Millions of Peaches, Peaches for Free

17 Jul 2012

This was a heavy gardening weekend. At the 441 Farmer’s Market Saturday morning, after meeting Vanessa from CraftyGemini to buy a bar of solid shampoo, I started chatting with Art Shriver, the mushroom log and fruit tree guy. I noticed that he has several peach trees… sad, ragged-looking FloraKing peach trees… no disease signs or deficiency, just ragged and pot-bound. I asked about buying all three trees and Art gave me a fantastic price if I promised to put them all in the ground over the weekend. I already had one peach tree at home, waiting to be planted. Challenge accepted, and I took home my three new orphans.

I am sad to report that sheet mulching for “weed suppression” has failed, at least in my yard. The Florida betony and nut sedge is coming up all through the sheet mulching. So now we’re trying tilling, pulling out as many weeds and roots as possible, planting trees, then sheet mulching around the trees. I rented a “heavy duty” tiller and picked up 15 50-lb bags of fresh horse manure for the base layer, delivered those home, then borrowed a lawnmower. The weeds had grown almost knee-high while we were in Texas. The rest of Saturday afternoon was mowing, watering, and weeding the roses.

That tiller was huge, heavy, and difficult to use. It took me, my husband, and 3 teenage boys to start it and figure out how get the darn thing to till the soil without either getting bogged down and stalling, or running away. It only got away from us once and chewed up a fence post. I took a turn at trying to figure it out, too. Big mistake. I am so sore today I can barely move. Between the 5 of us we finished the bed for the native butterfly garden and the peach orchard, with plenty of cursing, stalling, water breaks, and more cursing, Sunday afternoon.

I am very thankful that I don’t have much reaction to mosquito bites. By the time I was ready to plant the peach trees it was dusk and the mosquitos were swarming. Finally, they were all planted. My first orchard!

The plan was only for 3 trees, so instead of a triangle I planted a diamond with one corner empty for one more peach tree, which we’ll buy next weekend. Then the next phase of sheet mulching begins!

By: Andi Houston Category: Garden Updates, Permaculture Projects Tags: gainesville gardening, growing peaches in Gainesville, sheet mulching, tillers

Racing Beryl

28 May 2012

3 Comments

The first stage of the sheet mulching is done and I feel incredibly accomplished. And sore. But mostly accomplished

Thursday we ordered a truckload of the chipped yard waste mulch. It was delivered the same day. Friday my older son and I drove out to a friend’s farm in Newberry for free manure. Unfortunately the transporting method wasn’t the best but we hauled home a pretty good amount. Then that afternoon we had the yard mowed down as low as possible. Thanfully I checked the weather that evening and saw Tropical Storm Beryl coming straight at us. Desperately needed rain! The storm was supposed to hit Monday at 2am. We had plans for all day Saturday and Sunday, but with the storm coming we decided to send just my husband and middle son off and the rest of us would stay home and work. I knew I was going to have to stay home and get this bed down before the storm hit.

Mulch absorbs water. That’s what it’s supposed to do! Wet mulch is heavy. A 10 cubic yard pile of mulch would absorb a huge amount of water and take days, maybe weeks, to dry out enough that we could move it without killing ourselves. I wanted that wet mulch where it was supposed to be, smothering weeds and decomposing into beautiful humus for my yard.

From that point on, it was a race.

Sunday morning we were up and in the yard at 7:45am. My older son, daughter and I started by spreading the manure out with rakes and watering it all well. Then we started laying out the huge pile of boxes I had gathered.

It was nowhere near enough. I severely underestimated the amount of cardboard we would need. I went ahead and wetted down the cardboard and then we waited for one of Alex’s friends to arrive. As soon as he got here, I sent the two boys out to get cardboard. It took three trips and the discovery of a pile of large boxes behind a furniture store top finally get enough cardboard. One of those permaculture tips that’s probably only applicable to people in Florida? Don’t bother wetting the cardboard ahead of time. By 9:30 it was bright and hot enough that the cardboard was drying almost immediately. I wasted gallons and gallons of water on cardboard that would get soaked by the storm coming in and stay wet with the mulch on top of it.

By that time my daughter had left, and it was just me, my older son, and one of his friends. Thankfully teenage boys can be paid in cupcakes.

Laying down the mulch took much, much longer than I thought it would. We only had 4 buckets and one wheelbarrow. Shovels are useless moving mulch. We had one small garden fork and our hands. One on the wheelbarrow, one on the buckets, and one filling buckets and wheelbarrow. Finally another of my son’s friends arrived. After that it went much faster.

Laying down the cardboard and mulching this roughly 5′ x 40′ bed took 3 hours and about 1/2 the mulch. My goal was to get 1/3 of the yard sheet mulched this weekend. We fell far, far short of this goal. The tropical storm actually started hitting this area about 7pm yesterday and it’s been steadily raining ever since. This part of Florida is under severe drought conditions and we need this rain badly so I am resolutely not complaining, but man I wish we could have gotten more done yesterday.

By: Andi Houston Category: Garden Updates, Permaculture Projects Tags: sheet mulching

Permaculture Baby Steps

24 May 2012

1 Comment

There is 10 cubic yards of mulch sitting in my front yard. The plan to sheet mulch my new front yard is actually moving forward!

Right now my sad front yard is a big sand pit full of nutsedge and spotted spurge. We’ll be planting fruit trees in the fall, but first I have to get some organic matter into this soil and most importantly, cover the bare sand.

Sheet mulching seems to be the most efficient way to do this. Sheet mulching kills the weeds by smothering them beneath a thick layer of cardboard, manure, and mulch. The weeds and manure compost quickly beneath the cardboard, enriching the soil and adding much-needed humus, and eventually the cardboard itself breaks down and adds even more. As time goes on the sheet mulching breaks down into soil, and you just keep adding compost and mulch on top of it in layers.

Graphic courtesy of stopwaste.org.

Yesterday I called Wood Resource Recovery to schedule a mulch delivery for Friday or maybe even Tuesday. Somehow a miracle happened and the guy was available that afternoon. It all happened so quickly. Their “enviro-mulch”, which is shredded yard and tree-trimming waste, is $10 per cubic yard. I had $150 to spend, so I bought 10 cubic yards of mulch, spent $25 on the delivery fee, and I’ll be spending the remaining $25 on straw. Then a friend offered as much free alpaca and chicken manure as I could haul away, and we figured a way to transport a large amount in my mini-van. This is all just… coming together.

The goal this weekend is to get 1/3 to 1/2 of the front yard sheet mulched, the area closest to the house which has the most bare sand. This is the part of the yard where we’ll be planting fruit trees and large bushes, which will eventually fill in enough to shade the south-facing front of the house and front walkway.

If (and this is a big “if”) we get the sheet mulching down by Sunday evening, then Monday I’ll be building my first herb spiral with the coquina we’re pulling out of the front yard.

I cannot even describe how eager and excited I am to finally be doing what I’ve been reading, dreaming, and planning for so many months. This is the right time. Since this project is so big and I want to be able to document it so others feel completely empowered to rip up their grass to grow food, I’m starting a new category on this blog for the Permaculture Project.

If you’ve sheet-mulched before, give me advice! If you haven’t, wish me luck!

By: Andi Houston Category: Garden Updates, Permaculture Projects Tags: florida gardening, gainesville permaculture, permaculture, sheet mulching