I finished my first layered bed and planted buckwheat and amaranth just before the first day of spring arrived. The buckwheat will be cut down before it seeds (cover crop, green manure) but the amaranth I’ll use as a summer green and maybe feed the grain to the chickens. The layers were very earthy and soil-like, mostly: cardboard, then composted wood chips, roots, and sandy soil, five or six wheelbarrow loads. Then came about the same volume of muck from the chicken coop, including well-rotted straw, more cardboard, and another five or six loads of mixed deciduous and evergreen mulch from the woods. The bed is about 10 x 12 feet. We hope to plant High Summer vegetables there.

The next bed has just the cardboard and wood chip mulch so far. It’s more like six by fourteen and we envision it being ready for brassicas in late July or early August, the plants that never get in the ground because the summer crops are producing so well you don’t want to pull any out to make space.

Also, just before the rains came, I planted small seeds in a tiny bed about two by four or five feet: icicle radishes, spinach, danvers carrots and bunching onions (mixed), red beets, and romaine.

Then I came home and cooked, thinking how resistant I can be to change. I’ve gotten used to my winter routine of bitter greens, root vegetables, beans, bread, and citrus from Florida and Texas. Now I’m starting to work with fresh local parsley again, and could probably have local kale and other greens if I looked for it. Soon we’ll be eating lots of salads, berries, spinach, and tiny beets.