#30dayswild - last day & going forward

Well, my last day didn't quite go to plan because my mobile phone suddenly died so I had to take it to the EE shop and lost my ability to take any photos. Luckily I have a camera but unluckily it was flat!!

Soooooooooo I have:

put together a photo of pictures that I haven't publish before but are from the last 30 days

Done my garden design base map which is for my permaculture design which I mentioned at the beginning of the challenge.

I have learnt most of my plants in my garden and I have added the ones I want to keep to this base map so I now know what I am working with.

It was good to see that most of the things that I want to keep in my garden have been added on purpose over the years since my Permaculture Design Couse (PDC)

There is a lot of work still to do but it is going well and I will be planting my tomatoes, squash and day lily plants tomorrow.

I have also started observing the sunshine that reaches which parts of my garden. This is a part of my garden design so I know where there are risks of frost, shade, too much sun, etc. I need to catalogue these properly but here are some photos from 09:30 on a June morning.

The other thing I have been doing is sorting out my internal house wilderness!! I have way too much stuff which is not being used properly.


As part of my permaculture journey, I have been challenging myself to a minimalist month every 4 months. A minimalist month is where you get rid of 1 thing on the 1st of the month; 2 thing on the 2nd of the month; etc to 30 things on the 30th of the month (read more about it here). I have combined this with the idea that if you can pick up a thing and respond to the question "does this bring me joy or enhance my life" with no then I get rid of it (here is a photo of some of the stuff that I got rid of in Feb.)

This last day of the challenge my children joined me and we took 4 bags worth of unneeded stuff to the charity shop and I sold 2 things to others who will get far more use out of them than me.

I know that I spend a lot of time every day tidying my house; dealing with clutter; losing things or misplacing stuff and having to find them, etc. If I can re-distribute the things that I don't need then I am going to waste a lot less of my time with these sorts of things.

Then I can use that time for something more beneficial such as #staywild!!

This challenge has been amazing and I have learnt loads myself and from the wonderful people on the facebook page. I will definitely be doing this challenge next year and would recommend it to everyone.

And here is the last picture I managed to take of the wilderness encroaching on the York City Walls before my phone broke.

#30dayswild day 5 - a day in the woods

Today was all about having fun in the woods. Dh gets to the woods most weeks but I prefer to go when there is a bigger group but I decided as part of the #30dayswild I thought I would go and drag ds, dd and coerce my fab bro to come with us aswell.

I thought I would also take the chance to take some pictures and cool videos. Here is one of the fabulous birdsong that you can hear when sitting in our lovely woodland.

Recently I have tried to start learning birdsong using an application on my phone. Like most people I seem to have always been able to recognise the cuckoo and pigeon. Recently I have learnt the song of the blackbird, chiffchaff and willow warbler. Today I learnt the chaffinch birdsong.

We then tested out dh's pot tripod and it worked a treat. The pot is one from Ronnie Sunshine which we bought from the Bushcraft Show 2016.

It is a 4 litre pot and I am very much looking forward to using it in the future.

At the same time we had bought a grill stand and this we did get to use for cooking lunch and making a cuppa. Listen to my kettle sing to tell me my water was ready.

My dh had even made a stick handle to pick up my kettle which worked really well and saved me having to find the fire proof gloves.


Dh then showed me the stash of stinkhorn mushrooms he had found the previous day. Our are obviously at the development stage but go here if you want to see what they are going to end up looking like although its latin name phallus impudicus might give it away if you don't know!!

I then thought I should actually try and find some wildlife myself rather than relying on my dh to have found it for me so I went hunting but I didn't have to go far until the wildlife came to me in the form of a bee.

Reflections on my Permaculture Journey so far

I am sitting in the York University library writing this reflective blog post. I am setting up days like this as it gets me away from the hustle and bustle of daily home educating life. I am also here at the University library because I am "stacking my functions" as we say in Permaculture speak. My dh works here so I am going out to lunch with him. There are precious few times that I get alone with him so driving him to work and working here means that I get some work done without the distractions of the home and children AND I get some quality time with my dh.

