Small, easy projects that make a big difference

During the winter, as I daily clean out the cow barn and shed, I sled loads out into the pasture and dump them at about 6 foot intervals along an irrigation ditch. After the snow melts, I fork the manure etc. into dams across the ditch. As water flows down the ditch and backs up in the green manure dams, the water gets dark and rich, feeding everything in it's path. I call this my annual "sh't show". It has been very effective in reclaiming a section of pasture that was in poor condition. I also use manure dams to move water across roads and to hard to reach areas, plus half circle dams around every tree in the orchard. When the orchard gets flooded, the manure tea deeply nourishes all the feeder roots. These dams turn into thriving earth worm colonies. I graze the chickens in the orchard in the summer and by fall the manure dams are thoroughly and fairly evenly scratched into oblivion. Ready for the next "sh't show". I have done this for years now and at the last small critter funeral, (I bury lost buddies in the orchard.) the soil was near black over 2 feet down.

Spring is a time for fresh ideas & fresh human energy. But winter can present prsctical ideas for improvement. This is one of the sorts of things I like to get out & do in the spring. What I’m sharing was simple, therefore I’d call it small.

We used to have a firewood rack like the tall one shown here (ours wasn’t indoors but on our deck, just outside the door we most often use). But that rack wasn’t great for us. First, it would have been fine if all our firewood rounds or splits were roughly the same size, but if you wanted to choose one or two that happened to be in the lower part of the stack, it wasn’t at all easy to take them out. Second, my wife likes to bring in a few pieces sometimes, and she often found that ones stacked up in the top of a full stack were troublesome to remove.

So I designed a low-profile rack. The design was simple, using 1.5” and 2” square mild-steel tubing. I enjoyed making it and we find it’s not only adequate but convenient. For us, the rack accommodates a 24-hours stack of mid-winter wood — and we can easily get to our choice of pieces the size we want. Our winter’s supply is conveniently stored about 25 feet away in our larger shed.

Also, there is room underneath for temporary placement of ‘whatever’. For instance, we often use the spot on the porch as a second refrigerator in winter (see the largish pot in the pic).

I finally got around to stratifying the Rugosa Rose seeds.

No fridge - just stuck them in a seed tray and put them outside.

If they're meant to germinate/grow, they'll do so..., or am I making a fatal mistake...?

My my…we are a creative, resourceful bunch aren’t we!
Here in western North Carolina the weather has been warm, sunny and NO BUGS! A perfect time to really enjoy our land & get some small & big projects done.
I’m thrilled to have done some seed starting this year and the sprouts are looking great! Very satisfying!
I just set up my first vermicomposting bins. I’m definitely learning as the little buggers keep trying to crawl out of the bins! Not a pleasant sight to see them crawling on the floor!
And the really exciting thing I’ve just about completed is a long hugelcultur berm. Originally I started it to utilize tons of logs & sticks that floated through our field during a huge flood.  I so loved this project and am really looking forward to seeing how veggies will grow on it.
Now on to pruning our apple trees!

Today’s project involved digging and dividing a 30” diameter root ball of Giant Sacaton grass (Sporobolus wrightii) planted about 3 years ago.
Ever walk in a grassy plain and see tall grass that has a dead dent in the middle? I used to imagine that those were created by curled up coyotes or other sleepy creatures. Well those dead centers are too dense, old and hidden to green up. They now tell me it is time to divide the root ball and redistribute native bunch grass clumps into desert that needs greening.
Using a sharp shovel and a serrated hand saw, I cut the root ball in half before digging half of it out. I dug out dirt around the outside then levered out the hemispheric root ball. Originally I was going to remove the whole plant but after dividing half the root ball into 6 plants, I figured I’d let the other half recover a year.
They don’t look like much now but by early summer, this grass will green up into 7 lush mounds (including the original plant) that will offer habitat, forage, beauty, mulch, seed and future bunch grasses into permi-tuity.

I have a half barrel sitting on the porch by the front door. The dirt seemed to be a little tired last year, despite growing some spring peas in it, so I decided to give it some help:

First I removed the dried plants that were acting as mulch on the surface and put it in the square bucket on the left.
Then I lifted the walking onion and some other babies and set them in the small round pot sitting on the soil.
I could only dig out 1/3 of the dirt at once, which went into the large round bucket.
On either side of the large bucket are some biochar and some goose shit inoculated wood chips.
I also had a bit of green sand to mix in for micronutrients.

