Big Garden Changes in Less Than a Week!

Our 'mid leafing' shot

We sat outside eating breakfast in the sunshine one mornoon( we tend to sleep in so we eat breakfast around 11 sometimes haha!) looking at our straw covered beds. Dorian wasn't too convinced anything would really grow in the straw. We, after all, have only experienced plants grown in dirt, so the straw is a bit of a foreign concept. I started poking around and found a surprise! Straw was growing in the straw! So our passions were re-ignited! We shifted back into "bulk materials collection mode".

We had used much of our straw and needed some more bulk material to lay down... so we headed off in search of leaves! According to the books I read on sheet mulching the leaves are supposed to be chopped up, but it also says that sheet mulching is very forgiving, so we just went for whole leaves! 

The 'leafing' is finished!

We poked around a neighboring subdivision on super bowl sunday and decided to rake an empty lot! We chatted with the neighbors  that walked past (who were harassing me that I wasn't watching the game...hahah), picked up some trash, recycling, and about five bags of leaves that we packed into my truck. Dorian also picked up an obsession with collecting bricks to border the beds in. The beds look much cleaner and more organized, but we still need a bunch more bricks! We found a gold mine of bricks in some old empty lots with houses that had been demolished. The Truckalier was looking more like it was fully equipped with hydraulics and they were set to looowww! (cue "Low Rider" song,    doot doot doot doot doot doot doot, doot doot doot doot dooooooot!)

On Tuesday we went on some more adventures looking for bricks, after we got some letter stencils so Dorian could make a personal training sign for the front yard. We were tooling around good ole fayetteville, as we stopped at a light eagle eye (yours truly) spotted some bags of leaves! HA! Perfect, we didn't even have to rake them! We stopped by the house and they had a table there too! I had mentioned a day or two ago that we needed an outdoor table to have some space to do seeding and transplanting. It was so amazing, our brick hunt had turned into finding the perfect table and  more bags of leaves than we knew what do do with! Yet another example of how life unfolds perfectly :)

We had eyed up some awesome composted mulch at our local yard waste facility, but as you know a bulldozer load of composted mulch probably won't fit very well in my Chevy Truckalier....(remember this??) We felt a little frustrated and unequipped, and antsy, wanting to get our beds ready.

Recently I had a family contact me about baby sitting (don't worry this actually relates I'm not going on a tangent....). They live really close so its very convenient and the family is so sweet! I happened to mention to the father that we were trying to get large amounts of mulch into our back yard and he immediately offered his truck and help!! I've only met these people for a total of about 3 hours! He let me know that Friday the 18th he didn't have to work and would have time to help us out! (Ok this whole unfolding life things is getting a bit blatant.....These people first SEEK me out, provide me with a wonderful job, and then offer to help us haul a bunch of compost!!??)

Dorian it looks like you are planting nothing...

AH! ok, Yellow Wonder Wild Strawberry seeds! So tiny!

We were hoping to have the mulch a bit sooner but decided that we could look for bricks, and start some seeds in the mean time. We started a bunch of seeds on Friday afternoon, and let the broccoli, cauliflower and spinach out of the greenhouse to bask in the unadulterated rays of the sun for a bit, we were thinking about leaving them outside for the night (they are getting big!). At about 10 or 11 pm Dorian asked me if we had zipped up the greenhouse.......I couldn't remember.......I was feeling confident about our little seedlings and their outdoor adventure, but I checked the weather anyway. EEEK! It was supposed to get to 29 degrees! I ran outside picked up the frosty seedlings, got them back into our chilly greenhouse (which was left unzipped, gar!) and figured that we probably had just killed them...

Red and Yellowish Onions and Ground Cherries!

Peppers!!! Hot and sweet!

We awoke early on Saturday morning to check on our frost victims. Dorian reported they were still frozen and so was the soil in the trays we had just planted....ruh roh.... Since we were awake at such an early hour we decided to get our morning 1 hour meditation in and eat breakfast at breakfast time! 

Almost as soon as our sit was done my phone rang. (this was surprising itself because of my reliance on texting) It was the people I started to baby sit for. I answered and it was the father, he said he would have time today to haul some mulch for us!! (Ok again...the unfolding of life and its synchronistic qualities..... is this becoming more obvious to you too??) So we tossed on some workin' clothes and drank our breakfast (Dorian sometimes prefers drinking his meals in the form of milk, bananas, apple, peanut butter, cinnamon, and oats in a blender...haha!) and headed over to get a bulldozer load of mulch!

Dorian watering the leaves....so they don't blow away!
 "Bella, what do you have? DROP IT! Stop eating dirt!"

We had a nice full load of mulch for just $10! The unloading was the fun part. We have no wheel barrow.... We had cleverly dumped each load onto a tarp and carried it across the lawn and dropped it onto the beds. Woof! We had gotten about half the garden covered and said good bye to the boys, they were in need of lunch and getting ready for the circus later that day!

We were excited and wanted to finish what we started. We had heard that our other friend was in town this weekend and we may be able to use his truck, and as luck would have it, he was headed over to work out! And sure enough he brought his truck, and we had a bunch of other people over at our garage gym that were going to keep those guys busy for a while. Just enough time for us to get a load of compost! (seriously.... do I even have to say it again? I will, synchronistic unfolding!)

Yay! All finished! There's one of our helpers too! Thanks!

Ta daaaaa! We got another truckload of composted trees, and finished up the beds! It was a lot of work, hauling tarp-loads of composted trees around the yard but it looks GREAT! I hope our plants appreciate it!

Thank you SOOO MUCH to our friends for their help and use of their trucks! We appreciate it beyond comprehension, we couldn't have done it without you! Be prepared, hopefully we have some garden skills and will be sharing our bounty with you!

I will leave you with this:

Nice mustache Farmer D.....

