This is what outside has looked like for what seems like forever:

Rain, rain, bloody rain. lovely rain, frustrating rain, unseasonal rain, rain, such a gift, wet inside and out rain, wishing for just a moment of sunshine rain, rain that makes weed removal so easy, rain that makes the grass grow visibly, rain that makes mowing impossible and pastures a lush feast for livestock, rain that dampens my spirits, rain that feeds my seedlings, blessing and curse rain, rain that i love but i’ve kind of had enough of… i NEED some sunshine nutrition!

Anyway, rather than stay inside and become damp and mouldy I chose to garden with my friend Sido who is visiting from the Permaforest Trust for the weekend. It’s cool to have a gardening buddy, someone as crazy as me, who will garden in the pouring rain, get covered in mud from head to toe and keep at it until the job’s done or you get exposure, whichever comes first!

It’s also cool to have someone give me great gardening and permaculture tips, and to chat about farming ideas, about living on/with the land… She’s been with the permaforest trust (check out our side links) for some years now so knows lots about garden design, composting, planting, seed saving, organics and all things of the earth. This is good. I take in what I can, I watch, and I weed…

Today she helped me tackle the garden bed which has been most troublesome for me, in terms of a strategy for planting it out. I concentrated on edging, creating a *closed system* which basically meant I was able to indulge my obsessive need to weed, and rip out grass runners that have crept into the planting area, making incursions underground… The obsessive drive is an advantage in gardening I find, in this case, the edging maintains the integrity of the garden, and I’m a fiend for integrity!

We weeded ourselves silly, getting out couch for the burn pile, and chucking the rest on a big compost pile. Sido told me about how in the biodynamic system there is an idea that specific weeds growing in particular areas might signal a deficiency in the soil, so for example, thistles "mine" silica. They have deep tap roots which draw silica into the plant and as they decay, they leave the silica in the topsoil for other plants to feed off. If you make a compost tea from these weeds, and pour it on the affected area, it might discourage that weed from growing, and it will also put lots of silica back into the soil, and bring a balance back into the soil. She also told me about using a "pepper" made from ashed farmer’s friend’s seeds to sprinkle on affected areas as a deterrent… This may be a long term project.

We also saved some seeds from onions, cabbage and broccoli, rationalised the tomatoes (no garden needs *that* many tomatoes), fixed up a nice pyramid trallis for the tomatoes we left behind, looked at the space to decide upon where to place trellises for cucumber and beans.

There is much more to plant. Today we tackled just half a garden bed, the one I have thought of as the creepers and climbers bed. The other half of this bed is nasturtiums, grass, wild herbs, weeds with a largeish round patch in the middle prepared for planting for us by our trusty chooks in the Dome. Hmmmm… where to put the Dome chooks and their home now that their work here is done?

So there is some pen and paper type planning to do. Since the pigs have gone, there is a need to make that space viable again. Half of the old pig pen is pumpkin vines and tomatoes. There is a tamarillo tree in there and we need to replant some banana suckers and nurture them to replace the ones the pigs, depite our best efforts to protect them, destroyed. Sido suggested watermelons would go well there also. So we will fence this off in order to protect it from wandering calves, chooks, ducks etc… and try to reclaim it as a space for either gardens or animal housing (geese?).

The bottom half of the old pig pen, most recently inhabited by them and therefore very bare, I have no ideas for right now. Perhaps I’ll have more of a clue tomorrow. Any suggestions welcome, especially from anyone reading this who *knows* the space (yes, you know who you are…)

I’m wet, muddy, tired, but pleased. Pretty keen to get back out there. It’s a treat to spend time in the garden, significant time that is productive at the end of the day…

Dinner time. Later, farmyardblogfans! Vx