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.
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.
The seeds I ordered from Willhite finally came in. We planted mainstream cantaloupe, yellow petite watermelon, jackson wonder speckled bush lima bean, Texas cream 8 cowpea, summer melody squash, honeybaby winter squash, and large sunflower mix on the north side of the bed.
We spread straw over the south side of the hill. The cowpeas, okra, melons, and squash I planted on April 8 are popping out of the soil now.
We have a Cooper’s Hawk in our backyard. This is such a badass bird!
Last week was sunny with the temperature in the 90’s, and 2 days ago a strong cold front came in and this morning at 6:45 am, we got down to 32.0F for a bit.
We decided it was a good time to get some new chicks since we are all home and it will be easy for us to take care of them during the day. We bought 7 from the Tractor Supply down the street: 3 production blues, 2 brahmas, 2 golden sex link. I’m working on getting a chicken coop built, as I expect it will be needed in a few weeks.
I started planting in the hugelkultur bed today, and it was a little strange. Add a little water and you create an avalanche. So I tried a few things that seemed to work ok.
I took out a handful of soil, replaced it with compost, and planted okra in the compost.
I dug up the huge comfrey (bocking 14) that was in raised bed 3 and split it up into a bucket full of crowns. I planted one at the base of many of the fruit trees, and a bunch of them in the hugelkultur bed. I also planted a few melons (Ice Cream and Kajari), some lima beans, flowers, and 2 varieties of okra.