So I rebuilt each third by layering in the goodies in the buckets with the old dirt and the dry mulch.
Then I replanted the walking onion, some baby kale, and some babies that could be carrot or parsley.

Job done until it's warmer weather!


It's fun watching people's faces when they come to the door and realize that my planter is full of veggies instead of ornamentals!

There are lots of baby conifer trees here in "not so good" locations...A few years back I started digging these little buggers up in early spring when the ground is wet and planting them where a wind break would be nice. I discovered something helpful. The little trees that I planted straight into the ground, took several years to 'recover' from transplant trauma. But, if I plant them in a decent size container first and keep them watered and limit the direct sun...(part day sun best) and leave them for about a year in the pot, then plant them in the ground, they grow like crazy. Out growing the direct transplants by at least 3 years.

One small/easy project is putting a coat hook near the door of every shop/greenhouse/shed on the property.  I invariably hand a flannel or coat somewhere and, especially in the shoulder season, leave it behind when I leave that space.

Mike Haasl wrote:One small/easy project is putting a coat hook near the door of every shop/greenhouse/shed on the property.  I invariably hand a flannel or coat somewhere and, especially in the shoulder season, leave it behind when I leave that space.

Be careful with jackets that have been left hanging for a while.  I was bitten by a brown recluse spider that apparently had gotten into the leg of my jeans (which had only been laying across a chair overnight) about a year and a half ago.  While I was dealing with that, a friend told me about one of their neighbors who had been bitten on the arm twice in the last few years by a brown recluse that had gotten into a sleeve of a jacket he'd left hanging in an outbuilding.  (Same jacket, even, if I recall correctly.)

That's one of many reasons to live where I live :)  No venomous spiders, venomous snakes or termites.

Mike Haasl wrote:That's one of many reasons to live where I live :)  No venomous spiders, venomous snakes or termites.

Perhaps, but the friend I mentioned lives in upstate New York, and said there had been a dozen brown recluse bites amongst her neighbors in the five years preceding my bite.  Just turn the sleeves of your jackets inside out to check before putting them on, to be on the safe side!  It took six months for the hole in my leg to heal up, and it was excruciatingly painful for the first three months of that.  It's worthwhile checking to make sure your jackets haven't got a spider hiding out inside them.

For my two side by side Brown Recluse bites, I totally shut them down with lavender oil...it is ant-toxin...for my black widow bite, I used both lavender oil and a paste of baking soda/water...the baking soda was like magic, I think altering the pH, making it more alkaline denatured the venom.

Kathleen, When I was in college there was a knew history teacher. Fresh out of school, his first teaching position. Healthy, robust young man. A couple weeks into the semester, he just disappeared. a sub took over the class. There was no word on what happened to him. Almost at the end of the semester, he came back. Totally un-recognizable! His dark hair was snow white and he looked like an old man, and was all hunched over and moving slow. He said that he had been in the crawl space under his house, plumbing issue, and did not realize that a brown recluse had gone under his shirt, and bit him on the left side of his chest, pectoral muscle. About 3 days later it hit him like a flaming, sledge hammer  just over his heart. Horrid pain, rotting flesh...hospitalized. They had to strip away all of the tissue on his chest to shut it down. He almost died. Ever since then, I have been terrified of brown recluses. I got bit on the ankle while cleaning my irrigation ditch. Had on tennies. I felt the bites but after a little poky feeling, nothing. I thought I had a sticker in my sock. Three days later I was talking to a friend on the phone and it was as if some mean SOB had driven a firy rail road spike into my ankle. I kicked off my shoe and started pressing into the "spot" with the other heel. As I caught my breath and looked at my sock it was covered in bloody goo. Took the sock off and by gawd if there weren't purple and green rings and streaks spread out from a nasty little hole about the size of a quarter...It went bad quick, convulsions etc. I had someone look up brown recluse vs black widow bites. They got back to me...brown recluses are TOXIC...black widows are venomous. I knew that lavender oil was ant-toxin, so I slathered it on. In a very short time the pain was totally gone. I kept applying lavender for about 3 days, bite scabbed over and healed up, just a little tiny scar to show where it had been.
I just recently got bit by a black widow on the arm...in a sleeve. I was away from home when it bit me, I carry lavender oil in my purse. The lavender helped a bit, but the baking soda paste was incredible. The pain just vanished and the swelling went down, I also took some bromelaine since it works really well for me on any inflammation issues. It took about 10 days for the red circle around the bite to fade away, it was like a bruise. I applied the baking soda plaster 4 times over the next few days. Nice to know "the secrets of the fire swamp"...(from the movie The Princess Bride).

