Vlog 20 Catchup to June 5. Mostly goofing around on perimeter un-fabricating/un-driplining.

Notes:

• lessons learned: Water flows downhill. And if you make low points on a clay cookie sheet n add water, you made canals.
• Fabric was initially added around perimeter to stop weeds from outside coming in for first few years. Need to remove so that worms and moisture can reach lower so that magic can happen. Taking soil off of fabric to fill in canal pathways to fix that problem, rest gets roter-tilled back into the de-fabriced clay.

Vlog 19 Catchup to May 30.

Transplanting of beets, super soil development, and planting celery, lettuce n dill. With new pussycat!

Also a pressure test for irrigation rebuild #3. “Only” 22 lines coming in

Vlog 18: Catchup from May 15: Soil building

Notes:

• Soil building: Knocking down the raised perimeter, filling the pathways, saving the new super soil, pulling the fabric n drip lines. Purpose achieved! Now back to like nature intends.
• Deep mulch gardening is about layers. And how to keep it growing and alive. An organic skin covering. Making a happy place for minerals to uptake into plants.
• Leafs… The great worm lubricant and soil food & blanket. Trick is, harvest them in the fall & winter. Leafs are GOLD in the summer.

Vlog 17 Just a quickie from the Ferment Farm. A little showcase and taking the collars off the bay chard.

Last vlog was May 8! So much done since then. So busy getting babies in, irrigation rebuilt, AND Farmarket. Vlogging takes too much time right now. Finish line getting close…. Lotsa vids for the documentary!

Vlog. 16 Purple Potatoes & soil building.

Notes:

• Soil is mix of clay from the Ferment Farm & fall leafs. With a trace of Super Magic compost soil. Clay has the most mineral diversity. Just a matter of getting bacteria into releasing it to plants
• 3 weeks later and a kazillion baby purple potatoes ready for individual cribs, in total at least 40 babies just from a dozen tiny seed potatoes! And into the fresh wet cribs waiting in the watering table.
• Fun fact: those dozen seed potatoes can be re-buried for another crop of babies, or eaten!
• Super big potatoes saved for propagation. Though they seemed to start up slower
• Over 120 babies into cribs total. Big ones went into pots

Vlog.12 Ferment Farm upkeep: NW perimeter Field Bindweed & vole trap.

Notes:

• Bindweed (aka Morning Glory). Fabric removed, weeds identified.
• Cover it up! Weed seeds can live for 5 years in soil. Dont give them light to activate them. And UV light prevents bare ground from the bacteria n bugs we want to break down & mix the organic matter and minerals.

Vlog.11 Soil Lab: Beanworks

The New & improved workspace is perfect and ready to take babies off the genesis plates and into their new cribs.

Vlog.10 Ferment Farm pathways.

New & old using wood chips, they make better pathways than leaves or sand.

Notes:

• We’re spreading chips over pathways made of sand. Pathways that turned into clay moats and grew weeds and had to be filled. Lesson here is always have your pathways HIGHER than your garden beds. (Water travels downhill)
• Farm plots are still available! $125/yr, just under 20x80 ft.

Vlog.9: SuperSoil Compost Bins at the Soil Lab. Let there be NEW BIN!

Notes:

• “Learn the flexibility of a blade of grass in a hurricane, Grasshopper.” (KungFu ‘70ish). Blocks are easy to move around n be creative with.
• Lined bottom of new bin to stop roots from invading n stealing nutrients.
• Gathered some minerals for the Soil Lab from the Ferment Farm: Clay (most mineral diverse), animal poop, n sand mix.

Vlog 5. A peasing in the garden (pea planting).

1.Deep mulch gardening. A winter blanket of food for soil bugs.

Notes:

• 2 seeds per spot. Place on top of soil and put muck over tops.
• There is magic all around us. Look for it. When you are balancing through life, stay on the beam. Exact measurements tell you when you are perfectly on the balancing beam.
• Newspaper helps hold in moisture whilst genesis occurs in the greenhouse.
• Just in the mail, Malabar spinach seeds. Crazy vines grow over 10 ft, with gorgeous red stalks, thick red/green leafs n fun tiny grape like flower pod/seeds. A wonderful seed company. Stuffed package with love.

VLog #2: Beet This!

Getting a head start on beets.

Going over:

• Making deep root planter containers
• Sifting the super soil to fill planters
• Cleaning and using the soaking table after a long winter rest
• Plugging baby beets into cribs

“Know where to get worms?” Asks a friend. Says I, “I know a guy”…..

And so it starts… (Planting Vlog #1)

A little compost showcase, new hose brag, and planting greenhouse lettuce.

“Take me to your compost” is what gardeners should first ask when visiting others.

Some notes on planting:

• Always soak your containers before planting. And do layouts, knowing they will be getting much bigger. And separating any doubles you get from store.
• Watering welds roots to soil, then wet chopped leafs blankets the supersoil.
• Two gallon pots allow plant brains to be large enough for most.
• For smaller long planters. Blanket with soaked mulch first, then poke holes for plant.

Leaf Wrangling & soil development. Thats what life is all about!

Carrot bed harvesting, seed saving, and re mulching

Mid Nov First Snow: Farm-food harvesting, flooding pathways with leafs, top dressing new beds.

