Nature – Page 61 – Beautiful Chaos

Up-Date on our late potato harvest

Finishing up the last bed with straw and finding a decomposed straw bale

Finally we found the time to cover the last bed with straw. We divided a complete straw round bale over the bed, so the bed is nicely covered and ready for the winter. Our two older kids where very good helpers and my husband lend us a hand as well.

We had to put a protection of some kind around the beds, because the dogs kept digging in them. We have an electric fence we set up around the bed, but without putting power on it. The visible fencing is enough to keep the dogs out.

After that we wanted to cover the plant beds beside our fence we had not covered yet. Therefore my husband wanted to pick up an older straw bale, which was sitting up right since last year, to bring it to the beds with the tractor. This straw bale fell apart, because it was decomposed completely.

**The decomposed straw bale with straw bales sitting up right in the background**

Partly we had set some straw bales on a flat side (which you normally do not do) to use them as a windbreaker. What happens is that the rain soaks into the straw bale this way and the straw will decompose. We did not expected that it would decompose this quickly. This was also not visible on the outside. Actually this is just what we where looking for when we started pressing straw. We can buy straw directly from the field. We just need to press it and bring it home. So this way we can get mulch relatively cheap with the idea to compost the straw for soil to build up our property. Since we have little soil and mainly rubble on our property.

**Straw bale planted with different salad and herbs**

Also I had planted on top of some straw bales last season. I put a layer of soil in the middle to plant in. What I found was a big problem with water. I had 2 straw bales sitting in the sun al day. These bales I could water al day long. I gave up on these. I had one straw bale sitting in the shade from noon. This one did better. I had cucumbers in there and they grew, but it still was not very good.

I think it was too early to use the straw bales this way. The water leaks out to quickly when the straw is not decomposing jet. Probably it will give a better result when I would use the same straw bales next growing season. I will try it out and will share with you.

Now getting back to the theme we had. We have to see what we can find to cover the beds beside our fence, since we have used up our last straw bales for windbreakers. Maybe our pile of straw still has something usable. We will find out another day.

Part 5 in starting for our food forest

Repositioning and planting our plant beds

As you my have noticed on pictures in a previous post we have also repositioned our plant beds aside our fence. The plant beds had to go where they were, because we placed the Tiny House there.

We just put the borders right on the grass and filled them back up again with the soil. We planted some trees we had grown ourselves and also all the perennial plants we had in the beds before. So we have some oak trees, corkscrew willow, oregano, marigold, chamomile, strawberry, sage, peppermint, Jerusalem artichoke, lovage, some bushes and some garlic cloves.

Unfortunately we did not get to it to cover the beds with straw before the frost came. Luckily there also was snow which covered the beds and protected the plants against the frost. Now after the snow has melted again we checked the beds and the garlic, which had already grown, still looks fine. We had enough wood shavings to coved one bed. We want to try this out and see what this does over the year. Is it good protection in winter? How quickly will it decompose? Will the strawberries grow up trough the wood shavings? Etc.

We will give you a follow up on that next year.

To have a direct comparison we will cover the other beds with straw this weekend. Just in time before it will be cold again.

We had snow today

Early in the morning it started to snow and this was the result after breakfast

It may not look like much, but it is enough that it needs to be cleared away where we walk and drive. And of course it was enough for our children to play with.