permaculture

Mindful mulching

Over the past couple of weeks I've been getting the edge guilds (the one-metre strips around the edge of the mandalas) into shape, as they were quite overgrown. We've had a fair bit of rain, which has made it easy to pull up the huge clumps of grass and other weeds, to reveal some fabulous soil - black, rich and deep - it looked good enough to eat!

I'm currently doing a mindfulness meditation course, and part of the homework is to do activities throughout the day 'mindfully' (ie being aware of your thoughts, feelings and sensations as you do something, rather than dwelling on the past or worrying about the future). So I turned this morning's mulching activities into a mindfulness exercise, and focused on the feel of the soggy newspapers as I dragged them out of the wheelbarrow, the sound of them as I slapped them down onto the ground, and the satisfaction of covering them with straw to produce a lovely mulched bed. 

I've planted a couple more dwarf fruit trees, and several fejoias in the edge guild of mandala 2, and need to plant out more perennial herbs to fill it up. I've done all I can for the moment, and am now waiting for the asparagus to come up (it's just started to appear) so that I can mulch around it.

Happy chooks

Last Saturday we moved the dome from the desert of mandala 2 to the plenty of mandala 1 — a move that was much appreciated by the chooks. Three years after we starting using the dome and following The permaculture home garden, the bare paddock has turned into fantastic deep soil, which is paradise for the chooks. When we looked in on Sunday, their scratching had exposed a crop of potatoes that I planted last year and forgot about, so I spent some time crawling round the floor of the dome pulling up potatoes, closely followed by excited chooks.

Click on image to enlarge photo

After chooks ...

We moved the dome this weekend. Here is a photo of the circle immediately after the chooks had been on it for two weeks - beautifully weeded and mulched, and ready to be planted out. The plants you can see in the edge guild at the back are lavender and a feijoa (which, after doing nothing for two years, is finally coming into flower, as shown in the second photo below).

Click on image to enlarge photo

Click on image to enlarge photo

And here are a couple of views of the second mandala, which is in great shape after all the rain we've had.  Of course, it also benefits from my loving care. This weekend I sprayed all the cabbage and brocolli plants with diluted filter coffee (to kill off caterpillars and slugs), and all the cucumber and zucchini plants with diluted milk (to stop them from growing mould). I did wonder if I could have saved myself time by just making a cup of instant coffee and spraying it over everything.

Click on image to enlarge photo

Click on image to enlarge photo