permaculture – Page 13 – Peacock Orchard

Mini Krater Construction and Planting

Thanks to my bush experiment last year I decided Kraters were the way to go. Lots and lots of Kraters. So the first thing I did was make sure I was legally allowed to dig them. I am, so long as they remain under a certain size.

So the work began. We dug the initial holes with the front bucket loader.

texting and driving — Don’t text and drive. Unless you’re in the middle of a field on an excavator that has a top speed of .95 mph

Look ma, no hands!

Then I went in with our new excavator and did some ground softening/terracing work.

Of course, life is not complete without back breaking physical labor. So I went to work with the hoe refining my terraces. Then I had to add the topsoil back into the holes and hoe the terraces again.

It’s kind of hard to tell. The one krater has a rather unique design though. You see, I originally thought I’d be able to deepend the Kraters a bit. However, the kraters were pre-dug 20′ in diameter. The excavator has a 7′ reach. I wasn’t able to get to the middle, no matter how I tried. So I didn’t try to deepen any other kraters but the one ended up with an island in the middle. I find it a perfect place to plant a paw paw.

After I put the topsoil back on I cover cropped the works.

Husband and I took a day off to plant them out.

We had just a little big to plant…………………………..

The aronia berries are holding up to our hot weather nicely. The cover crop seeds are also coming up!

Finito.

I’ll update pictures when we have notable growth. It’s exciting!

Sweet Potato bed

Last year, for some unknown reason, I dug a hole. Not a particularly large hole but it was in an odd place and I wasn’t sure what it was doing there. Well, I’ve fixed it finally. While digging our mini kraters we found we had a lot of sand and rock in our ground. So we moved that sand/rock mix into the hole. I then covered it with top soil and compost, planted the sweet potato starts and mulched with hay. It’s looking good!!!

Here is the hole filled with the sand/rock dirt. My niece flattened it with the hoe.

Here we are putting the top soil and compost on.

Here is a lizard we found in the topsoil.

Here we are haying it. Daughter was very helpful in this regard.

I can’t wait to see how successful it is.

Experimentation on the farm

We are always experimenting to see what works best for our area. Last year it was swales and berms, which have been fairly successful. This year it will be different earth works and a deeper look into our personal food systems. Below is a list of our current experiments:

Corn- The best way to grow it. Sunken hugel bed and corn planted in the bottom of crater gardens for wind protection. Which will do best? I suspect the wind protection will be a big boon to growing corn here, though the soil at the bottom of the craters is quite hard, so may not allow the corn to grow sufficient roots. We shall see.
Potatoes- I bought 4 different varieties of potatoes and I am going to plant them in 3 different ways to see what does the best. Some will be planted in our raised bed, some in the berms and some in a tire tower.
Bio char is going to be added to a wide variety of plantings to see if it helps.
We are going to be testing the viability of Sainfoin as a dry land forage/hay.
I am going to be setting up the silvapasture but have not decided what the best planting method will be yet. Do I plant in holes for water and wind protection, but risking animal legs, or do I do swales? I don’t know. See what we come up with and how it goes.
Ginseng experimentation. Can it grow here? What is the proper soil/sun conditions in our area. We will be spreading 250 ginseng seeds through various rows of trees in our tree line and seeing what does best.
Best earth work for our environment. Now, I enjoy our swales and berms and still believe in them. However, the bush experiment from last year has me thinking basins and mini craters are going to be the absolute best way to grow things here. This years earth works will be building basins and mini craters and testing them against last years systems.

It is an exciting time for us here on the farm. Establishment has been stressful, expensive and exciting. I can’t wait to see how our plants succeed here.

Growing Medicinals- An Introduction to our First Year

Since having children I have become increasingly interested in natures medicine. Having sick children is simply miserable. They are too young to take any over the counter drugs and I don’t know that I would want to give them to them anyway. So on top of growing delicious food for us to eat and sell I am growing medicinals. This will be our first year of planting and I am starting with 20 simple varieties. I will simply add on each year.

I have two elderberry plants arriving with this years fruit tree orders. I also have a witch hazel plant arriving with a different tree order. Otherwise I’ve simply ordered a large variety of seeds. Here is a brief list of what we are adding this year.

Lemonbalm

Echinacea

FeverFew

German Chamomille

Plantain

Borage

Ginseng

Mullien

Peppermint

Spearmint

Calendula

Lavendar

Marshmallow

Ginger

Catnip

Safflower

Creeping Thyme

Valerian Root

St John’s Wort

I’ll keep you updated in future posts with what works and what doesn’t when I get the time to test it out!

New purchases and Updates on growth

We recently purchased some grape vines from a hobbyist in Colorado, 5 dormant frontenac grapes and 2 Tramenier grape vines . We also received our Gurney’s grape order of 5 Reliant grape vines. They arrived bare root and dormant and so I took the risk of putting them outdoors, heavily mulched.

Furry butt here is the reason the grapes are caged. Don’t want him getting bored and chewing them up.

The pistachio tree is doing quite well.

The apple seeds I’ve been growing are hit and miss, but mostly doing well.

The lone locust tree seedling I have is growing slowly, but growing.

My tomato seedlings look…unchanged. I’m doing something wrong, obviously, but I do not know what.

I’ve had bug issues. The bamboo brought them into the house. The grapes cuttings I’m trying to root were the worst hit. I’ve since put diatomaceous earth on all of my indoor plants. We shall see if what they say is true, and the bugs die.

Everything else is not noticeably different but doing well.

I have planted out the hill I built for the kids slide, mulched it and tried my best to keep the mulch in place. I’m hoping in a few weeks I will be able to remove the fencing.

The birds enjoyed making it into the yard, usually heavily guarded by dogs. The ducks took the most advantage, though a few chickens came in. We had to escort everyone out before dinner, so the dogs could go back out. This gave the kids an opportunity to pet a chicken.

Yesterday we also brought home a new peacock, to replace the one that was killed by the dogs. He’s an india blue black shoulder. He had some broken feathers in transit but is still looking mighty fine. The kids took the opportunity, while the pea decided whether to come out of the cage or not, to pet his long tail and peak in on him.

We hope he adjusts well and that we can open the door to the barn again soon. They’ll all be locked in there until we are sure the new pea won’t fly away.

Here are a few extra, gratuitous pictures.