I AM HERE

 

 * The post below has been sitting in my drafts for the past 8 years.  Yea, we've been busy.  I figured I'd go ahead and post it as I'm reviewing the past and thinking about the present and planning for the future.  More to come.

Unfinished Post from 07/21/16

 

     What can I say, it's been a busy couple of years.  Between finding our bearing as new parents, and me embarking on a new career, I simply have not had time and energy to write.  I have plenty of inspiration, and I still manage to get out and take pictures on a semi regular basis.  But to sit and distill them into something worth reading is a luxury I used to take for granted and can't seem to fit into the schedule anymore.

     I have seen quite a few backyard permaculture blogs that went strong for a year or two and then just fizzled out and stopped.  It's always a shame because then you don't get to see much of how things work out over time.  The long term success or failure of various projects and such.  I used to think that the project must have failed, and the blog along with it.  But now that I have seen my own humble project run this course, I realize that there can be another reason to stop writing.  We can become victims of our own success.

     When I started this blog, I had a vision of recording all the little details along the way.  Building some sort of  database of practical knowledge for myself and others to use.  After going at it for a few years now, I have realized that the details simply come too many and too quickly to keep up with recording them,  I'm afraid that the best I will be offering moving forward is a broad overview of where we are at and where we are heading.   A sprinkling of details that seem important to me at the time and I want to remember later.  And hopefully a dash of inspiration to others who wish to walk a similar path.


     All that being said, there are some stories and updates to share. 

Lets start with that Hugel/swale project:  also seen in this post. 

Wow, that thing is almost 4 years old now?  Let's see how its going....

Some people might call it messy, but I think it's awesome.  At this point we have completely abandoned the concept of vegetable gardens, or herb gardens, or flower gardens.  It is all just garden.  It's polyculture.  It's a big plant party, and we get to play matchmaker as we learn their languages and begin to understand the relationships they form with each other.  When we find great friendships, there is a synergy that reverberates through the gardens.  In that synergy is where we can find success without relying on any form of chemical assistance.

The labels above give a sense of the types of plants in this garden, but there are many more.  The spring bulbs are already hidden.  Dandelions, plantains, are hidden throughout and the bind weed ever threatens to strangle it all. 

The Hugel swale thingy is really just the beginning of what we call the Kitchen Garden.  Which really deserves it's own post, but time to write is precious. So I'll just do a quick introduction for now.

Above is just a small sampling of the plants within.  The Chicago Hardy Fig that we planted out on the corner to commemorate our daughter's first birthday is doing quite well after overwintering under a pile of leaves. 

The Goji berry was extra abundant this year.  The humming birds really seem to love it's Spring flowers.

I am particularly proud of the Margaret's Peppers this year.  We have been saving the seed since 2009 from a couple of plants my uncle gave me from seed he got from Jung.

The Egyptian Walking Onions I got as tiny top sets from Anna at Walden Effect blog are awesome!  They have fully perennialized and even come back up in spots I would have sworn that they were all dug out of.  They are a very strong (burn your eyes out) kind of onion, and not terribly large.  But then, a little goes a long way.  They braid nicely to hang and use throughout the winter, and I was especially proud this year when we had fresh spring onions alongside some from last years braid in a large pot of stock we made this spring.  Thus completing the cycle on a full years worth of homegrown onions.

I saved the biggest bulbs and planted therm here in the kitchen garden with some fresh mushroom compost last fall.   I cut the top sets off to try and stimulate larger bulb production.

Has it really been two months since my last post!?

     Wow, I can't believe how long it's been since I've posted!  I haven't forgotten about you, it's just been really crazy around here lately.  I think of two new articles I should write every day.  There are so many details I want to share, but just have not had time, energy, and inspiration all at once.

     Our first child is due tomorrow, and the nursery still needs trim and carpet.  The foundation work is 98% complete, but I still have some return ducts to put back in place, some siding work, finish grading the yard, and a few other odds and ends. 

     We got 8 trays of seeds started and a bit of maintenance done on the gardens, but we are resigned to hold off on experimenting and focus on just maintaining what we have and growing things we know we will eat. 

     The chicken updates I have been meaning to write for the past few months has grown into an encyclopedia, but here are some highlights. 

