2018 Farm Goals and Building raised beds

Farm Goals

Now that we own property, I think it is time to set some Farm Goals for the year!  Set up by priority with most important first...

1. Fencing, Fencing, Fencing - the idea is to completely fence in our entire property.  I have about half the money saved for this project and I am hoping to get the rest saved up this winter/spring and to have the project done late summer or early fall.  Most of the property is already fenced.  We just need to enclose the "front yard" where the chickens will be.  The idea is not to have a fortress against predators...I am well aware that they will still be able to find their way in.  The fencing is more to keep our future livestock guardian dog in/on our property.  I took advantage of having the snow on the ground to walk the perimeter of the property and found this...

Here is a place along the fence where the coyotes are going under...

2. Clean out the barn - there is LOTS of junk in the barn.  We have been able to use some of the items in the barn (like the stock tanks that we made into raised garden beds).  I also moved an old tractor tire from the barn to the garden.  I am going to fill it up and use as a raised bed and try and grow sweet potatoes in it.  However, there is still old diesel tanks and lots of scrap lumber that need to be taken out.  We have decided that we need to rent one of those big dumpsters and just fill it up.  I have been going through and picking out the small stuff and I put it in our trash can each week.  I would like to see if some of the metal is worth anything.  I am going to contact a salvage yard to see if we have anything worth any money and I can put that money toward the fence...or I may keep it to put toward the barn lighting.  There is currently no electricity to the barns but I have been thinking about setting up solar powered lights for the barns...the barn power is definitely a much more future goal...

3. Finish saving money for chicken business...if we stay on task, we will have this completed at the end of the year!  Originally, we were scheduled to finish in June 2019, right when Mark is graduating high school but we were able to save a few months extra so we are a little ahead of schedule with this!

4. Clean up the dead trees!  We thought we would be doing this in the fall 2017 but it just did not happen.  Too many other things going on.  I did get a chain saw for Christmas this year so hopefully, between me and Henry, we will start to get things cleaned up...

5. Set up some rain barrels.  The house is set up PERFECTLY to capture rain and it is all up above the garden area so we will have gravity on our side.  This will be another expense so I am just not sure how much will get completed.  We are getting SO much moisture this winter and I really want to find a good way to capture it.

BUT... Henry is going to a meeting in California this spring and the boys and I may go with him and go to Disneyland!  That is going to take away from our savings because this is not really something we have planned for but this is a great opportunity (because his consulting business will pay for his flight and our hotel room)!  We actually do have a Disney fund that I started years ago so we will use this for part of our trip...

In the Garden

We are going to need lots of raised beds for our garden.  I decided to start with putting together the perennial beds.  We made an asparagus bed with some salvaged lumber from the barn.  These are 1 foot high and 2 inches thick.  Henry nailed them together...

Then, I tacked on 1/2 inch hardware cloth onto the bottoms to keep the voles out...(I hope it keeps the voles out...)

Then, I started adding "stuff"...here are some salvaged leaves I had collected from the curb...

This is a layer of half rotten compost that I had in our hot bins. 

I also put a layer of the rabbit poop mixed with wood shavings but I guess I did not get a picture of that....

I put the old hay on top...

These are the blueberry beds.  There are 4 beds that are 8 feet long by 3 feet wide and they are 8 inches high/tall.  I plan on plating 2 bushes per bed for a total of 8 bushes.  Blueberry plants really like acidic soil (about pH of 4.5).  I placed sulfur in the beds to help lower the pH.  I had read that it is best to do this several months before planting so fingers crossed that it works.  Hopefully, we will be planting bushes in the spring.

Here is our little strawberry bed (this shows the rabbit poop/shaving mixture).  I am planning on putting 10 strawberry plants in it.  Then, next fall, I will build another one and plant 10 plants in it.  We will keep doing this each year until we have 4 beds.  I have read that strawberry plants last about 3 years and then need to be replaced.  So, the idea is that as the last bed is built, the first bed will be pulled out and new plants will be placed in it.  So, we will always have 3 beds at top production and one in transition...

