soil Archives - The Resilience Hub

Hugelkultur 4–Moments

April 14, 2020 by Myke Johnson Leave a Comment

I haven’t forgotten about the hugelkultur bed we are creating (mostly me at this stage, since Margy’s back won’t let her dig or carry.) At times I wonder if it will ever be ready for planting, but then my spirit reminds me to stay in the process, enjoy the moments, rather than being attached to outcomes. So the other day, I came out and dug some shovels full of sod and wet soil from the center of the future pond, put them in a wheelbarrow, then brought it over to a chair in our fire circle. There I sat and I painstakingly pulled out all the tiny bittersweet starts. It helps that they are like hard little red sticks with orange roots, and very easy to differentiate from the soft moss and grass and other growth. I couldn’t get very much “accomplished,” but I loved sitting in the sun with my hands in the soil. What could be better than that?

Today I couldn’t continue doing that process because the future pond was actually full of water from the big rain. I don’t know if we will ever finish the pond, but days like this remind us what it might be like. I saw a bird drinking from it later.

Instead, I shifted to opening up one of our compost bins that has been sitting for a year, and adding more compost to the mound. I also had a little bit of sod from another spot that I turned inside out and added to crevices on the side. When the compost was piled high, I layered seaweed over the top–which also helped to stabilize it.

Here are the stages. First with compost.

Then, seaweed, which we had gathered from Winslow Park.

If it seems hard to see the difference from earlier photos, that is because it expands only by millimeters. But it is so beautiful out here today–in the 50s, sunny, birds singing, and one can feel the surging of green life that is almost ready to burst forth. I have observed that there is one week in spring when everything wakes up–maybe we are about to enter that week. I walked along the strip near our street that I had planted in perennials two years ago, and look!–the lupine planted from seed last year is already poking through the dead leaves. This year we will get flowers. I am trying to remember–notice the beauty, be present to the moment, be filled with gratitude for this very day.

Hugelkultur Part 2

April 6, 2020 by Myke Johnson Leave a Comment

Sunday: It was time to do the next steps for our new hugelkulture bed, but I wasn’t sure what kinds of materials to put on first. After doing more research online, many suggested that soil plus nitrogen rich materials like cut grass were next. But then I realized I needed to back up a bit. In order to stabilize the mound, it was recommended to put soil in between the cracks and crevices formed by the logs on the bottom. So I took off the smaller branches I had already placed on top, to expose more of the logs underneath.

Also, people had mentioned having a problem with the soil falling off the outer part of the mound, and one suggested remedy was to put lots of sticks angled out from the mound to help to stabilize the organic material and soil that will eventually cover it all. So after I took off the smaller branches, I started replacing some of them at a different angle.

Finding soil to put on the bed is no problem for us–in fact, it is a great help for our dream of a future pond, which we had included in our original permaculture design. One of the challenges for a pond is having some place to put all that dirt. So it has been on a way back burner. Today, I dug up about a half-wheelbarrow full of dirt–the dirt was very wet from recent rains, so that was actually the limit of what I could lift in the wheelbarrow.

I brought it to the mound and started putting it into all the crevices, (after making sure to pull out any tiny red bittersweet roots.) The mound needs several more loads of dirt, but my own physical limits intervened. For some reason, lifting heavy things is very challenging for my chronic autoimmune illness, and triggers my fatigue response. So I sat outside in the sun for a while, but reluctantly came in after watering the mound with our garden hose. Tomorrow will be another sunny day.

It is hard to have an idea, a vision of this hugelkultur mound, and not be able to just go out there and get it done. Usually if I push myself one day, I have to rest on the next day. And Margy has her own limits. So after moving all those logs yesterday, it was a stretch to do anything at all today. But I have been slowly learning to honor the boundaries of what my body can do, and take things step by step, in whatever timeline is necessary. It still feels so good to be outside in the garden.

