Mulch!

Rick C was able to get some chips, so we started spreading mulch around the orchard. We put newspaper down first.

Rick C. wheels in another barrowful. We cut a nice edge up to the "glen" and plan to work our way out to encompass all the orchard area.

We ran the chipline right up into the flowerbeds. This gives us a nice clean edge.

Afterward we relaxed. It's hard to tell, but we put chips all under the rug area. This makes it much better for drainage. Plus, we got to move a lot of the chips in without having to dig out that much grass. It's gonna go a bit slower from here, but we have easily half the pile of chips left.

In farm news, the potatoes are sprouting nicely.

And the herbs around the rose bush are thriving. The borage in particular has survived the winter and begun to flower.

The cherry tree is showing some nice fruit sets. We need to put some cds or mylar tape up to scare away the birds. They can have the very top cherries, but not ALL of them.

The grapes are nicely trained up to the fence top. They still need work, but they are focused where they can get the most sun.

This shot has my foot in it for scale, to show just how closely lettuce plants can be set. We can easily get 4 across, set on 1-foot centers (or even a bit tighter). This allows a lot of lettuces in a small space. These are the blushed butters.

We sheared this bit of mesculn, and had enough lettuce for 4 huge chef salads.

This is the only bit of red cabbage that headed up, and it wasn't impressive.