stolen tools,anthill garden

STOLEN TOOLS

last week the site where the habitat for humanity is building
a house had its tool trailer broken into and several hundreds of
dollars of tools were stolen from the shed

luckily they had insurance on it but there is a high deductible
that needs to be covered
if you have a few bucks you can donate to help this worthy
cause go to the habitats website and donate online
some people are donating $5 or $10 or $15

sure hope those thieves get whats coming to them
bad karma
also i hope they got the nail gun with the short in it and the one
that jams all the time
hope it catches fire when they use it

ANTHILL GARDEN
first there was raised garden beds then
square foot gardens then
keyhole gardens then
now we have what i call the anthill garden

the austin paper had an article about this the last weekend
here is the link to that article on the anthill garden

i call it the anthill garden cuz thats what it looks like
a row of anthills like you see in africa

the official name is hugelkultur
looks german to me

first you take logs and line them up along your bed lengthwise
some people dig a trench to put them in or dig the beds down
1+- feet
on top of these logs you add sightly larger limbs
on top of these add twigs and leaves
on top of this do layers of leaves compost dirt
on the very top layer add several inches of top soil
and build it up to about 3 feet

how this all works is that the logs and limbs slowly decompose
over a long time and gradually release nutrients to the soil
the logs provide carbon and the compost provides nitrogen
these logs and limbs also hold moisture in them

this mound or anthill helps hold moisture in our dry conditions
we seemed to have developed here in central texas

i plan on taking one of my 4ft x 12ft beds and
dig out my soil to 1.5 feet
add rows of logs from the trees that have died on my property
from the drought the last 2 years
add layers of limbs and twigs
then add layers of newspapers over that and then layers of
compost and dirt with a top icing
of good country n soil

i think this year ill plant my tomatoes in these mounds or anthill
rows and see what happens

viel gluck

the organicgreen doctor