Friday, June 24th...

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My first Sunflower

Valentines Day Follow-Up, Four Months Later.

On February 14th, 2011 I had the idea to dedicate all the plants I planted that day to my Olympia friends and classmates. I even went so far as to send them messages wishing them a happy Valentine's Day and telling them a few live plants had been planted in their name, which may or may not have led some of them to believe I was brain dead, but anyway, to follow up, all the plants did get planted in the bee yard I was making. This is what they looked like on February 14th and then what it looks like today. I threw in a picture of the site the way I found it last fall before the project.

Here are the seed trays I started on February 14th. I planted hyssop, calendula, lavender, anise hyssop, dill, echinacea purpurea, and chamomile. 

This is how some of the plants appear today along with sunflowers in the background. The lavender is not pictured here, it is slowly establishing itself as a border around the outside edge of this site.

The echinacea has not bloomed yet.

Here is a picture of how the site appeared when I found it in October of 2010, before the project began...

And now some nitty-gritty...

 This is Area Two. Originally the hives were going to move over to this area, along the fence, so I held off planting anything. When the bee hive plan changed I ended up a little behind for this area.

The green patch is white clover, the same kind I used for the green path (below). I want to put a small bench here. Along the log border on the right side I planted purple basil and some mountain mint in front of that. These plants seemed especially reluctant to grow during our unseasonable cold and wet spring so they look stunted right now. I am hoping now that the weather has warmed somewhat they will have a growth spurt. 

Here is a close-up of the clover patch. Even with that planting density the dreaded Morning Glory is staging a come back. I weeded it out but part of this maintenance project will be to keep up with this extremely competitive plant.

In contrast to the basil, the anise hyssop is thriving. I used a hose nozzle to give a sense of scale. Between the anise hyssop and the green path is a row of hyssop. They are doing well also. Behind the anise hyssop are a few dill plants I had left over. I trimmed the tops of these anise hyssop plants to delay their flowering for a little while and to make a bushier plant. 
PS. There appears to be a corn growing along the path. This, along with dozens of squash plants growing in Area One are the result of the sloppy mixing, on the part of the farm, of finished vermicompost with some that had barely started. Unbeknownst to me at the time I was spreading viable seeds everywhere. I decided to leave the corn for now to see what happens. I also left several of the squash in Area One, especially at the base of the sunflowers. Their root mass and broad leaves might help compete with the Morning Glory. I pulled out or trimmed the squash that was encroaching on the echinacea.

Gorgeous Poppy

Recap: Week One was mostly about weeding out the morning glory and watering the plants. I did not plant anything new other than five tiny mountain mint starts that were slowly dying in their seed trays in that horrible third greenhouse. They were being alternately cooked and frozen so I planted them even though they never grew more than half an inch.

Also, Area Three (aka: Area Bee) is the plot where the bee hive is. In the original collaboration with the bee group the hives were going to move and this was going to be an outdoor lounge with table and chairs for farm students, staff and faculty.

When the plan for the hives changed I decided to leave this area alone and see if the current P.S.A. class had any interest in doing something with it. After studying past project areas on the farm, I determined that creating a planned space and then leaving it for future classes with instructions to "please maintain this" had resulted in overgrown weed patches. Based on that I developed the philosophy that if you give people a chance to participate in the design, and do some hands-on work, they will be more willing to do upkeep because they have a stake in the project. 

I have talked one-on-one with several members of the current P.S.A. class and so far no one has expressed any interest in this area. I will give them until the end of week two of the summer quarter. If they are still preoccupied with other matters I will begin to work the area myself and by the end of week three if there is still no interest I will plant a cover crop in this area. I recently encountered a beautiful clover called "crimson red" which is one of the most beautiful clovers I have ever seen. 

Area One from behind

In the final week of Spring Quarter

In the final few days of spring quarter. Many of the plants are developing nicely. Notice the progress of the chamomile bordering Area One. This has been one of the coolest, wettest springs in the recent memory of local farmers so many of the plants are slow to take off. On the bright side, even the ones that are slow have not died. The challenge for them now is to get into a robust growing stage before they are ravaged by insects. Today I checked the plants and many of them, such as the purple basil, are getting eaten by bugs. I did a weeding also since the Morning Glory is thriving, as predicted.
The calendula is blooming nicely. One lesson learned is that I got more height out of the chamomile and less height out of the calendula than expected. I thought I would get more of a drape effect than I did from the chamomile and the calendula was stunted by being in seed pots too long, waiting for the early spring rains to let up
Though you cannot see all of them in this picture, the plants in the garden are (starting in the corner of Area One and moving outward): Sunflowers along to fence, amaranth, dill, echinacea, calendula, chamomile. To the left of the door is a patch of phacelia. The path is white clover. To the left of  path is hyssop and anise hyssop. In front of the chamomile is purple basil with a few poppies in the corners. The bench circle is planted with white clover and surrounded by more claendula, anise hyssop and hyssop. Along the outer border is fennel and the border under the bamboo is planted with lavender.

