Showing posts with label planning. Show all posts
Showing posts with label planning. Show all posts

Sunday, December 14, 2008

garden plan: rough draft is complete

I'm sure that there will be refinements, but the calendar is complete as of today. Tomato was last on the list - I'm not growing turnips, and zucchini was filed under "summer squash."

Here are a couple of screenshots (click on images for larger size) for how I've organized my thinking. The first is my veggie list, with the tomato section show, which contains the different vegetables with some of the pertinent information. This information has been gleaned from Step by Step, with some additional help from seed catalogs for timing and spacing.



The second is my garden calendar, showing April through July, with dates for sowing indoors, transplanting, and direct sowing (putting the seeds directly in the garden beds.)



With this framework, I now have a pretty good idea of what I need to do for next year's garden. Of course, I'll continue to learn and adjust my ideas and strategies, but the basics are in place. It feels pretty good.

Thursday, December 4, 2008

garden plan: in progress

I keep changing the way that I want to plan out the garden, so it's taking quite a while. But I'm working on it, slowly. I haven't done much outside since I put the leaf mulch on (which, by the way, has mostly blown off the raised beds by now. I should have waited for rain or snow - but we just haven't had enough of it. So I'm going to wait until the leaves are wet, then rake them back up onto the beds.) Here's the plan as it stands right now (click for larger, and legible, image.)

Goals of the planning process:
1. Have a calendar of when each of the different varieties are sown (indoors or out), thinned, and transplanted.
2. Plan in such a way as to have a continuous, gradual harvest rather than everything all at once.
3. Make the transition to a smaller winter garden easy.
4. Optimize garden space using succession planting - for example, planting beans in the corn bed so the beans climb up the corn stalks.

That's all I can think of for now, but it's a lot, and it's taking a while to wrap my head around it all. More information will be forthcoming when I get the plan settled in my mind (and on my computer.)

Sunday, October 5, 2008

greenhouse plans


I don't really have a choice.  If I want to do what I'm saying - growing most or all of our produce - I've got to extend the growing season, and I need a place to stage it all.  So a greenhouse is a must.  I found plans for this one online, and it looks pretty good.  I like the design with the clerestory windows up top.  And it seems simple enough to build in one day (I know...famous last words.)
At about 80 s.f., this one's pretty small, but should be enough room for what I need.  I'll build shelves on the south side to hold trays of seedlings, and will have a bench on the north side as a work area.

Thursday, September 25, 2008

next steps

1.  Saturday (after work in the morning) and Sunday: chipping all the branches from the trees we tore down last weekend and mulching all of the yard debris created in the past couple months.  Cost of renting the chipper: ~$165

2.  Monday afternoon - borrow Fred's truck to pick up some goat manure from West Jordan.  Then mix with the new mulch to create a huge compost pile.  This should take roughly a month or two to decompose.  

3.  I have two weekdays off in October - the 16th and 17th - for Joel's and my birthday weekend.  My plan is to rent a bobcat and a dump trailer and accomplish the following tasks on the evening of the 15th and the 16th (I've got the timing carefully planned out so I'll only have to rent the bobcat and trailer for one day each):
  1. demolish the driveway from the front corner of the house back.
  2. level off the parkstrip out front in preparation for new grass planting.
  3. dig up grass in backyard in accordance with new design.
  4. pick up more manure from the goat farm and mix into raised beds to let sit over the winter.
Renting bobcat and trailer for one day: $360.  
Dumping fees: $100 (estimate)
Goat poo: free (woo-hoo!)

new 3d designs

Refining the design phase of the garden.  This is the latest version.  I'm loving Google's SketchUp software for helping with the 3d design.  Dark brown rectangles = 4' x 8' raised beds for veggies.  Click on images for larger size.  First view is from above:

This is what you will see from the street (minus the roof):
From the rear:
And another view of the new backyard:
The trees will all be fruit-bearing, 11 total (in this design).  Includes existing grape vine and a new raspberry patch.  I'm also adding some flower beds along the side of the house where the driveway is now (more on that in a later post.)  Total square footage of vegetable beds: 1008!

Sunday, September 21, 2008

the deed is done

All weekend long, Mike has been putting me through the guilt treatment for wanting to chop down these trees.  "If you're so green and organic, how can you kill a tree!?"  Fair enough.  We're killing these trees to make room for other trees - ones that will produce fruit, and make our yard look a ton better.  Here are the before and after shots:


I never thought that there would be so many branches.  Here's the pile.  Next stop: Diamond Rental for a wood chipper.  I can't imagine how big the pile of chips will be, and, once the manure and other ammendments are added, how big our compost pile will be.  We'll need it though, 'cause I've been brainstorming again, and more plans are around the corner:

Finally, here's the star of the show, in action.  Karson is Camie's cousin's boyfriend, and is awfully handy with a chainsaw:


Wednesday, September 17, 2008

garden plan: next several weeks

I don't have anything against fir trees.  I grew up with douglas firs in the pacific northwest.  But this tree, right in the middle of the yard, is neither majestic nor beautiful.  It is awkward and ugly and big.  And it's coming down this weekend, thanks to Camie's cousin's boyfriend, Karson.  It will open up the backyard quite a bit, and good riddance to it.
So that is next on the list.  Once that's done, and we have another huge pile of branches, etc., it's time to rent the limb chipper.  I'm not real thrilled, because it's going to cost probably about $150, but since we're getting the tree cut down for free, I guess it will even things out.

