Back to Eden Gardening

[journey11]

I was like noooo, don't squish it! LOL

The chicken coop video showed up at the end and I clicked it. I see now what you were talking about earlier, @Beekissed ! That had to be the filthiest coop I've ever seen. So many things he could have done better. I about gagged when they showed the dirty water bowls and all the flies hovering over it. How much easier it would be for him to set up an automatic waterer or get them started using the water nipples. I didn't like the lack of bedding in the nest boxes either and it looked like they must be roosting in there at night. Maybe he should come visit us over at BYC and get some good advice.

 

[Beekissed]

I was the same way about the strawberry!!! I'm not even that fond of strawberries but that one was so sweet and juicy looking that it hurt to see it squished and wasted like that. Made my mouth water.

Yeah...not too caring about the chickens, their natural habitat(the need for nesting material, clean water, comfortable roosting, etc.), their health(lets them just age out and die on the hoof, so to speak) and not enough light and air in that coop setting.

Quite the sad view after seeing how in touch with natural Earth rhythms and ways he seems to be otherwise. I wanted to reach through that video and shake him a little, tell him to turn around and really LOOK at them and tell me what God says about these chicken's lives.

 

[nachoqtpie]

I have a friend that is doing BTE gardening this year! I'm interested in how everyones turn out!

 

[ninnymary]

beekissed, Paul does say that his first reason for chickens is their poop and the eggs are secondary. Perhaps that is why he lets them go till they are old and die naturally. Or he doesn't like to process animals? Just trying to figure it out. I think he takes the all nature thing too far with the conditions of his coop. I suppose he thinks they are just animals and therefore doesn't keep the coop very clean. But that water by the door was super algae green! I did notice several big windows covered with hardware cloth that he says stay that way year round for ventilation. They are big enough to provide all the necessary ventilation needed.

Mary

 

[Beekissed]

Seedlings are up in the mater trays!!!! And so it begins.....

Fence posts are in but nothing more has been done...will take pics when it's completed. Wood chips are supposed to come this week but it's been raining a lot, so don't know if they will be working on trees in that weather.

Rain has made the garden impossible to get into, so the grass is over my ankles now...lush and green from the layer of manure I've already applied.

There is also a ring of deep green at the drip lines of the apple trees...will be applying more manure before the chips go down and also plenty of lime...this soil is very acidic. I'll do crushed lime and also pelleted lime for extended release.

Can't wait to get this Back to Eden garden and orchard up and running!

 

[Beekissed]

Broke ground in the garden...finally! It's been so rainy here that it hasn't been dry enough to till. Still isn't. After the first pass down and back I had to take off my shoes as they were just big balls of clay mud.

Had to till barefoot after that...felt good! Only got deep enough to just break up the sod/grass and scratch the surface of the soil but that's how it is each spring. Going to rain for several days again, so won't be able to finish the tilling until it dries up after that. It's making me impatient, as always. I have things that needed to be in the ground a while back.

Blessed day, though....84* and sunny, good day for working and I got some work done on the breeding pens too. Old cedar fence posts sunk and cattle panel gates cut and mounted, deer netting applied...it's getting there. God is so good to provide me good weather for getting all this work done!

Tonight I put my first breeding pair of White Rocks together!

Chip guy didn't come through this week as promised, but no doubt it's due to the rainy weather....can't chip trees while it's storming out. Will try to be patient and wait upon the Lord to provide what I need for this garden.

 

[journey11]

I was tempted to till today too, but thought I'd better not. Just need maybe another 2 days of dry weather and it would have been about right. There's more rain on tap for tomorrow and Monday at least. Ah, well, it was a great day for a hike with the family and some morel hunting though.

 

[journey11]

@Beekissed , I thought you'd enjoy this article: Ruth Stout's System for Gardening. She passed away in the 1980's, but wrote a book on mulching/no-till gardening sometime prior to that. She mentions using woodchips too, as in BTE, but basically used any and every bit of plant matter that she would get her hands on as mulch. She also heartily recommends using spoiled hay if it is piled deeply enough (8"). My dad has tons of hay a couple years old on his farm which I pilfer from occasionally, but it is all in giant round bales, making it hard for me to get (without someone there to get the tractor and pig-pole out.) I did use it to mulch tomatoes a couple of years ago and had very few weeds come up in it. According to Ruth, I didn't pile it on deep enough.

 

[Beekissed]

Seems I've read her book many years ago, but will give it another look...thank you! The article was a good one....I would have liked to see how she parted the matted down, wet and rotting hay, though. I've found it to be very difficult.

I've been using hay for mulch around my plants for a long time and prefer it to other types of mulch up close to the plant, but I know I wouldn't like it for the whole garden. It tends to mold easily and hold too much moisture at times but not in a good way. It would be hard to part with a rake in order to plant into the soil once it's been there for a season.

I will be depositing greens on there as often as I can, though we don't often have lawn clippings deep enough to rake up, I'll be placing fall leaves on the space as often as I can.

I am having some level of difficulty getting the wood chips as we live so far from a town and no tree service place actually stores their chips for someone to come and get them, nor do they deliver unless one lives right in or right outside of town.

No telling what I'll have to do in the end to achieve this BTE but I have my heart and mind set on chips, so I'm praying for them.

 

[journey11]

Oh yes, you'd lose the ease of raking with hay. Becomes a tangled, impenetrable mat mostly.

You might end up having to buy a chipper and get busy clearing brush instead. I'd love to have one and know I'd get the use out of it. I've seen used ones on Craigslist pretty reasonable from time to time.

You might look to see if there are any individuals doing tree cleanup for hire. Maybe they chip their branches, or if you had a chipper would come drop the branches off for you. My brother does tree trimming work occasionally. He has the same trouble trying to find a way to dispose of it and will pile it on my dads farm and burn it if he can't find anywhere else.