Jackie, I'm going to have to get some lavender oil for my medicine cabinet.  I hope nobody here gets bitten by a brown recluse again, but they are sneaky little things.  

My experience was similar to yours, in that initially I thought I'd been stung by a bee or something.  Then within hours I had a black spot a little bigger than a quarter, with a big blister over the top of it.  Once I realized that it was probably a brown recluse bite, I went to the walk-in clinic, and was on antibiotics for a week or so.  It took a long time for the whole thing to heal up, and I do still have a scar.  

My friend who had told me about all the bites in her area in upstate NY suggested applying activated charcoal as a poultice, but by the time I got some it was probably a bit late for that.  Others suggested a couple of other things, such as a poultice of smashed plantain leaves.  But I don't remember anyone suggesting lavender oil.  In any case, a repeat of that experience is something I'd really, really like to avoid!

More on topic for this thread, my brother helped me this morning to put some small tarps around most of one side of our double dog kennel.  The immediate reason was to keep the cold wind off of one of our bottle calves (he's now wearing a blanket, and under a heat lamp), but I've got quail eggs in the incubator, and was already planning to wrap that side of the dog kennel to make it a more comfortable place for quail cages in a few weeks.  So that was my 'little project' for today.

I have several dark green 350 gallon rain barrels on the West side of my barn. The afternoon sun can be harsh. I had holly hocks planted for several years , growing tall enough to shade the barrels.  The last couple years they have been dying out, so I now have an elderberry "forest" growing in their place. I have to drain the barrels for winter...like turn them upside down, so I have left the North portion elderberry free to move the barrels when needed. I think this will extend the life of the barrels.And, I can easily water the berries.

A little project that I have loved every day for years is "A hole in the fence". I have 2 large dogs that go everywhere I go. Either in front or behind me. I found that I was forever holding gates for them. Most of my fencing is to keep cows/calves and alpacas in check. Around the door yard, it is all woven wire. But the little critters (chickens, geese, dogs,and even goats, etc.) need free range. I cut a large dog size hole in the woven wire, leaving the cross wires long ...I used 1"x4" boards to build a little frame , wrap the wire ends back around the wood frame and staple in place. I then drove 2 rebar stakes, on the edge of the opening and attached to the wood frame to re-enforce  the hole. I then added a little gate, to be able to pen up the dogs if needed. Another "hole in the fence" is through a scrub oak coyote fence. To give the dogs and other critters access to the fields/pastures. This one was through the upright oak "sticks". I used a "stick" with a large fork in it, turned the fork down to make a dog sized hole. This one is very helpful in that it allows the dogs quicker access to chase "monsters" back into the forest...coyotes, fox, mountain lions and bears. The weeder geese also love this one during irrigation season. I use the geese to help clean the ditches. They go down the ditch and pull out any grasses etc that try growing there. This is amazing in it's self.

I will be getting started on today's little project in a few minutes; it's nothing major, just clearing up the floor in my daughter's room (she seems to think everything belongs on the floor rather than on shelves or in drawers, and as quickly as I pick stuff up, she puts it back down.  She's autistic, but it's still irritating) so my brother and nephew can do some wiring in her room.  

I made the mistake of letting one of my bottle calves loose to romp after her bottle instead of before, and she made merry all over my yard and my brother's yard next door before I finally managed to corner her and get ahold of her collar.  So now I'm tired out.  And she's only coming out of her pen on a lead rope after this, LOL!  

Kathleen, You make me smile...calves love to romp!Like whirling Derbishes! I take it they are feeling better?

jackie woolston wrote:Kathleen, You make me smile...calves love to romp!Like whirling Derbishes! I take it they are feeling better?

Yes, they are all doing pretty well now, and the one that was romping -- an Angus/Jersey cross -- is doing really well.  I love watching calves play, just wasn't sure how far the little stinker would go!  And she isn't actually mine, belongs to my friend, so I was getting a little worried as she circled farther and farther away.  When I let her romp before she gets her bottle, she makes a couple of circles and then comes back to me for the bottle.

