#theyre hugelkultur beds for gardening :)

[nururu]

prepping shallow graves for my enemies

[road-kill-eater]

the quail babies are about half the size of the adults already and i hatched out 22 on my first ever attempt at incubating and the incubation time for them is 16-18 days. i was lazy and didnt put the next batch of eggs in the incubator until about 5 days ago but so long as i get a hatch rate higher than the days it takes to incubate im still doing well since the goal is to feed my dog (and to a lesser degree myself) a good diet i can actually afford without worrying about the lack of regulation for dog foods and the constant constant callbacks and “oh this will actually give your dog a horrible disease or condition, try the next brand and hope that in a month it doesnt have a callback for 70x the amount of a vitamin to the point where it poisons dogs”

plus the quail waste and soiled bedding makes my compost break down super fast cuz it attracted a bunch of thermophilic bacteria. wherever i put that compost i can literally see the plants get way greener and grow better than ones that havent had compost applied

the next step forwards is using that compost to grow enough crops like buckwheat, amaranth, sunflowers, winter rye, peas etc to feed the quail so im not buying feed (its cheap at least) and using food scraps to grow mealworms to supplement their protein. and i can use the dried plant stalks instead of straw so i dont have to worry about pesticides in the straw (which there almost certainly is so i need to see if i cant get either some mycelium from my local shaggy mane patch to inoculate my compost or use the oyster mushroom plugs ive got since mushrooms break down a lot of those harmful compounds into more benign compounds)

the only problem is that my hugelkulture beds are still young and it we had so little rain and so many heat waves this spring it caused a lot of my plants to bolt and fried so many of my seedlings which did a number on my motivation. other than layering on more mulch and compost all i can do is buy trees to shade the garden since it will only get hotter and hotter and hotter.... but trees are SO expensive. theyre a great investment and crucial if i want to create a proper food forest but its usually like 20-30 per tree like i guess ill start stealing cuttings from peoples yards but its tough to get them started

[kissmymongoose]

Its gonna be 32°F Tuesday so ill have to cover some plants. Its looking like its only gonna have time for a light frost, however, im really not wanting to lose any more plants. Ive got 4+ beds to cover that night. The fruit trees and such will be fine, but the nasturtiums were really sensitive to cold. I let adpn put 2 squash seeds in the ground just to see if they sprout, so ill have to cover that bed too, just in case. My newest blueberry would probably be fine, but since its so tender, ill be putting a wire cage around it and some layers of pine straw. Same with the elderberries, cause theyre just starting to send out a lot of new growth. The figs will of course have to go back in those nights. But i want to allow them to get used to more extreme weather than they are used to. Theyll be going in the ground right around easter. My dad and my uncle are getting one each and ill have 2. I will be planting them behind and on the side of my aframe cold house. Im ready to get it set up. Ill have to level out the ground some where I want to put it, but I think ill end up with some nice levels around it. I want it to be slightly higher behind the a frame (no problem on a hill) so i can add flowers around it and around the figs. I may put it slightly higher than i had originally planned, just to open up everything more in the midst of the garden. I think the a frame shold be spaced far enough that I could incorporate beds bordering the pathway to it. I have a lot of ideas rolling around in my head. I want to make a mainly ornamental shade garden in the lowest part of the garden. Something bordering the smaller entrance paths. Theres a slightly raised naturally formed hugelkulture mound that I would love to interplant with flowers and shade loving plants down there. I think itll make the garden seem more expansive than it is. A main focus i have as well, is keeping the edibles distinguished from the non edibles. Although ive taught my kids what is safe to eat or not, and although they do very well to identify the edibles, id rather not leave room for mistakes. Gwen and adon both can identify sassafrass, ripe berries of different kinds, some edible flowers, and a lot more. Im really proud of them. Guess i need to check the weather, and then the garden.