Monday, November 4, 2013

OOOH MY ACHING BACK (Revisited)

Over the last 2 days I have been able to finish digging everything out of this bed.


 
 
I have 20 hours invested in this project. That's 20 hours of digging, squatting, kneeling, tugging, pulling, standing up, squatting some more, tugging some more, lifting.
 
 Oh, and did I mention digging?
 
       I'll say it again.......OOOOOH MY ACHING BACK!
 
 I'm glad this part of the project is over!  From here on out it will get easier. I'm going to leave this bed like it is for a while and let any weeds that want to come up, do so, then I can hoe them down. When the leaves start dropping I'll put a thick layer on for mulch and they will decompose and enrich the soil some by spring.                                                                                                                                        
 
While digging this bed, I dug up some roots from some Maple trees that I had cut down 5 years ago. Some were about 1 1/2 inches thick.  One was very soft and when I gave it a squeeze, water poured out like squeezing out a saturated sponge. I was quite surprised. Evidently, there could really be an advantage to the hugelkultur method. I will be using this technique when I plant my fruit trees.
 
This Red Bud tree was planted right in the root zone of the old Maples.
 

That is probably the reason it has grown so well. I planted it 3 years ago as a bear root sapling.... now it is 12 feet tall. When I dug the hole for this tree I had to use an axe to chop thru a 6 inch layer of tangled roots, so I know there is lots of rotting wood in the ground.

That is all for now.

Soooo..... Until next time..... HAPPY GARDENING!


                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         
  

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