Another full day of work, started early and had the second large bed complete by 2:45pm. After a cold bud I moved on to running some more material through the shredder and finally wrapped up with a little compost work. Of course I had the camera out and was taking time lapse of everything, videos included below.
It hit 86 degrees Today and I'm sunburned - only in southern California. Too bad the people and politics suck so bad...
Seedlings doing well, first true leaves starting to pop out which means it's almost time for fertilizer. I'm also realizing that I will need to transplant these guys up to something a little larger if I'm going to keep them indoors for another 4-5 weeks. I should also start another round of sowing in preparation of succession plantings.
I need a garden plan quick.
Another time lapse - I CAN'T figure out why the camera is moving, it was securely mounted
Gorillapod clenching (very!) rigid piece of maple (tightly!) clamped to wall cap -
this camera was NOT moving, so WHY are my pictures moving?
Once again... seriously under estimated the amount of work to complete a job. I've been moaning on about the need to correct the bed soil, to remove the clods and mesh, blah blah blah. Today was my day, I woke up early, coffee to the brain and got to work. Oh, and of course I setup my camera for some time lapse goodness.
Including minor distractions by Kevin stopping by to get tools and BS and my super awesome Mom coming over to help cleanup the farm - I spent EIGHT HOURS on a single row. If I was an employee I would be fired I think. Actually no, I worked my butt off, it's just a lot more work than I thought.
BEFORE - Chunks of sod held together by plastic mesh
I was encouraged to see so many worms in the soil and I'm sure the decomposing sod attracted them. I did my best to kill as few as possible but it's tough, and good worms did die Today. It was so rewarding to see the result of all that work; this beautiful, fluffy dark soil teeming with fat worms. While I was at it I dumped 5 bags of amendment and sprinkled a bit of green sand.
AFTER - fluffy, rich soil packed with worms!
(photo doesn't do it justice...)
My Mom came over because she wanted to help out, she's worried that I'm working too hard and maybe she thinks I've bit off more than I can (or care to) chew. Maybe she's right? Either way, she showed up, jumped into action and cleaned up the leaves, plucked grass seedlings from my already-growing beds, moved a half bale of hay, helped me move my 3 large clay pots packed with wet soil and blueberry bushes, picked some weeds from planters, trimmed my geraniums by my back door and probably some other stuff I'm forgetting. She enjoyed it and I always enjoy having her around, she's cool, we BS and drink together. I'm fortunate, thanks Mom!
Note to Steve: MS movie maker appears to have a 2GB size limit on clips - your (brilliant!) solution was to render out sections to keep the file size down. Also, no, you can't change clip duration, need to change options then re-add to timeline. Movie maker is lame.
I ordered ~2 yards of "Bumper Crop"(lame website) soil amendment for my beds. I'm concerned that after I remove all the sod pieces and associated soil that I'll be robbing my beds of substantial nutrients. To offset this I purchased enough of this highly rated amendment to add 4" to all my beds.
24 2cu. ft. bags delivered at no charge by Flowerdale nursery. I paid $9.99 a bag and they throw in an extra bag for every 5 you buy. This works out to $8.33 a bag or $4.17 a foot! OR... $112.39 a yard. Compared to the material yard compost at $20-30 a yard this seems expensive, if you consider that the cheap stuff contains god-knows-what then I think it's worth it. I don't want compost created from sod from a closed golf course that received Roundup treatments for 3 months before being removed. Organic ain't easy and it ain't cheap.
Bumper crop contains composted:
Forest Humus
Chicken Manure
Worm Castings
Bat Guano
Kelp Meal
Oyster Shell
Dolomite Lime
As I screen the clods and sod mesh from the beds I'll be tossing in copious amounts of amendment. I've got 2-3 yards of homemade compost in the pipeline and expect finished product in 4-5 weeks which I'll top everything off with.
I'm becoming more and more interested in the French intensive methods of gardening and considering slicing off a small area in the yard to experiment with this more. I may do a bit of interning over at Flowerdale nursery where Carlos is using the French intensive method exclusively; his beds look awesome, much more aesthetically appealing than traditional row methods.
