A week ago we broke ground on a new plot of land here in the city. The land was given to us by the home owner, who was eating lunch at Ned Ludd (the restaurant we sell produce to and also farm the back lot) http://www.nedluddpdx.com/ . The hole yard was long, overgrown grass that hadnt been mowed in who knows how long... We Mowed and weed- whacked, then got busy with a sod cutter. After we cut out all of the grass and removed it from the area we planned to plant, we tilled the soil. After tilling we mapped out the beds and cut in trenches... We rake the loose soil into mounds and flatten using a hard edge rake.
Gary flattening beds... We got lucky with warm sunny weather all weekend.
We made walls for our compost pile out of the rolled up sod we removed!
The walls will eventually break down into the compost, we think we are the first ones to do this!
It saves a ton of money and labor not having to removed and dispose of old sod... Work smart not hard right?
To keep the plants happy and healthey and the soil's micro-biology crankin we amend the soil. We use a lime and kelp meal mix. Turns out plants on land can benefit from oceanic plants nutrients! We also do heavy scoops of pig and goat compost mix into the beds. We get our compost from Gary's friend Richie who lives within the city and has a pi and goat farm!
We turn our amendments into the soil before flattening the beds and transplanting.
