We must build UP!

We made our first garden bed today! Hot dayum

K so our soil is very beautiful here; rich & full of worms. And the water table is high, being on the lake, so any low points in the garden are currently pooled with water. This combination makes for heavy soil, and lead us to the conclusion that we must build UP!

We have always practiced some form of “no-till” farming; our first garden we cardboarded the whole thing and then laid compost & manure. Our second farm, we only tilled right at the beginning before we built beds, and then we built up for the next three seasons.

So here we are at this new farm, we’ve decided the only way out of our soppy ground is to build up.. what do we do?

In the nursery, we laid cardboard & then loaded on wood chips. We’ve never woodchipped our nursery before, but this stuff is called stump mulch & it is delightful. It’s from a Willow stump which means the wood is a bit softer & there’s soil mixed into it. Really nice. Anyways, that has helped soak up the moisture in the greenhouse.

We then laid cardboard around the perimeter of the nursery & followed with the same woodchips.

In the field, we laid cardboard where our first beds were measured & loaded on compost. There are a couple sand piles near the lake (which we assume were created when they installed the breakwall), as well as a soil pile closer to the garden. These ingredients will be mixed into our beds with the compost.

As many of you know, Jakoby & I use hand tools for our style of farming. Jakoby dabbled in some tractor work at the other farm, doing potatoes, sweet potatoes & melons in a traditional farming style. However, we are starting from square one at this new farm & there are some pretty hefty perennial weeds peeking their heads up in the garden. The cardboard, no-dig method will smother the weeds & allow for a fresh start. For the foreseeable future, we will be wheelbarrowing.

If anyone knows of a source for XL cardboard sheets, please send us a message via the Contact section!! (u know we’ve been dumpster diving)

The other big news.. and I’ll probably write a whole post (many posts) on this haha.. we are picking up our puppy tomorrow!! It’s still feeling a little surreal. We’re both extremely excited & nervous. We keep being like “I hope she likes us!!” “I hope she likes sweet potatoes!!” haha omg. I know it’s going to be amazing & it’s definitely going to come with its challenges, but it feels right sharing this life with a doggy. I’ll be sure to keep you guys updated!

Anyways, I’m wiped from the day.. it’s bath time!

Thanks for being here & reading this. As always, I’m open to any feedback & appreciate the opportunity to share this with you.

Much puppy love,

Jess