This last week, I have been very productive, both on the land I live and also on a friends land, where I helped them plant some tree's along with others from our Collective's gardening group. I have moved past the point of attending regular meetings and now I just want to do. So every second Friday, the gardening group visit's someone's garden and helps them out.
But before that I made some more progress on the compost toilet. If you remember I had dug a huge hole, which you can see above. But unfortunately, one side of the wall had collapsed, so I needed to build it up again. My friend came on Thursday and we spend the morning building a dry wall. It was my first time to do so and I must say I really enjoyed it. I had already dug out a lot of big stones, but I had to find more suitable ones, ones which were flat. Luckily, there is loads on the land. So off I went with the Wheelbarrow.
I got so into it, that I forgot to take more photos. It's like a huge jigsaw really. My friend had made walls like this before, so I am very grateful to have had him on hand to give me some direction. This wall, will act as a supporting wall for the toilet. I could have used a pallet, but there were so many stones available and when building, it is always best to use what you already have. A wonderful permaculture principle that I like to follow.
You can see the difference between the old wall and the new one we build. I will be working on the old one in the next few days to make sure it will stand standing. The rain finally arrived here this weekend, so I have not yet had time to work on it. But tomorrow the sun returns so I plan to get more done. This is such a great skill to have, I was super impressed with how it turned out and made a point of showing it to all my friends who have since come to visit me.
I couldn't resist another photo of our handy work. It looks just as good as the original one. The land I am on, is made up of six terraces so it is a skill that I know I will put to good use to again.
Then it was onto my friends place, to help them plant some trees on their land. I have planted quite a few trees in my time, but I love when I get to learn about new methods, or tips. They use permaculture techniques as well and recently a local goat herder asked them if they had any use for some sheep's wool. Of course they did, as mulch for their trees. Using wool, will help to protect the soil, by keeping it at a constant temperature and also by helping to hold moisture in, on the hot summer days.
We had also added some manure to the soil, and after making sure that the wool was not actually touching the tree, we covered it with off cuttings from some of the other trees on the land and then finally covered that all with wood chip. It gets cold here in the night still so it's important to protect the roots. Then when the summer comes the heat can be relentless, so water retention and helping to keep the soil cool is so important.
When we were digging up the manure, we found this very impressive grub. It was huge. I love insects, I've always been fascinated by them and I was thrilled to get to meet this guy. We put him back in the pile, so that he could get back to work, helping ti break the manure down. I love to be in the garden by myself, but there is also something magical about working with others, chatting away, each of us lifting the spirits of the other. I look forward to our next garden meet up.
