Here, at Florida Forest Gardens, we are super busy! We are well into our rainy season. I love Florida weather all year, but the rainy season is particularly lovely because everything grows so well.
I am heavily engaged in plant propagation and planting and in researching and applying all I can about soil fertility, particularly following the JADAM and Korean Natural Farming (KNF) methods.
Meanwhile, my son Josiah has been busy supporting my efforts, particularly through his building projects. He converted and upgraded a decades-old shed with a new roof and deck floor, a safe, dry place for storage. He also has built me two carport-style greenhouses. These structures are a long-term, temporary hub for the majority of our forest gardening projects.
Almost daily, we are receiving truckloads of tree mulch. The picture above, from this morning, shows what we have so far, about seven loads. That’s less than half of what we are planning to receive. The rain will help the mulch break down into fungal dominated soil. That is exactly what we want in a forest garden. Wheelbarrow load, by wheelbarrow load, we will spread that on top of what Josiah spread last year. In doing so, he found some basketball sized clumps of mycelium which he made sure to break apart and place strategically around the property underneath various wheelbarrow loads.
Every truckload of tree mulch translates into many wheelbarrow loads, and that translates into our objective: continuing to build soil fertility, load by load.
This has been a quick update. In future blogs and other writings, I will include more detail about our projects and the development of our business, Florida Forest Gardens, LLC.