April 7, 2025

Another few months have gone by. I've had a few weeks away while the plants have been settling in. Now they're starting to wake up and buds and leaves are forming. It's honestly so exciting to visit each week and see the changes. 

Since my last update, I made the second wooden storage bin, same as the first, and I made a stick / stake shelf storage to keep the stakes out of the mud and wet. That's the woodworking done for now... I still want to make some stick chairs for comfortable sitting around a campfire, but I'm having a little break for woodworking right now. 

I've planted a lot more trees and bushes. Loads of berries that I bought from the local garden centre and a few specialty plants that I got online; kiwi and passion flower mainly. I think I probably planted the kiwis too close together, they grow to be very large vines and need at least 3 metres of distance. So I may have to dig those up again. The kiwis will need a super sturdy T-shaped trellis; I have no real ideas yet for how I'm going to do that. I won't be pouring concrete to make fixed posts, so it'll have to be a more natural method. I need to find large wooden posts or really large tree branches.

The passion flower needs a gridded trellis to climb up, which is a bit easier to source, but also needs to happen soon.

Generally, everything is popping right now. The garlic is up to 20cm and the onions are coming out. Most of the hedges are leafing up, including the roses, which is exciting.

My next focus is creating a rainwater catchment system. I think I need an emergency water source for the summer if it doesn't rain for a while, and the trees need some extra life to sustain it. It's silly not to have a backup plan. I'm hoping to install something simple next week.

I've been spending most of my field-time mulching. My tree surgeon contact has delivered quite a few loads of woodchips, which has been super useful. Woodchip also looks much more visibly appealing than cardboard or twigs / brash. I got myself a wheelbarrow to help me funnel the mulch to every tree. It's taken some time.

It's also been a learning process to know how much mulch is needed to kill off the grass, and how quickly the grass will grow through the decaying mulch. Basically, the grass will grow through woodchip in a few weeks. I need to first put a layer of cardboard down, and then top it off with woodchip. This covers up the cardboard, which does most of the practical work, and helps it not fly away.

The main risk is the cardboard can act as a water repellent to the soil underneath if it gets too dry. We've had an unusually dry sunny spell these last few weeks, so the cardboard is dried out. When it finally does rain, it might not permeate through the cardboard and actually provide water to the plants underneath. Ideally, the cardboard is consistently soden, and slightly broken down to allow moisture through.

Anyway, the field projects is full of finger-crossed situations and experimental plans. At least for now, things are alive. 

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