 Having spent the morning reviewing my Diploma in Applied Permaculture Design (DAPD) journey I have realised that I have come further than I thought I had. I have documented this journey in the Diary tab of my APD project plan here but you can also see it below. I embedded the Google document on my blog last night as a way to show everyone what I am up to. I also (with a lot of help from my gorgeous dh) managed to find a way to make that blog page the full width of the page. It was too squashed to be able to view the document properly with the two side columns there (as on a normal blog page) so I amended the HTML for that page using the instructions here.

I may well amend the other pages along the same lines for ease of viewing but I was really pleased that I got this one to work as the document is quite busy and needs more space.

Anyway better get back to finishing my Goals articulation. This is the under-pinning, overview document to my APD journey and shows how all my projects, goals and activities are linked to the Permaculture Flower, Ethics and Principles.

As can be seen above and here under the Goals tab, I have attempted to list all the goals and associated activities that I want to get out of doing my Diploma. I have then listed where these goals/activity pairings fit against the Ethics, Principles and Flower in columns C, D and E respectively with the key for these in column H. I have then matched these goals against my 10 projects in column F.

I know my project ideas might change over time but I can then just updated this document. I have also added a weighted value against each aspect of the Principles, etc in column I. This scores show how many times these are listed against a goal so that I have a clear indication of whether I am missing exploring some Permaculture Principle or whether a project isn't as rounded a permaculture project as I thought. It is a simple idea but gives me a very clear indicator of how I am doing on my learning path.

This spreadsheet and all the tabbed sheets within it is how I will keep on top of everything but is also a living, breathing document which will get added to and changed on a regular basis. Embedding it in my blog will be another helpful reminder of the need to review it on a regular basis so I am very glad I worked out how to do that.

Any questions or suggestions please get in touch via the Comment Box below!!!

Getting Things Done so far

Above are just a few of the things that I have been doing over the last few days to try and set up systems which will help me over the next few years with my Diploma in Applied Permaculture Design.

I have written all the design processes and frameworks; design methods and tools; project management tools and other useful piece of information in a card index folder for easy access.

I have set up a written Getting Things Done system in my A5 Filofax using whiteboard paper I bought especially for this purpose. At present this Filofax also has space for my 10 proposed designs although these may be moved elsewhere at some point.

I have got my email account inbox down to 892 emails. I am now going to use a post by Andrea Klinger to organise my email in a Getting Things Done way (see here.)

I have gathered together all the useful books, cards, information and started collating and organising it so that these tools are on hand for me to use in my designs. For example the U101 cards above were part of a Design course that I did with the Open University and could be used for Random Input or when I need inspiration.

I wanted to add the other pictures to show the other things I have done to get more stream-lined and organised. I have started using a Basics Wallet for my frequently used cards and to organise the other 30 cards I have (which were taking up far too much room in my handbag) set up an index system like that shown here.

I am also still regularly doing a Minimalist Month in an attempt to get rid of stuff that I don't need or use any more.

Minimalist January - part 1

I am going to play my Minimalist January game a bit strangely because I am away at the end of January and don't want to be left with took much stuff to get rid of at the end of the month when I am not even in my house.

So for the first few days of the challenge I am going to do extra later days as well as the early ones.

Let the de-cluttering begin!!!