I would love to have more raised beds put together for more annual vegetables.  I am just not sure if we are going to have time this spring to get this done.  If not, I will just concentrate on the stock tank garden and the hay bale gardening.  I think this will keep me plenty busy this summer.  Plus, I have the sunflowers to work on too...there are also like a hundred million other little things that I want to do...put up a bat house, plant blackberries, plant grapes, build some bird houses...the list goes on and on!

Happy New Year!
~Denise and boys

Farm Failure and Garlic Planted (the end of October)!

In the Garden

Farm Failure

Okay, let's get the failure out of the way first.  I did not set the brake on the Polaris and it rolled down the hill and decapitated my brand new pear tree!  I know, I know...not the biggest loss in the world but it was still upsetting to me.

Lesson learned:  Always use the brake even when you think you are not on a "hill".  I promptly ordered another pear tree so I could get it planted right away...then, I noticed my other pear tree "leaning"...

Something had totally chewed through and basically killed it.  I don't consider this second pear tree a "failure", just a part of life and living with lots of little critters.  It did get me wondering if maybe I am not supposed to have pear trees!  It was too late to get another one in the ground this fall but I will replace it in the spring.

Planting Garlic

On to better news...I honestly did not think I would get around to planting anything in the garden area this year but I did get the garlic in!

I bought garlic at the Farmer's Market. It was the last Saturday in October.  I ended up with about 37 Spanish red, 37 Music, and 16 German red cloves for a total of 90 cloves to plant. 

 I placed it in the biggest stock tank and covered it with soil.

 Then, I covered it with wood shavings mixed with rabbit manure.  This was a HUGE score for me...my friend (thanks Stuart) told me of a local rabbitry that places all their wood shavings out for people to take!!!  It is hard to see from this picture but there is LOTS of rabbit manure in there!  The great thing about rabbit manure is that it is not "hot" so it does not have to be composted before you use it.

 Then, I covered it with shredded hay from the barn.

If you are wondering what the big wooden thing is in the bed, I am planning on planting my tomatoes in this tank next summer and will be tying them onto this as a trellis.  I have no idea what this thing was used for but I found it in the barn and thought it would be great to use for this purpose...

I didn't think I was actually going to be able to collect any leaves because I was just so busy this fall but things finally quieted down the first part of November because we had a week of really cool weather.  I finished up some sheet mulching and headed out and looked for leaves out on the curb.  I identified a house with a lot of BIG bags.  I went and grabbed a couple and took them home.  Then, the next time I was in the area, I went by again but there was a guy getting out of his car there and he was taking a long time.  I finally just went up to him and asked if I could have his leaves.  He started quizzing me on what I was using them for and we started talking.  Come to find out that his name is Greg Moller and he is a professor at U of I in the School of Food Science and Environmental Science Program and he works with the Sustainability Institute.

I told him all about my farm and how we were using the leaves to build up the soil.  He was very happy that the leaves were going to a good home...LOL...

Also, my friend from church brought out a load of leaves and dumped them on our property (thanks Deacon George!).  I didn't get a pic of that...

I really thought that the cool down at the beginning of November was the end of my gardening for the year.  Then, it kind of started to warm up a little bit.  I noticed a Facebook post that I had scheduled on my own Remarkable Farms Facebook site about asparagus.  Sometimes, I will actually schedule posts to remind myself of things that I want/need to do.  It reminded me that I had wanted to put together some raised beds.  I can't believe that I forgot that!  I had been just so busy with all the sheet mulching.  I will have a short post next time about the raised beds that Henry and I got built.  After that, I went back to sheet mulching the area that had the pear trees in it.  I had kind of given up on that area and figured that I would do it in the spring but since there was no snow, I started in on that.  Lots of mornings, I was working and it was in the 20's but as long as you keep moving and there was no wind, it was not too bad.  

This is the start of a food forest area.  I put down the cardboard, then the leaves, and hay.  

It is hard to see the little bare trees but I have the new pear, 2 cherries and several current bushes planted in here.  I will be adding herbs in the spring.

Cherry tree in the future food forest that I was sheet mulching around

I got a lot more completed that I thought I would so that is great!  This video was taken on December 15th, I had posted it on the FB site...definitely finished with the gardening for this year now...we got 5.2 inches of snow!  I will post about the raised beds I made next time....

