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The story of our precious little girl's 17 months of life with Trisomy 18 (July 4, 2010 - December 15, 2011) and of us, re-learning to live "after Lilly."
"I will praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made ...." Psalm 139:14

Thursday, July 16, 2015

Back to Eden with redbud trees

Several years ago, one of my best friends told us about the Back to Eden gardening method.  She highly recommended we watch the free online movie about it.  Frank watched it and then prepared an area outside for a garden, using things he learned about.  He layered compost, mulch, cardboard, newspapers, chicken manure, leaves ... not necessarily in that order, and it made the soil incredibly rich.

How rich?  Simply look at our two redbud trees for a comparison.  Shortly after we moved here, we planted these two trees.  They were both looked like skinny sticks and were about 14" high.  They are planted only about 25-30 feet apart. One tree ended up in the "Back to Eden" garden area.  Here is the tree in the "regular" part of the yard:



And here is the tree in the "Back to Eden" garden:


Quite an amazing difference, isn't it?

Here's another picture of the bigger redbud, at the left edge of the garden:


Since nothing grew in Lilly's garden this spring, I have decided to follow some Back to Eden methods to get the soil in her garden really rich and prepared for some new lily bulb planting either later this fall or in the early spring.  Right now we are putting in compost.  I need to add in some cardboard when I get a chance.  Then dead leaves as I can.

Lilly's garden isn't pretty now, but I'm hoping next spring it will be beautiful enough to make up for this disappointment of this spring.


"Build houses and dwell in them; plant gardens and eat their fruit." - Jeremiah 29:5


11 comments:

  1. We watched the Back to Eden video a few years ago and it made so much sense! It's amazing! We have horrible clay where we live and have not been successful at gardening, but we also haven't implemented anything we heard in the video yet either, so this post is awesome! Thanks for sharing. <3 :)

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    1. I guess you know the Back to Eden people live in Washington state. We have a couple at our church, from Washington, that knows some of the people in the back to Eden movie.
      NC has red clay and sand. Our yard has a massive amount of rocks, which is frustrating. (I think of Laura and Almanzo Wilder when they moved to Missouri and Almanzo plowing that rocky field.)

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    2. Yes! We were even thinking of visiting the Back to Eden gardens. Maybe some day we actually will! Yes...we have lots of rock, too. It can be done, but we just haven't had the fortitude yet to be persistent....HA! Hopefully one of these years, we'll pull it together, but for now, I get ALL my produce except for bananas, at the Gleaners, so that works well, and most of it is organic. :)

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  2. That last picture has the sweetest smile I have ever seen.

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    1. Bubba took that picture! I was so impressed - he often cuts peoples heads off.

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  3. Also, there is a garden saying about making a $50 hole for a $5 plant. I always buy a bag of manure and a bag of compost whenever I am going to be planting stuff.

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    1. That saying makes sense! Though thankfully this method doesn't cost that much. :)

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  4. http://blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org/allin/2015/04/19/this-friday-dig-a-50-hole-plant-a-5-tree/

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    1. Interesting article. The redbud trees we planted were from Arbor Day foundation. I got a dozen young flowering trees for about $9.00.

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  5. I don't know if you compost or not, but I've never heard you mention it so I am assuming not. Any way, a way more simple way to help your plants than do a real compost pile is just to bury your scraps at the base of your plants. Egg shells, coffee grounds, broccoli and cauliflower stems, etc. Fertilizer on the cheap!!

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    1. We do compost. It's full of egg shells! And other fruit and veggie bits. Lilly's garden is now full of it. That's a great idea to add scraps to the base of plants.

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