Goodbye to Lasagna Beds

Tuesday was a day of indoor work for Phil. Wednesday was a day to move chickens.

One batch of broilers is ready and past ready for processing. The second batch is getting close to full size. Phil was pleased that, once moved and the ground mowed, that part of the stone fruit orchard looked good.

The layers were a more tricky endeavor. He ended up moving them from the top of the apple orchard down into the market garden, which required about eight nets' worth of movement. The layers and ducks appeared quite content to be housed in my former tomato patch.

Before the chickens got there, Jadon and I pulled the T-posts out, and I tried to roll up the T-Tape irrigation. The weed overgrowth meant that the irrigation came up inch by inch, with much weeding as I went. It was, perhaps, the most frustrating thing I've done all summer, and in the end, I gave up. (When I woke up this morning, I thought, "Why didn't I just stand at the end and pull?" I don't know. Maybe I didn't want to damage the fragile stuff.)

I love the look of that area without all the T-posts poking up. It looks so natural. My hope is that the chickens will eat and fertilize the area well, and then at some point in November, I'll plant next year's garlic in that area.

Phil moved the sheep today. They had eaten their way through their area, and one spot had an odd type of thistle. The sheep had liked the foliage, since their faces looked like they were covered with carbuncles. Poor babies. We couldn't leave them with those pokey things all over, since they were potential eye irritants, so Phil caught them, sheep by sheep, and trimmed their hooves, while I removed the thistles and mostly stood around. (Old Ashley and the two rams avoided capture. Presumably their hooves are not bothering them, based on their speed during pursuit.)

After moving sheep, he mowed the area they had just finished.

As we see how nice the mown areas look, he keeps on mowing. Back behind the trailers.

Down the market garden road.

And after mowing, he scooped up my beautiful lasagna garden soil, which was brought to the farm in a dump truck two years ago, and amended with spoiled hay, tended with care, and so wonderfully productive. It has been the family garden and the garlic garden, my first successful attempt to raise vegetables.

But it was blocking tractor access to the stone fruit orchard, so it had to go. But with three inches of rich soil, I didn't want to just leave it to be driven over. And so he used the tractor to scrape it up, and brought it, load by load, down to the greenhouse.

Standing on the site of those hand made beds, now demolished, was harder than I expected. I didn't stay and watch the scrape for long: it made me sad.

Even though that soil will soon be growing something delicious in the greenhouse. And all that's left of the greenhouse, besides a few small bolts and metal pieces: the covering, a single large tootsie-roll.