Compost Gathering for Farm Day

"Farm Days" have been a bit less instructional lately, we spent the past 2 weeks cleaning out the pond behind the kitchen, and getting the seating area opened up. Kenneth built some more outdoor seating, which has a great ocean view, and we discovered is fantastic for movie nights. This past week we spent some time on compost gathering- nitrogen layers, carbon layers, and what I call the 'special sauce' the dessert for a compost pile (worm castings, mushroom fungi, aged manure, finished compost, humus, leaf-mold, or anything else rich and high in microbial activity. We explored "banana lane" a forest of banana trees, papayas, gingers and tropical flowers with a rich forest floor full of great compost-materials.

We then spent a couple of hours in the garden together, building beds, harvesting compost, planting another section of peanut grass, widening the pathways out of the garden, and pruning some trees around the garden. The team then split up into two groups, and Johnny gave his team a lesson in weedwacking, and chili pepper planting. My group stayed up in the garden and learned about pest prevention techniques, ground-covers, the proper way to harvest a purple sweet potato, and got a tour of the garden edibles. We followed with a big Root-Bake of squash, purple sweet potato, beets, turnips, potatoes, garlic and onions over quinoa....and Marlena and Lisa have been treating us all with home-made pesto from the garden. September has been Delicious...