Knittlebits

We live on 2.5 acres in Colorado. The soil fertility here is poor, to say the least. It’s quite rocky – with large granite boulders. In order to reach my goal of having a more permaculture orientated family space, I’ve had to resort to a more “standard” method of planting up my veggies this year.

Here’s what’s going on: We currently get to the children’s play area via walking out our garage and down the slope. You then go through the gate and back up toward the house to the “playplace”. This walkway is what I’m considering to be Zone 1. However, we put in several trees in this area in order to provide shade for the pathway, house and play area. So, it’s not open to vegetables; aside from some lettuce I suppose. Anyway, I’ve mentally extended Zone 1 into the area near the playplace. As the kids play, I will be nearby and more likely to weed/harvest/etc the garden.

Two trips down to the feed store and 60 straw bales later = four raised beds + some extra for erosion control around the driveway. The raised beds were created by building a rectangle out of 12 bales each. Here’s another view of the beds.

Yesterday, we got 9 yards of a topsoil/compost mix delivered. And once again, my poor husband was out in the sunshine working on a project I had created for him – moving earth into the beds. He was pretty good natured about it.

Upstairs, I have our seedlings getting hardened off. They’re in full sun with the windows open. Our last freeze is typically Memorial Weekend, so I’ll plant them up the week after that. I’ll list what we’ve got going in another post.

Once more pic to add – the apple tree that’s at the northeast corner of the playplace.

I look forward to your comments, ideas and sharing of your projects as well.

X-posted at Permaculture zPod at Zaadz

My long-suffering hubby helped me by unloading the first 30 bales and arranged them into the first two raised beds. Each bed is comprised of 12 bales. We practiced leaning in to make sure we could easily reach the middle of each bed.

We then went back & got another load of 30. These haven’t been made into beds yet, as you can see:

The next step is for me to figure out how much topsoil/compost mix to have delivered to fill up 4 beds. I should get that done this afternoon and see if I can have it all delivered tomorrow or Saturday. Poor dh doesn’t know what’s in store for him this weekend.

The kids and I drove down to pick up a load of straw bales for the garden. I found them for $4.75 each. We were able to get 30 loaded into the trailer and then my dh unloaded them that afternoon. 12 bales for a raised bed near the children’s playplace. The placement was questioned by dh until I reminded him that I’m developing the property via Permaculture principles. Thus, the often-used play area is a perfect neighbor to the beds. We practically live out there during the summer, so picking an apple from the tree or tomatoes off the vine sounds wonderful. Now if I could only convince dh that chickens would be a good idea. Oh, and Beeze thought the baby ducks would make a great addition to our family. (They would need a pond…)

Anyway, the bales are arranged 4 on a side along an east-west line. Then there are 2 on each end. This gives me more southern facing exposure for the plants. I also called a few places for some topsoil mixes. My fav place will price match, so I’ll be ordering up several yards soon. I’ve also got several APS units started with tomatoes and several more (like 30) units coming from Gardener’s Supply. They’re on spring sale right now, so go take a look.