Lots of love, happy thoughts, and dirty fingernails!

xoxo L

Sheet mulch, sheet mulch, dirty wormy fun mulch!

Hooray! We have begun our sheet mulch!! (two great resources about sheet mulching: Gaia’s Garden: A Guide to Homescale Permaculture and Lasagna Gardening)

After acquiring the amazing mulch complex (sort of like the sixth sense but instead of seeing dead people you see lots of free sources of sheet mulch) and stacking straw bales, cardboard boxes and newspaper sky high, along with some soil amendments. It was finally time to lay it all out. Oddly enough we started late in the afternoon of the Winter Solstice/Full Moon/Total Lunar Eclipse!! Definitely a good omen!

Here’s what we did:

Step One

Drawing Board

The very first step we did was draw up a garden plan. I made a sketch of the backyard and the areas where things were, what spots were shady at certain times of day and where water might collect in pools etc. We also marked out where we administered a couple pH tests and where soil samples were taken from.

In the Yard

We began by using a rake and scratching out all of the pathways that we were going to be walking on, so essentially what didn’t need to be mulched. We wanted to make sure we weren’t wasting materials on an area that didn’t really need them. (hey, when you don’t have a job its your job to be frugal!) From our pH test we found that our soil was very acid so we sprinkled  on palletized lime to neutralize the acid. We also raked on a thin layer of Black Kow composted cow manure. The sheet mulch recipe called for a thin layer of hi-Nitrogen material.

Well you can't discern much from this picture but trust me
I raked in some compost!

Step Two

In the Yard

Cardboard time! We began to lay out the cardboard overlapping edges by about 6 inches to prevent the grass/weeds from popping thru. We also covered other gaps (our boxes had holes for handles) with the newspaper and wetted it all down. (TIP: work like you are painting a floor, so you try not to step on the work you just did, and don’t paint yourself into a corner!)

D is wetting down the cardboard so it stops blowing
away!

Step Three

In the Yard

Another thin layer of Black Kow or any hi-Nitrogen material. We also added a peat moss to the section with the white bag in front of it just for a little more material. Also included in step three was chasing Bella Sue around on and off the cardboard as she collected poo poo on her paws and seemed to be magically inspired by the sprinkling water to tear around at mach 12 on the boxes, avoiding use of the paths and becoming more excited when we told her to get off and thus perpetuating the poo poo paws circle. (it was really hilarious to watch!)

Cow Poo Poos on the cardboard!

Step Four

In the Yard

Straw fun time! We got to tear apart our straw bales into one or two inch “books” (because obviously when the worms come up they need something to read!) watered as we went (to the wrung out sponge consistency, or at least as best we could tell in the dark with chilly fingers!) then came back with another layer. All of our straw bales weren’t baled really well so some areas were more fluffy. 

Our compost is magical, that's why it's blue. tee hee
(its right there near the free broken red shovel we found)

Good girl Bella Sue! ...this time.... :)

We are going to go to our local yard waste facility and borrow some very sweet friends' truck and pick up some loads of topsoil and mulch to finish it off although I think we just want top soil because we just covered all ours up! It is much cheaper than buying bags and bags of stuff though and we need a bit more material to get to the 18-24" mark, so topsoil and wood chip mulch it is! $10 a truckload sounds pretty appealing.


xoxo!

Kindness of Strangers

I am in AWE today. All due to a stranger.

As most of you know Dorian and I have moved from glorious California to North Carolina to live with his brother Sean and Sean's Girlfriend Stacey.  We moved here not only to live with these two wonderful people but to start our own garden and perhaps infect a few people with the idea that growing your own food is an incredibly useful tool. (Not to mention delicious, rewarding, and way better for you!)

Now we have this glorious blank canvas of a garden that we get to have our way with. We decided to sheet mulch as much as we could. (find out more about sheet mulch here, or check out one of my new most favorite books Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture) Which means we need an absurd amount of cardboard/newspaper, straw, mulch and manure. As well as a boat load of lime as our pH test let us know our soil is 'very acid'.

 With our budget of $0 we were excited for the challenge of "materials reconnaissance" (OH MY! My spell checker just let me know by NOT putting the red line under that word that I have spelled it correctly (side note - I am a terrible speller and am incredibly pleased with myself)). We started out asking newspaper companies for old copies and ended up with a 1.5 foot stack. The local library informed us that they have an internal recycling system, which means sad face for us. But never fear treasure (abandoned boxes) was to be had! We didn't even have to dig it up it was just laying around the neighborhood so we picked it up when we were out walking (we also found a shovel that was a little broken but would still dig holes! Even after these victories we still need much, much more.

Haulin' a load in my truck!

Next step, straw. ( Which is really what this post is about.) We could have purchased them for around $5 a bale, but that isn't much fun now is it?  Right, so on many of our tours through our little maze of a community we had noticed that a few people had straw bales up for decorations! It being nearly Thanksgiving I had a inkling that perhaps these bales needed to be gotten rid of. Lucky them!  I knew just the people who wanted them! After ringing a few doorbells and leaving some notes we ended up with about seven bales. One of those people that was so kind to give us three bales (seen here in our "truck") even offered to ask her friend about getting more! So we gave her a call today, she had said perhaps her friend had seven bales that we could have. She not only brought seven plus two bales she had gone to her friends' house picked them up and delivered them to us FOR FREE! All from a woman we didn't even know. It was such a sweet thing she did, she even said she might have more for us! (sighing in awe and total gratitude, I think this is a little wink and smile from our friend Karma! you reap what you sow! (pun intended!))

Yeah he is that strong!

It's when things like this happen that remind me why Dorian and I are meant to be here. To share in the human experience.  The world is so full of kindness, consciousness and love; we all just have to remember it is in everyone.