I have one 4×4 raised bed that is mostly filled with strawberries. It hasn’t produced much until now, and wow, it has taken off! Awesome flavor!
Strawberries are producing
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Author Archives: Brian Gallimore
Worm Farm – April 2, 2021
For the past few months, I’ve only added food to the left-most side of the worm bin in hopes of convincing all the worms to go over and stay on the left side and let me use the castings on the right. I was trying to avoid the time-consuming task of filtering out the worms when I want to use the castings. The plan kinda worked, but there are still lots of worms left on the right side, even though they haven’t had any added food. What I thought was just worm castings has sunk down a good 3 inches, which tells me the worms are still working on it.
Other observations: I had a lot of worms crawl out of the bin this year. I think this was because I overfed them at one point and created a hostile environment. You can see lots of dead worms on the ground.
This bin has worked out very nicely. The worms are safe from critters and haven’t seemed to have any problem surviving the blistering summer heat or the super cold winter.
Tomatoes and Peppers – March 27, 2021
I’m several weeks behind and didn’t even have time to plant the onions I bought, but today I did manage to get the raised beds cleared out and a few things planted. I used my tiny chainsaw on the monster okra plants, which worked great.
3 new tomato plants in bed 4 
2 pepper plants in bed 5 
Early Girl Tomato 
Super Fantastic Tomato 
Porter Tomato 
Tam Mild Jalapeno 
Mammoth Jalapeno
Chicken Coop Build 2020 Pictures
Cardinal Pictures
Quick Video of Woodchip Pile Unloading
Planted Cauliflower, Broccoli, Brussels Sprouts, Carrot, Beans – August 30, 2020
I’m trying once again to direct-seed cool weather plants in the heat of summer. The ‘feels like’ temperature was 105°F today because of the high humidity due to the 2.8″ of rain this morning. Nice to have the rain though! I was unsuccessful in direct-seeding plants like this last year.
Raised bed #1 w/ strawberries – planted about 16 cauliflower 
Snowball Y Improved Cauliflower 
Raised bed #2 planted 24 broccoli 
Green Magic Broccoli 
Raised bed #5 planted 14 brussel sprouts 
Long Island Improved Brussel Sprouts 
Raised bed #3 planted carrot 
Imperator 58 Carrot
Earlier this weekend before it had rained, I was able to move a lot of top soil out of the “pond” area and place it on the eastern part of the Hügelkultur bed #1. Just before dark I added straw mulch and planted about 50 bean plants, then distributed a packet of buckwheat cover crop to a lot of the bed. The plants I’ve had growing in this bed haven’t done very well. I think it is a combination of not enough soil, the typical first-year poor performance of a hugelkultur bed, and not enough water. I added more soil to this part of the bed compared to the part I already have plants growing in– hope that helps. I’m eager to have plants growing in it to hold the steeply-sloped soil in place. I figure beans are a good choice.
East end of Hügelkultur bed #1 
Provider Bean 
Common Buckwheat Cover Crop Seed
Okra Harvest – August 24, 2020
The okra planted in my raised beds are doing great and producing a lot of fruit. The okra in my new huglekulture bed are not doing so great.
Asparagus – August 24, 2020
I traded a big comfrey plant for 12 asparagus crowns. I planted them on the east face of a new section of hügelkultur bed that I just added soil to. I dug little holes in the soil, placed the crown, and added a shovel full of compost. After I watered it all, I added straw and watered again.
3 Fig Trees Transplanted – June 12, 2020
I transplanted 1 each Kadota, Black Mission, and Celeste Fig trees from pots to the ground this evening. 3 other of my rootings (Petite Negra, Nero 600m, and Lemon had died, unfortunately, probably due to irregular watering. The transplanted plants had huge root systems that were already starting to girdle in the pots they were in.