The Garden

• May 12, 2009

The Garden

My garden has finally been started.
It has been a long time now since I first decided to, but at least I didn't wait until mid-summer when it would be too late to plant.

I built the planter entirely out of scrap wood I had saved from past hauling jobs.

The half barrel in the pictures is also from a hauling job, but is not in use yet.

I lined the bottom with carpet (from a dump run)

to protect the plastic which goes above it (the plastic left over from a furniture move done in the rain).  Then an old blanket on top, both to protect the plastic and to aid in water wicking.

I placed some pieces of broken concrete (which used to be a fountain base) as supports for the porous sheet of wood which elevates the soil above the water reservoir, so that while the water below is accessible (via soil wicking) it does not saturate the soil or plants.

The mesh keeps the soil from getting into the reservoir.

The plastic trim lining the top of the planter is hauling leftover too.
I found slightly used (one season) potting soil on Craigslist in Oakland for free.  Potting soil wicks water better, and so is recommended in self-watering systems.  In theory the system uses less water, requires less maintenance and regulation, and produces healthier plants. 
Being my first attempt ever to grow food, I consider this season practice, and I will be very happy if I end up eating anything at all from my little home-made box of dirt.

The first thing I planted was a potato.  It was originally meant for eating, but it went bad, so I threw it in the compost.  Later I noticed stems pushing their way around the plastic cover, and lo and behold the "bad" potato was sprouting.  So maybe now I will get a good potato out of it.
My neighbor who gardens had told me even before I built the planter that she had a tomato plant for me.  She also gave me a tomato stake; which, incidentally, I had given her about a year ago, having gotten it in a dump run and having no use for it at the time.  Apparently she took a couple more than she really needed back then.
She also shared some lettuce seeds and a bean plant.  I got some free basil seeds in exchange for signing up for some email list at the farmers market last week.  My friend said she may give me a plant too. 

So far I have spent almost no money on my new garden at all (just fuel to get the soil, and some screws - though a few of the screws were actually dump run as well).
Which is good, since I spent all my discretionary income on my truck project!

I think it is time for a subscription to Mother Earth News.
I have been waiting a long time to have an excuse for that.

To think.  Food.  Actual food.  Noodles and burritos and curry dishes and popsicles, the stuff without which we can not live, the stuff our very bodies, ourselves, are made out of.  It all starts out as a seed in some dirt.  It just grows there, on dirt and air, and with energy from the sun, these plants turn dirt into nutrition.  Sweet delicious dirt.  Although, wrist deep into that potting soil, I almost sympathize with the plants on that point.  It is some nice soil.  It smells and feels and even looks delicious.

No, the garden hasn't been started yet

• Apr 7, 2009

No, the garden hasn't been started yet

Building the planter bed was the agenda for today, but there turned out to be a lot of little tasks to get out of the way first.
It wasn't long before I accepted that I wouldn't be constructing the raised container today.

First thing I did was to take down the sheets of wood from the roof of the shed (which I used to angle rain water off and keep my shed from rotting), so I could reuse the wood to make the raised planter bed.
Then I replaced it with a sheet of plastic (from a wardrobe move in the rain months ago) raised in the middle like a tent, metal taped to the sides of the shed.

Then I was distracted by the rain system. The tubing on both sides need a bit of adjusting. The barrel was almost full and it rained today, so I used my new watering can to transfer 4 gallons of water stored from the last rain to my potted plants. Then I remembered that when I purchased this RV trailer it came with an external waste water tank which I have never used. It holds 32 gallons. I filled it from the storage barrel to make room for today's rain.

With the barrel half empty, I had a chance build a better and higher platform for it. Wood which I had kept from dump runs years ago because it might come in handy someday, finally came in handy. My new 18v cordless jigsaw made short work of custom fitting the wood to the barrel.



Watering the plants, I noticed that some which had grown a lot last year weren't doing so well, so it was time to give them some more room. Three were replanted, using soil from my compost bucket behind the house to fill in the extra volume in the bigger pots (the pots came from a dump run; they've been sitting behind the house waiting for this day). Having one simple compost bucket, there is no place to separate recently added material from finished compost, so extracting soil to use meant going through it one handful at a time and separating out the food scraps and worms, (and then going back through the soil twice more to get all the scraps and worms I missed the first time).
As I suspected, the roots were totally compacted.

Last fall I happened to be up in Joaquin Miller Park on the day of the last sale of the year for the native plant nursery. I bought a CA strawberry plant. The strawberry was one of the ones which got replanted today. I have two strawberries already! They are very tiny, and may not make it to edible size for months, if ever. But still, they are very clearly strawberries already. There is also another blossom which should join them as fruits before long.

Also, my lupine has blossomed.

These are exciting times :)

Stage 1 complete (My first ever blog entry with pictures!)

• Mar 16, 2009

Stage 1 complete (My first ever blog entry with pictures!)

I was inspired partly by a book lent to me by the first person I ever went out on a date with
(almost a year ago already!)
and partly by the container gardening class I was brought to on Valentine's day by a more recent date.

Yet another person I dated recently is thinking of doing a similar project, and so I have some information and materials to offer her.

When I first jumped into this new experience of dating I wasn't sure what to expect - but rainwater collection was surely no where in my mind as even the remotest possibility.
We actually don't pay for water in the trailer park, (its included in the rent) and RVs use very little water anyway by their nature.

On the other hand, CA is in a drought (again), one never knows when the next earthquake (or revolution perhaps?) might cut off the municipal supply, and I have every intention of starting to (attempt to) grow food as my next project.



Since the trailer doesn't really have gutters, I started by applying a thick bead of silicone around the perimeter of the roof, except above the slide and the awning, so that the water will flow to the low areas. More silicone on one side of the slide, and the awning has always drained to one spot anyway.

I built the spouts primarily from layers of aluminum tape so I could shape it precisely the way I needed.

The tape feeds into a funnel (mesh covered to keep out the crap), which goes into the pipe.

On the slide side its basically just a long piece of straight pipe,

cut around 2/3s down and rejoined with a flexible connector so that it can bend around my bedroom window.

The awning side was more of a challenge as it has to go around a number of various corners and through narrow spaces to get to the storage barrel on the other side of the house.

Instead of trying to measure and cut and join a whole bunch of short plastic pieces, I used flexible aluminum dryer vent.

Three lengths together made the perfect length. Its supported with a bunch of random stuff, bungees,



rope,

metal bars,

and blocks of wood, taken from my cabinets, shed and scrap pile.



After the first little rain it drooped in 2 spots, and I added and redistributed the support - I expect it to work, though I'll find out for sure in a few hours.



At the end

an extra large funnel collects water from both sides,

and drains into a 55 gallon water barrel.

The barrel is used, but thoroughly cleaned and pressure tested, and was purchased locally by a company which specializes in second hand barrels, only about 5 miles from my house. A 55 gallon with a removable top (for adding a spout, and cleaning if it becomes necessary some day) cost me all of $20 (even). They didn't have a spout kit - they said they could order one from the warehouse; but I figured I could get something from the hardware store. The book had warned me I wouldn't be able to, and I should have listened. I ended up ordering one online.

Waiting for it to show up gave me an excuse to be lazy and not work on the system, and fortunately for most of that time it was dry anyway (I did miss the tail end of the last rains, which was rather tragic, but what can you do?).

I finished it yesterday, just in time for today's rain, making this
the first time in my life that it raining is actually making me happy.

Here is where my container garden will hypothetically someday go:

That will be my next big project (aside from the truck work, which I will tell you all about tomorrow)...