Once we had Ken rip up the ground with his tractor, we saw the sorry state that the soil was in. It was such dense clay that shovels were no match. Despite the great nutrient content it had, we knew we needed a better growing medium for the delicate roots of our seedlings.
Highline Mushrooms came upon the scene with an enormous compost donation, and our team of volunteers set to work spreading out the compost by hand across the first field. We took everything step by step, trying not to look at the entire enormous field but just at the task at hand. First first, field row:
Let's do this.
The field looked
awesome. We were finally ready to plant. I don't think we had anticipated that the most challenging aspect was going to be preparing the soil, but that it certainly was.
Once again, we set out with our rototiller and shovels and this time the soil turned over almost weightlessly. In went the flowers and herbs in the first few rows, then peppers, kale, and bok choy, among countless others. It was finally starting to look like a garden.
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| Improper storage of the water barrel (whoops) |
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| Proper water barrel storage. (Thanks for the repairs John!) |
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| Young basil |
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| Lyndon working on hand-planting the first 2 rows |