A desperate "Hail Mary" pass.

I'm the first to admit that I jumped the gun with my Valentines Day planting. In my own defense, I was still on Seattle time. The last frost in Seattle comes a month earlier than Olympia (and the first one is a month later) so I could have put my first plants in the ground in a timely manner. As it is, several of my plants have outgrown their pots and have become seriously root-bound with two weeks to go before frost danger is past. So...in a sort of desperate attempt to save them, I put up this very ugly "greenhouse" in the hopes of getting  a few extra degrees. I have serious doubts if my plants will make it, but we'll know soon enough.

Procedural Note:

In order to accommodate the passage of the tractor until another path is created, I have made the following modifications to my blueprint...

A break in the rain...

   

 (click images for slightly larger view)

 

This is what the site looked like when I proposed my project.

The clean up began...

Here it is after today. I worked on it for hours today, mostly cleaning out invasive species and hauling a bunch of wheelbarrow loads of most excellent vermacompost!!

 

Pictured is "Area One" from the plan (below)...

Cleaning the tools (note to Field Ecology Program :-)

Setbacks!

I am making slow progress with 

the site preparation. 

Yesterday I started building up 

"Area One" 

with compost after creating a bed using 

some of these logs. 

That was a lot of work because I was using a wheelbarrow through mud. Good exercise!

Unfortunately, I discovered the probable reason why this area had been tarped and abandoned. Japanese Morning Glory and Himalayan Blackberry, two of the most invasive exotic species in the Pacific Northwest. The bed is riddled with rhizomes and root runners. I will have to sift every inch of soil and try to eliminate as much of it as possible...one shovel full at a time. That is a major setback. Setback number two is that my seed order was delayed. This is not a major setback since I still have time to start germinating seeds and I also picked up four packages of organic seed from Uprising Farm in Bellingham.

First Planting! The Valentine's Day Flats.

This Valentine's Day  my valentine 

for friends was to plant seven 

plants in their name as a gift 

to the Earth. Rather than 

cutting hothouse flowers 

as a gift, I thought it would be nice

to plant some. These plants will 

go into the permaculture area I am putting together and hopefully will be around for years to come. 

I planted Calendula, Chamomile, Anise Hyssop, and Lavender so the bees will be thrilled.

Augury of Spring!

Sure, it clouded up later and got cold but the first half of the day felt like Spring. It wasn't just me who thought so. The bees agreed! Here they are at 12:30 pm, February 13, 2011.

Beeees!!

One important note. I am sharing this space with the Bee Queens, Jeannette and Shannon. In the pictures (below) you can see a honey bee hive. They are working to expand the honey bee population. My permiculture plan is oriented around providing more resources to their expanded hives. In addition to the garden updates I will post 
updates on their progress with hive expansion.

Phase Two: Cleaning up the Site. (See also: Phase One posted below)

 

So, after selecting the site my next step is to clean up the stuff "stored" there. This was kind of a "two-steps-forward,-one-step-back" process and I am far from finished. 

Bearing in mind that the site I want cleared is the actual ground, my first step was to haul all the lumber out of the pole barn and stack it outside.

 Then I began work on a lumber rack. I am no carpenter, but I was able to cobble something together. I also managed to hang the door so it actually opens and closes.




 






At that point some of the PSA team helped bring the lumber back in. It is a little better organized which leaves more space for the outside items.

Now I could begin clearing the actual site of the future garden.

Slowly I can begin to see the ground and get an idea of what I need to do to prepare the soil. 

This is as far as I have gone so far. Also, I did put together a seed order for a few dozen perennials. This week I am going to try to propagate other perennials already growing so they can get a jump start in the greenhouse.

Phase One: Site selection.

 I tried to find a small area that would most likely never be considered for crops and that was in proximity to existing or potential pollinator habitat. Naturally, the best spot I could find was the south side of our pole barn. This is what is looks like now.










This door has never been hung


I would consider just cramming all this stuff into the barn so I could start right away preparing the ground for my long list of flowering perennials, self-seeding annuals and temporary plants, but that idea was not an option since this is what the inside looked like when I started...(can you see the broken door? No? That's the problem.)


So, first things first. The next several weeks will be spent organizing the barn so there is room to store the outside stuff .