It’s been almost a year since the felling of “unwanted” trees in the farm to open up more room for replanting. This resulted in a huge amount of woody biomass varying in sizes. Most of this woody biomass is currently found in the vicinity of the natural pond already established at Zone Taylors. The larger timbers will be used to line vege beds, as boundaries for paths, steps, bridges, food foraging hubs for chickens or simply firewood. The medium/smaller chunks can be used to encircle newly planted saplings or simply composted in-situ.
To more efficiently break down these smaller woody material, I’ve chosen to place a pit composting site along a gentle gradient of the land leading into the pond. The concept of this pit is very much like the banana circle I’ve dug; only difference is, this is a little elongated and no mound on one end (the upward slope-facing side). The two-pronged idea is to first, use this to process/dump all the small/medium size branches to decompose and secondly, to arrest the incoming flow of water down the gentle slope going into the pond.
Thus, this pit composting tool is seen as a site to munch on and generate organic material, a place for chickens/ducks to forage around and take shelter and finally being simply just a “bump” in the ground to break, slow and send water into the ground. Its very presence creates a microclimate in and around itself to harbour insects and to create a larger surface area to plant. That’s truly a multifunctional element any permaculture design should strive for as a farm asset.
I’ve placed large logs to line the edges (optional) to help prevent the dug up soil from collapsing. I will soon be planting sweet potato leaves on the mound. Yet to be done are bananas or papayas to be placed on the sides flanking the entire mound. The upward facing side without a mound will be used as an access to tend to the bed (very much like a keyhole bed approach).
A future vege bed will be built above this pit to further harness the flow of water across this part of the land. Hopefully in the future, the pit may be able to generate some compost to be used in the vege beds in the vicinity.
