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where to start?

Where do you start, when there’s everything to do? I’ll start with some pictures…

the homestead site

This is the homestead site – about half an acre of relatively clear space. From the little I’ve read about permaculture so far, what I should do first is nothing: just watch and wait to see what happens naturally. But I also know that I’d like to start growing my own veg, and eating it this year. The seeds are already starting to arrive… Lovely corn and beans, squash, zucchini, tomatoes: the three sisters survival pack from seed living. So one task I’d set myself for Sunday was to prepare some raised beds. Not that I’ll grow everything in raised beds, but…

discarded old tires

… I have a number of old tyres lurking around the site. Here are two tractor tyres as I found them – one of them is somehow leaning against a sapling; and there’s a third not visible in this shot. They’re all about 4.5′ in external diameter, and while that’s not huge, it’s good enough for raised bed frames, I reckon.

tyres in a new place

These guys are fairly heavy, so I rolled them only as far as I needed to get them into a sunny, open spot. Here they are, in a triskell arrangement, just in front of the only old building still sporting some kind of roof. (Where it overhangs on the outside, I’ve started a wood pile!) Two of the tyres still have a metal inner ring, which bothered me a bit, until I found a site with great advice on using tyres in your garden. (I *love* the internet!) Next week I’ll cut the sidewalls out of these tyres, and finish clearing the ground inside them. For now, it’s partially cleared with some old grain sacks (again found on site) covering the earth to help prohibit new growth.

I also did a bit more clearing up because I kept noticing more and more old bottles and cans, and – weird! – groups of socks knotted together. What’s that about? I’m also a little worried about one of the oldest trees on the site. It’s a beautiful old tree – I’m attached to it already – but it’s dripping water. I can’t tell what kind of tree it is yet without leaves to help identify it, but it may have insect damage… small holes in the area where it’s dripping. And yes, they look D-shaped, so I’m really worried that it might have some borer beetle infestation.

close up of the dripping tree

There are three or four holes visible here if you look carefully (Click on the picture to see full size, and then you can probably zoom in further). I couldn’t capture the dripping in photos, or even that this section of the tree is damp all the way to the ground. But it is. I’ll keep an eye on this. If anyone has any idea what might be happening, please leave a comment.

lovely old tree

And here’s a pic of the whole tree. The ladder is part of an old hunter’s stand, but makes me think of tree houses!

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wow, finally!

How to start this… words almost fail me. Despite how much has happened this week, I’ve managed only a few tweets, and I don’t think they were particularly informative. I’m definitely, *definitely* happy, but also a little stunned and amazed that finally, FINALLY, after five months of waiting, I have managed to buy my woodland with its tumble-down homestead! I think it became officially mine at about 3 PM on Wednesday afternoon. It was a lovely day as well – gorgeous, warm weather for the hour’s drive to the lawyer’s office where the sale was being closed. The closing itself was a happy occasion – not just because I’ve waited so long, but because the lawyer, his paralegal, and the rep from Farm Credit were all friendly, cheerful people, and seemed really happy for me. I mean I know they were making money from the deal, but still, I had a good time while I signed my life away. And then I drove straight back to work.

Now it’s Friday, I’m sitting in front of my wood-burning stove with a glass of fizzy in hand, and it seems like a good time to celebrate a little, and work out what to do next. I plan to go up this weekend, probably on Sunday when it should have stopped raining, and walk around the homestead area, looking for the sunniest places with the best water drainage to begin my vegetable garden. It’s my birthday on Monday, and I am very tempted to pitch a tent and wake up in the forest on Monday morning, but we’ll see… I’ve already signed up for the Mother Earth News Vegetable Garden Planner, and I’m looking forward to playing with that. My dad – who has beautifully arranged, and very prolific, raised beds Versailles would be proud of (see, I do have a genetic predisposition to this gardening thing) – has given me a shopping list of items I’ll need to plan the beds out on the ground. My mum and I like the idea of reusing an old tractor tyre for a raised bed for the herb garden, but dad likes things to have perfectly squared off corners. Hmm… I’ve also been reading about “three sisters” planting – corn, beans and pumpkins all in the same bed, but at different levels. This *really* appeals to me, and not just because it’s from Native American tradition. Will have to see if the Garden Planner can cope with a layered arrangement like that.

But I can’t plant anything till I have a deer fence up. If I had more cash right now, I’d pay someone to fence in the whole homestead area, but I think I’ll start smaller (thanks Eric M., for your wise words there) and fence a smaller, starter garden area only. I’ll work out how to fence that myself, so Eric, you know what you said about borrowing your pick-up…? The two pieces of kit I’d like to buy soon – in addition to the fence – are a rain barrel and a compost container of some kind. When I walk around the old homestead buildings on Sunday, I’m going to look for likely areas to place a rain barrel. The old cow barn may have a sloping roof – if I attach a gutter and down pipe to that, we could be in business!

Phew, and did I mention at any point that I have a day job?? Time for another glass of fizzy…