I was checking what Plants were big enough to into the ground seeing by the size of the roots how thick they had formed. If you ever want to check a plant's Roots you have to let it dry out a bit so that when you tip the flower pot upside down it slides out with ease, it wont work when it's wet.
After checking all of the melon plants there are six that are ready to go out, and they always have a big root system like this one Above.
Soil for Melons at the pond.
I found a stack of old sawdust which I believe was to be used for a compost toilet at somepoint, but it was long forgotten and has turned into some weird kind of semi composted water retaining sand. I didn't see it before the other day but if I had known about it maybe it could have been used somewhere before planting food out.
Anyhow there is another use for it, the old pond has been getting filled up with dry grass since a while and say there is already compost in the bottom of the pond and it holds a lot of water also, so it will be the home for the melons.
There are weedy plants already growing around the edges of the pond which indicates that overtime things have rotted down and that sand and dust has been blown in to create soil for them, plus it has had already pumpkins grown there last year.
I looked around to find a container to put the sawdust in and fpund a big black one and started to scoop it in. It was in a plastic sack but the plastic sack had started to flake, and where it was so compressed the result was having a lot of this sawdust, double the amount I thought that was. There was also quite a few fat grubs in it!
A wheel barrow has been sat there for a while which still has soil from the compost heap and so I decided to start siving it to get rid of the Almond shells and twigs so that it can be mixed in with the sawdust. It will be better to siv it when its dry, but we are having regular ran and not much sun to it hasn't got time to dry out yet.
We can easily just make a small mound ontop of the dead grass and plant a melon there, and I might do that today actually. Here below is the old pond
The other day I started to make a trellis for the Cucumbers and the Beans, not that it needed doing now but while the weather is cool it's best to just do it now because it will be summer soon.
I went and harvested some Canya and got pieces that were quite thick and alive still for the uprights to be banged into the ground. I was using string when I made the fence but I couldn't find the new one and so after running out from getting this far, it was time to improvise.
I realized that the leaves could be twisted up and to make a string from them which was easily strong enough to hold. Its a couple of days now old, and it's still holding it just dried out and became solid. Theres not much point to buy string if its only for one time, I think this will do the job because its only needed until the food is ready.
The Leaves at the top of the Canya
Take a long one and twist it
Then use it like string!
Its nice to see this morning that the courgettes have settled in and are showing new leaves.
I could do some more of this today aswell. They last couple of days I decided it would be wise to get back into Bushcraft Skills, concidering that its even more clear to me that I will be living the future in a forest and living as we used to do, hunter gatherer and simply. For us who left the system decades ago, it seems only natural to be able to go live with an axe and saw and to live in a shelter, setting traps and fishing for food whilst gathering edible plants and roots.
Crazy thing is that not many people can actually survive like that, so without these skills you would have less freedom, and if you like freedom then you really should concider prepping and having bushcraft and survival knowledge.
That's great using the natural resources around you.
I made some rope earlier from the same leaves by instructions and its actually simple! its one technique for all, so then just trying it out on different fiberous materials