Friday, May 25, 2012

26 Tons of Horse Shit and an Eclipse

Last Saturday, Dominique and I went to visit Scott and Anita Pittman's permaculture farm in Pojaque.

Scott Pittman, from the Permaculture Institute

One of the Pittman's gardens





















During the visit we met Troy and Christina, two biologists from the Yukon Territories, and Nick, a young traveler from Louisiana, on his way to a permaculture course taught by Scott Pittman at the Lama Foundation in Taos.

























We invited them all to stay at the farm, and on Sunday and Monday, they helped us spread 26 tons of manure!


Last Sunday, we also had visitors from Cleveland, Ohio.  Chantal and Mark just bought 13 acres near Cerrillos and are interested in growing their own food.

Mark in the greenhouse









































Thanks to 3 layers of eye protection (sunglasses + grinding shield + welding shield), we were all able to get a perfect view of the eclipse Sunday night.

























The greenhouse floor was covered with mulch to keep the weeds down

















Ariel and Dominique shoveling steer manure

















Dominique transplanting chard

























Ariel transplanting chard

















Nick Planting bush beans in the chard bed

























Poki shaping the fence bed after sift-turning compost in the bed

















Dan, one of the residents at Gaia Gardens, donated a beautiful bird bath for the garden.  Thank you Dan!

























Irrigation lines were installed along the fence.

























Our Scarlet Runner Beans are growing happily on the fence line

A third of the garden is now irrigated with drip lines (t-tape) and divided into 4 zones.  Each zone is set to irrigate for 45 min. a night at various intervals.  So far, our water supply is sufficient and the plants seem to be doing fine.  We've been brewing 100 gallon of compost tea each week and applying it to the beds. 

We've been shooting short video clips of our activities at the farm and plan to create a 3 min. video for a Kickstarter campaign.

Please join us on Sunday for our volunteer farm day 2:00-6:00pm
We'll be transplanting basil and making more beds in the garden. 


Our Community Meeting-Potluck Brunch is held before that 12:00-1:30pm


Sign-up on the right of blog (Follow this Blog by Email) to receive announcements posted on this blog.

  If you wish to support this project, you can make a tax-deductible donation here.   See our Wish List


1 comment:

  1. I hope that you don't mind that I borrowed one of your pictures for my blog. If it is a problem I will take it down.

    http://eatonrapidsjoe.blogspot.com/2014/02/quote-for-day.html

    You have a fantastic blog. Thanks for writing it.

    ReplyDelete