Spiral Garden 1.0

I'm going to title this "Spiral Garden 1.0" because I anticiapte a few iterations / updates of this project.

David & Solar Bob laying down seaweed

The spiral garden is the brainchild of Cassie.  In the intern village area, there's a lot of unused land with exceptionally poor soil in the middle behind the teepee in front of our kitchen yurt. Cassie wanted to convert the soil in to rich, nutritious soil that could be used to grow crops.  David had been reading up on Lasagna Gardening, so they decided to use this method to treat and repair the damaged, sun-leached soil.

Cassie sectioned off a circle ~36 feet in diameter and fenced it in.  Next, Brittany began transporting muck (aka freshwater seaweed) from our pond as the first layer of the lasagna.  She laid the seaweed out in a spiral pattern and soon after the rest of the crew began adding layer upon layer of various organic materials that would decompose and 'cook' down, creating a stew of nutrient-dense soil ready to be planted.

Brandon busted out the weed chopper to cut the weeds (mostly grass and plantain, which is actually not a weed in my book) so that it was flat and clean between the raised beds they were building.

The various layers they used, in order:

freshwater seaweed
grass clippings / weeds
fresh goat manure
cardboard
dried leaves
partially decomposed straw
fresh straw
biochar
seabird guano (aka bird droppings)
stable bedding

The raised beds should be about 14" tall by the time all of those layers have been added.

Holy S*hit!

I can't tell you how long this all took, but it was much longer than anyone anticipated.  It wasn't uncommon to see an intern or volunteer working well into dinner still wheeling goat manure and shovelling it into the bed.

They aren't done quite yet.  They're in the process of layering on the dirt.  After that comes compost then mulch and then they are done.  Well, then they'll have to plant, but that's the fun part right?  But that comes after they allow their compost cocktail to marinate for just the right amount of time.

I'll keep you posted.