Building Soil

mmm there's supposed to be steps in there someplace!

First off, Happy Turkey Day. Today I am remembering Thanksgivings past when I lived 1,000 miles away from any family. But we always had a good holiday. Some of those years everything on the table came from our own place except the flour for the pie crust and any sugar used. The meat, milk, eggs, vegetables, pickles and relishes were all homegrown. There were always some bachelors that didn't have any where to go and we would feed them, along with a young couple who were also far from their family. We traded and bartered with these folks all the time and many of them lent a hand when we built our house. Good times indeed.

Today was a very nice day outside so I did some more clean up work out back. There really is a set of steps in that mess someplace! It's buried in silt and leaves that washed down during the July 4th storm.

Shredded tree prunings with fertilizer sprinkled over.

A big part of what I actually worked on today was to continue shredding up weed trees. I also worked on soil building in a new garden bed right next to the sidewalk. I plan to do an informal espaliered apple tree on the fence with perhaps strawberries or flowers and herbs as an under planting. So I loosened the dirt up and piled tree chips over the area. Then I put on some blood meal for nitrogen to help decompose the wood faster, some potash because the soil has none, and some seaweed meal for trace minerals.  I watered all that in.

Silt and oak leaf compost spread over the top

Then I began mucking out that set of steps. They are buried in fine silt mixed with decomposed desert oak leaves. I tossed it on the growing bed, right over the wood chips.

and mulched with fall leaves.

Then I topped off the bed with a bag of free leaves from a friend. I'll probably pick up a new apple tree around January when they come into the garden centers. By then most of the raw organics I've added should be pretty well decomposed. The next time I'm working over the worm box I'll grab a few and drop them in the bed to help things along.

Since the garden is a bit higher these days than the sidewalk I set some old boards right along it to keep the soil and leaves from washing off onto the sidewalk. I also managed to set the posts and string most of the fence (only about 8 feet). There is one small gap next to the green house that I have to cover and I have to make and hang a gate. I haven't decided what I'm going to make a gate out of. I have several options; a couple of different sorts of wood or a wood frame with wire fence or perhaps a piece of junk art.

Cleaning Up with my Electric Shredder

beginning to clean up with my shredder

I have a small electric shredder that I dearly love. Today I worked in the garden cleaning up all that stuff on the last garden bed.

This first picture is a little after I got started.

My electric shredder; nearly done!

This picture I am almost done with all the weeds and trees that were laying around in the area.

Back garden, looking better!

Here I've finished up what was laying around and have even cut down some of the weed trees in the area behind it.

The back sidewalk, still with remains of the July 4th flood

Here is the back sidewalk, still with remains of mud and leaves from the July 4th flooding. It was a nice day out, so I cleaned up some of this area too. I scooped up the leaves and silt and dumped them on top of the shreddings on that last garden bed. I'll probably add some of the leaves a friend gave me too, along with some blood meal to boost decomposition.

Back sidewalk, after

You can see I still need to do some work, but it's looking a lot better around here!

Inside the greenhouse

And here's a peek inside the green house. I know it's not much yet, but give it some time, it'll be pretty crowded before spring!