by JarHeadTed
March 06, 2011 11:10
The back yard is coming along. I'm several weeks behind on building my raised beds, but in the mean time I'm doing other projects that will halp me out after the beds get built and planted.
Project 1) I added another water barrel to the one I have to collect rainwater. This makes my water capacity 100 gallons. I cut off a section of garden hose and fitted the end with a female hose end to allow water to flow from one barrel to the other. By the time I pay for the new fittings, these hoses are more expensive than if I would buy a washing machine hose for the same job. From this point forward, I'll use washing machine hoses for this purpose. By the time it's all installed, I want to have 2 backyard downspouts pouring into rain barrels with a capacity of 300 gallons. I'll see if this meets my needs or if I need to add to it at the end of the year. I also want to have a 65 gallon barrel in the front yard. I have a barrel in ind that costs more per gallon but it is more decorative and features a self watering flower planting area in top. This would be more visually pleasing for the front yard.
Project 2) I haven't finished it yet, but I'm building a small slow sand water filter to experiment with. The cost was less than $15. I plan to do another pos excusively on it's construction and results later. Once It's tested and I get the results of the before and after water samples I'll post it.
Project 3) I have learned that blueberry plants have special soil needs and will grow better in a container where I can better manage the soil. Today I will transplant my blueberry plants in an area that will allow them to thrive.
Project 4) My wife bought me a topsy turvy pepper planter and she bought herself a topsy turvy strawberry planter. I have Jalapano and bell pepper plants from the store to transplant into planter and I bet we will go to the store for strawberries this afternoon. All we need to do is figure out where we are going to hang these planters in full sun (a rare commodity in our yard).
by JarHeadTed
March 03, 2011 09:34
I built my own compost bin. It sits behind where I took the picture of my wall from yesterday's post. Today I'm going to describe how I built this easy project.
First I had to scrounge around for some pallets. You can get them for free but you need to ask around. There are several stores that pay a deposit on shipping pallets and need to turn them back in. You can use damaged pallets just as well. Drive around all of the strip malls, harware stores, lumber yards, or any other likely businesses until you see some pallets stacked up. Then go in and ask the manager what they do with the pallets and if you can haul any of them off. You will need 3 for this project.
The bin is simple enough all you have to do is stand the bins on end and fasten the corners together. After that, you're pretty much done if you are on level ground. I wasn't. I had to dig out the uphill and back pallet "foundation" so the bin would sit more or less level.
I then used recycled wire from political signs to hold the pallets together at the top and bottom corners where they meet. Once this was done, I buried the parts of the pallet that were dug out in order to add stability to the bin. After that, it's finished. Load it up with the material you are going to compost and have a blast. Once loaded I added a bag of manure and a bag of peat moss from the local home improvement stores to get a jump start on the process. My daughters also added in the worms I mentioned a couple of posts ago. Other considerations I had for my bin was that I wanted it close to the raised beds. It sits about 15 yards east of where I will use the vast majority of the compost. It is also fairly easy to get to from the house which will make it more convienient to get food scraps (no meat) into the mix.