I mixed up the special soil blend for my new blueberry bushes. I'm planting the blueberries in containers for easy control of pH and other soil properties; apparently blueberries require a low (4.5 - 5.5 pH) and also benefit from a soil with actively decomposing organic materials. It's much easier to create conditions like that in a container that in the ground. I found a recipe online somewhere that called for the following:
1/3 small bark (1/4")
1/3 Acidic potting mix (like the kind for azaleas)
1/3 sphagnum peat moss
handful of soil sulfur (drops the pH even further)
More on the blueberries later, in the meantime I made another time lapse!
Note to Steve: MS Movie Maker crashes when making time lapse movies. Use PhotoLapse to generate uncompressed AVI (HUGE file) then import than into moviemk for titling and final render.
My new TL350 has several picture size settings and I wanted to know which had a traditional 35mm aspect ratio. I plugged the dimensions into a quick spreadsheet to plot it out for my reference. It doesn't feel right to leave it cranked up to the 10mp setting because I just don't need that much detail, I'm thinking the 5mp is the sweet spot.
This post exists solely for my reference purposes, if you read this far I'm wondering what's the matter with you.
Creepy title but I'm gonna leave it. I've been wanting to write about this for awhile but have been putting it off because I wasn't sure if it was "too weird". I've decided (after a bottle of wine) that it's not that weird, that people are just too uptight!
Urine! It's amazing stuff and we are constantly creating and disposing of it. We pee and flush it away, using several liters of water in the process. Turns out that pee has some excellent uses in the garden and compost pile. Urine is created by our kidneys, it's a byproduct of regular body functions and is the primary vehicle by which our body will evacuate toxins and surplus nutrients from the blood stream. Nitrogen can be quite toxic and our body is constantly trying to get rid of it.... by sending it out in urine! Did you hear the N word (Nitrogen) in there? Right, the same "N-P-K" nitrogen that we purchase as 1 of 3 components in most fertilizer.
In a nutshell, if you can get over yourself enough to use urine as a fertilizer you can enjoy:
saving water from flushing the toilet
saving money by not buying fertilizer
Utilizing an organic nitrogen source in your garden and compost
I go through phases when I do and don't use urine as a fertilizer. It's a difficult habit to maintain, righteous and confident as I may try to sound in this post I am susceptible to the social stigma that "using your own urine as a fertilizer" carries; I don't exactly brag about this to everyone that walks in my front door. But then here I am blogging about it, it's like I'm coming out as a urine-as-a-fertilizer user and proponent!
Turns out now is one of those using-urine phases, it was triggered by one of my compost piles that went totally cold and was neglected for some time. I knew that a gallon or so of good old, urea based nitrogen would get it cooking in no time. I also knew that I would be planting blueberries and I read that blueberries CANNOT have nitrate based Nitrogen, bur rather they need Urea based Nitrogen - pee to the rescue!
A couple of quick notes:
Urinary tract infection? - don't use your urine, it may contain bacteria
Older than 24 hours? Don't use as fertilizer, use in compost instead
As a fertilizer you will want to dilute heavily with water (10:1)
If you are dating someone kind of new, you may want to wait awhile before letting this cat out of the bag...
This article has some nice info and echos some of what I said above
I've wanted a camera that would allow me to take shots at a set interval to later combine into a time lapse video. After research and a whole bunch of hassles I got my hands on a new Samsung TL350. This is a great little point and shoot with full HD, F2.4, 24mm wide angle, interval shooting as well as several other features that set it apart.
My first time lapse test was supposed to be a 10 hour duration of my seedlings that have just emerged. The battery pooped out after 499 shots which works out to ~8 hours. It's quite boring, I expected to see them growing a bit more and in fact it's made me think about giving some additional attention or nutrients to the seedlings!
Some notes about the tools and settings used, for my own reference more than anything:
Shots taken and 1080p resolution
PhotoLapse used to combine @ 15fps saving with H.264 compression - file size: 8,941Kb
Strange motion is inexplicable, I don't think the tripod moved because it later reverts back to the original orientation. It's almost like the camera is making some strange adjustment
Shooting at a wider interval than 1 minute would be a good idea and increase battery life. For example, I could have shot at a 6 minute interval and maybe achieved 150-180% increase in battery life. Combined at 5FPS the video would play at the same speed although be a bit more rough
Oh god, you should see what those
strings are attached to!
