#5 Spring Has Arrived At Our Permaculture Farm // Empty Garden Tour

So one of my biggest goals for this season is to prolong the growing and harvesting season. Last year we did super well but we only really had food from like June, July, August, September and a little bit of October. Actually that's not too bad, like five months. But I mean our goal is to be as self-sufficient as possible with food so we definitely need to make it last way longer. I thought I would try and spring sow a bit of like carrots and radishes and stuff. We have these tubs that cracked in the bottom because they were filled with water and they kind of exploded and I was wondering like what can we do with these and they're perfect for growing things in because then the water will drain out. This is what I've been waiting for for like five months now, just having my hands in the soil. It was our main garden and we grew most of our food here last year and down here we just had grass. We didn't really have time or energy to deal with this area. This year we're going to expand our garden a lot. I wasn't going to film today but suddenly we got the spirit over us as we say in Norwegian and we just got so much material and now we are putting out cardboard. Kieran was planning where the swale is going to be because we have a creek running here so we're going to transport that water into this garden so we don't have to water that much and yeah we're just going to make a bunch of beds, rows downhill here. We're kind of hustling a bit with this project, not stressing but like we definitely need to get it done because last year we had so many seedlings we had nowhere to plant them so they were in their little trays and pots way too long because we were making the beds just way too late. So we're starting now to try and get it done before middle of May which is when we're going to plant all the seedlings out and we got all these materials for free which is really awesome. It's these side pieces of a log so yeah using waste materials and all this cardboard was free. So we're really lucky to have soil here. The previous owner had sheep and so around the house at least it's this beautiful crumbly light soil with lots of organic matter. You want it to form soil aggregates like these clumps but they'll also look a bit like black cottage cheese and the darker it is the more organic matter it is the more food for your plants there is. So yeah we're lucky we got good stuff. Okay we're back at it. We had to take about a two-week break because it just got too cold but now it's like 15 degrees and sunny so we are continuing this garden project. I'm just cleaning up the garden a bit today. I'm just taking some of the mulch off. We're doing no dig in this garden and you can just see how super nice and healthy the soil is and how it's been protected over winter and there's so few weeds and even the ones that are here are really easy to get off. Actually as I'm working in this garden I thought it would be cool to give you a empty garden tour. It's going to be fun to see how much the garden is going to change over the season. So this is our mandala garden. It is a huge stone circle that we got an excavator to help us with. All of the other stones we put in here by hand and it was so much work. We had so much food in here last year. We had over 30 types of vegetables I think and it was such a success and it was our first season at the farm and actually my first season ever of growing something like this. So I'm really pumped for this year and how much food we're going to grow. So right now everything is just covered by mulch. The birds have really done a number in this garden. They've dug up a lot because they're looking for worms so there's just hay everywhere and here we have a terra. But the only thing I've planted is carrots underneath this tarp just to keep the soil moist. We planted out some salad seedlings that I had like pre-grown in the greenhouse. But yeah the birds have like dug out at least a third of them which is a bummer. And then here I grew radishes like you just saw and then we have garlic over here that are just starting to come up. Then if you go around the circle we last year we had corn here but we kind of made a mistake because they're not supposed to be planted in a row. So this year we're gonna have tomatoes all along the fencer all around. And then we have a dead plum tree and then we have a alive plum tree. And then these beds we made last autumn. I have no idea what I'm gonna plant in here yet. And then we have the three beds here that you saw us make. We've paused this project a bit because we need to set up irrigation before we can continue. There's not really any point in having so much growing space if we don't have a water system set up. And then over here we have our berry patch. We have a bunch of blueberry bushes and then we have raspberry rows. And we're gonna continue this raspberry patch a little bit this year. And on this side we're gonna continue with these types of beds all the way down. So we're gonna have a lot of growing space. And over here we have a fruit tree. What is this? Apple. And then we have one more apple and one more plum at the top. And then Kirin put in this chicken tractor that we're gonna move around because it gets really wild in here and we need to keep the grass down. So we're just gonna move the chickens around. And here we have the garden from the bottom. Might not look like much but it's gonna be so abundant and green. I can't wait. While we're at it let's go over to the other garden and I'll give you a tour there as well. Here we're gonna keep mostly perennials this year. Yeah so we have our greenhouse and we have our bed where we kept sunflowers and herbs and stuff last year. We have a sweet cherry tree here and then we have a three types of pear tree here, a raspberry patch, our bean teepee. And then we have three beds here that are just all a mess because the chickens have dragged the hay everywhere. But then we have a sunchoke bed and then we go down here. And here last year we had potatoes but I think we might have corn or pumpkins or both. Down there is our future market garden. That's our field. And then this mess we laid out the roofing to kill weeds but the wind is really taking them and just throwing them everywhere. But we're gonna make a potato patch here. And then this is another future berry patch. We have a couple of blackberries and gooseberries. And then we have roses. Here we have our apple tree. And here we have a digging terra. Oh yeah she's going to the bathroom. Great. And here we have more gooseberries and blackberries. And here we have the tub that you saw me sow seeds in. I think it was like a month ago. It's taken a long time. But we have little carrot seedlings coming up. And then we have our herb spiral. And here we have three veggie boxes. These are hugo beds so I just stuffed them with half decomposed wood and hay from the chicken coop. And then I just bought some soil on top. And here we see like salads are coming up. And we have radishes over here. We have carrots. And this is salads as well. And then we have the greenhouse. And here it's really growing which is so exciting. So we have salads and cabbages and radishes and kale and spinach and more radishes. And then we have sugar snap and beets and swiss chards and salad at the end. Let's pull up this one. Ah tiny little radish. Let's clean it. First radish of the season. Let's go. That's good. I don't normally like radishes but I mean when I've grown it myself then radish is so much better. Hey Kramer. Come on. Bye. Yeah that was the gardens. I am so proud of everything we've done here. Like this is our second season. Like this is our second season and we learned so much during their first seasons. I can't wait to excel even more this year. That rooster is doing such a great job. Like you can really tell that he's taking care of his flock. He is so busy all day long just running from the chicken coop and to the gardens or wherever the rest of the ladies are. And whenever they make a sound like he comes running to see if they're okay. It's really starting to feel like a farm with all the animals running around. There's cats and chickens everywhere.