Waz up Wednesday? - Garden

Waz up Wednesday's is when I talk about a project I've been working on recently. It may still be a project I'm currently working on or one I have recently finished.

We have had some progress on our garden.

We built our garden boxes.

we stapled weed barrier on the bottom. and flipped them over.

we had long staples so some of them needed a little hammering to get all the way flush.

this stinker toad was a big help "donking" (hammering)...."donk...donk...donk" I love it!

we then mixed up some Mel's mix.

added it to the boxes.

sprayed it down as we went. This stuff soaks up a lot of water, so it is advised to add it as you go. especially if you are planning on planting right away.

we decided to use some string to make a square foot grid in one of the boxes.

we are not filling each square, mainly because I have yet to see a tomato plant grow that small.

We have planted a few plants.

our lettuce and carrots were planted by seed and are just coming up. We should have planted them earlier, but the boxes were not ready.

We bought some tomato and broccoli starters and planted them this past weekend.

It is still a little early for the tomatoes so we put walls of water to prevent any possible freezing at night.

we are still planning on planting peppers, corn, zucchini, pumpkin, green beans.

 We also attached our faucet to the pipe that went out there. (it was installed by previous owners) It's hooked to our sprinkling system so we eventually want to have a dip hose system attached and we will not have to worry so much about watering.

This is a tree I bought for the far corner of our yard. I meant to have it planted earth-day weekend, but still haven't got to it.

Waz up Wednesday?- Rotating Compost Bin

Waz up Wednesday's is when I talk about a project I've been working on recently. It may still be a project I'm currently working on or one I have recently finished.

To buy a rotating compost bin it can cost you about $100 or more.

I came across this site on pinterest, for a vertical compost bin.

I like the horizontal ones a little better, so we took what we learned from that site and changed a few things.

Here is what we did:

you will need:
(2) 2x6x10 treated wood
(2) 3 1/2″ Butt/Mortise hinges
screws and nuts that fit the hinges (don't use the screws that come with the hinges)
(1) heavy duty latch that can se'curely shut.
screws and nuts that fit the latch (do not use the screws that come with latch)
(1) 1/2" galvanized pipe (we used a 4' one, but you could probably use a 3 1/2' one if you can find it. you will fined this in the plumbing section of the hardware store)
1/2" caps for the pipe
a small piece of 3/4" PVC pipe (we had this on hand from a recent plumbing project)
1 1/2" wood screws
a water barrel (we used an old one that use to belong to my Grandpa. It is a 50 gal. What is important for this project to work with our de-mentions it to make sure the barrel is about 3' tall)

Tools you will need:
saw (handsaw or circular saw will work)
jigsaw
phillip screw driver
pliers
drill with drill bits, philip screw driver head, and hole saw slightly larger then galvanized pipe (I think we used 7/8")
a square
(2) pipe wrenches (you maybe fine with one)
measuring tape
marker of some sort (pencil, marker)
pipe cutter (or box cutter will work)

Okay let's get started...

...first cut the 2x6x10 boards into 3 equal sizes. you should then have 6 boards approximately 3'4" long.


take two of the boards and make a "T". make sure it is exactly center and use the square to make sure it is square. screw together and repeat this process one more time.

You should now have 2 "T" shapes. turn them so they are upside-down T's and take the two remaining boards and line them up like the picture shows.

your stand should now look like this.

Drill holes with hole saw about 2" down from top of wood post and exactly center.

On to to the barrel...

find exact center of the round ends of the barrel. This was pretty easy sense there where two seems that met up in the center. Using the hole saw drill a hole on each end.

for the door you want to first mark out where you want it. we just looked for seems or lines in the barrel to mark where we wanted it to be.

After it is marked use the drill head to make holes in the corner large enough to get your jigsaw blade in.

Saw the sides of the door that the latch and hinges will be attached. (DO NOT saw the other two sides yet)

lay the hinges where you want them and mark the holes. drill starter holes on those marks.

screw the hinges on. Do the same process for the latch.

Once the hinges and latch are screwed on proceed with sawing the remaining two sides of the door.