Checked my seedling trays this morning and was surprised to see that ~40% have sprouted and are reaching for the light already. I really didn't expect this to happen so fast, especially considering my temperature had been running on the low side of about 76° I already have the heat pads ordered and they should arrive in a couple days. I ran over to Home Depot and picked up a double 48" fluorescent fixture and rigged it up in my extra bathroom, later (maybe this weekend) I will set it all up in my potting shed out back.
Was disapointed to see that the compost in the tumbler is not heating up after I added additional greens. It's just moist enough, plenty of air available... I don't get it. The only thing to try is even more nitrogen; I may need to generate a little home made nitrogen booster.
A few days ago I decided that I needed to correct the soil being used in my beds before I transplant or sow. Turned out to be a blessing that none of my friends responded to my call for help because my plan failed big time!
I set everything up as I had envisioned and was feeling pretty good about it until I had the first shovel load in the screen - way too wet and sticky. The organic materials from the sod, the green mesh backing and the dirt all clumped together like adobe.
After about 1.5 hours I had processed 3 loads and decided to call it quits for the day. The only way I was able to make it work was to beat individual clumps against the mesh to loosen them up, then I would kneel and smack the underside of the screen which would send the clods bouncing around and as they came down again they would shed a bit of their attached soil. Stupid, totally and completely stupid.
A few Budweisers set me down the path to a potential solution, I pre-dug the bed (as seen to the right of the horse) to expose it to sunlight and hopefully let it dry out a bit. I'm hoping that if it's a bit more dry it will work as originally planned. If I can't get this done by the end of this weekend I will dig it all out and replace with purchased soil and amendments - I hope it doesn't come to that.
Took a serious swing at the huge pile of tree trimmings that's been aging in the yard, the plan was to have the tree trimmers leave it all behind, I would then chip and shred it into compost gold! It was slow going but nice relaxing work to do with the iPod on. I chipped and shredded for about 6 hours straight and reduced the trimming pile by only ~30%.
Had to rearrange my composting center to facilitate an additional pile or two, I didn't plan this out so well and as such didn't have the necessary pallets to create bins. I ended up cleaning up the whole area, relocating about a ton (that's a total bullshit estimate, I have no idea what it weighted) of gravel and dirt to the side of the potting shed. Then I was able to drag the Compost Tumbler over to the West wall to free the North wall for additional piles.
I don't much care for the hay as a pathway mulch not to mention it's SPROUTING all over the place! I'll be composting it to dispose of the remaining 1.5 bales as well as the material already in use in the paths. It makes a good carbon source and the hollow structure of the straw is conducive to air flow. It's hard to tell from the picture but the footprint is probably 7' x 4' When I'm finished shredding the tree trimmings I expect the footprint to grow by another 50% and the height to end up at 5' This would bring the volume to 315 cubic feet which is just ridiculous and unmanageable. ;0)
I came home to a package from Johnny's Selected Seeds sitting on my porch! Now that my order has arrived I need to get some of these seeds sown ASAP. First some additional materials were needed, off to the farm supply for:
green sand
compost - believe it or not I don't have any mature compost right now
potting trays and lids
fish emulsion
Fish & Kelp fertilizer
I ended up purchasing a bag of seed starting mix rather than make my own. I didn't really have a choice because I couldn't find any acceptable compost to make my own mix. After a bit of shopping I decided on "Light Warrior Seed Starter" if for no other reason than the name and graphics are so ridiculous (actually the ingredients seemed more than sufficient). Hey, they have a website!!
My loose plan is to start many of the crops indoors, as many as possible as I still have substantial work to do on my outside beds. I'm looking forward to the experience of starting (and growing) seedlings indoors and the knowledge that I will take away.
I'm going through a mini experiment trying organic individual pots as well as a cell-tray to find out which one I like the best, or maybe which one the seedlings like best. I pretty much split all plantings 50/50 between the Dot Pots and the cell tray.
I used my seed starting log that I printed off the web and entered each item that I planted. The idea is that I will reference this log to determine when to start hardening the seedlings off and finally when to transplant. I don't know, this is all really new and although I'm going through the steps I don't quite understand everything I'm doing yet. This is how I learn everything though...
