This bed has changed a lot in the past five years. Kirk tilled it for me with the tractor in our second year here, in 2019. He had removed the evergreen trees that were sprinkled on the land down low in 2018, leaving many craters behind.
I covered it with farm fabric and set to work.
Its first year was as a trial bed for strawberry plants. Fenced off from the deer. The orchard was to the left.
Eventually, the two areas would become one, and I’d install full fencing 6 feet high.
Then, in 2020:
With our Pandemic Chickens, we bought a coop and installed it where there was fencing. My strawberry bed lasted till mid-summer and the birds became adults. They would live there until the end of summer of 2023.
Eventually, I moved the chickens out, and it became a nothing zone. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with it. I let it rest over fall and winter.
This spring, I decided that, with it being a chicken area, the soil would be very rich. So I weeded it and tilled it up, using a light tiller, to just open up the top inches of soil.
We laid out the fabric on the edges to suppress weeds and pinned it down amply.
I kept extending the fabric. We have a real issue with Stinging Nettle under the peach and pear trees. The chickens had pushed it down, but it returned once they were moved.
I added in 3 hog panels, with each one being held up with two T-posts. These will be used for growing cucumbers, beans, and such, which need about 3 feet of height to grow.
I still have plenty of rocks to move, to fill the walkways. In a month it will look so different.
~Sarah