Image Gallery
Enjoy these images of the land and projects. They will give you an idea of what is possible with inspired commitment and a catchtail attitude!

Year One    Year Number Two    Year Three

To lean more also visit:
sheet mulching slideshow
swale building slideshow

Year One

Our story begins on January 30th, 2002...

The 3 acres were flat and empty... a lonely red 'house' and an old barn were the only reminders that someone once lived here.

Full of abandoned belongings, no electricity, no water or heat we had two months to breathe new life into this smelly old building before move in. 

All in two months... with an amazing group of friends and family, we can do anything!!! 

                                                    
Ahhhhh.... home sweet home.

Now the garden began to call. The land had been sitting idle for almost 20 years (according to long time neighbors) Old Man Cook had done nothing but mow every year with his trusty old tractor. So the soil was just full of worms and minerals... So to get started we got woodchips, straw bales, cardboard and a (new) tractor...

We built a garden path with cardboard, woodchips and logs (for mushrooms)

A parking area....

A pond....

And then bamboo & an arbor....

Year number two... (or back to top)

In February, 2003 we began a small food forest just south of our new parking zone, and just east of where we plan on building our future cottage.
First things first... underground irrigation (this is where tractors with trenchers come in really handy).

We are on a corner and although we love our neighbors, we also love a bit of privacy.  So in order to counter the "fish bowl" effect, we planted a timber bamboo wall which should fill in solid with in 18 months of planting... stay tuned for the results.

Now back to the house...

We put in new electrical through out the hosue, new copper plumbing and insulated the attic.

              

We also needed an office/art studio for Deborah...

Finally, it was time to reclaim 'Ed's room' (the former owner) and make it our own, 'Mediterranean style'...

And back again to the garden... 

In our second summer, only 18 months after purchasing our 'farm,' all of our home cooked meals consisted largely of food produced in Catchtail Gardens... and all that from 200 sq. ft' of garden beds and 2 laying hens. It was more than we could have hoped for...

Chickens & Kittens...

The winter of 2003/2004 was rapidly approaching and we wanted to catch the rain water moving across and past our land. With the tractor, we dug out some catchments which will slow the water flow, allowing for sediment to drop out and keeping it out of the salmon streams and which will infiltrate for aquifer recharge...

Year Three

What next..... ?

We have created a beautiful mandala garden. Sixteen vegetable beds like sun rays from the center of one of our fields...it is beautiful and growing abundantly!
We have also added a puppy dog, Rosa, and bee hives to our farm family. More pictures will be posted soon...so stay tuned!

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