Remodeling the Garden: Mandala update

The Rapunzels help to turn the soil over in Better Farm's future mandala garden site.

By Jackson Pittman

As we prepare for the snow, we are renovating our garden and reinventing it by adding a mandala design around the tree near the back. 

A four-quadrant circle is being constructed at a 200-inch radius around the tree. The former gravel pit around the tree has been dug up so the gravel can be redistributed to form a circular pathway within the mandala design and to create the quadrants. 

Here are a few shots of that process:

Before the paths of the garden will be formed the circle will get completely leveled and covered with cardboard, and then quarters in between the gravel will be mulched for fertile soil for planting. We are all really excited about it over here at Better Farm and will continue to update it as it goes on.

Meanwhile, in the rest of the garden...

I've been using spent hay from the chicken coops to direct-mulch on existing and new garden rows (the garden will be roughly doubled in size next spring); and using newer hay plus compost to create a healthy mulch for plants next season.

To learn more about our mulch-gardening methods, click here.