Day	Picture	Reason why
1		Tap Shoes I don't use and them and never will. They have gone to a good home where the kids do dance.
2		New Rock Shoes & Keyring These are now on ebay here.
3		Wooden Fairy Village This has found a fab new home with neighbours who I know will get lots of use out of it. I am really pleased because I really, really didn't want to get rid of this.
4		Jewellery that I made and some I don't need These have been given to a friend as a present which she will really enjoy.
5		Socks - socks are only small so 10 pairs of socks = 5 This is what I love about this game. You start seeing everything differently. I had too many socks and had had too many socks for a long time and suddenly I am seeing opportunities to get rid of stuff everywhere. Even getting rid of 10 pairs of socks is a small step towards de-cluttering and it is becoming a habit.
6		Sea glass, sea pottery and marbles I had a lot of this stuff that was on display but I didn't need all 7kg of it so I got rid of 5kg of sea glass and 1kg of marbles and sea pottery.
7		Wool This was a tough one as I LOVE my wool. But I thought I could donate these few balls to either the new York Timebank craft group or some other crafty group.
8		Empty Jam Jars We had planned to make jam and chutney but didn't get round to it so there are being offered on freecycle.
9		Open University course books Put on ebay here.
10		Oracle cards and sets Again I have too  many sets of these so I picked my favourite and these are now on ebay.
11		More Open University course materials These are now on ebay now.
15		Empty bottles and Bach Flower remedies These are not getting used in my house so have been offered on freecycle
30		Books and Game These have been given to my brother and sister-in-law for their gorgeous new baby boy. They are all learning to read books and games.
31		More Books There are always more books to get rid of. I used to have a tendency to think that I needed to keep all books that the kids may at some point want to read but I now know that will more clutter they are actually less likely to read the books they want to read because of being overwhelmed by the number we have.

More next week!!!

Designing Health the Permaculture Way

Part 1 - Movement

Over the last year I have yet again, through lack of time and losing my favourite exercise activity of Ceroc, gone beyond my comfortable size.  I have an uncomfortable "my belly looks like I am pregnant" phase I hit which always results in my taking stock of where I am health-wise and what I am going to do to tone up a bit.  I then found that I was officially obese with a BMI of 30.5, which is probably the heaviest I have ever been in my lifetime,.  I am sure this is a result of many factors such as:

1. my relatively recent foray into the "diet" industry AGAIN
2. the aforementioned lack of Ceroc classes in York
3. my recurring back problem which occasionally stops me exercising
4. my weekly kick-boxing classes being cancelled
5. my liking of chocolate

to mention but a few.  With regards to point 1, like many others, I always end up feeling lousy about my lack of willpower to stick to a restrictive diet and I end up heavier/fatter than when I started. It always seems such an ingrained, natural thing to do though - to diet. I always vowed after having children that I wouldn't diet because I don't want my children growing up with the idea that diets are a good thing. Anyway I am resolute that I not going to restrict my eating like that again and I will be looking at my eating habits as a separate issue to this one.  So having vowed that I would never again restrict my diet or try to be unrealistic about what exercise I am going to do, I was left with a bit of hole as to what to do next.  This void, together with no sign of Ceroc classes returning to York, left me in a bit of a quandary.

So I started thinking about designing my health and I thought that using Lobby's Design Web mentioned in her book Permaculture and People would be a great place to start.  What I liked about this Permaculture Design Process was that it is more geared towards acknowledging me as a person and I felt it would help me overcome the obstacles which have hindered my health in the past. There were also many aspects of the ideas within this web which resonated with processes which I have put in place in my life since attending the Hoffman Process and training as a Shamanic Practitioner (more of these realisations may appear in other blog posts and Permaculture design write-ups.)  Here is the write up of that design so far using Looby's Design Web:

