Child of the Planet

Now that the garlic is planted, I'm updating ‘the plan’ that I started last week ( click here… ) The garden on the left of the photo is under mulch and I’ll plant it out in the spring. Middle garden is the epic garlic explosion. Right hand garden is full of material that hopefully will break down by the middle of winter and I’ll do a new garlic planting there. I recorded what I planted last Sunday, and added the five lemon trees. My idea is to use this plan along with the blog to track the garden.

The weather over the last couple of days has been sparkling so I’ve been getting loads of clothes washing done, and cleaned out the garage. Also got around to servicing the apple trees in the backyard. I’ve already covered a couple of compost heaps with cardboard. I removed the tethers I applied last winter ( read about it here… ) Blanketed the entire area with cardboard to inhibit the grass and other weeds.

My luck held this year. We’ve had a lot of rain during the past week, but the wet streak broke on Saturday and I was able to plant on the Sunday (which happened to be the shortest day of the year). This garden in the center has been fallow since summer. I skimmed off the layer of mulch and seaweed and dumped it into the new garden. I like to lay out the garlic on the surface so I can work out spacing. It helps me keep track of what has and hasn’t been planted..Then I push each clove down into the soil. Covered everything with a line blanket of mulch then spaced out the cloche frames for the net. I use frost cloth as a covering for the garlic. It slows down the strong Westerlys we get in the winter, keeps some heat in while letting air circulate, and liquid fertiliser applications pour straight through. In the past I’ve used a smaller frame which was much easier to tighten the cloth on  (click here to see) . I’m going to have to come up with a new plan for this taller frame.

This is our second day of rain so I’m going to use this ‘stuck inside’ time to track the activity in the garden.. Inkscape  (Open source vector drawing software) has just released its latest version so I’m going to use it to map everything. The garlic goes in this week and I’m going to keep track of what I’ve planted using the programs ‘layers’ feature.

I don’t have any spare soil on the property so I’m making it in the garden. Starting with some hugelkultur inspired chunks of rotting wood. Layer of random plants, seaweed, bamboo, and grass clippings. Topped with autumn leaves.

Not sure how I’m going to fill it, but the third garden is done. Started getting some really wet mornings last couple of weeks. Cut the piles up with the chainsaw Rounding off the top edges with the Turbo plane Pre-drilling holes. When bolting the piles in, I started to shear bolts off. Then I remembered that I used the ol carpenters soap trick when I built the last two gardens. Tools…. Chainsaw to trim Spade makes an excellent lever to raise things up Sledge to tap things into place Sash clamps to hold them there Tape measure to align