This week's farm update: Surviving the big storm and thriving

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(A stick bug I found on one of the potted plants this morning.

Wednesday night I finally got the rain the land needs and I had been hoping for. It was a nice thunderstorm and a few hours of rain. The wind was quite heavy too but the farm faired well and everything worked as it should I am very happy with all the sweat we put into the layout.

For the areas of the land that we have worked so far with two swales and about 20 beds the rain water was absolutely captured and stored back into the earth. There was little running water on the surface of the farm.

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The second swale did a a great job of catching some rain water and the evidence of the puddle can be seen and it absorbed cleanly in the soil. Any top soil and nutrients eroded out of the bed end up here and can be re-distributed.

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There were a few high spots in the bottom of the swale which can now clearly be identified with the water line from the puddle.

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The beds will remain permanent in this system. Each season we we will hoe the pathways and pick up any nutrient rich soil plus broken down mulch and add it to the beds again. But the core of the beds will remain untouched. This is a till less method of farming.

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All of the above photos were taken the morning after the rain storm. The ground was still very soft and muddy in places.

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30 hours after the storm everything is still looking good and moist.

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You can see here how great of a job the mulched swale is doing at keeping the moisture in the soil. You can see the moisture in the soil here just above the mulch.

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Some water melon seedlings coming up.

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Litting green babies are popping up everywhere in the shaded seed bed.

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I believe these are cucumber seedlings that are looking strong.

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The whole place will be very alive soon.

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Last night the sunset was amazing.

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Tonight I started a new seed bed near the water tap in the hotel so I will not be so reliant on the rain to get some good healthy seedlings start.

Thanks for letting me share my success with you making through the first major storm, storing that rain water in the land and seeing the signs of life popping up everywhere.

Shot with a Huawei Y7 Prime



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2 comments
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oh water melon, it is a difficult plant. Needs special care too, no need to much water and ohhh I think it is hard for me when planting watermelon

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Yes I think they do very well if you just leave them alone. I have seen them come up in the strangest places. A planting bed we made at the beach once, and just the other day I saw one with water melons on it on a pile of construction sand. Lets see how it goes. I am not doing any active irrigation yet so too much watering wont be a problem unless it rains a lot and I will take that for the other plants. I will need to figure out some water as we transition into the dry season in December.

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