MAKING BEDS.

I've had this idea for a while, but something about Jean-Martin Fortier's excellent book The Market Gardener ––which I mentioned last week in a post––gave me the inspiration needed to try it.The idea is this: I wanted to make permanent raised beds, much like JM, but I wanted to place the fertility underneath those beds––Hugel bed style. Also, I wanted to do it by hand. I'll explain.How it works is that there will be seven beds in total, and following JM's lead, these beds will ultimately be 30" wide, 18" apart. First I pull back the mulch, loosen the beds with our broadfork, and shovel the dirt to one side––leaving an 18" trench, about 8-10" deep.I then take that mulch, pull it back into the trench and pack it full. Like full full. So full that if you walk on it, it's still above the soil surface. If I had small square bales, I might just make the trench large enough to put use those end on end.Then I use our grubbing hoe to pull the dirt back over the mulch. To finish the bed, I go back on each side and pull the dirt up from the pathway, creating a trench and putting that dirt onto the bed as well. This raises the height and depth of the bed. The trench will remain as the pathway.My last order of business is to lightly mulch the bed as to create shade for worms, then I put old high tunnel plastic overtop to create warmth. My hope is to get weed seeds to germinate before our last freezes of the year, then pull the plastic off and let them die naturally. Come spring, I'll work the beds with a rake and plant.Of course, ideally I would have done this in the fall, because the beds will be best after several months. So I'm going to have to start by using crops without large taproots. No tomatoes or carrots in these beds probably this year––maybe by fall. Next year, I'll rotate the crops, and pull the dirt back up. But I don't think I'll add fertility. I don't think I'll need to.I should add that this has been extremely hard work––maybe even unsustainably so––so please get help if you try this. One person can do one 100' bed in one long, hard day. I wouldn't recommend more. Ultimately, it's an experiment, but I have faith it will work. And if it doesn't, you'll hear about it.- Jesse.

WHAT A BEAR.

After Further was born, Hannah didn't leave the house for two solid weeks. She stayed in the bed, or walked around the cabin, but she didn't actually step outside for that whole time.And one morning about a week and a half in, I went out to feed Wendell who was standing patiently on the porch as he always does. But as I opened the door Wendell pushed by me and stepped into the house. This was unusual.Wendell hates the house unless it's boiling hot or raining outside and even then, it's iffy. To him the house is where we dose him with natural flea medicine, or clean his ears. On this morning, however, Wendell fearlessly let himself in and went straight into the living room where Hannah was laying with Further. He sniffed Further and sniffed Hannah, then went back outside on his own and ate his food.I can't pretend to know what was going on in his head, but I love to think that he got worried when he hadn't seen Hannah in a while and decided to figure it out for himself.And it's not just this moment that I'm in awe of this dog––I'm in awe of him in general. He had such a tumultuous first couple years, moving from house to house and farm to farm, most of which were not ideal situations for his breed. It's a wonder he turned out as well as he did. Because he is indeed an excellent animal. He guards the house, he walks with us to the mailbox every day, hunts predators with me when they attack, and he checks on us when things change.Because Wendell's extraordinarily gentle with children––as if aware of his size and how intimidating he can be––we look forward to Further getting older and growing up with him. We're proud that Wendell will be Further's first dog, and confident he'll watch over him. We're one lucky family, and Wendell is one very important member of it.- Jesse.

TORN.

This week I attended a seminar with Jean-Martin Fortier, the author of The Market Gardener. My impetus for going was that JM makes over $100,000 a year per acre growing organic veggies, and it piqued my curiosity. Because to put that in perspective, we thought we were killing it by making $25,000 per acre.But there are several differences between what JM does and what we do, not the least of which is the equipment he uses. In the garden behind our house, Hannah and I don't use equipment. We use mulch to do our tilling, and a combination of rakes, broad forks and shovels to work up the soil if need be. In the big gardens that we farm with our neighbors, we use two different tractors. All JM uses is a small, but specific walking tractor which he utilizes to prepare, weed, and cultivate 30" permanent beds, growing almost as much food on one acre as we do on three. It's pretty impressive how productive this small machine can be, and it left at least 150 farmers at that seminar wanting one of these walking tractors. Honestly, I was not immune.More than anything, though, this left me torn. I want desperately to farm like JM. It speaks to me on an ineffable level to be that productive. Then there's the closet prepper side of me who wants to prepare myself and my family and my farm for a post-petroleum world, and not invest in oil-based machinery. Even if it looks really, really fun and really, really profitable. I want to be spending my time one day soon learning to use draft animals. Or figuring out a version of his system that can be done by hand. I may be able to talk Eric and Cher into implementing some of his practices in the big gardens, but really, without the specific machinery, it doesn't work the same. And I feel I want to start working away from more machinery, not towards it.Truth be told, his book and that seminar has put me at a sort of crossroads. Because it's not just about the money. That dude feeds an unreal amount of people, and I want that, too. He builds soil. He increases organic matter and sequesters carbon, he doesn't honestly use very much fuel, but still. He does use fuel.So, what's the answer? Is the answer to stay the course, work ourselves to death making a quarter of the money, feeding a quarter of the amount of people per acre? Or is it to implement some of his methods and make it work, fossil fuel dependance be dammed? I honestly have no idea, but I do know this, my idealism has officially met it's match.- Jesse.

WARMTH.

I never valued warmth very much growing up. Warmth was just there, or it wasn't. And I didn't think much about where it came from or that one warmth could be different from another. I just adjusted the thermostat accordingly and went about my business.Now, however, without a thermostat, I have to employ several different heats throughout a day, and I have learned to value their individual nuances. The heat of the sun, for instance, is a completely different monster than the heat of the wood stove. (And of course every individual wood has its own type of heat as well.) Then there's heat created by friction, rubbing your hands together, say, or using a splitting maul. There is body heat, like that of your baby and wife––or that of yourself, trapped in by the right clothes. Then of course the heat created by bacteria in a compost pile––that's a unique heat.With electricity or propane heat it's hard to experience these different heats throughly. And although I was aware of each before moving off-grid, I hadn't learned to value them like I do now. I hadn't learned how much better a sweet potato tastes when it's baked in a wood stove. Or how much better a sun dried tomato is when actually dried in the sun. When you're cold and away from a fire, I hadn't realized how warm hard work will keep you. And when you're chilly but too lazy to get out of bed and stoke the fire, how much relief can be brought by curling up a little closer to your wife and infant son.Warmth is no longer just there or not there to me. It's everywhere and it's wonderful. Or it's missing and I'm paying for it. Either way, it's a tool that we use a lot. And like any tool it can be good or bad, the right tool or the wrong tool. Of course, come summer, it will be about cool not warmth. But the same rules apply––I'll take a dip in the creek over air-conditioning any day.- Jesse.