Toytruck slings 500-800 lbs of wet leaves exactly where i want. And BIG bags of leafs save so many plastic bags.

Ferment Farm Remembrance: Digging to create life (and guide water), not to dodge bullets n bombs. And inoculation of new beds.

Ferment Farm Fall addition Success!! About 150 big wet bags of chopped up leafs n grass clippings mixed deeply into dryish & mucky Glenmore clay. And pathways measured n dug. And putting back into the Earth (little crazy bean break).

Pathways are better ABOVE the beds… water flows downhill. BUT i can fill trenches w leafs, create an organic layer for mycelium network to connect under pathways. Sand or more organics (straw) can be added once leaf pathways break down.

Ferment Farm addition gettn worked…. Sewing the plots together. Deconstructing the border, inoculating the new plot with life, and second tilling.

LOOK!!! SQUIRREL (food, that is). City Park has lots. My squirrels go crazier when i gift them with the best!

Ferment Farm Fall Frolicking: Leaf Collecting, new clay second rotor tilling prep, squirrel n worm food.

Ferment Farm: Anything that i can dig without suffering is sexy! (Birthday Tractor Races)

Ferment Farm October end. Watering the winter crops n prepping the new land acquisition: Weeding alfalfa & mint, rolling up the carpet, and how an elephant can have sex with a mouse.

Home garden winter prep vlog 3: Totes n Towers…BIGGEST pots!

Notes:

• About every 5 years need to remove some soil so i can deep mulch the top again.
• Favourite digging tool: Small shovel grinded-off. #2 pick gopher shovel
• Favourite way to move stuff: Dolly. Better helper than wheelbarrow
• Cedar roots (any tree or bush as well) can eat your supersoil n steal water!

Home garden winterizing vlog 2: garlic planting w strawbs

Irrigation trick: Having flexible lines lets you adjust them to keep everything watered. Can also put them on risers for extra reach

Feat. special variety of extra tall strawberry that’s extra tall to fit more leaves underneath. Can re-use drink cups to help stop smothering

Companion gardening with strawberries and garlic. Harvesting then Remulching.

Notes:

• New garden: 1bag leafs/ 4 sq ft.
• Mid summer remulching: 1bag/ 16 sq ft.
• Make sure to keep the leaf bags covered otherwise they will break down from the sun.
• The garlic bulbils keep over winter.
• 140 garlics outa a dark corner of the garden. Its a WIN!
• Interesting year… garlic was so much different. I used the biggest cloves, and planted at prefect time for a change. Small bulbils, small heads…. The Ferment Farm had big ones. Maybe planting at end of winter makes a difference…. The test is on!

And Ladybugs!

Healthy soil. Cant argue with worms!

Proof of healthy soil

And second year planting the chard perimeter. Bonus fresh salad!

Ferment Farm visit No.8: Planting (pink) Celery & Beets (feat. Ferment Farm birds)

Planting cukes

Mixing green and not green “mulch”. Or, how to help your neighbor not let weeds grow into yours. Everyone wins!

My kinda beach suntanning. Very relaxing. Im special. Chomp Chomp! South perimeter ready for the green!

Biannual goodies! Beets, carrots n parsnips. Deep mulching is what saves them through the winter.

Ferment Farm No.3: Prepping the cabbage beds.

Problem/Solution: Leafs were too fluffy due to almost no snow or moisture all winter to pack them down. So….mow!

Also so many super staple foods are biannual (they grow like crazy the first year and store that energy in the root (the brain of the plant). The second year they explode into making babies as soon as possible. Gettn sexy flowers to bring in the pollinator.

Ferment Farm No.1

Pathway corduroying with straw.

Happy New Year from the Ferment Farm!

Harvesting carrots and beets in January. Result of hydro seeding carrots with icing bags

Maple street. CHECK! All done. Over 40 big bags!

Just gotta love the Aztek!

On Pot growing…

“Swimmingly”

Wet n slippery

Tomato fence chop n drop n deep mulching

Big bags of leafs.

Tripods down n Chop n Drop

Deep Mulching n late harvesting

Garlic planting n deep mulching

Ferment Farm mid Oct Abundance.

Time to start covering up your soil! Stuffing carrots n beet beds.

I am but one man, and do what i can.

Ferment Farm Number Five. August 12

Tomato crutching with tripods.

Drilling for saucy tomatos.

Coolin it down.

How to garden in the heat.

Life of a farmer… bug control

I’m creating more life by adding more life. “Breaking down” the possibly too much manure is what i was trying to say.

On Mulching…

Old straw hunter

“I am Groot”

Carrot n beet beds next!

And bed wetting…

Worm Manna from Heaven.

Worm baiting.

Nuthing like a good bed wetting footsie.

Soil inoculation

Last tilling. While mulch-gardening is till-less, Glenmore clay needs a little more preparation

If you want good soil, you need to feed your worms.

Food Security: Fresh Beets in the winter.

Not Deep Enough Mulch gardening

More beets n carrots

Deep Mulch Gardening: Food Security- Beets & carrots, 11 months in the ground

Then identifying what i want to access all winter long. After pulling out the tiny beets.

Ferment Farm 1. Working the perimeter. A big THANKS to Erica Massey and her great workin boys!