Wintry temperatures at last! Evenings dipping into the 20s and days barely above 40. The water in the hugelkultur trench finally receded, the ground was firm enough to walk upon dry-shod, and I’d cleared and sorted most of the brush pile. The birds will have plenty, even after I’ve bundled enough branches into composite logs … More To Capture the Water, Heal the Soil…
Well, the berm is begun…and experience is teaching me that the day after torrential rainstorms is perhaps not the best time for serious digging. One way and another, you could say yesterday’s backbreaking work was a sighting shot for a project that will take more than a weekend to complete. I pushed my spade into … More Impermeable Soil, eh?
One of my most puzzling memories as a child was that of an occasional Baltimore A-rabber going through the streets hawking not fruit, but Tooop-Sooooill! Why in heaven’s name would anyone need topsoil, I wondered, looking at the manicured lawns on our street. The grass was growing in dirt, it seemed very happy (most of the … More The Secret Under the Grass
Partner the Water 