~Denise Wetzel

ReMARKable Farms

Sheet mulching

In the Garden

I am trying to get all my "garden" projects completed and just when I think I am finished...something else pops up!  I have been very lucky this fall because the weather has been extremely mild for this time of year.  Last year, we had a foot of snow on the ground.  I remember the very first time I went to see the farm last year on December 8th and it was 13 degrees and snow everywhere.

To get prepared to do this sheet mulching in the garden, I had to collect a lot of (free) resources.  Most October mornings went like this...I would drop Mark off at school.  Head to the Recycling Center and scavenge for large sheets of cardboard.  Then, I would drive 3 miles outside of town and fill up 5 gallon buckets with rabbit manure/wood shavings.  When I came back into town, I would stop at 2 coffee shops and pick up grounds on my way home.

One project that took me about 2 weeks was sheet mulching a 30X50 foot area that will be used for the cucurbit hay bale garden.  I have identified 16 different vining plants that I would like to try and grow...then, I thought of another one the other day...these range from pumpkins, squash, melons to cucumbers.  Here is a short video of how I am doing the sheet mulching...

Finished 50 X 30 foot area for hay bale garden in the spring.

Here is the new sunflower area!  It is located in front of the house.  I had been collecting cardboard and coffee grounds (on the right in pic) and Henry helped me carry broken hay bales out to the area a few weeks ago (on the left in pic).

First, I watered it well...

Then, I put down a good layer of coffee grounds...

I was finally able to locate a source of rabbit manure that is mixed in with wood shavings.  I did not use the rabbit manure on the larger cucurbit area because that would area was so large that I would never have been able to get enough and also, I did not know about this resource until I was pretty much done with that area.  Also, I will be planting into the hay bales in that situation so I won't be planting directly into the ground like I am with the sunflower area.  I put a good 2-3 inch layer of the rabbit manure on...

Then, I put down the cardboard and the hay on top...

Here is a pic of the finished sunflower area...I squished all the rows together into this one, long area.

After finishing the sunflower growing area, I sheet mulched my herb garden area where the hugelkultur mound is located. 

Now, I may try to sheet mulch my new orchard area.  I had planted 4 trees and several bushes but had run out of time to mulch when I planted things.  It seems the weather  (and when I say weather, I mean snow) may cooperate and I will still be able to get it finished before Christmas!

Putting the pocket gophers to work!

Raised garden beds

Now that we know we have voles and pocket gophers (thanks Runner Bean Ranch) EVERYWHERE!  I have realized that the only way we are going to grow a good amount of vegetables is with raised beds that have hardwire on the bottom (to keep the critters out!).  

In the old barns, there were a bunch of old stock tanks.  Most of them had holes and had been patched multiple times.  They were really not good for anything.  I decided to use these old stock tanks for some of the raised beds in our garden.

There were actually 7 stock tanks!  Can you believe it!  We kept the smallest one which was hidden.  It had been surrounded by insulation to keep it from freezing in the winter.  This one is in almost perfect condition so we decided to keep it, in case we some day get a large animal...some day...not any time soon...

Small stock tank we "found" in a wooden crate surrounded by insulation.

"Before" video of future garden area:

First, Henry had to mow the garden area.  It was like a jungle with grass and weeds taller than me...

We have started a brush pile.

Then, I positioned the stock tanks where I wanted them.

I drilled some drainage holes into the bottom.

I dug out a little bit to try and get the tanks level.  The idea is NOT to bury them, just to get them level.

Then, I put in some large rotten logs (sound familiar).  Using the rotten logs just like in the hugelkultur beds...

Put some smaller pieces of rotten wood on top of the large logs.

Here is where I start to put the pocket gophers to work.  One day, I went to sit down at my desk to work and I look up and see dirt flying through the air...

I was not able to get a better video of the little guy but this gave me a great idea.  I knew I was going to need a LOT of dirt to fill the stock tanks.  Even though they were half full of wood, it would still take lots of dirt to fill up the tanks.  Since the pocket gophers were working so hard to mound up all this dirt, I decided to harvest it.  Mark and I drove around in the Polaris and filled up buckets with gopher mound dirt.  

Then, Mark helped me put the dirt into our stock tanks.