     Chickens got better at digging and decided they like the neighbor's garden this year so we had to increase control and build a fenced off run for them.  We let them out in the late afternoon when we can keep and eye on things.  We use the electric netting to guide them when they are out.  We also re-homed 10 out of 26 birds to cut down on work and food bill.  We added a dustbox to help the chickens maintain better health when Winter got hard.  We had great egg production all winter long with no lighting! :)

     Forest garden project is limping along.  We are off to a good start, and have added things here and there, but it is going to take time before things really shape up.  Still, it's nice to have less lawn to mow.

     Oh my asparagus!   We are getting asparagus as big as 1" around that is still delicious and tender.  Unreal.

     Like I said, there are millions of details I want to share, but trying to balance a modern life, with wisdom from the past and hope for the future has not left any time for writing or photography.  I do see getting back to blogging regularly, but it may be a while with sporadic posting in the meantime.  I would like to improve my css skills and migrate over to Wordpress eventually.  Blogger has been good to me, but the text editor leaves a lot to be desired.

That's it for now, hope you are having a great Spring.

And so the 2014 Garden Planning Season Begins!

     This is the time of year to reflect on the past and dream up the future.  Our future is looking a little different this year as we get ready to welcome our first child into the world this May.  On one hand that makes me think we won't have as much time and energy for the plants and animals.  On the other hand it makes me want to redouble our efforts in growing our own food and healing the land.  Anyway my new years resolution this year is to increase the percentage homegrown food in our diet so there's that.  I am quite proud of the major effort over the last few years that has taken us from 0% to somewhere less than 1% of our diet coming from our garden.  But it's not where I want to be and not what I want to provide for our children.  Still, I was looking through some pics and realized that it has been almost exactly one year since we got our first egg so that's pretty cool.  We are still averaging about 8 or so a day in this dark time of year, though the ameraucanas are barely producing at all.  The leghorns are doing the bulk of the laying with the red stars and rhode island reds not far behind.

     We made it through the flurry of holiday traditions and obligations in fine style this year, though I am still somewhat recovering from the summer of masonry.  Busy summer, and the gardens sure suffered for it.  We had many successes but things started getting out of hand after July.  More produce than I'd care to admit went unharvested or unprocessed, and the edges of the lasagna beds never got cut this year.  Not quite as many as I would have liked but I did manage to save some collection of seeds for next year.

This years list of seeds saved:

Oregon Sugar Pod Peas
Daikon Radish
Mammoth Sunflowers
Aunt Molly's Ground Cherry
Strawberry Spinach
Amish Paste Tomatoes

     One exciting development has been meeting a couple of local seed savers this year.  A man named Bob who was giving a passionate speech about the importance of protecting heirloom genetics while demonstrating an antique cornshucker at a local event known as the farm breakfast.  We had a great conversation and he gave me two handfuls; one of heirloom flint corn that he got from some Amish, and the other a colorful Indian corn.  (I hate using the word Indian in this context, the corn has nothing to do with India and it makes me feel like a stupid American who's bad a geography and ignorant to the plight of the hundreds of unique human cultures that once inhabited this land)  I brought the handfuls of seeds back in my shirt pockets and carefully packaged and labeled them when I got home. Gonna need more garden space.

     A wonderful family came to our yard sale early in the summer and started talking plants.  They ended up staying for hours while Nikki gave a tour of the gardens and talked animal husbandry and such.  Mason, a boy of impressive intelligence and enthusiasm, traded me for some black krim and golden jubilee tomato seeds that he had saved and brought in clever envelopes made from reused paper.  We are very excited to be building a network with some fellow seed savers in the area.

     All things considered, this is looking to be a daunting garden year.  There is still much to do as far as grading and repairing the front yard that was reduced to mud by heavy equipment in the process of digging out and repairing the foundation of our home.  There is still a large pile of dirt close to the house in what will eventually be our kitchen garden.  Since we leave most of the plants standing over winter to provide shelter for beneficial insects there will be quite a bit of cleanup and prep work in the back gardens and hugel mounds.  I had hoped to have an herb spiral and new lasagna beds put together in the fall, but construction delays happened instead.  Such is life.  We do have the two hugelkulture beds in place though, so that will be a good place to start planning plantings.  I will likely use the straw bale method to get the rest of that area started after it gets graded this spring since we had such good success with the zucchini last year.  Also, come spring we will have a lot of damp straw bales that are currently insulating the hoop coops.