Monday: This morning was bright and sunny, and I had new energy to go out and add more soil, and then grass clippings (from last fall) that Margy had gathered into a wheelbarrow. Hugelkultur works in a similar way to composting–in fact, it is a kind of composting–you have to have a mix of carbon and nitrogen. The logs hold lots of carbon, and while beginning to rot they can draw nitrogen from the soil around them. Most of these logs have already been laying around for a while, so it might not be a big deal, but we want to make sure.

Since we hope to plant our mound this spring, we’ll need to add sources of nitrogen to be available for the plants. Thus, grass clippings. Another great source of nitrogen that I’ve seen other permaculture people talk about is urine. It is free, readily available, and it reminds us that we can all give back to the earth.

Before I came back inside for some other things I have to do, I watered the bed again–it needs a lot of water at first, and then the logs hold water to give back to the plants as they need it. I was delighted to see these little rainbows. May something bring you delight today!

This was first posted at my blog, Finding Our Way Home: A Spiritual Journey into Earth Community. I will continue to post about our progress as we add more materials to the mound.

Permablitz & Community

March 8, 2019 by Myke Johnson Leave a Comment

As we plan for a new Permablitz season, I offer you some reflections about the Permablitz held at Margy’s and my house two years ago. (A version of this post first appeared in my blog, Finding Our Way Home.)

Over 20 people came to our yard and worked together on projects organized by the Resilience Hub. They installed rain barrels, built a composting system from pallets, built a fire circle, and created five more growing beds for future fruit trees, raspberry bushes, & hazelnut bushes, and one bed for flowers & herbs. We also got the first shovelfulls dug for a pond.

Opening Circle-Sylvia, Cathleen, Ali — [Opening Circle]

At the end of the day, I felt teary-eyed with the sense of Gift. The generosity of so many individuals coming together and creating something so beautiful and full, helping us to realize our dreams for this piece of land, was deeply moving. There is something about this giving and receiving of human attention and wisdom and care, that feeds our hearts. Much of our lives are shaped by transactions—we pay a certain amount of money, and receive a product. Or, we put in so many hours and receive a paycheck. But giving and receiving freely and generously touches something much deeper. Giving and receiving must trigger deep neurotransmitters in our internal chemistry, sparking a profound sense of well-being and belonging.

I also realized how many layers of community are involved in such a project. One layer is this community of people who care about the earth, and who come together to give and receive, to learn, to share, to grow, to get to know each other. People connections are made.

Another layer is the community of the soil itself. During the blitz I was mostly working with several others on the project for creating new growing beds. We were adding nutrients through sheet mulching so that the soil could create a thriving fertile community. I have learned so much about the variations in soil communities from the book The Holistic Orchard by Michael Phillips.

What a food forest needs, what fruit trees need, is soil whose fungal community is stronger than its bacterial community. In contrast, annual vegetables and flowers and grasses prefer soil with a stronger bacterial community. A bacterial community is enhanced by tilling the soil and incorporating organic matter by turning it into the soil. A fungal community is enhanced by no tilling, but rather adding organic matter on the top of the soil to decompose, as it happens in the forest. (Similarly, compost that is left unturned will generate a stronger fungal community.)

Forking the beds Cathleen — [Cathleen forking the soil]

We prepared the soil by aerating it with garden forks–since it had been rather compacted. We added some granite dust for mineral enhancement, then put down a layer of cardboard to kill grasses and weeds.

Raspberry Bed-manure & chaff Mihku & Heather — [Mihku & Heather adding manure and chaff]

Then, we added chicken manure, coffee chaff, seaweed, leaves, grass clippings, composted manure, and a really thick layer of deciduous wood chips. We were able to get a delivery of 8 yards of wonderful ramial deciduous wood chips–these are chips which include lots of thin branches, which have more lignin content that is not yet woody. The wood chips are the most important part of enhancing the fungal community.

We also made several pathways with cardboard and wood chips, and I worked to complete those bit by bit in the days after the blitz. Wonderfully, the process then works on its own–we add some water or it gets rained on–and the microbes will work together over the next several months and years to create a thriving soil community. We planted trees and bushes the following spring. My friend Roger Paul said that the Wabanaki word for “soil” means giver of life.

I encourage you to consider participating in a Permablitz to experience this sense of community for yourself!