"Breaking" Ground

After some stops and starts, we've gotten down to business. We've marked out the location of the fence for the food forest and started to place cardboard in the areas that will hold the in-ground raised beds. We need to cover up the grass and weeds in the field to naturally kill them off. First layer is cardboard. I went to my local Costco a couple of days in a row and completely filled my trunk with cardboard sheets. So great! The first time the staff was happy to get me set up, but the second day I tried a different location and they were much less helpful. So I went back to the first and with a few phone calls they agreed to stack a flatbed for me and have it ready when they opened. I'm grateful they were so kind and willing to help out.

After the cardboard was laid out, we brought in 7 yards of 'hog fuel' to hold it down and form the foundation for new, rich soil. We spread 2-3 inches over all the cardboard.

Woohoo! In one day - just a couple of hours actually - we got two large planting areas done, along with about half the orchard trees. Today felt like a huge accomplishment, with a visual marker that we're really getting started.