Getting The Plants In and Deep Mulching

Hey everyone! Welcome back and thanks for joining me. I am very thankful that I have this opportunity to share bits of my world with everyone, and hopefully inspire and encourage others. Today I want to show you a bit of what we were up to outside. Yesterday, I was working on the chicken coop, and today....the garden!!

So the garden is something new for us. We have been long time homesteaders, and even while being on the road as full time nomads we completely love all things "self reliant". We have been learning new things every step of the way, and this is one of the things that we learned.

Several years ago we watched a documentary called Back To Eden. Not to get into all of the details of the movie, but it ultimately is about deep mulch gardening. The guy from the show had such a positive attitude toward the food he was growing and the people that he was able to feed, we had to give it a try.

On the old homestead in Missouri we received two big truck loads of fresh mulch from the crews that clear for the powerlines. I remember that we layered up the garden atleast 8 inches deep, and it took the garden from rock and clay to black and beautiful soil. That is what we wanted to recreate where we are now.

The property owner asked if we would mind planting a garden here in the back yard of the house we are staying it. He imagined it to be a Victory Garden, and a step toward independence...which it absolutely is! So we would like it to be amazing for him for years to come.

We started by laying out the size of the garden and digging a bit at the four corners. We chose to start on the outer most row for the tomatoes so they would be right in our faces and hopefully we can keep up on the pest control a bit easier.

Next to them we planted the different colors of bell peppers, and then next to those we planted broccoli. It was an incredible experience because the dirt was already soil! There is a big different between dirt and soil. You can tell that it was alive and well because of all of the worms that were in it.

We don't have to focus so much on soil building now, but more weed suppression. We started with digging the holes, added a bit of mulch to help it stay loose once we bury it all. We added shredded paper which just happened to be here at the house. On top of the paper we put down some cardboard, and then on top of the cardboard we put the mulch. Hopefully through layering like this we will be able to make all of the existing grass and weeds into compost, and help to retain moisture when the summer heat comes.

Since I first started gardening there has always been something that just makes me shake my head.....dry dirt. When you can look down between the plants and you can see uncovered dirt and it doesn't look like it actually has any life in it. That is what is making me hopeful with do this modified method here. I think it should also have the drainage that the plants need so they don't drown either.

I had such an amazing time working with my family out in the garden today. I am truly blessed. Stacie D (@freedomtowrite) is definitely a hard worker and fun to work with. The kids kicked some butt today as well. We actually got the whole yard mowed, fixed a fence, and the garden....it feels like it has been a pretty long day. After this post I think I might just...be. I am super tired haha. We have been walking for 20 to 25 minutes everyday, and then I have been banging some steel with my boys. I found some steel weights at this house and the whispered to me. They whispered "you could be so much bigger" haha. It is a common whisper anytime I am near some sort of weights or when I am taking additional protein, but that is a post for another day.

Thanks again for joining us on this adventure. I definitely believe that life is amazing and each day that I wake up I have a chance to make something happen!

Be well
~The Yeti

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