On Monday I began a two-week Permaculture Intensive at Merritt College, led as always by the amazing Christopher Shein. We got a lot done in our first days and I was pleased to see so many familiar faces. The first day we had a delivery of raw materials to add to the Permaculture garden: compost, manure, mulch and logs. We were able to spend some time weeding the hillside and creating a new compost pile beneath a tree.
We lined the compost bed with logs, as we've done with the raised beds throughout the garden, and then filled it in with mulch, manure and a combination of green and brown clippings. This pile should get quite hot and break down fast - and it's right next to a bunch of fruit trees and beds that will benefit from having a source of nutrients so close by.
Today we began by building a stack of haybales, after a delivery truck dropped by with about 100 or so of them. Soon after we broke up into groups and dispersed throughout the hillside to create small versions of the compost bed we created the day before. We used a different model: we found clear spaces on the hill, in the upper orchard part of the permaculture garden, and dug some shallow trenches to fit the hay bales into. Then the haybales became a barrier behind which to dump horse manure - a sort of retaining wall, or compost bed. You can check out the photos of the finished version. These beds will create a local source of compost for the fruit trees and other edibles on the hills - and are located much closer to these plants than the former compost pile.
Here's some pictures of the last couple of days, including some images of the already established garden bounty . . .
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