Kathleen, I have an angus/"jersey" cross too. Which had me baffled. Since none of the angus forest bulls were ever in my pasture to breed my cows. Head scratcher! This year though, the mystery was resolved! Angus bull on little road to the forest that runs along my pasture...Mama cow (Lilly, her name...black baby, Tiger Lilly)...so this past summer I see this: Angus bull on road, Lilly putting on "the flirt" and all be if she just backed her business end up to the fence and Angus bull mounted her through the fence...slick as a whistle and "none's" the wiser! My bull (Throck Morten, Buddy for short) just stood there dumb-founded, taking notes.

jackie woolston wrote:Kathleen, I have an angus/"jersey" cross too. Which had me baffled. Since none of the angus forest bulls were ever in my pasture to breed my cows. Head scratcher! This year though, the mystery was resolved! Angus bull on little road to the forest that runs along my pasture...Mama cow (Lilly, her name...black baby, Tiger Lilly)...so this past summer I see this: Angus bull on road, Lilly putting on "the flirt" and all be if she just backed her business end up to the fence and Angus bull mounted her through the fence...slick as a whistle and "none's" the wiser! My bull (Throck Morten, Buddy for short) just stood there dumb-founded, taking notes.

LOL!  I once had a goat whose father bred her mother through a one-inch gap in the boards between the buck stall and the doe pen (someone else's barn).  They can be very determined critters!

These calves are out of dairy cows on big dairy farms up in NY; I'm assuming the market for baby calves in that area is probably pretty well saturated, and the calves are cheap.  A local couple buy lots of calves (20-30 per week) and bring them down here to resell.  So these calves have been pretty stressed before they go out to whoever is going to bottle raise them.  Most are sired by Angus bulls, though there are a few purebred dairy (usually Holstein or Jersey, like my little heifer).  We are fairly certain that the lively little red heifer is half Jersey and half Red Angus, and the bull calf is half Angus and out of a Milking Shorthorn cow.  I would have preferred a cross-bred heifer over the purebred Jersey, but they didn't have many heifers available the day we picked these guys up.  I may go back and get another bull calf, and get another heifer, too, if they have a nice healthy cross-bred one, because I'll probably sell the Jersey this fall.  

An interesting garden project. When I put in a fence around my raised bed garden, I wanted to block the gusty winds that torture my tomatoes etc...and be able to extend growing season. I built a strong wood frame for the fence then took clear, corrugated 2'x8' panels, horizontally into the fence. The benefit of this is huge! Blocks winds, and with 1/2 inch metal rods every 3feet extending just a few inches  above the ground for bases to go inside the pvc at edge of rock beds act as stabilizing bases for pvc arches to curve over the beds and pvc ribs are  attached to top of the board frame with metal conduit mounts. (These pvc ribs are removable, conduit mounts and metal rods stay in place. ) This set up allows me to drape shade cloth on high uv days and to protect from hail...I can cover with tarps at night for early frosts. In the fall I do a roll up tarp that I attach to the top board with twine ties so it can be easily untied and unrolled to cover the plants. The afternoon sun still comes through the clear panels for light and to warm the "little green house" for night.  I can get at least 4 more weeks to ripen tomatoes. A clear "tarp" cover could be used as well.

Kathleen, "Milk cows" here sell for 2-3000$$$s. The dairies only sell old or wonky cows and bull calves, if you happen to see a dairy heifer calf at the sale barn...BEWARE... most likely she is a Free-Martin...sterile twin. Freezer meat. I do not like full blood Jerseys...all of mine are crossed with Gelbvieh and Blonde d' Aquitaines. They retain mostly  Jersey markings  but are beefier but still heavy milkers. Now with Tiger Lilly I have an Angus cross. Yeah! I am breeding for polled polled and A2.

I was worried about the Jersey heifer possibly being a freemartin, but checked and as far as I can tell at this age, she's not.  I'd definitely prefer a beef cross, though.  If I kept her until she was in milk, she'd need way more grain than I want to have to feed on a daily basis.  And there's the risk of milk fever -- I've nursed several goats through that, but would rather not deal with it in a cow.

I planted garlic in december when I got back into town-i live in zone 7, Tennessee. It's starting to sprout!

ajeet khalsa wrote:I planted garlic in december when I got back into town-i live in zone 7, Tennessee. It's starting to sprout!

Fantastic!
Same here.

I will also be dividing the comfrey plants that I started to establish last year, then planting them as part of the trees' guilds.

I just did a little project, with help from my brother.  There's a sinkhole in my back yard, probably a little over 100' from the house; my brother and our nephew, who's been here most of the winter, got intrigued and dug the sinkhole out somewhat to see how deep it was.  I have been worried about animals falling into it (puppies, goats, and now calves), so we'd covered it temporarily with a thin piece of paneling taken down during the kitchen remodel in progress.  But that was barely supporting my Nigerian Dwarf goats, and if one of the calves had gotten onto it, they would have gone right through.  So we just took one of my utility-panel 8' x 8' pens and moved it over the hole, and weighted the pen down with some long heavy chunks of old black locust log that have been sitting in the back forever.  It's a huge relief to have that blocked off!

