Hugelkulturing

After last night, where I spent so many hours on my blog it started to get boring for me, I'm back to the habits I attempted to develop a couple of weeks ago; timeboxing and cutting down and other things. So hopefully this won't take as long, and also will be interesting to you.

I see a butterfly...

First of all I am continuing the series of photographs showing how the dampness is developing above my bed. Last night it was looking quite wet and obviously still spreading, particularly after the rain yesterday which had soaked through but when I woke up this morning while it had spread a little more, it was looking a little less damp. I think. I hope.

Talking about waking up I had a super long lie in today after a lovely sleep almost straight through. I was woken by the dogs barking (as you would expect) at about 8.30. That is unheard of. I made a brew and went and fed them and Ralf is definitely learning to be a bit quieter when I'm waiting to open the door. This is a good thing. It was quite amusing as I had let Rambo start to eat and then put Ralf's bowl down and told him to wait and Rambo stopped eating and sat and looked at me; he really is so well behaved at feeding time. If only he was like that all the time.

Before I started weeding

It was really misty again this morning and so I decided to get straight out, before breakfast, and start the task I had set myself when I woke up; I would weed out the hugelkultur. This had been getting worse and worse for weeks as I was not sure what I was going to plant, if anything, and so I had just left it. I really should not have done this. I pulled everything I would need outside (wheel barrow, gloves, small shovel, kneeler, rubber mallet and peg) and obviously my second brew is included in that.

First wheelbarrow filled, first side done

I set myself to it, ignoring the gloves as when I am weeding I like to dig my hands and fingers into the soil to trace the roots and get as much of the weed out as possible; I find that gloves stunt that sensitivity and make me less effective. The boys were pretty well behaved, both sniffing around for a bit then chilling out. I worked steadily but not too quickly and it took about 35 minutes to work all down the one side and fill the first wheel barrow to the top. I took it down to the compost heap next to the humanure collection point and emptied it then went back to my task.

Good weather for working outside

The mist had burned off but it was still cloudy and there were some pretty dark looking ones floating around. In all the time I was outside there was no rain, a slight drizzle happened for a bit but you could hardly notice. It was very nice, actually, to be doing this not in the main heat of a clear day; it gets very very hot out when it is like that.

Much thicker weeds here

The next section to be weeded was round the side I put the soil on first and the weeds were far bigger and more established both on the raised bed, and along the track down the side. Because of this I filled the barrow much quicker and it was only fifteen minutes later that I had to go and empty it again. I was actually really enjoying doing this if nothing else because I was getting to see at close hand just how many little insects and critters there are everywhere over here. At one point I went to pull a weed only for it to jump out the way; it was a little green grasshopper. There were many of these, of varying shade and even colour. Also loads of spiders and other jumping and crawling and creeping creatures. Brilliant.

I have no idea what they spotted

As I have said the boys were out with me, Ralf pegged on his lead obviously and Rambo free but being obedient (I have him sitting and waiting while I move the wheelbarrow around, which in the past he tried to attack and barked at like he owned the floor. This is a big win) and here they are, having both just noticed something which I didn't see.

And so it is completed

It took me another half an hour or so to do the final stretch, including as you can see pulling the large weeds at the sides. With this completed (and I really have pulled every little weed that I could spot) it will now be a simple task for me to keep it weed free. I have also learned something quite important - I should have kept on top of this before, never mind not wanting to plant anything. The Hugelkultur is very nice for growing in and the weeds had got huge, which meant large roots which is a good thing if you want to keep the plant there but means I was destabilising it by pulling them out. I was very careful though and didn't lose any soil at all.

Not a nice looking plant

Huge spikes all over it

The last weed I pulled was this quite large example of the super spiky thistle type plant that is growing all over the place at the moment. Bekir warned me that they are quite nasty and he has started pulling them up where he sees them. They are amazing, so spiky, but they do hurt when you get caught and it is quite hard to pull them up sometimes without getting jabbed as their spikes go right to the roots. I pulled a number of these out today.

Red grasshopper

With this task completed I packed up, went and weeded around the Olive trees (a couple more Melons have sprouted through yay) and then headed inside for a brew (the one I took out was knocked over by Ralf running round it on the floor and pulling it after him with his lead. Typical). As I poured the boiling water in I noticed something float to the top and it was one of the tiny grasshoppers I mentioned before. This one wasn't going to jump anywhere for a while though.

A breakfast of champions

I fished it out, took that picture, then set myself to making breakfast. My tummy had been rumbling for a fair while, probably all through the filling of the final barrow load, and so I decided that bacon and eggs were what I had to have. This was more brunch, to be fair, as it was approaching 11am now. I fried the rest of the bacon block, used two of the chicken eggs given to me by the Little Lady (and dated, if you remember) and sliced huge doorstops of the lovely fresh bread. It was just as gorgeous as it looks. Wow.

Blown over in the wind

After breakfast I decided that I would have a look at the two tomato plants that I had seen were flooded in their bucket. It turns out that I had never drilled the drainage holes in these, which was an oversight, but not a terrible one as now I had somewhere to put them. They were fallen over and looking unhappy anyway so my consideration was it was worth the risk of relocating them. I discovered that one of the poles had actually been broken off by the gust that blew them over!

First plant is in

I found some metal in the detritus that had been thrown off the roof and sawed it in half with a hacksaw to make two stakes and then started the tricky task of extricating the first plant from the soil in the bucket (their roots were all tangled together) and getting it situated in a hollow I had dug in the Hugelkultur. It wasn't actually as tough as I expected and pretty soon the first tomato plant was in, tied to the metal stake, and watered well using the liquid that had collected in its old bucket.

The two boys at rest

While I was doing this I had to warn the boys off walking on the Hugelkultur (well, Ralf - Rambo remembers he got told off last time he ran on it) and also Ralf was trying to play with the little plastic ties I have for keeping the tomato plant upright. Apart from this they were being well behaved, no fighting, and just chilling out. Here is Rambo on the prowl, and Ralf having a yawn and a stretch.

All my tomato plants replanted

I put the second plant in as easily as the first and then thought I'd go and check the other bucket with the other three plants. This was also waterlogged so I found some wood this time to use as a stake, cut it to size, and carefully planted these three out as well. I now have all my tomato plants in the Hugelkultur. I was going to put the chilis in however they are looking happy in their pot so I will just leave them I think.

With this done I tidied up again and came back inside for my lunch. It was quite late but I wanted to eat a little bit so I made a cheese and tomato butty, with a tomato from the first plant I moved which had been so ready for picking it fell off while I was carrying the bucket to the Hugelkultur. As per usual this tomato was beautifully tasty. I really hope the plants survive the stress of moving as I want to eat more and more of my own produce. I went to check them a bit ago and they aren't looking too terrible; tomatoes are sensitive but they are also very hardy so they react quickly to bad things but recover fast too. Fingers firmly crossed.

Cups tidied away

The promised storm (it is supposed to come past twice today) looked to be approaching so I popped up to the roof to take a picture and also check to see everything was safely stowed in case of high winds. It was a good thing I did as some bottles and buckets were in the open, as were the steps. I was most amused, however, to notice that the men had hung their cups up on nails in a beam. How funny is that!

I am out for dinner tonight which is why this is such an early blog, and it has taken me longer than I wanted but not too bad; I'll get better. I'll be publishing this straight away and then may tell you about my evening in tomorrow's. The sun is currently out, so far there has been no rain (since that tiny misting earlier) and I am keeping everything crossed that doesn't change.