Hugelculture Bed

It's been a couple weeks since I posted about planting the hugelculture beds. They're a carpet of green: lettuce, spinach, chard, radishes, onions and kale. Another week or two and I should be harvesting lots of salads!  It will be interesting to see how well they produce, especially once I start adding in the bigger plants like tomatoes, peppers, eggplants and squash. The tomatoes, peppers and eggplants are doing great in the greenhouse with another batch started a week ago. The rhubarb is about ready for a first harvest and the comfrey already has flowers!Spring rhubarb! The food forests are also coming alive with fruit trees taking off as well as all of the perennial herbs: oregano, lemon balm, sage, thyme, yarrow, purple coneflowers, feverfew, and tansy. The blueberries, currants, serviceberries, gooseberries and pawpaws are also awake and growing rapidly. Last but not least, the hardy kiwi vines have really taken off and look great.

All of my native perennial wildflowers are also coming up and doing well a year after transplanting. Orange coneflowers, bloodroot, jacob's ladder, geranium, primrose, columbine, bee balm, cardinal flower and blue lobelia.

Last, I'm not a big fan of grass but late last summer we trenched in our water line from the well to the two cabins and the grass never reestablished so I've had LOTS of mud around here. We seeded it with a mix of grass, red and white clover, all of which is starting to rally take off. I'll be glad to be rid of all the mud!