October – November 2024
We started to prepare the indigo + dye plants garden soil preparation in 2024 Autumn. With a help from Ingo, we cleared out the weeds in the plot and plowed the soil so they are softer and roots from the weeds are broken. Then Joel made a big effort to dig 1m x 1m hole in the middle of the plot to make Högelbeet. We filled it with green and brown plant matters, then soil to make Högel. As this was the fallen leaves time, then I covered the whole plot with fallen leaves. This is to keep the soil warm during the winter, and prevent weed plants to come out in the spring.
March 2025
Since November I have been collecting my bio trash in the kitchen to make Bokashi compost. This was already filed by the end of January and waited in room temperature for one month. It looks still food-like but now it is ready to go into the soil and compost further for one month before it is ready to be used as compost. I made a deep hole (maybe 50cm deep?) and pour the content of the bucket. Few people who had experience making bokashi told me that some animals like to dig out and eat not finished Bokashi, so I tried to make the hole as deep as I could. I plan to then dig out the compost afterwards and spread it more evenly in the field.
April 2025
After the winter, the plot looks like this. Some weeds/plants came through the fallen leaves layer but not as much as where nothing was covering. Most of the green leaves are dandelions and crocuses.
27. April 2025
Finally super nice sunny warm day at Eli. At Mitmachtag we have been busy preparing the beet with compost and bio fertilizer and planting seeds and seedlings. Apples are blooming and some earlier planted vegetables are already getting big.
I decided to take out the weeds from the color garden plot we plan to plant, move the pulled-out-weed heap I made last year (which made a big root fiber felt, rather than composting) to prepare for our planting session in 2 weeks. As it rained for few days this week, the ground is soft and it is easy to take out the weeds.
Here are photos of some of the weeds I found on the plot. They are also nice plants, and I felt a bit sorry to pull them out. On the other hand, it was a nice feeling to clear out the space and make it ready for the Persicaria Tinctoria seedlings.
Removing the fulled-out grass heap from the last year was very painful work. Originally we thought we can place them inside the soil and let it compost… Rene told us that it is a bad idea as there are a lot of seeds mixed in and it will grow new grass/weed in the place we do not want it to be. Now I see the problem. there are a lot of grass coming out on the top and inside is all roots fibers tangling with each other. It does not look like it composted at all. There are more dry root fibers than soil in this heap. I manage to pull all out and remove it. I am very happy that I finished this business now.
This is the preliminary planning of how the Persicaria Tinctoria will be planted in the 4m x 4m field. In theory we need 135 plants.
May 10.
I, Madlen and Joel spontaneously decided to work on the field and prepare the soil with more compost. First we took out all the weeds and removed the fallen leaves that was covering the soil. Then we added 8x wheelbarrow of compost to the field. we spread it so it covers the land overall.