Working on Compost and Sweet Potatoes

 "Should we go work on the compost?" asked Brandon. With those words, I fell in love all over again. 

As Brandon says, everything we want to do requires at least three other things be done first.  The donkey dung is piling up in the donkey fence, which isn't good for fly management.  

Before I can collect it and add it to the compost bin, the finished compost needs to be moved to the garden.  Before it's moved to the garden, I need to figure out where it should go.  

The garden is finally taking the shape that I've been hoping for.  It's early days yet, but we have the first tier of the terraces I would like for this slightly sloped garden space.  To create the terrace, we used old lumber on the downhill side and placed it on edge, to be a retaining wall.  Behind that short retaining wall we piled compost and old hay to make a flattish terrace.  Do you see the row of sweet potatoes?  

Mom and I have both been collecting sweet potatoes and letting them sprout.  I realize it's a bit early for a warm season crop, but I couldn't resist and planted all the sweet potatoes in a long row parallel to the retaining wall.  A few feet behind that, I planted a row of green beans.  I didn't use up all my seeds so I can replant if necessary.  

Look how many tiny sweet potato slips grew on this one!  I had a small tray with several potatoes soaking in shallow water.  It worked wonders to make lots of slips.  

We didn't cover the sweet potato slips with compost, like I planned, but instead buried them in the old hay and used the compost to start the next terrace.  Now I can collect up all the donkey's hard work and make the next batch of compost for the garden.  I recently read that donkey dung was one of the best kinds to use for the garden, because something about the donkey digestion (high acid?) kills all the weed seeds.  Unlike cow dung.  Cool.  I knew those donkeys were pros at their job!