And it was really interesting, when we moved the piece of paneling off of the hole, to find that there were over a dozen spotted salamanders clinging to the sides of the hole!  And a few in the water at the bottom.  None of us grew up in this part of the country, so we are always finding something new to identify and look at -- nephew found a big snapping turtle in our small pond in the pasture (which is undoubtedly why no Muscovy ducklings survived last year).

Kathleen Sanderson wrote:There's a sinkhole in my back yard, probably a little over 100' from the house; my brother and our nephew, who's been here most of the winter, got intrigued and dug the sinkhole out somewhat to see how deep it was.

I'm curious about the diameter of the sink hole. I assume it's more or less round, but how wide across it?

There's some land that's not on our property, but I can walk to it in seven or eight minutes. Part of a neighbor's place, but not near their house or outbuildings. There are sinkholes there, and they range from maybe four feet to seven feet across.

Joel Bercardin wrote:

Kathleen Sanderson wrote:There's a sinkhole in my back yard, probably a little over 100' from the house; my brother and our nephew, who's been here most of the winter, got intrigued and dug the sinkhole out somewhat to see how deep it was.

I'm curious about the diameter of the sink hole. I assume it's more or less round, but how wide across it?

There's some land that's not on our property, but I can walk to it in seven or eight minutes. Part of a neighbor's place, but not near their house or outbuildings. There are sinkholes there, and they range from maybe four feet to seven feet across.

This one was only a couple of feet across at the top before they started digging it out; it gets bigger farther down.  Now it's probably three or four feet across at the top (less than four feet, because the sheet of paneling covered most of the hole, including the steps they dug at one side).  They had set one of my metal garbage cans (feed storage cans) down in the hole to prevent small critters like my brother's little dog from falling deeper into the hole, and now it's filled up with rain water and has sunk far enough that I don't know if they can get it out again, LOL!  I think they should have put it in upside down.

This hole may have started from an animal tunnel, enlarged by water running off from the cow pasture around us, which slopes down to my land at that side of the property.  It's quite deep now, and we suspect water going into the hole probably ends up in my well, so we are trying to keep it clean.

Time for another small, easy permaculture project that gives a surge of JOY!
Last year's stored purple potatoes were reaching out of their box with purplish green sprouts, just aching to get into the almost-Spring-soil: 50 of them! I planted about 30, whole, in a new garden full of composted horse manure in 3 rows, spaced 3' apart. Shaped like like a quarter circle with a 6' radius, (a scallop shell), the garden rows arc like a rainbow. The two walking paths between the rows are now lined with cardboard (bonus, I cleaned out all the cardboard in the house!).
I packaged the remaining 30 potatoes into 3 packs of 10 with planting instructions for some neighbors who enjoyed last year's harvest. Giving away potatoes that will (with the help of caring humans) will reproduce eternally gives me that awesome feeling of permaculture accomplishment.

Garden labels

My ideal: Split cedar splines, just barely flat enough to write on, and pointy at one end so they go into the ground easily. Tall enough to read over some vegetative growth. Written on with charcoal based biodegradable ink.

I'm using something close to that for now and working towards that ideal over time.

I finally got brave enough, and timed it right, to catch the neighbor across the back fence to ask for their windfall tree branches. He lit up with joy and we had a long talk about how “Americans don’t know how to respect and care for nature”, soil building, his gratitude watching me trying to nurture the trees. Mostly me listening intently ( language barrier and respecting his culture of elder respect). I learned that they have great respect for the movie Avatar because of the “nature wins” theme, AND the fierce avenging bird the hero rides is straight out of Vietnamese mythology. He talked about living in the jungle in his youth and not fighting natures rhythm. Such a beautiful afternoon. And I got a pile of semi composted pine needles over the fence. I’ve gotten some of it screened for tomorrow, saving branches for heavier mulch in the parking lot Island path. Still accidentally building community.    

I guess I'll revitalize this thread! We are just getting started on the homestead- the kids/grand kids are there already and with chickens growing, but we're just starting to build our house aren't on-sight full time yet.

