permaculture

Taking shape

Having my parents visit from England has greatly speeded up progress on the permaculture garden. The finished 'mandala' will have 7 circles: 6 round the outside (where the chook dome goes) and 1 in the middle, with a sawdust path connecting all 7 circles. The whole thing is beginning to take shape. The dome is in its second position, we have installed a pond in the middle circle (complete with solar-powered fountain), and the first part of the path has been dug and filled with sawdust.

A serendipitous meeting

To transform bare earth into fertile soil, the chooks have to be given great quantities of material - grass clippings, garden waste, food scraps, leaves and straw. I now travel with a tarpaulin and a pair of gloves in the boot of my car, so that I can gather mulch wherever I see it. A few weeks ago, I was in town gathering leaves by the side of the road (as one does), when a truck drew up and the driver asked if I needed some mulch, because he had large quantities of spoiled hay that he didn't want, and he wondered if I'd like it! Even more serendipitous, the hay was stored in a yard in Hall, the nearest village to our farm. So, a few weeks later (with a little help from Bruce), this vast quantity of mulch arrived in our backyard.

Transformation

Here is what the ground looks like to start with ...

... and this is after 2 months of the dome (theoretically, the dome moves every 2 weeks, but I was so focused on building the dome that I forgot about the need to have seedlings ready to plant out, so the chooks just stayed in one place for longer).

The finished dome ...

The chook dome was eventually finished on 24 August, and populated with our 4 chooks. One week later, they were joined by a rooster and 2 pullets (because an experienced dome user advised us that 7 birds was the minimum number needed for the system to work). Here are the chooks, hard at work preparing the 2nd of the 6 circles.