As we near winter, it’s time to manage the cuttings and dead plant debris from the garden. Usually, I throw it over the wire fence along the creek. I came up with the idea of expanding an area adjacent to the chicken coop. It was a raised bed with two butterfly bushes overgrowing with periwinkle and blackberries. Time to make a change.

I started this project by removing rocks and replanting the butterfly bushes. On Tuesday, 12/15 I started removing the big pile of soil and putting it into the chicken coop. The chickens loved having new soil. This dirt in not viable for planting, meaning there are no worms in it.

Wednesday, 12/16, I started on the creek hillside and started pulling out weeds to expand the space. I dug out the wire and t-stakes to open it up.

There’s an old river rock stairway leading down to Love Creek that the former owner built. I’m enjoying uncovering it again!

I shook the gate post and it was pretty rotten so I removed it.

Once I got the wire open and the stakes removed, I could shovel out the dirt to build up the hillside. I dug out a lot of dirt today, Friday, 12/18. There is so much soil built up in front of the garden gates that won’t open anymore from chickens scratching around.

By 2:00pm, I re-staked the area and added wire to enclose the area. I added at least 6 feet deep and 12 feet wide.

In this new space for the compost bins, I’ll be building four 5x5x4 “bins” – two in the front and two in the back. Tomorrow, I’ll continue digging out the dirt in front of the redwood garden gate to get the doors open and make it level. I plan to use some leftover locust limbs to add another planter bed. Hopefully, I can also get the 9 posts cemented in place tomorrow.

I have a pile of used wood that I want to re-purpose before the winter rains. I realized that I have a limited number of 2×6 old deck boards and no 4×4 posts since we won’t use pressure treated in the organic garden. It dawned on me to use the locust posts in the horse corral. The posts used to be an outdoor camping bed for the former owner and then a play structure for our goats. It’s perfect! Each night, I’m digging out the posts for this project.

Two more locust posts to remove in the horse corral. Then, once they are gone, I can give the horses their Christmas presents, two street sweeper brushes.