We filled the stock tank up and then watered it.  

It is hard to tell in this next picture but I finally got a lead on a rabbitry with free wood shavings mixed with rabbit poop!  So I put a good layer of this in the tank.

Then, I put a thick layer of half composted materials from my hot composting bin on top of the rabbit poop shavings...

Then, I covered that with shredded hay from the barn.

 I will add more layers in the spring as this settles and before I get ready to plant!  I did get a chance to plant some garlic in one of the tanks and I will be sharing that in a future post...

I am planning on making some more traditional raised beds with wood sides and the hardware cloth on the bottom.  I will also post a pics of that...I may even get started on it over the Thanksgiving week.  We are supposed to have mild (and wet) weather...

~Denise

Compost! Using what you have on hand (and can get free!) to improve the soil...

Composting on the Farm

HOT Composting

One of my biggest challenges I realized right away is the need to build up the dirt to make it more rich soil for planting vegetable and herb gardens.  The end of August, I started reading and doing a little research about the "proper" way to compost...

Taken from The Rapid Composting Method The author is Robert D. Raabe, Professor of Plant Pathology, Berkeley:
For the composting process to work most effectively, material to be composted should have a carbon to nitrogen ratio of 30 to 1. This cannot be measured easily, but experience has shown that mixing equal volumes of green plant material with equal volumes of naturally dry plant material will give approximately a 30/1 carbon to nitrogen (C/N) ratio. Green material can be grass clippings, old flowers, green prunings, weeds, fresh garbage and fruit and vegetable wastes. Dried material can be dead, fallen leaves, dried grass, straw and somewhat woody materials from prunings. 

I read this book about making compost, Let It Rot!  It suggested the usual ratios of browns, greens and MANURE (as a nitrogen supply) to start your compost pile.  I really enjoyed the book and highly recommend it...

 The problem is that I do not have a lot of manure right now.  So, I am looking for nitrogen alternatives.  I read this article about using coffee grounds as a nitrogen source in your compost bin (instead of manure.)  I am all about using s#@t for composting but do I have to even say that the coffee smells so much better!  I had no idea it was a high nitrogen material!

I was at Starbucks one day and I saw a bag by the door that was labeled FREE Grounds for Gardens.  So, I grabbed up some grounds.  

Two closed bins I use for "hot" composting.  I brought one and there was one left on the property when we got here!

The first store I went to had the grounds wrapped up in a nice bag (on the left).  The second store I went to just gave me a plastic trash bag full of coffee (on the right).

I know there are also local coffee houses that put out grounds for gardeners so if you don't have a Starbucks near you, just ask your local coffee shop to save some for you.

I have been picking up apples that fall on the ground and adding them to the compost bins.  I have lots of browns to add (old hay) but not a lot of greens so I am using the apples as greens and the grounds as a N source to activate everything.

One thing I realized (and also read in the book), is that the hay is going to be hard to decompose.  Putting it through a shredder would help but I don't have a shredder.  One issue is that by definition of being made into hay, it is very dried out!  Too dry.  Almost hydrophobic.  I pour water on it and it just runs off.  So, I have been putting it into the wheelbarrow with water to get it soaked through and then adding it to the compost bin between layers of apples.  I will probably have to switch to putting it in a 5 gallon bucket...need wheelbarrow for other chores...

Here is a video I put together about making the compost...

Henry made me this nice screen to put the compost through.  Thanks Hen!

These are 2.5 gallon bags of compost that I have collected and will put into our raised beds.

COLD Composting

There is a new trampoline park close to our house and they had a bunch of wood pallets sitting out in front.  I went in and asked about them.  They said I could have all I wanted.  So, I made a 3 bin compost area.  This is more of a "cold" compost process where you pile things in the first bin the first year and then move to the second bin the second year.  Then, the stuff in the second bin goes into the third bin on the third year and so forth...

Picture of 3 bin compost bins when I made them.

Picture of 3 bin compost bins in October.  Almost got the first bin full!

Here is a great Ted Talk about composting...pretty funny and educational...he says all you need to compost is leaves and coffee grounds!  

I had lots of aspirations of collecting old leaves around town this fall but that just did not happen.  Not enough time...maybe next year!

~Denise