Trellis!

So, I went ahead and built the trellis for my hops to climb on today.  I started out digging postholes 3 feet deep, and setting in 15 foot sections of alder trunk and burying them there.  Next, I added 3.5 foot cross sections, held in place with countersunk 2.5 inch wood screws that I had laying around.  On these, I rested the 9 foot long main supports, and I attached them with the same screws.  

So, it started out looking like this:

Here, I have 3 complete layers all attached to the vertical posts:

And finally, I have added 2 more layers, one on top, and one below.  starting from 2 feet above ground level, I have 5 layers of supports at 1.5 foot intervals:

Wow!  I had a plan in my head, but, um, it turned out a bit bigger than I had pictured.....

The main vertical supports are about 13 feet above ground level, which is probably a bit extreme, so I don't think I need to add any more layers until my hops prove they need them.  I do have room for 3 more layers up top, if they become necessary however.  

This certainly isn't the very best plan for a trellis system for the long run, but I was clearing the area where most of these little alders were growing up anyways, and rather than burn them, I decided to put them to use.  I'm not sure on the exact numbers these days, but if I assume 4, 15 foot 4x4's for the vertical supports, at $20 each, and 5 layers, each with 3 supports, at 9 feet long, that's 135 feet of, say, 2x2, 16, 8 foot boards at $5 each brings the total lumber cost to easily $160.  

Let me know what you think of the design, and if you have any suggestions, I'd love to hear them!  Next week, I hope to build another similar trellis system for my beans, which will be going in the adjacent bed, so if you see room for improvement, let me know before I get started on the next one.  Thanks for stopping by!

Planting Day!

Woohoo! So pretty much the first round of everything is in the ground, the only exceptions are beans, and potatoes.  The weather was great, so I spread the planting out over Saturday and Sunday and spent some time doing other yard work as well.  Continue to scroll down for more closeup pictures of the beds with the newly planted sprouts.

Barley:

Cabbage:

Spinach:

Cucumbers:

Onions (top half) and Carrots (bottom half):

Broccoli:

Here is the lettuce:

Peas:

Hops.  The small stakes are only temporary, I am building a trellis that should be ready by the time they need it:

Well, that's all for now.  Hope you check back soon to see how everything grows in the ground!

We have sprouts going strong!

Well, it's been far too long of a wait, but the sprouts haven't taken any time off, just me!  I took these pictures today, about 16 days after planting everything except the barley, and the barley has been in for about 10 days.  I think they are looking pretty good so far, but most of them probably need another week before I'm ready to plant, plus the weather is still pretty cold, so I'm not in much of a rush.  

Peas and onions.

Broccoli and lettuce.

Spinach and cabbage.

Barley, and no cucumbers yet :(  So far they are the only thing that hasn't sprouted at all yet, but hopefully this week they'll wake up and smell the sunshine!  

Five days later, and we have sprouts!

Well, today was exciting!  I went to water my seeds this morning, and lo and behold, sprouts!

These are the broccoli seeds that I started on Sunday, sprouting on Friday!  Also, just a couple lettuce poked through this afternoon, my camera kind of ate the picture, but you get the idea:

Hopefully, the rest of the sprouts will show up in a couple more days, and I'll have a full batch of starts to go in the ground in a couple weeks when the weather clears up.

Late pictures of starting seeds

I did this on Sunday afternoon last week, and I've kept the soil moist watering 1-2 times a day.  The raised rack in the garden window seems to be a good place for them, where my cat doesn't find them and start digging, and they get decent light exposure.

Not much to it, I filled the egg cartons with soil, added the seeds, and then covered them with loose soil, and watered them.  From left to right:

Onion

Cabbage

Lettuce

Peas

Cucumber

Carrots

Broccoli

Spinach

This is what I used to start my seeds.  Egg cartons, and 1 bag of good organic seed starting soil mix.  

Getting closer

So Sorry for the lack of updates, but between getting sick, and the weather we've had these past few weeks,I haven't had much time to do anything, so nothing to post.  Today finally turned out nice, and I was feeling good, so I turned all my beds again to further mix in the compost manure, and mix in some potash.  The soil looked pretty good this time when I turned it, most of the manure was dissolved and absorbed, and there was a fine dark brown color throughout.  There were also plenty of earthworms in the beds, I would estimate about 10-20 big fat ones that I saw in each of the large beds.  I also picked up my seeds today, and will be starting them indoors tomorrow, with hopes of putting most of the starts in the ground in 2 weeks or so.  More to come, thanks for checking in!

What's a garden with no compost bin?

So I built one. I'll need to come back and edit this to include the process, but here are some pictures of what I did

I still need to cut the holes in the sides for ventilation, but you get the idea.

Sunday's Digging

I spent today turning the last 3 of my in ground beds.  The area was completely grown over with grass and moss:

First, I used a square nose shovel to perforate the grass around the perimeter of my beds, and then removed the sod layer from the top and set it aside for compost later, I spotted quite a few worms, it should be pretty good!  Next, I used a regular shovel to turn the dirt underneath once.  After that, I spread on about 2 inches of composted horse manure, and turned the soil two more times to break up large chunks of soil and mix it in well.

The outline of my hops patch, minus the sod:

Turned once, with manure on top:

Turned 2 more times and raked:

Outline of my barley patch, sod partially removed:

Barley patch fully cleared:

I didn't have time to take pictures of mixing in the manure for the barley patch, it started to rain and I didnt want to get my camera wet, so I finished up and went inside to plan my compost bin design and go to the hardware store to get supplies for it.

The Map

So, before I got too deep into this project, I had to take some stock of my available space and think about what I wanted and how to bring it to life.  There has been a garden in this space infrequently for 5 years or so, but most of it is fairly heavily overgrown right now. All the raised beds are from previous years, and are outlined in thin black lines.  The areas with thicker black outlines are to be directly in the ground.  The green is a very rough idea of the row layout.

All turned and fertilized!

So here's what it looks like so far after todays digging, in the next post I will outline the digging process I have been using.

The garden, it begins!

I regret my late attention to the subject, and therfore a lack of early pictures and information, but this year seems to be the year that I have decided to begin a serious attempt at backyard farming.  In the past, my family and I have made several attempts at gardening in our backyard, but they usually ended up basically fruitless.  This year, for a variety of reasons, I have decided to make another attempt at it, with a set of goals in mind.  As this blog ontinues, I hope to add a large number of pictures, and useful information to the hopeful backyard farmerm with the intention being that you may learn from my mistakes as well as successes.  In the coming days, I will be adding information about where the status of my garden is, and how I have come to this point.  Directly succeeding this post, I will regale you with the dockett of my days activities, including preparation of the garden, and plans for the coming days and weeks.  I hope you will stay tuned to my labors and provide me with input as to what you are doing in your own backyard garden, and any areas that you think I need to pay more attention to or make changes to.  I wish you all the best in your endeavours and hope that we may revitalize the backyard garden "industry" together!