     I've got some new ideas to test out this year.  I am trying to design a cheap, modular frame system for the garden.  I am hoping that we will be able to use them for a variety of purposes including; starting seeds outdoors, extending the seasons for veggies, protecting plants from chickens and other predators, isolating plants from cross pollination, a pen for small animals or broody hen or injured chicken, perhaps even a solid wall version for creating temporary compost bins or planting boxes for potatoes.  The frames would all be the same, but the sheathing could be swapped as needed with clear plastic, remay fabric, screen, chicken wire, wood or whatever.  We will see, I put together a prototype so far but it needs a little bit of tweaking and a whole lot of testing.  

     Currently we are battling the snow and the cold of a real Wisconsin winter after being lulled into false confidence by the last couple of light ones.  But that's life here, and if you don't like the weather, wait 5 minutes.  The hens seem to be faring well so far, though we have to shovel out an area for them or they won't leave the coops.  Unfortunately 5 out of the 6 babies we hatched out this year turned out to be cockerals and they are getting big rapidly.  But it has been too cold and we have been to tired and busy so far to send them to freezer camp.  Gonna have to do it before spring gets here and they get really rambunctious.

     Meanwhile life roars by at it's usual raucous pace and employment continues to demand the best from both of us.  But the seed catalogs are starting to come in and the time is here to make lists and maps and timelines and to dream of green things and fresh tastes!

More Better Hoop Coop

     Randy, the mason who worked through the basement repair project with me, also happens to be a fellow flockster (That means chicken keeper in Harvey Ussery speak).  When he saw our hoop coops he liked the concept and decided to build one of his own.  I have to say that he made some impressive improvements to the design.  For those that missed it, pics and plans of our hoop coop can be found here.  Below is a series of pictures showing some of the finer points of Randy's coop.

     He used a slightly shorter frame giving an overhang to the structure.  It's a nice look and offers some shade and protection for the front wall though it also makes the interior slightly smaller.  On the front are two brown barn steel panels that he had laying around, complete with j channel and bottom trim pieces.  Makes for a sturdy and attractive front wall.

     On the front of the plywood person door is a guillotine style chicken door.  I can see the advantage of this type of door, as our chickens sometimes push their hinged door shut and lock themselves out of the coop.  The ones inside are not smart enough to push it back open when that happens.

     Both screen and hardware cloth cover the vents in the front.  On the roof  are a couple of small solar cells powering led lighting inside the coop.   Randy and his family really love this feature so far, the fixtures stay on low all the time to give some ambient light all night.  They can be switched to high when someone is working in the coop. 

     The Led fixture, seen above, has a photocell to turn it off in the daytime.

     One of my favorite innovations about this build is the curved 1x4 on the edge of the cattle panels.  This gives some framework to the corners and makes attaching tarps and screen much easier.  In order to flex the 1x into place, Randy first cut a bunch of shallow kerfs into one side of the bord.  Then, after thoroughly soaking the wood, slowly pushed it into place against the cattle panel and secured it with a 2x4 in the center.  Tricky stuff, but it adds a great finished look to this project.

     The frame is covered by two tarps; a large canvas one and a smaller plastic one.  The ends of the tarps are held in place by lengths of shock cord that he happened to have a spool of.  For the canvas one he threaded the cord through the grommets but the plastic tarp is folded over creating continuous pocket for the cord to run through.

     The cords are tied to an eye bolt in the base of the coop.

      The sides are secured with bungee cords. 

     Inside the coop, straw bales give some structure to the corners and support a 2x4 perch.  A row of feed bins serve as nest boxes and clear plastic panels let in some natural light across the back. 
 
     With so many options, truly this is a building that is unique to each builder.  Thank you Randy for allowing me to publish pics of this fine example.

Some Forest Garden Wins

     Despite a sparse germination and our almost total neglect of the baby forest garden, there were some things that worked quite well.

11/23/2013

The mammoth sunflowers came up strong; providing shade, structure, and food for wild birds.  There is still plenty of seed standing, so I occasionally break off a head and drop it for the chickens, supplementing their food supply in this time of limited forage.  The plant also provides some nice, semi-woody, rough mulch that can capture blowing leaves where we need them.

11/23/2013

     The millet has worked in a similar way, coming up in scattered clumps from the seed balls.  The wild birds don't leave very much standing, but I am guessing the chickens find some dropped seed in their foraging as well as what we drop for them. 

