Project Tree Collard sent us some tree collard cuttings! Apparently these things can grow up to 8ft tall and are perennial in warmer climes, (although they'll probably just be annuals here.)
We've got 'em in a pot in the greenhouse right now, where hopefully they're putting out some roots, but eventually they're going into some hugels, and with any luck we'll be feasting on delicious collard greens this fall.
Thanks Project Tree Collard!
Check out their website, projecttreecollard.org, where you can learn more about this awesome plant, and even order your own cuttings!
With the help of Rob and Fred, Rex was awakened from hibernation and set to work in ant village.
Jim's uphill patio now successfully drains water away and downhill, plus he's got lots of hugels to plant in just south of his house.
On Ava, we've expanded the pond at the top of Avalon, the "Ocean at the End of the Lane," and also piled up a bunch of dirt near Kailarado that we'll try to dry out and eventually bury Kai's house with it. Also, the road that ran along the north border, Pierce Parkway, is no more. In it's place is more than a dozen hugels!
Very glad you've let yourself off the 'daily reportage' hook... although it was a sweet 'daily' treat. But, this is wonderful!! And waiting makes it special... so MUCH in the package when it does arrive ;) Aren't duck eggs lovely? ox
Oh, and glad to hear about your tree collards... think I just bought the same plant, also. Will be fun to see how they fare in our different climates :) (I'm mild maritime Western Washington)
It's time to get positive about negative thinking -Art Donnelly
Thanks Nancy! Hopefully other folks following along aren't too disappointed by this change in protocol. I hope to keep putting out loads of great content, just on a more explicitly random and chronologically ambiguous schedule.
Y2, Spring (19)
I was excavating, digging out paths and piling the dirt into mounds, while Kai was gathering rotten logs and laying out patterns for me to follow. I noticed Kai had stopped, was cradling something in his hands, and grinning madly, so I shut down Rex, jumped out, and walked over.
Kai found this little guy living in a rotten log, and upon attempting to show him to me he climbed up and hid in the sleeve of Kai's coat!
Wow! What an incredible discovery! First we thought it might be a blue-tailed skink, but they're native to australia's christmas island, so that seemed unlikely. Now our best guess is that he's a juvenile "common five-lined skink," meaning he's gonna get potentially even bigger! After promising that we wouldn't eat him, we managed to coax him out near a pile of rocks where hopefully he'll have lots of places to hide and ants to eat. Go forth, little skink, and flourish!
We made some more progress on the outdoor kitchen, putting in a sink and covering the roof with limbs.
Ultimately, the goal will be to put a thin layer of topsoil up there and have a few growies in it, but for now we opted for the lighter weight debris instead until the poles dry out some more. The branches will quickly dry out and drop their needles, but until then they'll help to keep the structure more hidden, (those tarps will be trimmed and a drip edge cover added eventually,) and help to keep the tarps from photodegrading.
Kerry sent the ants some mycorrhizal inoculants in the hope that we would test them out and post about our results. Thanks Kerry! I hope you find our results interesting and useful.
With 6 of the new hugel beds we just built, we're running a somewhat controlled experiment.
Each bed was seeded with roughly the same mix of seeds, including cover crops and cool-season vegetables, and eventually each was covered with roughly the same amount of mulch. Of course, each bed has subtle differences in orientation, shade/sun, and exposure to wind, (unavoidable considering how intentionally and unintentionally diverse all our garden beds are,) but they're all in the same general area, and in general they're pretty similar in size and mostly run north-south, so it should hopefully be a decent test. Also, I think a few other beds got a mix of all the inoculants.
The first bed pictured didn't get any inoculant.
The second bed got the "Myco Grow For Vegetables" inoculant.
The third bed got the "Myco Grow Micronized Endo-Ecto Seed Mix" inoculant.
1
-Art Donnelly
