Construction Complete, Crop Planted

I've finished building the second bed, added soil, planted a number of plants, and run out of time for blogging or photographing. I'll add detail in another post later in the week.

And since I finished in a marathon run, I'm off to bed!

First Bed Completed!

The first bed is finished! It took a little longer than I expected but that was probably due to the rain we've had.

Bed Building Continued

Yesterday, I managed to accomplish quite a bit after the rain stopped. I began by cutting the timbers for the first layer and laying them out on the ground. I then checked to see if the timbers were level. They, of course, weren't level because that would be too easy. I dug a small trench with a pick and a hoe so that the one high corner is level enough for me to be happy with it. Once that was out of the way, adding layers was a simple matter of cutting them and placing them. With the digging, I was worn out after the first two layers.


Then it rained again last night....


So, today, I started the day off by waiting for everything to dry out a bit. We've had some rough storms over the last couple of days. Luckily, the most I've had fall is a couple of branches. Once the day moved on a bit, I started cutting and adding the last two layers of the first bed.


Once I finished cutting and laying out the timbers, I made sure that they were lined up correctly, checking them with a level. Then I prepared to drill through.





After pre-drilling a hole, I pounded a 24-inch long section of rebar through the 12-inches of timber using a three-pound sledge.






I then repeated the process twice more on the same corner. Of course, it can't be quite as simple as that, can it? Of course not: I had to re-align the timbers after the vibrations from the hammer knocked them out of place. But that was the only trick to it...


Currently, I'm on a dinner and blogging break. As it stands now, I have all of the timbers for the shallow bed cut and laid out and one corner secured with rebar.

New Year, New Try - Bed Building

The new year has been here for a while and I haven't done anything in the garden yet this year. I'm pretty sure that last year's container garden is completely dead.

Yesterday, I purchased the lumber I need to make two beds at 8' by 4'. I'm going to make that measurement the outside dimensions of the beds so that I can use paver stones of even dimensions of 6 or 12 inches between the beds without cutting the pavers. This is important so that my grandmother can come over and play in the garden.

I'm going to be placing the beds near the location of last year's container garden since it's the sunniest spot on my entire property. I actually used last year's containers to layout the dimensions of the garden on the ground.

Of course, I started to late in the year for cool weather crops (live and learn) but I should be able to get the summertime crops going just in time.

I haven't quite solved the night-gardening lighting issue but I'm close to a solution: I'll probably use LED floodlights and some sort of movable lighting rig.

Of course, due to my luck, it's raining rather heavily today so I don't know how much outdoor progress I'll be motivated to make, but tomorrow is supposed to be quite sunny.

So far, no good

Well, it seems that I stall and stall again on the gardening.

C'est la vie, non?

I shall try again this coming year and I'll try to prepare the land over the course of the winter and have a slightly larger crop ready to nurture.

Here's what I think I'll need:

• nightime farming lighting (currently a ladder with 2 clamp lights) due to my sleep/work schedule.
• beds. I think I should try in-ground beds this time.
• a larger variety of plants
• recipes. I gotta eat what I grow. I didn't have enough this year to provide recipe cornerstones and I didn't have recipes to put what I had (regardless of quantities) to good use.

Update 2008-05-24

The brown thumb strikes.

My indoor grow-light plants are at about 50/50. I've probably planted some plants together that have different water tolerances.

I also added some arugula and some chives outside and moved the tomato plant out of the shade into the sunniest spot in my yard ... right by the mailbox.

Pictures to be added in the future.

Update 2008-05-08

I'm making progress, slowly but surely, in clearing the land. Today is the first day that we'll have rain since I started so I'll be able to see how much mud havoc I'm wreaking.

I think I'm going to have to remove most of the trees in order to make this work so that I

1. have access to sunshine,
2. don't have to constantly pluck pinestraw out of my crop,
3. can lay out the garden in organized rows.

It feels strange to be a tree-hugger who has just condemned most of the trees on my own land. I have to be content with the fact that I'll be growing a huge amount of plant matter.

One of the things I'm going to have to figure out is how to manage the garden. I'm considering putting up stand-alone sections of fence to provide a path for the vine-like plants. Is this a good idea? If I do this, should I orient the sections north-south or east-west?

I'm also considering putting fence up all around the edge of the property but not using it for plant support. The main rationale behind this is that I will need to be able to manage the neighbor's weeds such as English Ivy and the like crossing into the garden. Has this been a concern for anyone else?

I need to find a cheap source for containers because I won't be able to afford the containers at Lowe's, Home Depot, or Walmart.

Genesis of a Homestead

I was inspired to try urban/suburban homesteading by reading about The Path Project and other successful small-lot homesteaders.

Well, yesterday I started. Started really small but I started.

I decided to start by putting in a compost bin in the back yard. Rather than build one myself, I purchased a stacking recycle bin and started there (I can change in the future, if need be).

I've more or less neglected my backyard since I bought my house. I wanted to put the compost bin near the fence on the north side of the back yard so that it would be out of the way. I have been piling leaves and stick up in a compost heap but I haven't really been managing the compost. Yesterday, I discovered several things.

First, I have some really nice soil under the leaf pile. Lots of it.

Second, I had a nice little patio under the leaf pile and the really nice soil.

Well, rather than stop at simply clearing enough space for the compost bin, I decided to clear the entire patio off.

Having been inspired by my success in clearing the patio, I went out and bought a pot and planted tomatoes, jalapeños, cilantro and rosemary in the pot and placed it on the patio. I used soil from the bottom of the leaf pile as potting soil.

I also replanted my kitchen planters (it required re-moistening the soil). In the kitchen I planted peppermint, more rosemary, oregano, parsley, and cilantro.

Oh, I should probably say a little bit about my property. My house faces more or less due east. There is an addition that sticks off of my house at the southwest end. I have tons of trees, especially pine trees. The property slopes down to the north with the low point of the property near the basement door. The neighbors to the south have a chainlink fence along the back yards, the neighbors to the north have a fence across their back yard which doesn't cover the length of my backyard on that side. The west property line does not have any fences, although I probably need a nice tall wood fence there, most of all.

Unfortunately, my point-and-shoot digital camera is hiding from me at the moment so I don't have any photos of the progress to share. I will shoot some at a later date and post them back in this post.