2016 Work Log
DECEMBER
- Weeding
- Mulching
NOVEMBER
- Weeding
- Mulching
- Continue planting understory shrubs
OCTOBER
- Continue planting understory shrubs
- Weeding
- Mulching
September
- Continue planting understory shrubs
- Weeding existing plantings
- Prepare planting area for cane berries
- Sick goats on poison oak areas
- Irrigation master valve and flow metering in place (ie. protection against leaks!!)
August
- Weeding perennnials
- Training grapes
- Continue planting understory shrubs
July
- Irrigation up and running on regular schedule!
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Continue planting understory shrubs
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Move remainder of nursery operation to East Oakland.
JUNE
- Move nursery plants and materials to east oakland
- Fine-tune irrigation for fruit trees
- Weeding, mulching, and general tree care
MAY
- Begin planting remaining fruit trees and understory
- Weeding + mulching
- Fertilizing & cultivating
- Nursery work
- Grafting
- re-potting last years plants
- start remaining seeds
ApriL
- Weeding + mulching
- Fertilizing & cultivating
- Nursery work
- Grafting
- re-potting last years plants
- start remaining seeds
MARCH
- Digging up thistle
- Weeding around fruit trees
- Fertilizing & cultivating
- Nursery work
- Grafting
- potting on
- healing in
- mixing soil
FEBRUARY
- Continued planting trees
- Support nursery propagation.
- Put up hoop houses for nursery plants
- Plans laid for future medicinal gardens
- Huge amounts of potting soil mixed
- Propagated nearly 10,000 trees and shrubs from cuttings – taken in Humbolt, processed on the farm, and moving to East Oakland nursery
JANUARY
- Began nursery operations on the farm, potting on tens of thousands of young fruit bearing plants
- Mulch swale pathways with wood chips
- Mulch swale berms around trees
- Wiring of irrigation system to central timer
- Got lots of rain, infiltrated deeply by our swales.
DECEMBER 2015
- Built shelving in the shed for vertical organizing
- Retrieve enormous fruit tree order from Rolling River Nursery
- Final assembly of irrigation manifolds
- Elevate poly drip lines on wire above swales
- Begin planting trees!
NOVEMBER
- (90% Complete) Irrigation Infrastructure:
- 1,500 ft of trench
- water pipe and electrical conduit buried 24″ deep
- Pressure testing, then backfilling
- Pulled wire through conduit
- Assembled 24 manifolds
- Install wiring and central timer; so we can irrigate on automated schedule that adjusts to live weather.
- (Underway) Run irrigation to all swales in preparation for revegetation
OCTOBER
- Now that we have so much of our infrastructure in place, it seems the real work of building the orchard is upon us. In October, we ambitiously hope to:
- Stabilize and compact all the swales on the hillside
- Stabilize exposed soil with burlap and mulch
- Broadcast clay-rolled seeds (nitrogen fixers and ground covers) across the berms of all swales and pathways
- Spread straw over ground cover seeds
- Mulch the ditches of every swale
- Collected almost 1000 lbs of thistle and cardoon flower heads to prevent seed germination
- Stabilized large stretches of hillside with mulch and burlap in preparation for rains
- Put up shade tents
- Dug the water-harvesting swales on-contour that will provide the structure of our orchard-to-be. We will use the ditches at pathways, and the berms to plant trees.
- Moved the goats and their pen to more lush pastures
- Rolled seeds in clay for future propagation (protection from birds, and germination insurance)
- AND installed a level pad for our new shed!