Finally back into the garden

What passes for Winter here is losing its hard edge now, and I’m starting to spend time in the garden again…here’s a rather disjointed post about some of the current projects:

This is going to be a raised bed with straw-bale borders. The inside is filled with old goat bedding and other compostables. Soon I’ll remove the tarp, letting water in to start the composting process. The plan is to put a layer of soil and finished compost on the top and plant into that, hoping that the warmth of the compost action beneath it will help get early plantings off to a good start.
Straw Bale Bed

Yesterday, our neighbor and I planted a hundred baby fir trees along the property’s roadsides, to eventually decrease traffic noise and provide privacy. They come in a bag about three feet long:
Treebag

BabytreeI expected the trees in there to be tiny, but they were mostly about two feet long, and very healthy looking.

This kale is actually the remains of last year’s that got harvested, then eaten down to stubs by goats, then transplanted into the cold frame, where it’s thriving.
Kale Feb 2009

Turnips are starting to sprout in the cold frame as well. It’s not the ‘right’ time of year to plant them, but with the mild climate here it seems worth trying.
Turnips

This garlic we planted a few months ago is looking well:
Garlic Feb 2009

…as is this garlic, which we planted about a year ago. It died down pretty young and I never dug it up, but it’s returned as a volunteer. (since everything is so green out here, I removed color from everything but the garlic plant to make it visible)
Volunteer Garlic

Pregnant goats!
Obers Feb 2009

Here’s a 55-gallon steel drum (used once, to transport maple syrup) set into the ground to serve as a root cellar. We haven’t experimented with putting food in it yet, but the thermometer I have in there seems to stay in the 40s no matter what’s going on outside.
Steel Drum Cellar

3 thoughts on “Finally back into the garden”

  1. Kat

    Dude, is that a dead body in the second shot? Despite popular belief, humans are generally too toxic to make good fertilizer.

    Perhaps my genetics plus Dyker Heights upbringing is playing into my interpretation of that shot… 😉

  2. risa b

    Lol, before I read the post the body thought passed through my mind as well! This is what’s known as a “tree sack” whereas the rubberized canvas thing you wear with tree in it for reforestation is a “tree bag.” What you have there look like three-ohs (3-0) or three years from seed, then lifted. 2-1s are about that size but much, much heavier, being two years grown, then lifted and heeled in for another year, which adds a lot of girth, I don’t know why. A very nice looking little fir tree.

    I’d put a shade block on each one (something like a stick or stone to protect the root collar, on the south side and water twice at least for the first two summers and they should be good to go.

    Goats! Turkeys! A drum in the ground!! If I said I wasn’t jealous I’d be lying through my teeth. Way-to-go!

    risa b

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