	Ideas
	Growth Phase
Vision	To be healthier. To continue to enjoy life and find more ways to integrate body movement (I hate the word exercise) into my way of life. To find a balance between time away at classes and time with my family. To protect my back (which has been problematic since I was 16) by increasing my core stability. To have fun. Incorporate more movement into my everyday life to counteract the amount of time spent at a computer. To be realistic. Learn more useful skills. Build on what I already know.
Helps	My geeky nature - I could potentially incorporate some apps and goals so I can see my progress. The resources of the internet. My stubbornness and willingness to try anything once. Finding activities which are fun and/or useful in my life in other ways.
Limits	Cost (financial, equipment, time.) I get bored easily. The need to feel that the time/cost is worth it. My tendency to be unrealistic.
	Exploratory Phase
Patterns	1. I get bored easily. 2. I don't like spending money. 3. I don't like going out in the evening as that is when I see my husband. 4. I fear I won't stick to any program if I have to do it alone. 5. If it's not fun I will not want to continue. 6. Worrying about my appearance. 7. I find it difficult to do exercise at home because I forget as there are always other things to do and distractions. 8. Overdoing it and not realising when I need a break
Ideas	1. Find an activity which progresses in some way or where improvements are easily noticed. 2. Use my time-bank hours to pay for classes or find something where the benefit of the class outweighs the cost. Realise any investment will be of benefit to me. 3. Include the family in my workouts or find during the day classes which don't get in the way of evening family time which is what we did with kick-boxing. 4. Find classes where there is extra motivation to participate or find some goal-orientated way to give me staying power to keep going. 5. Find classes I really, really enjoy like Ceroc. 6. Continue to work on the reasons that I don't like my appearance and realise that these are not size-related because they have always been there. 7. Find activities I can do at home and find a way to remind myself. 8. Make sure I evaluate regularly and re-design when needed
Principles	1. Observe and Interact - taking ideas from nature - I have always liked the idea of natural movement (see blog posts here and here) but I find it really difficult incorporating these ideas into my life (point 7 in patterns.) I need to find ways to have the space, time and inclination to does these things and I need to integrate them into my way of life so that I think about it, they are just things I do as naturally as breathing, eating, etc. I also need to be aware of when I am resisting any changes and analyse what this resistance means. 2. Catch & Store Energy - maybe my geeky nature would be a good way to capture the energy of my finding new ways to move and get healthier e.g. revisit websites I have used before to track my activities e.g. endomondo, mapmyfitness, myfitnesspal and investigate other activity apps/websites which incorporate goal setting; connecting to others and forums for advice; in the past I have taken photos along the way which I might do again to keep me motivated; getting my kids involved could also help. 3. Obtain a Yield - feeling healthier, losing the "pregnant" belly feeling, incorporating natural movement into my life so it is seamless, learn what feels good to me, increase my range of body movements and become more somatically aware. 4. Apply Self-regulation & Accept Feedback - if I don't enjoy the activity I need to find something else as I refuse to do exercise for the sake of exercise as it makes me feels bad and my emotional well-being is as important as my physical well-being. Maybe finding classes which are flexible would benefit my life-style in that I very often cannot stick to a set time and day. Pay-as-you-go is therefore better than any pre-paid classes. Revisit how I feel about what I am doing every month or so to check that I am happy; my kids are happy with any time away as is my dh. My feedback needs to be about how I feel physically but also emotionally, spiritually and mentally about my health. Although I am talking about activities and classes if I am not feeling better in all aspects of my life then my plan is not working so I need to find a way to monitor these 4 areas each month. 5. Use & Value Renewable Resources and Services - I will be using my own power to improve my health and one of the reasons I am planning this design is so that I remain a viable renewable resource for as long as possible. 6. Produce no Waste - over time I have accrued all the workout equipment, DVDs, clothing and shoes that I need to try any type of activity necessary. I will endeavour where possible to find local activities and will evaluate why (if ever) I need to go further afield. Again I will balance using my car to get to classes over time away from family and other considerations. 7. Design from Patterns to Details - being clear about why I want to be healthier and how to balance my health with family/time/finances.  Combat any negative patterns about my health and create healthy patterns. Evaluate my monthly feedback from (4) and redesign if necessary. Celebrate any break in negative patterns as well as any new healthier ones. 8. Integrate rather than Segregate - having made a space in my bedroom (see here) for exercise which already includes a climbing wall, punch-bag, various exercising paraphernalia and a playstation 2/TV combo and now enough floor space for most types of activity this gives the kids and I the chance to engage in whatever movement activity takes our fancy. This area is nearly perfect from a theoretical point of view but we need to start using it so that it becomes an integral part of our lives for fun movement activities including keeping up with our kick-boxing skills in case we ever get to go back to our classes. 9. Use Small & Slow Solutions - I am being realistic here that anything I do is not going to make my "pregnant"-like belly disappear overnight or my BMI suddenly be reasonable. I haven't had a BMI within normal range for over 12 years and I am not even sure I agree with it as a measurement anyway. This design is focussing on how I feel about myself from all four aspects of my "quadrinity" (as the Hoffman Process calls the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual aspects of ourselves) and so my reflective writings about how I feel will be my overall guide as to how the design is going. Integrating different ways of being in my body will be slow because anything that doesn't work will be dis-guarded and new things tried and evaluated. 10. Use & Value Diversity - I need to look at this "integrating movement into my life" design holistically and as mentioned earlier need to include different types of movement in different places e.g. outdoors, indoors, natural movement, cardio, strength work, martial arts, etc. 11. Use Edges  & Value the Marginal - over the last year there have been changes in my life which are worth considering with regard to edges. For example, my parents moving to York and my getting a Saturday job. Both these things can integrate using my body more into my life if I chose them to. Sharing some activities with my children and husband can acknowledge the edges between us and help me in my endevaour to improve my health. 12. Creatively Use  & Respond to Change - I am going to be 42 in January so I need to incorporate strength work as well as cardio as my muscle mass is in decline. I have an opportunity to include natural movement now we have a woodland where we get the fuel for our wood-burning stove so I can carry logs from garden to house regularly over winter and pile logs all year round at the woodland. I recently started working so relying on walking and cycling wherever possible saves money (+ve.) I also have an opportunity to include my children in anything I do as I home educate and want them to have a positive view on how moving their bodies makes them feel good. Most of all though I need to find activities that take over from Ceroc and kick-boxing.
	Productive Phase
Integration	Thoughts via hackpad
Action	Measure various parts of my body and take a photo on 1st January 2015 Use misfit acticity tracker everyday and sync with app so it gets picked up by mapmywalk Trial Monday swimming with the kids at least once a month Keep going to MFT classes on Tuesday (or Thursday if I cannot do Tuesday) Trial Tai Chi classes on Wednesday morning with the kids, once a month maybe twice - review in 2 months Friday - attend Jitsu class (move to Monday if I cannot do Friday) Friday or Saturday once a month to every 6 weeks go climbing with at least Dave Try out various activities with the kids eg. 7 minute workout on my phone; DVDs; trampolining; kettlebells; natural movement; etc. - start small Incorporate more things as I get more time
Momentum	Review on the 1st of every month. Add this date to my calender as well as a weekly check in when I have time.
	Reflective Phase
Appreciation	Take photos and measurements at my monthly review and celebrate my achievements regardless
Reflection	Monthly review.
Pause	If I need time off, take time off.

