Jonathan Henry

Here are some current pics.

I couldn’t wait any longer so I jumped the gun on planting the Sunn Hemp a few weeks earlier than I should have. If we get another frost that kills it off then so be it, I’ll just have to plant some more!

Nothing too new to report on the swales. We've had some good rain lately though and the swales have filled and held water for several days thereafter. I'm counting down the days until the last frost date and I can start throwing out some legumes.

Miles Flansburg wrote:Very inspiring Jonathan ! I will be watching this thread to see how this all turns out. When you said in the first post that you were doing this by hand I was wondering how long it was gonna take you. When I was in my 20's and 30's I cannot tell you how much shoveling I did , now that I am old I love my tractor!

Thanks for the words of encouragement!  I love the physical labor of digging but it isn't very efficient when you consider heavy machinery as an option. I will continue to post updates as they come along!

Digging it all by hand was taking too long so I rented a tractor and got it done in a day! It's not all perfectly on contour because I had to work around some big pines I wanted to keep.

Chris Holcombe wrote:Interesting! This reminds me a lot of Fukuoka’s natural farm book.

Thanks! Yeah it's kind of a mix of several different Permaculture schools.

I picked up some Sunn Hemp seed to use as a pionier/cover crop for the forest garden. I'll let you know how it does in the spring!

I've been working on a 1/2 acre sloped piece of land which will become the forest garden. All of the vegetative debris is laid down on contour and then covered with soil from the swale. It's been slow going since it's just been me digging and clearing with hand tools. More pics and info to follow.

I'm here in Columbia. Any other locals around?