Getting Ready for 2011 at GCF

Over the past couple months we've begun our expansion projects at Garfield Community Farm for the 2011 growing season. Each fall, after the bulk of the harvest is over, we begin the major work of expanding our gardens for the following season. This year we're working on expanding our orchard and starting a spiral herb garden in a new section of the our three acres. The orchard space has only seven trees now, all dwarf apples or cherries. We've piled about wheel barrow of compost and fertilizer where about twelve new trees will be planted in the spring. The compost decomposes further and leeches much of it's nutrients into the soil where the tree will go. In the spring we'll dig the whole and incorporate the compost. The spiral herb garden will be a large permaculture garden with many medicinal and culinary herbs, mostly perennials. This space will be calm space at the farm, mirroring the beauty of a natural spiral. So far the teams that have worked with us have moved tons, literally, of decomposed wood chips into the space where we'll layer soil and compost in the spring. The wood chips are used all over the farm. They decompose and create great top soil over time. The fungi that grows throughout the wood chips act beneficially with any plants we grow in the garden.