New Year Project

 

When we put in this fence line last year, it was intended to give the deer a sense of boundary. To make life easier for both the deer and me, I planted raspberry starts all along the fence line. This attempt to bribe the deer to eat from "their" raspberries and leave mine alone didn't work at all.  Since this line got overrun with weeds, they preferred the nicely trimmed main raspberry patch, and I ended up picking the berries buried in the weeds.  So, this is what it looked like after a year of neglect. Opportunistic weeds like grass, Alder trees, comfrey, foxglove, creeping buttercup, and many more had developed a very hard sod/weed base all along the fence.  The only wire I had put on the fence was a single line of wire to kind of trellis the raspberries.  I really can't stand weeds, so I began clearing the weeds off this fence line and creating a new area adjacent to the main garden for another Hugelkultur mound. We are going to put a more serious fence outside the mound. This side of the garden is the main entry point for deer, raccoons, rabbits, etc. and I'm hoping a better fence will solve some of the problems of critters in the garden.

I began working on clearing the weeds about a month ago. Weather only allowed me to work on it periodically. I realized quickly that I would need a lot more mulch to complete the project, so I ordered another 15 yards of mulch.

I should finish the fence line weeding today, and then I can start on the fun project of installing the actual fence line on the other side of the new garden area.  I'm trying to transition the garden into more of a raspberry thing - I know raspberries do well no matter the weather so why fight to grow more exotic plants that may only do well in a "tomato" year? I may have to open a U-Pick for raspberries. 

I'm also trying to transition to more of a mulch covered food forest and less of a row crop tilled garden.