & Plums:

Anyway, on to the apples!  I put the honey crisp apples right next to the crabapples that I planted last year. Planting the apples went fairly smoothly.  Just ran the holes with the post-hole-auger on the tractor.  The holes, of course, needed to be widened to accommodate the roots of the trees, but that wasn't too bad.  I dipped the roots in a root-gel mixed with endo/ecto rhizome that I bought just for this purpose.  I highly recommend this for planting new trees and shrubs.  All the trees that I planted last year were dipped in the root gel, and they all survived and flourished.  I plant only bare root transplants, so that gel really helps provide the new trees moisture at a critical time of their development.  I had a couple plum trees that I put in below the peach trees that I planted last year.  I should note that only 2 of the 4 plum trees that I ordered were delivered; the other 2 will be delivered later - or I will get  a refund.   Here are some pics:

Here are the two plum trees.  If the other 2 come in, I will put them to the left of these.

Row of honeycrisp apple trees going down the hill.

View of the apple/pear/peach/plum orchard, as it stands today.

Grape Vines:

The grape vines needed an arbor to support the vines as they mature.  I could have chosen to put the arbors in later, but I wanted to plant the vines in 3 rows of 4, with one row in between the other two rows.  Therefore, putting the arbors in later for that center row would be a problem because digging the post holes with auger would be difficult without risking crushing the grape vine plants.  That would mean  I would have to dig the holes by hand in an area full of mud shale!  Not something I wanted to do.  Therefore, I spent a day and a bit more preparing 5 posts (cutting them to length and stripping the bark off of them), that was a lot of labor!   I also had to re-layout the electric fence around the orchard.  I was able to get a total of 6 of the 15 posts for the arbor up.  At least I got the critical middle row complete, and one more that i needed to hold the solar charger for the fence (its an solar powered electric fence - surprisingly effective!)  Here are some pics:

Here is a video documenting what is planted where (sorry about the sound - it was a breezy day!): 

I took a break of farm planting to head back to the city and plant another raised bed:

Videos describing the raised beds so far: