Time to make the mushrooms fruit.  We are past frost last frost and the logs have been inoculated for a little over a year. To get them to begin fruiting they will be soaked  for 24 hours or so. It is also supposed to rain so maybe we can get by without having to flip them.  Once they come out of the water they will go back to their hidey-hole and be watered well a couple times a week (if it doesn’t rain) so they can begin  fruiting.  In a couple few weeks we should begin harvesting from them and then we can  start the whole process again for the remainder of the summer.

The  solar dehydrating  season is in full swing.  The herbs are growing like crazy this  year so I am having to give many of them hair cuts early in the season. Today I  took an entire five gallon  pail of   trimmings off of two  small clumps of  parsley.  After washing and taking the stems out I was able to fill all three trays with  the herbs.

Up until this year all of our dehydrating has been  solar. Recently, a high school class mate offered me an electric one that she no longer uses. I could not resist as it will come in handy for when it gets too humid to use this one or on those days when we get our regular afternoon showers.  I will start the process in the solar  then transfer  it to the  electric reducing waste.   Here is  a previous post  on the dehydrator  as well as  some links to plans.

With the success of the hot tub hugulkultur bed we decided to try it out in a normal garden bed. For this experiment, we are using use an already established bed (of weeds) that we double dug when the manthing was laid off and we were on a bed building spree. This bed has not successfully grown anything (except weeds) since we dug it and began throwing amendments on it. It was also convenient because we had some piles of brush nearby, making our job (manthing’s job) much easier.

The basic principle of hugulkultur is digging out a hole or spot and then filling it back up with things n stuff that will break down over time into a nice soil while having the benefits of water retention and a raised garden area. Our main reason for doing this is building healthier soil, since we try to maintain a closed homestead and purchase no outside fertilizers, soils, mulches, etc. We get over 70 inches of precipitation a year, so, water retention is not too big of a deal for us most of the time.
The process is pretty easy although it is a good work out if you don’t have a mechanized earth moving contraption and live in mountainous terrain. This bed is about 14×5 and was a 2 (half day) job for one person. A young, in shape, person could probably do one in a day and live to tell of the experience. Us older folks have learned not to beat ourselves up when time is not of the essence so we tend to take things a little bit easier when we can.

Our observations thus far…

The dirt that comes out of the hole is very likely not going to be enough to cover it back up, especially if you mound it like most reference sites suggest. Be prepared to have extra dirt somewhere nearby that is accessible and easy to get to the new location.

It is a great way to use downed trees and/or brush and limbs from cutting firewood. But,it takes a whole lotta material to fill that big hole back up. Have plenty (more than you could ever imagine) of filler nearby or in a place that is easily accessible. For those that heat and/or cook with wood or live in an area where wood is sparse, this could be an issue and should be weighed before you decide to do digging massive holes in your lawn.

A few years ago we found ourselves with a hot tub that no longer functioned. Rather than hauling it off to the dump we decided to make a garden out of it. Because we were completely unemployed at the time, an economical way had to be found to use little soil yet fill the tub up so it could grow veggies. After some research, we decided to try an experiment with hugulkultur in a controlled environment. We filled that sucker up with brush, leaves, and dead wood, tossed a layer of compost over the top, then waited and waited and waited, all the while growing veggies in it. Our hope was that the experiment would be successful enough that we could use the hot tub to build soil that was good quality for adding to already established beds or for making new ones since true soil here is nonexistent.

After growing successfully for near two years, in the tub, we decided to see how the soil was coming along. It was still looking a little rough looking and had pieces of twigs and branches throughout so we threw some straw over the top and grew potatoes in it and later a crop of tomatoes.
This spring when we began digging to see how things were going Lo and behold, everything had decomposed and we had three feet of beautiful,wormy, healthy, happy soil.
I am currently in the process of moving the soil to where I need it and only saving enough of it to begin the process again. It worked well enough that we are now working on a couple actual beds using the same methods. It will be interesting to see how they turn out. Though hugulkultur is a great method of building soil it does have a couple of downfalls that I will post about in the next installment of our hugulkultur experiment.

My year of Seeds Of The Month has ended. Yes, I am an adult but everyone loves to have a package delivered and for a gardener, seeds are the ultimate gift. I have really enjoyed the SOTM and not just opening the pack to see what is inside but actually growing the veggies and herbs. All seeds are non-gmo, open pollinated, heirloom varieties that have been tested for a germination rate of 90% and higher. Everything I have received has grown and produced well for me even though I have used many for experimental purposes and treated them harshly. The cost of the seed club is very economical and well worth it, especially if one is able to catch a web special. For those new to gardening or for children, it is an excellent way to pique interest and give a gift that will give forever more. Overall, the seed club is very well worth the money and offers quite a nice variety of seed.

Of course, any program has its faults and here are the few that I found. Some of the seed packs did not contain enough seed for my liking, though it was only with a couple of seed types. The bantam corn, for example, only had 16 kernels in the pack hardly making it worth the effort and pollination became a concern. There was a little repetition in the types of seed sent over the course of the year. I do not mind this as seed saves quite well and can be used at another time but I would have liked to have seen a bit more variety in what was sent.

Overall, I was very happy with the SOTM and would recommend anyone interested in an economical and fun way to collect seed to join the club. Members receive 8 packs of seeds their first month and then 4 packs of non GMO seeds every month thereafter for as little as $0.06 per day. You can join at http://seedsclub.averagepersongardening.com/ or join them on facebook

Today the broccoli babies went from their germination trays into cell packs and were kicked out to the GH to live in the fish tank until planting time. The tank can be covered with a plastic cover if it gets too cold for them, though after this winter it is doubtful they will need it. In addition to these little guys another 40 or so were planted into a GH bed and an outside bed with a makeshift ghetto GH over them on the cold nights. The plant markers are made from old window shades that I have been snipping sections off of when I need markers.