Friday, July 24, 2009

Polyculture Updates

I cut down the tomato plants today and chopped them up, then laid them in place on the ground. I took down the stone wall in the garden bed, because I noticed that the tomatoes, sunflowers, holy basil, morning glories, and cucumber plants all had trouble growing. they turned yellow and white and did not seem healthy or vigorously growing. It could be because of the lime leaching into the soil. When I took the stones out, I noticed that the lettuce roots were holding onto the rocks. They grew much better than the plants that yellowed, but were closer to the stones (I think they are limestone, I gathered them from the creek and they have been disintegrating since I built the wall). I filled in the path with finished, bagged compost from Calloway's trash, then covered with straw and hay. I will plant things here, and then put flat stones around the area to step on.