Since it has not been rainy, Adam and I have been out in the field as much as possible, weeding, shaping new beds, planting more veg, and chasing away pests. Hence, we haven’t had many posts lately. We’ve planted a lot more lettuce, which we have to cover with remay right after transplanting because the birds love to feast on their tasty leaves. The second planting of broccoli is doing really well (as are the weeds around them), especially because they are planted toward the bottom of the hill, where the soil is best – dark, fluffy, and rich. We have noticed a couple gopher holes and have set traps, but I think the dogs are doing a fairly good job of keeping their population from rising right now.
Soon, we will be thinning the beets we direct sowed, transplant more lettuce, broccoli, cauliflower, and Asian greens, and sow chard, beans, peas, salad mix, and more. Hopefully soon we will be putting up the hoop house, but there are a few materials for that that we still need to purchase.
Below, here are some great photos of Cody’s (one of our Ukiah members) from earlier this month. After Adam, Jerry, Jorge, and I made and buried Biodynamic preparations, Adam and I applied the preps (most of them purchased from the Josephine Porter Institute of Applied Biodynamics). In the future, we will not have to buy them, because we will have the preps we started making this year!
weeding. pulling out the big weeds was much easier with the wet soil, but we get a lot muddier.
calculating the volume of the compost pile so we knew how much of the preps to put.
taking a teaspoon of one of the preps and placing it in a handful of compost...
...to insert deep down in the compost pile. we put all the preps throughout the compost pile, their amounts in proportion to the total volume of the compost pile
stirring in the valerian compost prep with rainwater.
stirring valerian prep in rainwater for 20 minutes, creating a vortex, & meditating on the life-giving forces (valerian stimulate phosphate-activating bacteria in the soil, helping plants).