Tatsoi planted 1/6/11, Johnny's
ID: 515.1, thin to 1 plant,
sown in pot
I marked each set of plantings using popcicle sticks and developed my own layout format with the information that I wanted:
date sown
plant name
seed supplier ID
pot or cell sown
thinning info if applicable
I also created a legend in my log book so I can remember what the abbreviations are and the layout of the info - this is how standards are born!
To be honest I'm totally overwhelmed right now, I feel this immense pressure to have a garden plan complete with rotation schedules and succession planting schedule, etc. I haven't worked out my irrigation solution yet and I really don't even know when exactly I should be direct sowing into my beds! I like a challenge but I'm concerned that I may be striving for a level of expertise and efficiency that can only come with time. Tonight should have been enjoyable but I was actually feeling melancholy the whole time worrying if I was doing everything correctly. The feeling continues as I fuss about watering, temperature and light requirements for my (soon to be) seedlings. Gotta stick with it though, it can't be that hard...
As I type this up my two flats of sown seeds are sitting on top of my refrigerator where I hope they will benefit from the slightly higher temperature radiated from the fridge. I've got to come up with a solution to the impending light requirements as well as managing the various post-emergence requirements for my new seedlings. For example, the tomatoes need to be transplanted and introduced to a cooler environment once their true leaves emerge.
I need to remind myself how great it will be to have a full, thriving garden that I can harvest fresh food from each day. To have people over for dinner and eat in the yard and invite them to pull their own veggies. To give away great tasting, home grown organic veggies and enlighten friends and family on the virtues of growing your own food and controlling what goes into it.
It's worth it, I'm just freaking out a little. ;0)
The slug traps work (i.e. slugs are attracted to, enter and die) but I don't know if they are effective (i.e. keeping my plants from being chomped nightly). I do feel that I'm seeing a bit less on my nightly patrols, but I can't be certain. I suppose once the traps stop claiming victims I can claim victory.
These [slug] bastards don't quit! I'm averaging 1-2 a night in the traps, but there are still plenty up near the plants. I've deployed the ammonia cannon and have been sniping slugs the past few evenings... I just know when I walk away 10 more slide their disgusting little shell-less mollusk bodies up the bed to eat my plants.
I hate slugs, in fact slugs are now on my (very short) list of things that will be unconditionally killed on sight:
(in order)
As I mentioned in an earlier post, I created my raised beds from a combination of sod, excavated dirt and compost. I still think the plan could have succeeded if I had more time, but the break down of the sod chunks is taking too long. I've read over and over that carrots and potatoes want a loose soil to spread freely and the plastic sod backing mesh is going to create a problem for that. The only solution that I can think of is to manually screen the soil in the beds and break up the sod chunks while also removing the plastic mesh. Lots of work, not hard work, but lots of it. I've got an email out to friends and family requesting help next weekend, we'll see... ;0)
The plan will be to set the screen on saw horses over the row, shovel the dirt and sod onto the screen and let it fall right back down into place. I'm going to lose some volume so I may purchase some additional dirt to offset the loss. Sod and it's roots will be tossed into the compost pile of course. More on this later including before and after photos.
Slept terrible with this flu and was up most the night. Chui went crazy barking at 8:45 this morning because my buddy Chris was here to borrow the lawnmower. I stepped outside to give him a hand and he tells me "Man, it was freezing last night! Literally, there is ice on things" "Shit!" I said as I realized my new little plants were just exposed to their first frost. I naively thought that we wouldn't get a frost in Orange but we did. I checked the garden and sure enough there was frost on several of the leaves, hopefully it's not enough to kill them.
I don't intend to set up hoop tunnels but I think I will spread a trash bag or two over my few plants Tonight just to play it safe. More farming lessons learned...
I have thousands if not hundreds of thousands of these small black beetles with red markings and red eyes all over my yard. If you stop and look in one place for a few seconds you will see 10 or more crawling around. I've never considered them a pest, they don't seem to chew on plants, in fact all they ever seem to do is mate constantly.
I finally did some searching Today and identified it as a Boxelder (boisea trivittatis). Apparently they are not much cause for concern; they don't bite, they are pretty mellow (as you can see with the one crawling on my hand) and they don't harm any of the plants that I have. So as far as I'm concerned they can keep cruising around and humping away in my yard - I don't mind them.
