A semi permanant fencing solution.

I love this idea!!! My partner is a solar installer and technician (and TV and computer guy) so he has pallets come in all the time, we have used them for flooring (temporary at best) and fire wood (D'oh) but this design looks good. I think I will trial it as a small paddock first though.

Eight Acres: Permaculture - design from patterns to details

Eight Acres: Permaculture - design from patterns to details

This is a great post about Permaculture design; well worth the read.

stage two Hugelkultur bed in progress

Today has been a lot of fun; we cleared up a pile of saplings from the front yard that had been cut down because they were shading the solar panels. My partner had a rare day off, so I made him cut up the whole pile of saplings with his handy chainsaw.

 The saplings became my next Hugelkultur bed.

In the process of cleaning up the saplings I decided to use an old half tank as a Hugelkultur bed too.

Then my sister rang and offered me some good red soil from her holiday home (just up the road) so off we went to pick it up.

Red soil from my sister.

Tomorrow's adventure is to get all that lovely soil into the stage two bed and mulch it over.
I really need to get some seeds and seedlings soon!
I am really enjoying this process.

First planting and new deep litter

Today has been fairly productive in the garden.
My mostly-absent partner brought home two bales of straw for animal bedding and an expensive bag of blood and bone last night. This morning the rabbit, the chooks and the out of season chicks got new bedding along with the sheep shelter that was cleaned out yesterday.

New deep litter for the chooks

My daughter and I also collected another barrow load of wood for the next stretch of Hugelkultur bed and I planted the first few plants in the finished bed after spreading some expensive blood and bone.

Bandit thought it smelled pretty good

Hugelkultur mind map

Here is a Hugelkultur mind map that I hope explains the basics.

I have been learning about mind maps at university and I thought I would combine my interests.

My sister just came for a visit to check on the new bed and she raised an important advantage I hadn't thought of; the bed I have built retains moisture for the plants but it also keeps the plant roots above the water logging zone, which has been a problem over the last few years of higher than average rain. Thanks Sis.

I am now looking for the next experiment in the garden/ hobby farm; maybe something to do with living fences? I have a need to create escape proof paddocks for my sheep.

Stage one of the Hugelkultur experiment complete

Today I have had a lot of fun. My daughter and I dug some more soil from the future toilet pit to finish off the stage one hugelkultur bed. You can see from the photo how rich the soil is down near the dam.

The future toilet pit

 

Soil added to the bed

Amazed and delighted sheep

Then we spent a while cleaning old straw (well, compost now) out of the sheep shelter, much to the amazement and delight of the sheep. This became the mulch for our new bed, and the whole lot was watered in well.

doesn't that look pretty?

Tomorrow I will spread blood and bone and then let the planting begin!!

Then its on to stage two; build another bed next to that one and so on until the chook runs are full.

More reading while you wait

I have been doing more reading about Hugelkultur and I am getting quite excited by the possibilities.

The Half assed hugelkultur bed 
got me excited with its reference to raised soil temperature.
I work as a garden coordinator in a primary school and I can see some experiments coming up in term three.

Now all I need is some kid friendly links to show the kids where, how and why.