Come one, come all and see Stone Soup Gardens coop! We will be hosting this year and have lots of new elements in our yard to explore. Hugelculture beds, bike wheel arbors, a kiwi arbor, mushroom beds, a newly installed cistern, and a laundry greywater system, not to mention all of our wonderfully edible native plants! Purchase your tickets today! See you on Saturday, July 11th!  As the flagstone was being set from the last project (Grass Removal Business), Dusty was busy prepping and planting out the raingarden. The pallet for this design was mostly native plants and pollinators, which we received from our friends at Go Natives! Northwest Native Plant Nursery. We also included several birch trees for shade while creating a bit more privacy in this large corner lot. This was a lovely project. We built an arbor to ferry the water into the double raingarden, which runs the length of the house in a dry creek bed style. We included a winding bark pathway that curves around the front of the house, and gives a nice complementary texture. There will eventually be a small circle of grass (to please the dog) which is seeded out and on the grow. The place looks great, and I am excited to be able to watch it flourish and develop. Nothing beats working in my own neighborhood, as I can watch all of my little raingarden landscapes grow and change over the years. Removing grassy lawns always makes me happy. There are so many more interesting ways to create an awesome yard than just laying down grass. For this client, we did a total yard overhaul. The grass is gone, and instead, we have a lovely habitat for the birds and bees that travel through the neighborhood. We also took out the concrete walkway and added a lovely flagstone path to the front door. This adds an eye-catching element to the front entryway, and also allows for better drainage during the wetter months. Here are some photos of the yard before we started the overhaul. Setting flagstone is like a giant, very heavy jigsaw puzzle. It's a good brain tease, but it is also very labor intensive. It's nice to see the crew can still have fun with it. Here are a few photos of the flagstone patio going in. The rest of the yard is also taking shape. Check back soon, I'll post more photos of this project as it rolls along!
As many of you may know, I teach about mushrooms. Foraging them, how to find them, growing them, and eating them. Recently, I've done a couple of classes on mushrooms, and have had a great response from clients who would like mushroom patches of their own. Often times in landscaping, there is that awkward space under the stairs, or a completely shady corner where nothing grows. Well, today is the day, folks. Stone Soup Gardens has been doing mushroom patches galore the last month or so, and we are thrilled to see such an abundance of soon-to-be-shrooms! One project that I'm proud to share is in the Columbia City neighborhood, not far from my own awesome patch. These clients are near and dear to me because of their deep love of all things permaculture. Our fabulous designer, Jacqueline Kramer of Design Collaborators, created an amazing space full of northwest edibles. We built them a lovely hugelcultur bed, an herb spiral, and a lovely backyard patio with steps down to a gravel gathering space. We also inoculated an area under the stairs with turkey tail mushrooms, put birch bolete spores under the birch tree in the front yard, and added a sawdust patch for our clients to do their own experiments in mushroom cultivation. In addition to all that wonderfulness, we were able to use all the materials we pulled out of the yard, to build the yard back up! This includes logs, branches, and sod for soil building for the hugelcultur bed. The best kind of recycling! The clients also had a mushroom class in their own yard so that they would know how to tend their new mushroom patches, what to look for when harvesting, how to harvest, and how to prepare the beds for winter. Are you interested in growing mushrooms? Do you want to learn more about hugelcultur beds and soil building? Contact Stone Soup Gardens today. We would love to show you all the wonderful joys of our northwest climate! Stone Soup Gardens is happy to announce our recent relocation! It is an exciting transition for us, and one that will bring a host of new opportunities. Living in the Central District was a great start for our business, but we have moved south to Columbia City in order to expand as our business grows. We now have a proper office, an organized tool shed, a much bigger chicken coop for our ladies, and a big yard to develop!  First, before we even moved in, we laid the foundation for our new tool shed, outdoor storage, and plant staging area. Gradually we moved into the basement and prepped our new office and indoor tool storage area. I can't tell you how exciting it is to have a space and a place for everything. We built a lovely new coop and run for our little ladies in the front yard. It has great access, shelter from the trees, views of the sidewalk, and a lot more room. We look forward to many happy years at our new location. Stay tuned for more information about upcoming workshops, classes, and photos as we continue to develop and change our new yard into an urban retreat.
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