The "gotta hurry up and get there" juices are continually running, but specifically to the original post, last night I started spreading the word that I'm looking for any unwanted windows (including old patio glass doors, that people might need hauled off) in order to build an ultra low-cost, "seed house". A place with 2 walls of cobbled together glass. A place for seeds to start germinating, pots/trays/buckets to have a somewhat organized home, a big board for keeping track of what's planted in the raised beds and when it was planted, etc. On the first call I scored 2 discarded windows and 2 big patio doors for free! Saving money AND repurposing materials- a win/win for any homestead!

I finally had the thought to raise my cattle panel trellises up off the ground about about a foot or more. They're on t-posts so it was easily done, with a set of helping hands it took less than twenty minutes to do the set of them in our annual garden and will make weeding, pruning and harvesting that much easier. Super small easy task I wish I'd thought to do back when we put them in but hey, I'm happy for the change now!

I grew up in the city and this is my first country home. The only 'garden' I've had was a couple of tomato plants staked to a fence. Last week I hoed and planted a small garden of corn, carrots, beets, radishes, beans and cantaloupe. My neighbor is going to co- grow and added tomatoes and zucchini. My husband put a fence around it to help deter the deer. (Ha ha- I'm not confident it is going to work but we will see.) I consider it an experiment and won't be too disappointed if it fails but I am proud of my effort.

Hi, Sherri

Welcome to the forum.

Your garden sounds yummy.

Best wishes.

Joel Bercardin wrote:Spring is a time for fresh ideas & fresh human energy. But winter can present prsctical ideas for improvement. This is one of the sorts of things I like to get out & do in the spring. What I’m sharing was simple, therefore I’d call it small.

We used to have a firewood rack like the tall one shown here (ours wasn’t indoors but on our deck, just outside the door we most often use). But that rack wasn’t great for us. First, it would have been fine if all our firewood rounds or splits were roughly the same size, but if you wanted to choose one or two that happened to be in the lower part of the stack, it wasn’t at all easy to take them out. Second, my wife likes to bring in a few pieces sometimes, and she often found that ones stacked up in the top of a full stack were troublesome to remove.

So I designed a low-profile rack. The design was simple, using 1.5” and 2” square mild-steel tubing. I enjoyed making it and we find it’s not only adequate but convenient. For us, the rack accommodates a 24-hours stack of mid-winter wood — and we can easily get to our choice of pieces the size we want. Our winter’s supply is conveniently stored about 25 feet away in our larger shed.

Also, there is room underneath for temporary placement of ‘whatever’. For instance, we often use the spot on the porch as a second refrigerator in winter (see the largish pot in the pic).

Joel, this is very nice and something we could definitely use ourselves. Our wood goes into an alcove and makes a big mess. Thanks for sharing!

These last two weeks have been busy with a few projects. We sourced materials for four large recycled raised beds, painted them, and put them together. That also included chopping down one big balsam fir tree (it broke my heart to do so but it was necessary to make some room.) My husband also cut down some small poplar saplings (they grow like crazy and have to be chopped down, or they take over everything.) Then, we filled the 3-foot high beds hugelkulture style, starting with logs around our property, then branches, and then leaves topped with soil and compost. To get enough leaves, we grabbed ten bags from the local municipality leaves drop-off site. This Sunday, we started making trellises from wood from other chopped down trees from previous years.

I have also been planting out many plants which I had been growing inside for the last three months, as well some from the local greenhouse, into the new beds and hugel mounds. I still haven't found room for everything! I have been dreaming and planning all winter and it's exciting to see some of it come into place!

Amy Gardener wrote:Time for another small, easy permaculture project that gives a surge of JOY!
Last year's stored purple potatoes were reaching out of their box with purplish green sprouts, just aching to get into the almost-Spring-soil: 50 of them! I planted about 30, whole, in a new garden full of composted horse manure in 3 rows, spaced 3' apart. Shaped like like a quarter circle with a 6' radius, (a scallop shell), the garden rows arc like a rainbow. The two walking paths between the rows are now lined with cardboard (bonus, I cleaned out all the cardboard in the house!).
I packaged the remaining 30 potatoes into 3 packs of 10 with planting instructions for some neighbors who enjoyed last year's harvest. Giving away potatoes that will (with the help of caring humans) will reproduce eternally gives me that awesome feeling of permaculture accomplishment.

Those potatoes sound lovely, Amy! I love the shape of your bed. The whole thing sounds so pretty and so nice to share your potatoes and get someone going in their own permaculture journey!

Last week started pigeon peas inside and they’re coming up:) Today I weeded and planted mint under our lime tree, and transplanted a crepe Myrtle sucker to help shade our pear tree in the afternoon when we go triple digits. Fresno Ca Zone 9b