The limb chipper is also going to take care of this pile, which has grown to about 3 times this size since I took this picture:
This process will create a huge pile of mulch ready for composting.  Next week, my plan is to get a couple truck loads of manure, combine it with the mulch, and let nature do its thing.  Hopefully in about a month I'll have a nice compost pile that will feed my garden soil next year.

Also in the next few weeks, it's time to lay out the planting beds and work in some manure to sit over the winter and slowly decompose.  I'm delaying this, though, until the current crops have run their course.  I'm in a bit of a time crunch, too, since the garlic seeds have arrived and need to be planted.  I'd like to have some compost to use by then, too, but I'm not sure exactly how long the compost pile will take to decompose.  So we'll just proceed one step at a time and see how it goes.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

compost pile: getting started

I am reading a terrific book - Step by Step Organic Vegetable Gardening by Shepherd Ogden.  It's about 15 years old, but in the world of organic gardening, it makes it that much better.  I highly recommend it.

I have officially started my compost pile today.  Here is how I'm doing it.  In this photo, on the back right corner of the garden, you can see a wall of leaves - vines hanging down from telephone pole support wires.

In this photo, that wall of leaves and vines is in a big pile on the ground because I ripped them all down today.


Here's a closeup of the pile.  It is large, and there's some big branches in there.  Also there are all the weeds that I've been pulling up from all over the yard in the past week.  It will continue to grow as I finish up the weeding process this weekend.

Compost principles.
  1. Ingredients: fuel, heat, moisture, air
  2. Fuel: carbon.  comes from "brown material" like dried out weeds or plants, hay, etc.
  3. Heat: nitrogen.  comes from "green material", such as fresh weeds, grass clippings, or manure.
  4. Moisture: key word is moist.  Not soaked.
  5. Air:  has to be there to feed the process.
I'm doing a quick compost process, which is a bit more labor intensive, but quicker.  My plan is to let all of this stuff I cut down today dry out for about a week, and it will serve as the fuel for the compost.  I may end up renting some sort of grinder/chipper to chop the big stuff into small pieces and allow for faster composting.  Then, I'm getting a truckload of goat manure (free of charge) and will mix the manure (nitrogen source, green material, heat) with the clippings (carbon source, brown material, fuel) in about a 1:4-5 ratio.  

In about thirty days, after keeping it moist and turning it regularly to allow fresh air to enter, I should have compost.  It will be ready to use then, but I'll wait to use it until the spring, working it into the soil just before setting out the seedlings.

Friday, August 29, 2008

picture this


The top image is the current "organization" of the garden.  The bottom is what I have settled on for the garden plan.  16 raised beds.  The twelve on the sides are 4 x 8.  The center row is two 4x4 and two 4x7.  In the center of the garden is a 10 x 10 square that will be used as a garden patio with outdoor dining table and chairs - eating the vegetables we grow in the garden while sitting in the garden seems kind of fitting.  Total square footage of planting areas will be 472.

On the left side of the picture, there are grapevines already planted - they produce fruit, but not very much.  So I'll be learning about tending grapes.  On the right side, I'll probably be building a fence and planting some raspberries.  I'm also considering adding another fruit tree to the back right corner.

I'm a little nervous about the cost of framing the beds and setting the patio, probably with brick pavers.  But I do have a birthday coming up.

Sunday, August 24, 2008

What I'm working with

This first image is a map I created in Google's Sketchup.  It shows a few of the dimension of the lot and the location of the planting beds (in brown).  Our lot is about 32 feet wide by 170 feet long, and the main garden area in back is the last 50 feet of the lot.

Next is the front garden area, where I have planted a fall garden and installed a drip irrigation system.  There are 5 rows, spaced 12-18 inches apart.  I'll write a separate post on this area and what I've got going on.

Next is the "side yard."  It's about 5.5 feet wide, and half of that is covered by a concrete sidewalk.  It is almost always in the shade.  However, our neighbors have offered to let us use the area above the retaining wall next to their house.  It's a little over a foot wide, and faces  south.


Here's a full view of the backyard with the lawn and most of the back garden visible:


Finally, the back garden with my hastily planted garden.  This one also deserves its own post a bit later: