Nettles, Treadles and Love

Living out on the ranch is truly inspiring us to get our hands dirty and get a garden going.  Sean has been connecting with his inner carpenter and building our garden infrastructure.

 

This was what it was like in the back yard in September when we moved in.

The Autumn rains started greening things up.  We got some cow manure compost from the land owner.

The first big task was to tackle the evil weed (not sure what it is called, but it is viney with purple flowers and completely invasive and tough as rope.)

Then to tear down that silly fence and connect the side and back yards.  And keep tackling that evil weed.

Sean had the brilliant idea of using scrap pallets to build a functional walkway.

From the other direction  – before…

…and after.

 

So beautiful.

He also built a compost bin.

 

Then he built some raised beds and we sifted the rocky soil into them.

Then we got a mountain of free wood-chips from a local tree service.

Sheet mulching is a process that uses layers of cardboard and wood-chips to smother weeds and create a thick insulation for the soil to keep in moisture.  The wood-chips also help attract healthy fungal and microbial life to the soil to build up a healthy foundation to a garden.  Healthy soil equals healthy plants.

more beds.

and more beds, including a modified hugel-type bed (in the middle surrounded by bricks), which contains lots of woody materials actually layered into the soil in the bed for more water-holding capacity.

We eat a lot of squash and Sean started saving our squash seeds to start our garden with.  Just to see what would happen – since he hadn’t planted a seed before – he planted one squash seed in a tiny pot on our windowsill.  It took off.

And so did many others.

That squash seed planted in the ground.

Then we bought many many more seeds and seeding trays and started planting them too.

Then potting those seedlings up into larger pots.

After setting up a table in our house and having seedlings taking over our tiny home we decided to get a small greenhouse.  Sean built the base for it.

 

And assembled the structure.

It’s cozy in here.

 

and he made a little step for it.

It sure feels good being here.