That's it for now. Watch this space!!

Finding a rhythm and the minimalist game

Looking back at my post from August and especially the one from the start of 2014 here it is fascinating to see what things have changed since then. I am now employed at the Northern College of Acupuncture (NCA).  It is a blessing to work at such a worthwhile place even if it is only very part-time. I hoping that my computer programming skills might help here as well because the NCA are considering changing their client database structure.

I never got round to adding alarms to my phone for reading books and doing crafts because I wasn't organised enough at the time. I also realised I was too busy finishing my Shamanic Practitioner training, my Permaculture Association Trustee duties (where I was made official administrator back in July) as well as the needs to my immediate and wider family. However I have now started using google calender, google tasks, google keep and their associated apps on my phone so I am wondering whether, once my OU course is finished in July, I will add these things to my to-do-list if that is what I think is the best use of my time.

Anyway over the last year I have started finding a much-needed rhythm to my life. I feel this has been partially due to my Shamanic studies as well as my continued learning about Permaculture design methodology and how it can help design all areas of a person's life. I have started surveying and assessing the way my house works for us as a family. As a home educating family and my occasional need to work from home we have a myriad needs of our house from accommodating large numbers of children and parents to my needing a place to tutor students or work as a shamanic practitioner. This has led to my contemplating designing a number of rooms in the house and de-cluttering as a by-product of the design implementation. I am going to continue this de-cluttering and am thinking of doing the Minimalist game with my dd in the New Year as a way to maintain and tweak the design. Starting from the 1st January we are going to throw things out or ebay them every day. The challenging bit is that on the 2nd we have to throw 2 things out, 3 on the 3rd, 4 on the 4th, etc.