This site is a great source for boxelder bug information.
I finally bit the bullet and made some decisions on what seeds to order. I placed the order with Johnny's Selected Seeds and they've already shipped out. In addition to the seeds I ordered a case of 90 "Dot Pots" to start my seeds in. Dot Pots are natural pots made from wood fiber and other recycled organic material, you just place them right in the ground and the roots will grow through the pots into the soil; makes transplanting easy and reduced root and plant shock.
Here's what I ordered (items in green are organic seed):
Arugula (OG)-Mini (Vegetables > Micro Mix)
Red Ace (F1)-Packet
Touchstone Gold (OG)-Packet (Vegetables > Beets > Golden Beets)
Red Leaf Vegetable Amaranth-Mini (Vegetables > Greens > Specialty)
Most of these will be started indoors, working backwards from the last frost date in my area (February11th). I may also build a cold frame or two outdoors to try my hand at that. I still need to buy or make:
I've had problems with big (thumb size) white grubs in my compost ever since I started composting 6 years ago. I usually pick them out and pitch them against the block wall where they explode into gooey guts on impact. I find great satisfaction in this, I hate them and feel nothing but pleasure when they die; I'm convinced they develop into Japanese Beetles and then swarm around my yard eating the leaves of my many trees. Although it is fun to use the wiffle ball bat to hit them as they fly around!
3 pieces of cardboard to keep the
grubs out of the compost
I've been working on preventative measures lately and one trick that is working well is to line the bottom of the pile with cardboard. This prevents the grubs that are in the dirt (there are many) from digging up into the compost. I know they are still getting in from the sides but there isn't much I can do about that without making substantial changes to my design. I think the best approach will be keeping it HOT and flipping a lot, basically just cook the little suckers.
Sigh....
Slugs are devouring my young vegetables. I've been observing the damage for a couple weeks now but for some inexplicable reason I have done nothing about it. I thought about doing something, but I think about a lot of things so that doesn't really mean much. One possible explanation is that due to my adoption of organic gardening methods I can't use the usual snail poison I have used in the past. In fact yeah, that is the reason for my inaction.
The other night I did a little research on organic methods to kill slugs (and snails) and came across this great site. I had already used the copper tape method on the underside of my raised bed cap and it works PERFECT - never had a single slug in there that I know of. The copper option won't work on ground beds though so I used some of the other techniques mentioned. The beer traps are my favorite of the suggestions because it's so simple and I always have stale beer I can use. I also liked the ammonia idea that is further down in the comment section, but I need to read up if that is in any way considered an organic solution, I doubt it is.
I had been saving my Coffee Bean coffee cups for the trap containers and then I bought (cause I'm actually out of normal beer due to a cold) a twelver of "Natty Light" (uck!) to kill snails with; actually appropriate in some ways and should work as long as slugs don't have good taste.
I'll post some pictures of them installed once I get around to it, need to get over this cold first.
I've had great success with the spinach and red leaf lettuce in my raised bed so I figured I'd add some more plants to increase my harvest for salads. I'm on a salad kick right now so the more spinach, chard, arugula and lettuce I have the better. The soil in the raised bed is awesome, I wish my other ground beds were as healthy. I turned in 4-5 bags of leaves and other green waste two years ago and it's made a substantial difference, the soil is crawling with worms, drains well and has this great loamy texture.
In the middle row I added 4 more spinach and two chards. The two plants on the bottom right are cabbage. On the ledge of the planter you can see the strawberry pot (with a lettuce on top as well) and the rosemary plant my friend Sarah gave me for Christmas. In the far background is the huge pile of tree trimmings that I need to shred for compost.
I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but I LOVE rain. Everything about it, the noise, the smell, the way it makes things look. However since starting my farm I'm beginning to find the rain a pain in the ass; it keeps setting back my plans and creating more work for me. We were blasted by a storm that ended up overflowing my rain gauge which has a capacity of 6". Everything dried out fine except my compost which is soggy and basically went from a 150 degree hot pile to an anaerobic swamp pile of crud.
