Friday, July 1, 2011 Area Three.

The project this week (in addition to the on-going weeding and watering) was to prepare "Area Three". In the original planting plan (see earlier post) this area was going to be where I put a table and chairs, amidst a variety of plants, for farm students, staff, and faculty to sit. The Honey Bee Group was going to move the hive(s) along the fence in Area Two and Area Two was going to be planted in ground hugging flowering cover crops.

This would have been a better place for a table because it is more accessible than Area Two but unfortunately the plans of the Honey Bee Group fell through and the hive was not expanded or moved. I planted the plants I had for this area in Area Two (it is a larger area so I did not get the coverage I wanted but it is working out ok). By then the new PSA class was getting well established and I thought some of them might be interested in doing something with this area so I left it alone for a while.





At this point no one from that class has expressed any interest and the site has been getting progressively more overgrown with unintentional plants (I am avoiding using the word "weed").  This is how the site looked this week.

Here it is part way through the process of prepping. You can't tell from this picture but I have dug down fairly deep here. Initially to try to get the deeper rooted plants out and make a deep seed bed, and then to bury some of the weeds I removed.




I learned this week that the farm is no longer going to make any compost, so there is no place to pile crop residue and weeds. I have to admit I was in a state of disbelief when I heard the farm was going to get all it's compost from off-site. Soil fertility building and composting were such a big element of the PSA class I was in, and it was one of my main topics on interest that I just found it hard to grasp the idea that it wasn't happening any more. I am very grateful I went through PSA before this policy went in place.

Sad sunflowers

Prep almost done

I found these sunflowers wilted away in the unheated greenhouse. These were plants I started from seed. A couple of PSA class members asked me to leave them any extra plants I had for use in some of their project areas but none of the plants got used and they were not taken care of. I went ahead and planted these poor little plants but I don't have very high hopes for their survival. Not just because of their weak, spindly condition but because of the poor quality of the soil in Area Three.

I added a few wheelbarrow loads of compost from the wind row in the driveway. It has a lot of carbon material in it (wood chips) but I think it will improve the soils fertility somewhat and also the water holding/drainage capacity of the soil. I am not sure, however, if it will be good enough to nurse those sunflowers back to health (planted upper left by door).

Side Note: Notice the patch under the bee hive that still looks messy? I just can't lift those 

heavy concrete blocks to get the rest of the plywood out so for now it's going to stay. 

I think the plywood was part of the "mulch" project.

Prep done. View from Pole Barn door.