I realise that pictures of freshly dug mud are only slightly more interesting than watching paint dry, but this one represents an hour’s work on Monday – digging over the grassy patch in front of the Grow Dome. The chickens have been using it as a salad bar over the winter, but I want to plant my 3 goji berry bushes there. My reasoning is that, as deciduous bushes, they will provide shade for the Grow Dome in summer but not cast too much shadow in winter.
This morning I have spent another hour and a half digging over the next patch along – one that runs down the side of the Grow Dome. I need the space at the front for the goji berries, but behind that there were some brambles that needed digging out.
I’m hoping to develop the Goji Garden along forest garden principles. There won’t be a tree layer, but the goji bushes will be the shrub layer and I’m planning on having a ground cover layer of strawberry plants (an idea from the RISC roof garden).
I don’t need to worry about the root layer – there’s already some spring-flowering bulbs there. I dug some of them up this morning (I had to, they were growing underneath the brambles), but I replanted all of the ones I found.
The maximum temperature in the Grow Dome yesterday was 13°C.
The overnight minimum was 0°C.