Sweet Potato Homestead

back yard update: kultur-ing some hugels

Despite the extreme hot weather we’ve been granted here in Maine and everywhere else (totes an outlier though), I’ve sort of finished the hardest portion of building these hugelkultur mounds.

two 20′ x 6′ beds with tractor and a Chippy butt for scale

It’s been a relief and sign of progress now that I’ve got the beds filled with all the various cardboard, loose branches and spent soil that I’ve been hording since we moved to Maine. I can seriously not recommend using a tractor more because between the insane amount of digging, boulder and gravel removal and just hauling dead leaves to and from, it has been a back saver.

As far as adding material goes, all that’s left to do is to pile whatever soil or compost I can find and then start planting! I think I will need to outsource some soil since the stuff I’m working with is mostly clay and gravel and I don’t have nearly enough compost made up for all of the beds. I do also have plenty of dead leaves in the immediate area and areas that need to be cleared for other projects so those can be used in a pinch.

I did transplant some mint into a couple of spots yesterday because I couldn’t resist finally planting something back here and where they were planted is going to be an herbal medley eventually. I checked on them this morning to give them a drink and cover them up a little with some dead leaves since it’s going to be another toasty-ass day here in Vacationland.

These little babies are the first generation of this back yard homestead and I’m so proud of them! And me! I have had Mike’s help a bit when it came to planning out the space in terms of functionality, marking out the beds, paths and patio, and helping me muscle any rocks or trees my stubborn-ass couldn’t. But it’s been me toasting my thighs and shoulders on the tractor, putting my girlboss sweat into it, and trying to breathe life to this hideous space.

This project has really humbled me into how much work gardening can be, and how much effort and work other projects will be. The people power needed for our homestead/co-op/not a cult is now obvious to me and it’s been a motivator to get more people up here in the coming years. I hope with a couple of people living in their tiny houses or yurts or whatever they decided here in our woods, projects like these be a lot easier and even more fulfilling.

baby’s first herbalism: cinquefoil

After making some major progress on my backyard hugelkultur project, my shoulders were thoroughly toasted and CBD salve and aloe weren’t cutting it. After looking through my library of medicinal plant books, I realized I had some cinquefoil and could make something with it (In case you also have an addiction buying books, the one in particular I used is called Northeast Medicinal Plants by Liz Neves. There might be other region-specific books but this is the only one I need~). Once identifying the plant via that book and the Seek app, this one being a sulphur cinquefoil, I got some gathering tools and got to it.

a freshly soaked tea towel + plant bits applied to both shoulders

With my infusion, a tie-dyed tea towel and my other trusty weed, I stood on the side deck and applied my plant medicine. I won’t say that this cinquefoil healed me immediately and to 100%, but it really helped soothe my skin and helped it heal to a pretty dark tan.

I’m so happy that the years spent in Rhode Island gathering any and all herbalism books is finally paying off and being able to identify more plants around our property has been a fun way to learn. Give herbalism a try in your own front/side/backyard, unless you’ve got a nice tasty layer of RoundUp on it, then stick to some pain killers and lots of water~

dreary june

i think it had been at least a week since the blue sky has shown itself~

It has been amazing to look at the forecast and see that e v e r y day is the exact same. I especially love it when it’s supposed to rain the least on the day of the farmers market and then Friday night rolls around and now there’s a 90% chance with 10mph winds for Saturday.

I know bitching about the rain is kind of silly because my garden and surrounding woods have been finally thriving now that it’s be consistently warm. And considering there’s serious droughts cooking folks down in Texas and such, our dreary weather doesn’t seems so bad. However, I will continue to complain in the next few paragraphs~

staying within the lines as much as a backhoe allows~

We have finally drafted and agreed on our backyard hugelkultur build and I have been itching to get the tractor back to tractor-ing. Last week, Mike and I spent a buggy evening measuring and spraying out the general shapes of the hugelkultur beds and where the patio and paths would fit in between them. Seeing our plan on paper was fun but seeing it start to physically manifest itself in gravel was even more exciting~

Half these lines I started with are now gone, a general shape is forming. In a few hours I was able to dig out the shape of the top right bed, fill it with a bunch of brush and downed trees around the yard and piled more soil/clay (and gravel too tbh, this shit is literally everywhere~).

I then moved onto the top left bed that was pre-dug from when I yanked out a stump or three and several large stones.

After cooking myself most of the day, I retired the tractor and did a couple little things I had the energy for. That big-ass boulder is staying where it’s at, hence the sunbaked mosses and lichen, so I’m using all the the rocks I’ve been unearthing to outline a rock garden. Making this location a hugelkultur mound is a bit challenging but I think it’ll be a fun way to fill a weird space with a bunch of herbs and creeping plants. I imagine as I establish a proper garden out here, that rock may get another coat of moss which would be extra fun~

There was some work I was able to get done today, since this past week has been another wash and I’ve been able to make very little progress. Which sucks! I have so many plants ready to spread their roots and their homes aren’t built yet and summer is just chugging along. I’m really hoping I can get this finished this season cause it would be such a relief to get an honest-to-Dog full grow season here on the homestead. I made progress today though, adding a ton of great mushy downed limbs, some mosses and huge roots from trees further in the woods. I will say this hugel project is a great excuse to use all the downed brush from the winter, not that I think we’ll be at a fire risk this summer, but it’s a chore that’ll serve me and Mike and our silly homestead in the coming years~