Thistle flower

Not everyone loves thistles.

They are an indicator of compacted low calcium soils. Funny that they have deep taproots so can help rectify this.

I have noticed that they move through the landscape. It would be interesting to see if there were many changes in the soil after they have been.

This small patch is full of bees, beetles, small butterflies and a katydid.

Daily move

I love watching these guys every day. What herbs or grasses they eat first, how they dance into the next paddock all this knowing daily moves mean regeneration of soil systems.

Detectives

We have been exploring our land in places we have not been before. Finding clues. Still to find out who has been living here.

Lettuce flowers

Lettuce flowers with a Blue butterfly pollinator.

The whole ecosystem benefits from plants going to seed (if it is not an noxious weed).
Flowers for pollinators, seed for next year, soil shaded and fed by living plants for longer, higher proportions of carbon for compost and as the leaves can die back an opportunity to plant your next crop as an understory.

Bonfire charcoal

After the bonfire is charcoal!!

This charcoal is mostly bamboo so should be nice and dense. I will inoculate it and turn it into bio-char before I spread it around.

3erd hay

This paddock was compacted and waterlogged. Not much grew and it was hard to find a worm.

We cut down tall kanuka for our winter wood and then;
-pulsed chickens through with bales of hay for fertilizer, seed and organic matter.
-made a giant carbon rich compost (after turning once we added a lot of leaf litter from our bush). To bring back a diversity of microbes and fingi.
-planted the drain with native stock fodder, plums and tagasaste for diversity, shade and ramial wood.
-replaced an old blocked drain.
-put on some lime for calcium and to flocculate soil (soils are very high in Magnesium).
-annually we add a compost tea/slurry.
-managed the animals with portable netting so that they were only in a 'paddock' for one day at a time, let the pasture recover for longer, left more residue behind animals.

We still have a way to go but it is so amazing now!!
We have gone from  2 days grazing to 8. Residue, diversity, recovery and worm numbers are all up. It is also very easy to put in standards now.

As life is I cannot wait to see how much more this paddock will improve?

Kibbler

This grinder saves me so much time.

It kibbles my chicken food, and grinds up charcoal for bio-char and pigments for paints and plasters.

This dry clay is being ground for seed balls.

Pototoes

Dreaming or potatoes. Step one broad fork. Step two add compost. Step three roll out straw. Step four wait until the weather warms. Step five add the chickens (this was not planned but the slugs loved the straw soo much -and the chickens loved the slugs).

Step six will be plant the potatoes under the straw.

Edible weeds

We grow sorrel in our garden but this wild sheep sorrel has a muck more intense flavor. It seems funny calling it an edible weed when it is such a beautiful plant.

Garlic

My garlic is growing up through its blanket of mulch. Nice and early so it is well established before rust.

Mulch

Whether living or decomposing (living in a different way) mulch cloaks the soil. These mulches will protect and feed our soil over winter. As well as providing us with fresh greens. In between the plants are lupin seeds that will be pruned back so they do not shade out the edibles.

Turning compost

And the compost gets turned.

Each time you can see the amazing mahi of the invisible and then visible composters all working for us. Breaking down plant material and then each other into a beautiful mix of soil food ready to me turned back into the system.

Fungi flower

Mulcher

We sold our van and brought a mulcher.
It has been so good to have our own.
We are mulching everything; apples for cider, fish for hydrolysate, garden materials and loads of great ramial wood for mulch and compost.

Vermicast

Vermicast -or some would say liquid gold.
I am adding more and more carbon to my worm farms to try and encourage a much more fungal dominated cast.
From this I then make, seed treatments, compost teas and slurries, potting mix, and compost for planting.

Sunflowers

I am loving sunflowers.

In summer whenever I have a spare bed I sow them as a part of a diverse cover crop.

We have beautiful flowers to share, food for pollinators, petals to eat, are deep rooted for loosening soil, create mychorrizal connection, create a great nursery for winter kale and spinach and grow lots of carbon for compost.

Living Design

What an amazing few days with some amazing people.

Living Design is a way of designing modeled on the beautiful unfolding of nature.