Farm Journal
Monday, April 26, 2021
We killed and butchered four goats here yesterday. It was not easy, but it was one of the most worthwhile things I’ve been a part of. The process took all day and left me drained and with a feeling o…
Continue Reading#Meadow Garden#Wild Plants#Building
Friday, April 23, 2021
It teased at raining yesterday, as a layer of mist settled on Wednesday and didn’t let up until this morning. Unfortunately we only got around a tenth of an inch. I’ve continued plugging away at the …
Continue Reading#Wild Plants#Meadow Garden#Building
Monday, April 19, 2021
I’m tired and beat up, but progress on the meadow garden continues. My friend David came up on Friday and we built the pergola slash entryway to the garden. It turned out well -- in an ideal world we…
Continue Reading#Meadow Garden#Carving#Compost
Friday, April 16, 2021
I’ve been plugging away on the meadow garden, and finally finished tilling yesterday. I’m glad I decided to use the rototiller -- it saved me quite a bit of time over using a shovel or mattock. The p…
Continue ReadingWednesday, April 14, 2021
Yesterday we held the first Julian Gardening Meetup (might need to think of a catchier name) at our place. Despite the cold and fog, it was a lot of fun to shoot the breeze with a bunch of people who…
Continue ReadingMonday, April 12, 2021
I worked like a dog this weekend and loved it. Friday Tom from Lumbercycle came up and we loaded up his trailer with manzanita scraps from our thinning for him to take to the macaw exhibit at the zoo…
Continue ReadingFriday, April 9, 2021
Work on the meadow garden has commenced. I cut 23 black locust fence posts around 10 feet long and started prepping the area yesterday. It felt good to practice my felling technique on straight trees…
Continue Reading#Propagation#Grafting#Planting
Thursday, April 8, 2021
I broke out the grafting knife again yesterday and got through 15 trees, the majority of which were an unnamed local variety that I’ve dubbed Julian Red, since it is red and from Julian and that is a…
Continue Reading#Planting#Seed Starting#Mishaps
Wednesday, April 7, 2021
Collected soil samples from the meadow to send off to the lab at UMass for a soil sample. I’m itching to get the results back -- the soil seems dark and loamy once you get past the sod, and I noticed…
Continue ReadingTuesday, April 6, 2021
We talked to our neighbor about building a garden in our shared meadow yesterday, and she seems amenable to us approaching where we think the property line is, but not getting too near it. It will ma…
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