Raised beds covered with wood chips

I have created several raised beds last year in a small area beside the chicken coop. I have filled them last year with aged horse manure. The manure has some saw dust in it so I thought it will be good enough to preserve moisture but this was not the case. We had a dry season last summer and even after watering it the water would not penetrate deep but rather it was soaked in the upper 1-2cm layer and this would dry up very fast. Wood chips behave differently; they let the water pass down into the deeper layers and then preserves the moisture for very long time (for weeks) even in a very hot and dry weather. Lesson leaned and now I'm covering all the beds with a 5-10 cm layer of aged wood chips.

We have eggs again!

We've got 6 eggs today :) which is great really because we got none throughout the winter. It has begun! As soon I saw the first 2 eggs being laid last week I started feeding them more because egg production needs lots of protein. It seems like omelet will often be on our meny :) Nice!

Greenhouse beds covered in wood chips

Last year I had to water this new greenhouse of ours every week throughout the season because the soil/aged horse manure would dry extremely fast. In the summer of 2013 we had a small greenhouse in our summerhouse and I covered it with aged wood chips and even though that summer was very hot and dry I watered that greenhouse only 2 times in more than 3 month :) The wood chips sure are awesome in preserving the moisture. So I decided to cover this new greenhouse with wood chips to be ready for the coming season. I have already now started to water the beds so microbial and fungal activity can begun because plants need microbes and fungi and all sorts of soil dwelling critters to function and grow well and healthy.

The dark layer are the aged wood chips

Just a little update on the sheep; As you can see in my previous post I have expanded the sheep pasture a lot but for some reason they seem to be reluctant to go there and graze. They do however follow me there :) and then they graze but as soon they see the neighbors horses they run back to their old part of the field where their shed is. I guess this is good in a way because they do feel secure in that part. So I make sure to lead them every day to the new pasture filed so they get used to it and see that there is no harm there but tasty new grass only :) 

Beside fine mix of grasses I have also sown white clover all over this field. Cant wait to see my bees and all other pollinators having a lovely pesticide-free organic feast :) Clover pollen and honey are of great value for all pollinators but especially for honeybees, solitary bees and bumblebees.