As part of evaluating my bedroom design over the last few weeks I have already made some changes which have resulted in at least the 6th January being sorted as I found 6 bags I don't need. Whether I will manage all the way through January will be interesting but I like the SMARTness (see below) of this game and if it works I will be implementing it more than once as a fun SADIMET tweak to my de-cluttering designs.  My bedroom was my first design within my house but I have my dining/kitchen area that also needs designing as well as potentially my loft, garage, Shamanic room and porch.  Let's see if this game works or not!!

Specific - follow the instructions
Measurable - I follow the instructions or not
Achievable - 496 items = a lot but I have many things I don't use so hopefully it is do-able
Realistic - see above
Time-bound - this is the best thing about this game.  It is very specifically time-bound.  By the end of January 2015 I will have 496 less things cluttering my house. 

The other great thing about this game is the fact that I am limited on time at present but I want to keep my momentum from the Permaculture Association National Diploma Gathering going.  I have put on hold starting any further designs (I have an "exercise" design that I need to write up) whilst I concentrate on finishing my OU course and settling into working at the NCA.  I am however wanting to continue de-cluttering and finding more rhythm in my life.  If anyone wants to join me in the game let me know!

Zoning the areas of the house helps with decluttering

	Over the last few years our house has been in an interesting state of upheavel.  As part of my Permaculture Applied Diploma I have been re-designing our house and trying to zone it so that things are in the right place, easy to find but most importantly easier to keep tidy.  This is not an effortless feat seeing as I am messy and I tend to have at least 5 craft projects on the go which seem to spread themselves around the house.  I am trying to find a dedicated craft area but at present we are still trying to finish the kitchen before we can work out what to do with the old dining room, before I can then work on the rest.
However, I have managed to majorly re-design my bedroom!!!  It isn't totally sorted but it is working really well.  Observation in this area indicated that having all the resources around the edge of a long, thin room was making the room thinner and minimising what could be achieved within the left-over space.  In the future the room could be split into two decent sized rooms but this isn't wanted or needed at present.  There was also a need for a space in the house in which to exercise.  Putting all these needs together I evaluated that using the furniture to make a border down the middle of the room (above) could create more usable space whilst splitting the room into two distinct zones: the dressing/clothes area (to the right) and the exercise/study area.
	The study/exercise area needs work but it is a start and the implementation of these changes and the creation of a separate dressing area has resulted in a less messy space and has also led to de-cluttering of clothes and bedding.  It seems that zoning has a knock-on effect in that it makes it easier to sort, de-clutter and cyclically makes it easier to maintain. Result!!  This design is a great example of using the OBREDIM permaculture design process.  All this sorting and tidying in one area also had a ripple effect across the whole of the house.
Above there is a new shelf put into the living room for the kids new craze of loom-banding. Another thing in the house which is in the process of being redeveloped and redesigned after major building work is the kitchen (read about the renovation here.)  This has been a long and drawn out process because resources meant that we could pay for the building changes but couldn't afford to pay for the decorating or new kitchen design. This has meant that progress has been slow. However this has allowed time to see how the space is used by family and visitors to the house.
	Surveying and analysing in this way has been productive and enlightening and has meant that the design for the kitchen has been re-evaluated and re-designed at least 3 times over the last year. The implementing of the new design is going to take a while and there is more evaluating that needs to take place but one thing I have been able to do is work out a new way to not waste food.  I have designed a simple cataloguing system for the fridge and freezer using magnetic tape.
It started (as can be seen above in the bottom half of the picture above ) by just using whiteboard markers. They are not easy to wipe off and made the system awkward.  Magnetic tape may also end up having cons as well but is working so far.  The freezer (above) is divided into drawers so people know where the various foods are.  This also means that energy use is lessened because the freezer doesn't need to be opened for as long whilst someone tries to find the right food.

The fridge has a space for the food actually in the fridge as well as a consider buying section.  The space for the magnets which signal the food stuffs which have been used but don't need re-stocking as yet, are at the bottom of the freezer door. Anyway progress is being made using various design techniques and I am very happy with results.

