To be perfectly honest, these days I oscillate between excitement with endless possibilities and overwhelming overwhelm-ment with the endless tasks to be done.
We moved farms a little less than a month ago, and went from all the infrastructure we needed on a small scale, to covering way more ground with way less in place.
At least the goats are enjoying the stumps that still need to be removed from the paddock:
While I spent two years adding organic material and dutifully broadforking my garden at the old farm, now I am tasked with establishing my permanent bed rows all over again. A blank slate is not only daunting, but rife with endless possibilities!
The old garden:
This time, with a much larger space to cover, we will initially rip the ground as deep as possible with a two bottom plow to break up the hard pan from years of disking and heavy tractor traffic.
Bottom plow:
Once the underneath is loosened up, we will create our permanent beds with 30” wide rows, and add lots of my lovely compost. Yes, I insisted we haul the compost pile when we moved! Next, I will get my broadfork workout on in the fall garden rows. Then we will cover crop the remainder of the garden, possibly with an annual winter ryegrass. I consider myself lucky that the soil here is a rich sandy loam instead of the hard red clay covered in crab grass that I fought in the old garden.
The new garden: it came with a fig tree. 😊
I am missing my old compost bay with the concrete bottom and 3 sides. Until we decide where permanent infrastructure will be, I’ll keep dumping the compost next to the garden.
While I plan on having tractor access to the compost pile and the perimeter of the entire garden, once my permanent beds are in place there should be minimal tractor traffic and mostly foot traffic and light equipment on the garden to avoid soil compaction.
My doting husband had some t-posts welded together to make what I am calling (say this in a booming echoing announcer voice) SUPER T POSTS.
These will serve as a deer deterrent around the perimeter of the garden. I plan on using a combo of fishing line and electric tape to make it confusing and difficult to jump. Until that is in place, I will continue with my row covers to protect the plants from hungry critters.
My row covers are actually white woven material used to wrap trees being transported to protect them from wind burn. I love it because it is durable and permeable to rainfall, so I don’t have to remove it for watering. I’ve been using these covers for 3 years now.
Finally, I met some great people at the School House homestead during a farmer meetup. I have never felt so welcome in a community and appreciate the encouragement, camaraderie and laughter! Good neighbors are invaluable.
If you are a homesteader, check them out here: https://www.theschoolhouselife.com
They are a wealth of information!
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