All posts by juan petry

Color in the garden

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Color in the color garden – before and after

After painting the wood of the signpost we added a mosaic at the basement. It was a wonderful moment in the sunny garden to finish the last pieces of this work and to think about the next steps.

We will add some arrows to the familiafeliz home units (Cervera and Windeck) and to Kais Druid Garden and Claras La Senieta and Peres Pipirimosca and other social sculptures.

If you want to mount your own signpost, use our service.

old bed with new border

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Philemon in action

The wwoofer Philemon prepared the bed number two, the second bed in the color garden. After cleaning the bed from wild herbs he mounted a little stone wall around. The border will keep the soil inside.

In the next step he placed one layer with leaves and old organic waste on top of the soil. The next step will be a layer of carton and than a layer of 15-20 cm of soil from the water channel (la asecia).

fast compost by kai – druid garden nienburg

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Fotos (c) kai Erben – druid garden – fast compost

In my compost i put kitchen waste (if possible only vegetables and fruit to attract no rats, or raccoons). Coffee set and dried banana skins i used in a different way.

The layers are approximately 5 to 15 cm thick. The layers consist alternately of herbs and fern cut, earth, chopped or cut greenery, foliage.

At the end, I take care of enough huminity. This is good to speed up rotting. To conclude, I add a yeast sugar mixture which acts like a turbo. The yeast bacteria culture increased the heat.

Herbal layer made of firewood and fern.
Herbal layer: e.g. Nettle, legwell, marigold, dandelion
Nettle contains like Beinwell much sticks… and vitamin C.

They are considered not only as good rotten accelerators and improve the composition by their minerals.

recipe:

For the fast compost starter i am using a yeast sugar solution. For one cubic meter of freshly placed compost i use one pack baker’s yeast (no dry yeast) and 1kg of sugar in a 10 litre watering can with warm rainwater. First the yeast is crumbled and with about 2 tablespoons of sugar. When the mass has become liquid, it can be put into the watering can with the dissolved residual sugar.

Intermediate from 1 year old compost
Intermediate: with soil, or already well verotted material about 5 cm strong.
I make the layers alternately not more than about 15cm.

Sturgeonriede: Material of life trees, sham cypresses and wormwood i use not with my compost. this material contains substances which delay the process or they are by their poison in the concentration also disadvantageous.

From wormwood, however, you can make a good jache to fight against pests.
Girsch and Quecke very heavy respectively, drift out again.
Dry potato dishes in the sun.

No fresh wood, wood shavings, bark chunks, needles as they hinder the tanning agents and resins, the growth of young plants.

Good one year intercompost.

As a final layer you can give foliage, which keeps the moisture and heat supply.

As far as the compost is concerned, there are different opinions, my experience is 2 to 3 times a year as a mean value.

daily work in the colorgarden

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bed no. 3 with a new ring of natural stones to hold the soil

As part of the daily work in the color garden we cleaned one of the first beds and finished the border with natural stones.

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handcraft, moving natural stones into the garden and creating a border

Also Philemon started with the border to bed number two (historically founded in 2014 as one of the first beds, mostly done by Sonia).

Cottbuss Olive tree

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Cottbus and its olive tree

Philemon replaced a wild olive tree. As part of new beds and places for trees in the color garden, he planted the tree near the center of the garden area.

The wwoofer Philemon is traveling since august 2016 via germany, denmark, france and arrived a few days ago. He is living in Germany and published his tour in a blog.

In 23 October 2016 he planted the olive tree, maybe the unique olive tree from Cottbus (home city of Philemon).

mounting the signpost – part 1

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the wwoofer philemon in action

In october 2016 we started a new social sculpture, called “signpost“. The target is, to mount signposts at places of social sculptures. The arrows will show direction and distance to other social sculptures. We want to make this contemporary movement visible. We connect the locations in a physical way.

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the tire gave gave the form, the wood inside supported some stones for a moment

Philemon started some days ago digging a hole in the ground. Then we constructed a cladding by using an old tire.

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a ring of natural stones as the basement filled with concret

We used the cladding to mount outside some natural stones with concret.

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protected trunk inside the concret and in balance

We mounted an old tree trunk and protected the basement (inside the concret).

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signpost mounted waiting for te next task

We filled the rest of the ring with more concret and brought the trunk into balance.

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Last task – first day

Finally we unmounted the cladding and cleaned the natural stones.

Update: You can use our free calculator to add arrows to CASAdelDRAGON or our ART CAMP on your own sign post.

Working on sunday

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After 3 days – rainy and cloudy – the sun returned at sunday. We started the next task. This bed was prepered with a layer of carton on top of the soil in 2015. But it was done without a border of natural stones around. After a lot of rain in summer 2016 the soil was disapearing. We decided to create a little wall of stones.

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Also we cutted some branches from two wild olive trees, planted in late 2014.

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We strapped a rope to straighten the tree directions. And again, we covered the soil with straw.

New watering line

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new channels for new tubes

In winter 2015 Margret started some little beds around the kids playground. They were not connected to the watering system. It was time to connected them and to plant some beans and salads (21 of october).

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watering system and salads and beans

We also reached two little trees and connected them to the watering system.

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cleaning the bed of tomato and harvesting

At the same time two new helpers started to harvest seeds and and cleaned the tomato bed.

Mariellas dream – a redesigned raised bed

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Philemon is prepairing the soil, put out wild herbs and collected the straw

In 2015 we started with several beds in the color garden. We carred a lot of water in watering cans by hand. In 2015 Mariella joined the bio garden unit and one of her bigger wishes was, to have a easy running water infrastructure. All the year 2015 she was bringing water to the plants – by hand – and miss a stable technical and easy to use system a lot.

The wwoofer Philemon collected the straw to use it later. Straw or similar organic material is a good tool to keep water inside the soil . It protects the environment for salads and other fragil plants to help them starting.

 

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we digged out a part in the center and filled it up with rotten wood and old leaves

All takes time. Philemon collected organic waste and wood and helped to repair the dry stone walls around. We decided to design a new bed, becauseof the original dimensions. We places a raised bed solution in the inner part.

Also we liked to use the organic waste to transfer it in the raised bed to good quality humus soil.

 

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Step by step we mounted a little ´dry wall of natural stones and filled it up with organic waste

In the next step we filled the hole with old wood and organic waste, mostly out of a mediaval water canal nearby and some leaves of carobtrees and busches. On top we put a layer of carton to guard the water in the soil and to protect new plants on top from wild herbs coming up from the layer of waste below the carton.

On top of the carton we put a layer of 10-20 cm good soil from the hole and a mix of good soil from other places in the garden area.

 

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we covered the waste with a layer of carton, and we put 10-20 cm good soil on top

Philemon repaired the water tubes and we added 2 new lines for the raised bed section. We proteced the soil with waste and straw.

 

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new designed bed with water tubes and salads near the water exits

In one day we created a new habitat for 40 salad plants and we activated the watering system. A dream becomes true, less watering cans every evening 🙂 – some dreams need time to become true, but they become true.