My "Help-Yourself" Garden

Ryan has been helping me with gardening again and today we organically came across a cunning plan for utilising the space at the front of my house.  You see, where Ryan is standing in this photo, there used to be a planter.  It wasn't getting enough rain and I (being a serious non-green-fingered person) failed to water it.  So Ryan and I hatched a plan that we would move the planter to somewhere more conducive to getting rained upon.  Sounds simple but there was a lot of stuff that needed to be done along the way.

This is the planter making its way to it's new home.  And along the way we had to saw wood, move logs, get ds to stand on the contents of the green bin so we could fit more stuff into it, photograph frogs (see below), watch hot air balloons go overhead (see photos below), sweep the path, relocate one of the clumps of comfrey from the planter to the back garden, move more logs, move other logs to the back garden and clean the car (which had nothing to do with the cunning plan).  And whilst all this was being done their were vague ideas being discussed of making the planter a herb planter and transplating some of the plants from the raised bed next to the front wall so that that too contained only edible plants.

And from these discussions came an idea of sharing this produce with my neighbours and friends.  And so the help-yourself front garden was born.
The great thing was that during the day whilst tidying the front garden (I wish I had taken a proper before photo so you could ahev seen how untidy it was) we came across black plastic sheeting from when we had the woodburning stove installed.  This will be perfect for creating a pallet-based vertical garden system.

I also got around to cutting up our Christmas tree and that kindly donated by a neighbour for us to burn.  That donated Christmas tree generated another idea for the "help-yourself" garden in that as well as being able to help-yourself to some of the yummy edibles, maybe it could also be a "help-yourself" in donating unwanted trees, wood, and maybe even spare plants to others.

Anyway here is the planter in its new home next to the raised bed. Both beds are going to be planted with wholly edible foods over the next few months and hopefully a fuller system of raised plant pots with various yummies will sit in front of both beds.

There is space under the planter for unwanted wood and people will be invited to drop of wood if they want.



Dd is already designing some signs explaining the concept and there are also ideas for putting out information leaflets for what is being grown as well as recipe ideas.  All this from needing to move the planter to somewhere were it would get more water because I am too forgetful to water it.

Exciting though.

tyre sand-pit to hugelkultur / mound garden

Deciding what to do with my tractor tyre sandpit today, my friend Ryan came up with the idea of using the tyre as a mound garden for growing squashes, courgettes or asparagus.  

Ryan got the idea from the book "Forest Gardening" by Robert A de J Hart and "The Permaculture Garden" by Graham Bell. Having made that decision we got on with it whilst also clearing the bottom of the garden which is covered in wood for the stove which needs sorting and chopping.

The great thing about this idea was that we could use the trimmings from pruning the massively overgrown hedge as part of this plan as well as some of the sand from the sandpit; some of the rotten logs and kindling from the log-pile and some of the apple tree prunings.  

We could also start emptying our compost bins and use that. So as not to have to totally empty the sandpit we decided to do the conversion in 3 stages. 

The idea of mound gardens originated in China and is used a lot in Germany hence the name 'Hugelkultur' or German Mound   We started by clearing some of the sand to make a trench about one-foot deep.  This spare sand will be mixed with compost in containers and used for growing carrots and other veg.

We then piled up woody material such as small branches, hedge cuttings and apple tree prunings.  This makes a porous core which enables air and water to circulate freely.  
We used rotten logs from the log-pile that were not going to burn well, followed by smaller twigs and then the fresh hedge trimmings.

We covered the hedge trimmings with compost from the compost bins and started the middle section.

Having discovered a big bag of well-rotted chicken poo we decided that could be used as well. So the first two sections got a good dose of chicken manure on top of the hedge trimmings.

This isn't the conventional way that a German Mound is made but in true permaculture-style we used what was easily available at the time.  The worms seemed happy enough!!

We then moved all the sand left in the sandpit on top of the first two sections and started phase three.  Again rotten wood and apple tree prunings made the base.  Followed by hedge trimmings straight from the hedge.

Then compost bin compost and sand to cover the whole lot.  At this point it just looks like the sand-pit we started with earlier in the day until we finished it off with some bagged compost we had lying around in the garden.

Now I just need to get some squashes, courgettes and maybe asparagus seedlings growing so I can transplant them and see what happens.