I need more composting materials so I can have 2-3 large active piles going at once. I decided to write a letter and distribute to my neighbors asking them to donate materials. A bit odd? Yeah, so what's new?
Letter to neighbors
(click to see full size version)
I've heard from a couple people that I should not expect an arborist to be able to tell me what's wrong with my tree, That there can be so many different issues that they shouldn't be expected to correctly identify the problem. They don't sound all that useful to me then.
In light of this realization I dug deeper in my research and have learned quite a bit more about Prunus Caroliniana; that many people hate it (scroll down for user submitted content), that there isn't a whole lot you can do about an advanced fungal or bacterial infection and that everything about the tree is toxic (i.e. if I get chickens and they eat the berries they will die). Combine that with the fact they are severely chocking my garden of precious sunlight and I'm starting to wonder if I really want to save the little bastards. See, I hate them too now!
But I do want to save them, if for no other reason than I can't stand to not solve a problem or abandon a challenge. With that said, here is my plan:
Check my inventory of fungicides and identify any appropriate treatments. Solutions containing copper are apparently quite effective however high doses can be fatal to the tree and reduce soil health.
Dig up some of the stumps of recently fallen soldiers to inspect the roots and rule-out various root rot problems
Cut away a section of bark on a sick tree with excessive trunk gumming (sappy ooooozzzz....) to inspect the cambium for signs of necrosis. This would indicate potential bacterial cankers (i.e. bacterial infection)
Compare soil around healthy trees with infected trees - making sure to disinfect shovel and any other tools in between
Remove dropped leaves from under all trees
Cut back dead or diseased wood
Uhm, that's it. Anyone else have any ideas?
I also learned that I should disinfect my shears and other tools when pruning sick trees to avoid spreading the infection. Makes sense, but what a PITA.
I was around the house most of the day working from my home office. I wandered into the yard 7-8 times throughout the day just to take a break. I realized just how little sunlight actually makes it into my growing area during winter. Trimming my carolinianas will help, but it's really the neighbors 2nd story add-on that casts the largest shadow.
It's a bummer as I had hoped to get a fall/winter crop going but I'm not sure I will even be able to grab the 5-6 hours minimum needed. Of course the obvious solution is to burn down my neighbor's add-on, I'll sleep on it.
Trunk sappy seepage, this is present on
all trees showing signs of the problem
When I bought my house I knew I was going to plant a perimeter of "Carolina Cherry" (prunus caroliniana) to create privacy and shade. My parents had experience with the trees and they seemed perfect
I purchased 70 15 gal trees at a killer price and had them in the ground the first year. Over the past 5 years I have lost 9-10 trees and I fear I'm going to lose even more. The symptoms are a yellowing and red color blotching of the leaves and seepage on the lower 30% of the trunk.
I never water these trees because I've been told by so many people that they were getting TOO much water, so I just left them be and the rain seemed to be enough. I should mention that the majority of my trees look great, dark green and reaching for the sky.
There is also some obvious insect damage but I think it's most from the Japanese beetles that I have flying around, I don't think it's related to the trunk and leave problem.
Once the problem enters the advanced stage the leaves will drop very rapidly, finally they will look wilted and droopy and that is usually when I cut the tree out.
I hired an arborist to come out 3 years ago and look at some problems and he was useless, all he said was "Well... it could be this and it might be that. It's hard to say"
What the HELL am I paying you for??!!
At this point I'm ready to spend some money to get an accurate and concise assessment of the problem and clear instructions on what to do about it. I just need to figure out who to call...
Today was the first day I worked "with" my new raised beds, that is I planted something and worked the beds. It was a bit impulsive, was at the supply store picking up manure and there were some winter veggies and I grabbed them. I learned or observed a couple things Today:
36" is too wide for a row. On several occasions I wanted to step over the row or plant on the other side and it was too wide for my short stubs
Using chopped-up sod for the bed base makes digging transplant holes a bit more work that it needs to be. It remains to be seen if the soil quality will benefit from the inclusion of old sod, if it does then I suppose it might be worth it
It's best to break up clumps in bagged soil and amendments BEFORE casting out on the rows, otherwise you need to break it up on the row which ends up knocking a lot of material into the paths
Pack down the top layer just a bit before attempting to drag a furrow, it makes it easier to control the depth correctly
Finished the first set of 4 raised beds Today. After speaking it over with a couple people I decided to keep the raised planter my Dad and I made right where it is and layout the beds around it. I'm still unsure how much shade the liquid amber is going to cast but I'm hoping it's very little.
