A run-down of the past few days. Wednesday, finished preparing the second keyhole bed near my cabin and planted a mix of Butter Crunch lettuce, a Mesclun mix, and Ruby Red lettuce. I also dug up a few old t-posts for our garden fence and harvested another quart of wild black berries.

On Thursday I started a row of Black-eye Peas on the outside of the garden along the fence. Would have preferred to put it inside the garden but there’s not enough room for the path and more food, so it is on the outside and hopefully the rabbits won’t eat it. Also watered the new fruit trees on Thursday as well as anything else that needed it. It’s been in the 90’s with no rain for several days so things have dried up a bit. I also did a bit of trimming of the lower branches of the Brandywine tomatoes.

Friday was a short day as my cousin Lynn was visiting and I’ve not seen her since 2002. Did a few things done in the morning. Watered and finished the row of Black-eye Peas. I’ve been getting boxes, lots and lots of boxes, from Tom who works at a local shoe distributor. They are perfect for sheet mulching but need to have the tape removed from the seams so I worked on the last batch of boxes and moved them over to the area where our corn bed will be next spring. Watered in the evening.

Yesterday was another day of odd jobs. I had a few empty gaps in my chard and lettuce plantings so I planted some of the Five Color Silverbeet Swiss Chard which arrived from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds as well as some Ruby Red lettuce to fill in the space. I finished off the last few boxes for the corn bed. Last but not least, I harvested some of the previously mentioned aquatic plants from the lake and started the corn bed by creating three layers: aquatic plants, cardboard, and straw. I’m fairly certain that the combination of aquatic plants, with the roots attached and a bit of lake muck and water too, are an excellent source of nutrients such as nitrogen which are needed for sheet mulching. I probably did about 1/3 of the bed. As an experiment I think I’ll add horse manure into the layers of the next 1/3 section I do and then perhaps the last 1/3 I’ll only use horse manure, cardboard, and straw. Would be interesting to see the difference in the results.


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