Open the door. using the pliers and screw driver tighten the nuts to the bolts to fully secure the hinges and latch.

Take the PVC pipe and cut two 1" pieces off, using pipe cutter or box cutter. A saw may work as well.

Here is the tricky part. you will want to take the galvanized pipe and put it through one of the wood post, then a PVC pipe, then through the barrel, through another PVC pipe and through the other wood post.

once you've done all that you will want to put the caps on the end of the galvanized pipe, using the pipe wrenches.

You made it! You are done!

now find a spot for it and start saving all those food scraps and grass and you will have nice compost in no time!

Waz up Wednesday?- Garden

Waz up Wednesday's is when I talk about a project I've been working on recently. It may still be a project I'm currently working on or one I have recently finished.

source

 I grew up in a family that always had a garden, a pretty large one most years.

I learned a lot about gardening and have lots of great memories of working in the yard as a family.

Me at about age 3 with our 40lb squash

I realized lately that I didn't learn as much as I thought I did. Or maybe it just didn't stick in this head of mine.

Thank goodness for the internet and Pinterest.

Now that we have a yard and are not trying to grow plants out of planter boxes. I'm realizing how much work and how much cost a garden really takes.

I'm sure some can do it a lot cheaper then we are doing. We decided to do the square foot garden thing. or our own version of it anyway.

I liked the look of raised box gardens with the gravel paths around them.

My dream Garden.

source

We also needed a way to keep the kids and dog from digging in it. so we have put a fence up around the whole thing.

I think the white picket fence is going to have to wait.

Our puppy(?), Neville, loves to chew on EVERYTHING and bury things.

We gave him a stuffed penguin for Christmas.

The next day it was nowhere in site. We thought we saw stuffing and blue fabric as the remains until this week...

as we were tilling up the dirt we had a few surprises pop out of the ground (besides the ass-fault that was just covered up by top soil)  several dog chew bones, ripped up dog blanket, and the penguin, still in one piece.

the previous owners had put in curbing all around the out side. We really liked it...at first.

 When we started writing down what we wanted in the yard and trying to figure out where to put it all. The curbing had to go...or at least move.

SO we have fenced in the area (okay maybe the post are only up) where we wanted the garden to be. We've been moving some of the curbing a few feet, digging up grass, moving dirt around to make a flat area, and praying we would not dig up or need to move any sprinklers (we don't, at least not this year.) 

We moved some of the grass we dug up to the side of our patio where we were thinking of putting cement until we looked into the cost. The sprinklers do not cover that area, so we will have to use a hose with sprinkler head. It is only temporary until we can get some cement in there.

Worms

Earthworms also known as "dew-Worm" "Rain-worm" "night  crawler" and "angleworm". dirty slimy little things that crawl around in your yard. Why do they exist? and what is there purpose? And why am I talking about worms today?

Well , now that the weather is cooperating I decided to tackle all the trash and tumble weeds that had blown up against the back of my house and down the stairs to my basement entrance (the joys of having no fence and a large field lining my back yard.)  As I was cleaning the trash and dirt up at the bottom of the stairs I came across this.

That is my four year olds' hand for comparison.

Did you know that worms have five hearts? There are 4400 species of worms and 2700 different kind of earthworms. they have been around 120 million years. Cleopatra said they were sacred. Aristotle called them "the intestines" of soil. Charles Darwin Studied them for 39 years and said "It may be doubted whether there are many other animals in the world which have played so important a part in the history of the world as these lowly organized creatures."

 Earthworms are great to have around. They are recyclers. they eat and digest trees, leaves, fruit, nuts, dead animals and many other things. An abundance of earthworms is very beneficial to the organic gardener. there can be as many as 250,000 worms in a unhealthy acre of dirt and 1,750,000 in an acre of very rich soil.

Now to the fun part. 

Did you know you can make your own worm compost? all you need is a rubber or wood tote with a lid, worms, and some food waste. This process is called Vermiculture. These are not your everyday earthworms. You must use the Brandling worm, also known as the tiger worm or the Red wiggler. The Internet or local gardening club is your best bet for finding a worm vendor near you. To get more details on the process of making your own worm farm check this out!