Mushrooms

Was so lucky to have Billy and Lenny run a mushroom workshop here.

We learnt about growing Oyster, Shitake and Wine caps and so much about the role of mushrooms in our lives.

Everyone went home with some Oyster bags, Shitake logs and enough Wine cap spawn to make their own bed.

Such great learning, so many cool people.

 

Spring growth and change

 

 And the corn is up. A little yellower than I expected but look at the legumes. We have peas, lentils, crimson clover and lupins emerging too. I am enjoying this experiment. The pumpkins next door are loving this rain -and their companions too.

Check out the previous part of my field garden experiment here which will explain why we have such beautiful mulch. And here and here to hear about the cover crop. 

Companion planting

 

To me companion panting includes a whole succession of diverse plants working together to achieve abundance. 

It spirals out from this garden bed to our whole farm and plants grown for other gardeners (birds, insects, worms, fungi...) what we want to eat,  and then scaled down through the farm to the whole garden rotation, annual and perennial crops, seasons, microclimates, seeds to save, earth covered for as long as possible.....A crazy dance.

Photo number 1 is of a mixed greens bed planted into the mulch of winter cover crop (Lettuce, radish, red onions, rocket, cornflower, sorrel, sweet pea, ) Last summer this was a kumara bed that was replaced with a diverse cover crop. The path is mulched with bark from the bottom of our woodshed as this path will be walked often when collecting salad.

Photo number 2 shows the rocket flowering and magenta spreen coming up. We have just planted some Hyasinth been vine down the middle to add beautiful flowers to our summer salad and shade to the salad greens. Because I will be saving the lettuce seed I will be leaving the lettuce in for a while. Next summer this bed will be a grain crop.

Another swap