At the end of each month or at the beginning of the following month, I like to review each month. I like to review the progress, what I've harvested and how many hours I worked. I want to show how hard or how easy it is to create and maintain an edible forest garden.
July 1st marks the 181st day in creating the forest garden. It's still hot, but we haven't reached 100 degrees...yet. I'm not sure it's possible to have a summer without reaching triple digits in Texas, but I'm crossing my fingers. The progress in the grass garden is a stand off. Overall, the trees are happy and the perennials are growing steady.
JUNE'S PROGRESS WORK
1. The Mulch Pile COMPLETE Of course my neighbor helped me finish things ups. I'm so thankful and SO glad that is complete.
2. Remove Grass. I've spent almost 10 hours this month pulling grass and don't have much to show for myself. I have started to use a tarp to kill the grass. It's slow but effective.
3. Composting success.
After many failures of compost piles, I'm finally seeing beautiful results.
4. I emptied the aquaponics tote but haven't cut it out of the greenhouse. I think I hurt my back trying to push it over.
5. I'm also trying to tidy up the place. The wood I used to form the borders is hanging up in the garage now.
6. The days we received rain, I took the time to chop and drop comfrey and a few other plants.
HARVEST
Wild: I found Queen Ann's Lace next to Petsmart of all places and made a nice tea from it. It was a strange carrot-like tea.
Fruit: During my morning and evening garden walks, I've been able to get about a small handful of goji berries once a week.
Veggies: I've continued to harvest the chard I planted out from the aquaponics system for smoothies. I picked a nice green bean harvest where I made these fries. I finished up the onion harvest. I've used some onions and gave some away to the neighbors.
June's harvest = about twice a week
Yearly harvest Total = mint, surviving trees collard leaves, goji berries, onions, aloe vera, lots of comfrey, dandelion flowers, chard, Queen Ann's Lace and green beans.
WORK
June's work = The averaged is embarrassing... maybe because I've been recording it on a calendar. I've been working this month mostly in large spurts. The mosquitoes are bad, so I have to dress up like it's cold. And as the theme goes, sing the sad grass garden song.
May = 25 hours
Yearly work Total = 195 hours
I've been listening to Jack, so I've been super inspired the last few days. Today I decided to dry my grass-garden-victim eyes and get things done.
credits & resources: just my photos this time // see linked posts for particular sources