The base of the beds is ripped up and chopped sod. Using a maddox the sod was lifted up, then chopped with a spade into softball sized junks. The chunks were raked into a long row in the middle of the 36" bed, then spread with a metal rake. After that soil from the fence post holes was dumped and spread on top. Finally my first batch of compost from 2010 was spread on the first bed (background in the picture above and right on the pic below)
I expect these will settle and flatten out a bit as they are rained on and the sod chunks compact. Hopefully they will prove an excellent environment for worms and other critters so I can start building some healthy soil for spring planting.
Compost maintenance Today, flipped one batch and it looked like it would really react from the infusion of oxygen, very soggy and very anaerobic looking. I was right, 6 hours later it was already up to 150+ and climbing. It's odd, I know but I get so much enjoyment from managing composting and making it as productive as possible. Very odd.
The separation of suburban manicured lawn and home farming is complete! With tons of generous help from my Dad the fence is complete.
It represents a physical separation from the "nice" part of my yard and my farm area, it also sets a mental tone once you walk past it, as if you've truly entered a different place - this is what I was going for.
I will admit that I was not paying attention while setting the posts and as a result they are not equidistant from one another, by the time this was noticed the concrete had been set for days so there was no correcting the mistake.
The wire mesh is sandwiched between the posts and rails, I did it this way so that you could get a foothold to climb the fence and have a seat. It also further secures the mesh.
I'm drawing a blank on the name of the screws that were used; they could be best described as between a lag bolt and a Deck Mate screw. They are incredibly strong and even managed to bog down the Milwaukee Hole Shooter drill motor! Each time my Dad drove one in and it really pulled tight he would let out satisfactory "ah-HA!"
In the photo you can see just a bit of the custom hinge work that allows the gate to swing both ways while also being close to the post. This was a real challenge and the key was moving the pivot point in from the edge of the gate. Inspiration for this customization came from a door on display at Ganahl Lumber.
Drawing of the pivot location
relative to the post and gate
Funny Pipe is so much easier than PVC for quick, short runs. There are many contractors out there that are starting to do entire irrigation installations using ALL funny pipe or flexible pipe.
Parts back from the powder coater, engine in the background
Funny, one of my first posts on this blog back in 2005 was about my Craftsman Chipper/Shredder that I purchased to aid my composting efforts. The shredder worked great for years and even was even leant (a word?) out a couple times to help others with their yard projects.
Well about 3 years ago I left the machine out for the winter completely unprotected, in the rain, cold and wind. The result of course was that it rusted out and fell into a terrible condition. It wouldn't start and when I finally did get it running the blades had rusted so bad they had become dull and wouldn't cut. It was a total waste, the machine was useless.
Lots of specialty hardware and pins - well worth the cost
to have it re-plated
Ah, but about 3 months ago I was itching for a project and spied the chipper, decided it needed to be rebuilt and immediately began taking it apart! Like all my projects it grew in scope, cost and complexity, when the dust finally settled and my wallet cooled off I had ended up doing the following:
100% disassembly of the tool excluding the engine
Had the parts chemical and oven stripped ($175)
Replaced broken misc. parts (~$75)
Had all sheet metal pieces powder coated caterpillar yellow ($150)
Had all hardware zinc plated ($35)
Engine tuned up and serviced ($50)
It was worth it though, I had two rewarding and relaxing evenings in the garage drinking beer and assembling everything and I've already logged 30+ hours shredding away materials for my compost pile. This time I'll take better care of it though.
Beautiful! I had to replace the nylocks
because the over strip destroyed the nylon
Finished the first set of 4 raised beds Today. After speaking it over with a couple people I decided to keep the raised planter my Dad and I made right where it is and layout the beds around it. I'm still unsure how much shade the liquid amber is going to cast but I'm hoping it's very little.
I expect these will settle and flatten out a bit as they are rained on and the sod chunks compact. Hopefully they will prove an excellent environment for worms and other critters so I can start building some healthy soil for spring planting.
