The worm bed

My new garden plot has been covered since early last summer with heavy black pastic and a thick mulch of the year’s NYTimes sunday papers. With our warm weekend, I was able to get out to see how things were going out there. Holy cow, do I have an amazing amount of worms! Our best buddies were loving the arrangement and I realized that tilling the whole area (about 10’x35′) might not be a good idea. It would cut up all my red, squiggly pals. So the answer is hand digging. 

Now for you lazy slackers, this is not that hard. The soil out there is incredibly soft. It’s not wet, it’s full of good loam and most of the deeply rooted grasses have already been broken down by the efficient compost worms. This yard backed up to a horse farm about 47 years ago when the house was first built. And Chester County has some of the best soil in the world. 

So I’m pretty happy. I plan to go back out later this week to plant potatoes and peas. In the meantime, check out the Salatin Polyface farm videos about how they integrate their livestock and farm techniques.

Here’s Joel Salatin talking about the reasons he’s a farmer. ‘We’re in the business of redemption’.- JS.

 

Vendana Shiva talking about women centered agriculture…