Those of you who have been following us since our 2014 beginning will remember what our field looked like when we first got started.

Thank goodness and lots of work, that is no more. Ron had a vision from the beginning.  He started out by reaching out to our farmer friend, Dick Crane to have  cover crops sown, season after season.  It is amazing to see how much good a few months of winter rye and buckwheat can do for the health of a piece of ground.   Not only knocking down the golden rod and other weeds, but adding nutrients to the soil.  And Ron was just getting started.  Since my plan to hire a small herd of goats was just not going to work as they would eat everything in sight, it was left to hard work to get our field ready to use.

Our first clearing efforts were done in order to plant garlic.  Lots of tilling and rock picking involved with that effort.  Then came yards and yards of landscape cloth and rows cleared for pawpaws and elderberries.  More rock picking.  Tired of that already.

Two rows of Ron’s pink pussy willows were the next thing we planted, but the largest project measured by field space was prepping for and planting our lavender plants.  This time Ron wanted to do all he (we) could to cut down on weeds between the rows of lavender.  So we put down 12 foot wide landscape cloth for the planting and then 4 foot wide cloth between those rows.  So, hopefully no weeds.

It will be a few seasons before we see how successful we are.  Both in growing lavender and keeping the weeds at bay.

Then it was time to tackle the weeds growing around our fruit trees.  We had left over cloth from the lavender project and decided to put it to good use.

Back to the parking lot and we used the chalk line to mark 1 foot squares, which we then cut out.  These were going to be used under the holes we had cut in the large pieces of cloth but had no plants on hand to fill them.  If we left things as they are, we would have weeds popping up through those 57 holes.  We cut enough to use around the pawpaws and pussy willows too.  Even though we had the cloth and lots of mulch, weeds are relentless.  They find any possible hole and just start growing.  And right though our layers of mulch too.

Ron cut a slit in each square and we fit them around the plants and tacked them down with staples, pulling all weeds as we went.

Signs of life from our pawpaws.  We decided to remove their protective cages now.   And hope for the best.  First sign of any deer chewing,  and the cages might make a re-appearance.

It does appear that a few of them did not survive the winter, but of the seven we have been keeping an eye on, three now have tiny green buds showing.   As this whole project has forced Jo, Ron and me to learn patience, we will bide our time and see what nature provides.

Ron has also decided that Jo will now be mower in chief.  And once again he is in his best role – instructor-in-chief.  He does love telling people what to do.