11/03/2013

     With all the construction and other craziness going on this Summer, we only managed to work on two paddocks this year, keeping the birds concentrated on each area in the turf killing phase way longer than I originally envisioned.  We were able to add enough high carbon mulch to keep things smelling and looking ok, basically doing the deep litter method over a large area.  The above shot shows the first paddock, which was seeded in June, and had about a month to rest and germinate before housing 2 broody hens and 6 chicks for the rest of summer.  Since the the other birds have very little respect for our (non-electrified) premier net fencing, they would find their way in as well, to help themselves to a sampling of the fine insects, fruit, greens, and seed that this paddock already offered.  The netting did discourage them enough to allow some plant growth.  We don't have total control of the flock at this point, but if we drop the fences they will roam much farther throughout the day.  With the netting up, about 1/2 the birds stay in the paddock, and the rest don't wander as far, and hopefully stay out of the neighbor's yard.  Hooking up the charger I'm sure would help, but I really don't want to zap our neighbor's dog, who is a total sweetheart and patrols the gardens daily for us.  Also it seems like such an encumbrance to us in our daily chicken chores.  I think we will only resort to the zapper if we run into a bad predator situation. 

     The second paddock is plenty killed and mulched at this point.  I am planning to get seed and make new seed balls over winter for the new section.   It will end up getting planted in early Spring.

10/19/2013

    The harlequin marigolds germinated and grew quite well in place, though I can see many of them lost the distinctive striped pattern that makes pop.  I am going to have to be very aggressive with rouging out non conforming blooms if I want to keep the genetics on this heirloom true.  The good news is that I still have a ton of saved seed and at least 1/2 a clue which batches came in better.

10/19/2013

     Daikon radishes and zinnias dot the area.  Arugula coming up in patches, surrounded by clumps of millet.  The green snow fence helps to restrict the flow of chickens through the paddock allowing the plants a chance to thrive. 

09/27/2013

 

     The hatch-lings loved living in the shade of the pear tree and helped clean up the bumper crop of pears that we never got around to harvesting.  Mayo Indian Amaranth on the right just in front of a clump of Comfrey.

09/27/2013

     The Daikon Radishes shown above can be a tasty crop for people, though we only managed to harvest one, just to sample it, this year.  More importantly though, the large taproot is able to break through hard pan and loosen compacted soil.  The arm sized roots will be left in the ground to rot providing pathways of organic matter that earthworms and other composting critters can follow down along with moisture and oxygen.  Eventually the organic matter will get mixed into the soil in an orchestra of precision micro-tillage that goes many feet deeper than our mechanical tillers could ever reach. 

08/26/2013

     Plantains, Dandelions, and Pig weed dominated earlier in the summer.  The pig weed I pulled and dropped as rough mulch, hopefully before it formed seed.  The dandelions and plantains were left in as forage and dynamic accumulators.  Garlic cloves sprout randomly throughout the paddock.  Various lettuce and strawberry spinach plants are scattered in the mix.  Four clumps of comfrey grow on the drip line of the pear.    The chickens pecked at them a little throughout the warm season, then ate them to the ground when things got cold and forage became scarce.

     The legumes showed poorly despite my attempt to add a dried packet of nitrogen fixing bacteria starter to the seed balls.  The occasional pea or bean thrived in the middle of the paddock.  The hairy vetch got off to a wispy start and then vanished.  There has been no sign of the white clover, Siberian pea shrub or black locust so far.  I am thinking this is due to high Nitrogen from the chicken waste, but that is just a guess.

     An unknown squash climbs it's way through a mass of cherry tomatoes and tangles itself in the fencing.  The Gardener's Delight cherry tomatoes that were in the seed mix came up in abundance and ripened just in time to give the chickens a quick snack before the frosts hit.  There were also some oddball volunteers that I am guessing were planted by the chipmunks from the hybrid Roma tomatoes I grew two years ago.  I wonder if there are quicker to ripen varieties which would work better growing from seed like this. 

     Overall I feel pretty good about what we have done so far.  However, my vision for the layout of the back yard and my ideas about how to incorporate the birds into a working forest garden are all  changing quite a bit.  One of my goals for this winter is to produce and publish some better drawings of the evolving permaculture design for this property.