All summer we've been slowly working on the old camp area. When we bought the property there was a deep hollow in amongst some trees. The hollow was the caved-in foundation of a burned-out camp. Well, actually a wee house as it was lived in full time. As this was the sunniest spot on the property we decided to make it the future garden area.
Over time we've harvested the trees (one of which is destined to be my dining table), leveled much of the land, and created garden space. The coop is up there, we'll be adding fruit trees to the North end, and we recently found a great section of basement foundation that we want to turn into a pit greenhouse. Much to do and it's all very raw at the moment.
In an effort to actually start to develop good soil we bought some winter seed to amend the soil. Green manure is typically a mix of winter rye, field peas, crimson clover, and similar plants that you plant in late summer/early fall. Then, once it comes in, you either let it die off for erosion control or till it into the soil while still young to help fix nitrogen and provide nutrients for next spring's crop.
We missed the planting deadline for the full mix so just purchased winter rye. We also bought some hay as crop cover. Normally you don't want hay since it still has seed heads which can weed up your soil, but since we're tilling this in anyway it shouldn't do us too much harm.
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| Moving hay around |
You can see how dry and barren the soil is. It needs help.
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| Spreading seed |
Now, while the seed quietly does it's thing, we decided to enjoy some of the gorgeous fall weather and carve a pumpkin. Cooper and the chickens helped.
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| Materials inspection |
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| Testing water temperature |
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| The creative process |
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| "Here?" "Yeah, cut there" |
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| Enjoying pumpkin goop |
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| Checking out the end result |
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| Camouflage chicken |
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