Friday, December 7, 2012

12/7/12

Today I took the opportunity to just walk around outside a bit and make a mental note of some of the things I need to try to do before Spring. There are a couple of areas along the driveway and down by the road that still need some clearing out. I especially want to finish up down by the road, so that we can plant the bushes we're wanting to plant there. In addition to briars in a few spots there are also a couple of small trees along the driveway I need to remove as well as a few fallen trees that need to be pulled out and dealt with.

I also walked across the road and looked at the spot where my current "road" to get over there is. It works ok for the RTV, but is not suited to the tractor because of the danger of tipping over. There is a much better spot, which I'm not currently using, because of a pile of rocks, which I initially thought would help me to eventually build a better road. The incline isn't that great, though, so I'm thinking that I'll probably end up moving the rocks and just start crossing there. If I leave the rocks in place I'll need to haul dirt to cover them, and I suspect that may be more work than it'll be worth.

While I was out I also went up to the shed to look for the lantern. Once I found it I tested to make sure everything was working as it should be. I plan to use it to light up the shed in the evenings, so I can start spending some time up there after dark trying to organize things. I'm excited to have the extra space after assembling the metal building and moving the lumber out that was stacked in there. I'm yet to take advantage of the extra room though, so need to start working on organization so I can.








Thursday, December 6, 2012

12/6/12

After several nice warm days the weather has turned dreary again. I'm very easily kept inside on days like today, which means that I accomplish little. I did make a trip over to the garden this evening, though, primarily to take some kitchen scraps to the compost pile. While over there I checked on the garden plot, and was surprised by what I found. As I approached I noticed a big part of the garden seemed to have some green color. I thought that maybe my eyes were just playing tricks on me, since it was nearly dark. Once I got close enough to get a good look, though, I was able to verify that I was indeed seeing a lot of green. The winter rye has finally broken through the surface of the soil, and is now about an inch and a half tall. I'll admit that I was a bit worried about it for a while, so am very relieved to see that it is growing. I'm looking forward to keeping check on its progress.

The New Logo

You may have noticed a change in the appearance of the blog recently. After creating a Facebook page for the blog, which  you should go check out, if you have not already done so, I decided it needed a professional looking logo. Thankfully I am friends with a graphic designer who was willing to create a logo for me. After seeing the logo on Facebook I decided that it might be nice to have a similar one for the blog.

At first I worried that adding a logo might take away from the simple look that I wanted the blog to have. After seeing the logo in place, however, I think it fits in nicely. The simple design fits into the vision I have for the blog. I particularly like the fact that the logo was custom created based on the focus of the blog. The leaves, in the center, represent the gardening and nature oriented aspects, while the triangle around the edge is somewhat reminiscent of the recycling icon, so fits in with the environmental minded aspects of the blog. Lastly, having these elements combined, into a single logo, reflects my desire to integrate aspects of various philosophies into both my lifestyle and this blog.

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Picture-Free Posts

If you've followed this blog for any length of time you've surely noticed the lack of pictures. Most other blogs include at least one picture for each post, with those that describe a project often including several photos. For the most part, I find that I'm more likely to stop on a post with pictures than one that is just a large block of text. You're probably wondering, then, why I never include photos with my posts.

There are actually two reasons I do not include photos. The first is that I like to keep the look of the blog very simple and clean. While I realize that many may view this as boring, I think the simple layout and color scheme matches the theme of the blog.

The second, and primary, reason that I do not include pictures, though, is that I use to do photography as a hobby. I know you're thinking that this sounds completely backwards, and you're probably right. Obviously, since I use to do photography as a hobby, I have the ability and gear to be able to take photos for my own blog. The thing is, though, that since I no longer enjoy photography, if I waited until I had a picture to go along with a post I might never get around to actually posting anything. I enjoy being able to write posts at my leisure, and then post them when I want, without having to wait until I have a suitable photo to go along with it. I could just take some quick snapshots, but I'd never be satisfied with that. If I simply took a quick snapshot and posted it, I'd be critiquing it every time I saw it. I would know that I could have taken a better photo, had I put in the time and effort to do so. For this reason, it is easier, and more enjoyable, if I leave the photos out of the blog.

This isn't to say that I will never include photos. For some of the projects I recognize that photos may be as valuable, if not more so, than words. I'm not quite sure yet how I'll go about incorporating photos into those posts. I may simply add them to an online gallery and link to them, so the simple look of the blog itself isn't changed.

PVC Pepper Cages - The Plan

Even though we had good yields from our pepper plants this past year, there were a couple of areas in which we can definitely improve. The first is with spacing, as the plants were much too crowded once they reached maturity. The other is related to providing support. We had several instances were a large bell pepper was too heavy for the plant, resulting in either a broken stem or the pepper drooping to the ground before it could ripen. Andrea tried various methods of tying the plants to stakes, but, while that helped, it didn't solve the issue. She has been doing research, and has come up with a better plan for next year.

The idea is based on a design from the February/March '97 issue of Mother Earth News Magazine. At the time, it was simply referred to as A Homemade Recycled Tomato Cage. When it was referenced later in the magazine (April/May '11), it was being called The Indestructible Tomato Cage. Our plan varies a bit from the original design, but the concept is the same.

The idea is simple, although I had to get Andrea to actually show me, using some lengths of PVC, before I could really visualize what she had in mind. There are two components to the cages, the vertical pieces and the horizontal pieces. One end of each vertical piece is placed in the ground, 8"-12" inches deep. Two more are also placed in the ground similarly, so that the three from a triangle. Holes the size of the horizontal pieces are drilled through each vertical piece, so that the horizontal pieces can be slid through, to form one side of the triangle. This is done at two or three different heights, providing support for the plant at various heights. Another set of holes is drilled in the vertical pieces nearer the ground, through which water or liquid fertilizer can be poured to feed the roots directly, rather than applying on the top of the ground where it can be lost to evaporation.

The Mother Earth News article suggests using 3" diameter PVC for the vertical pieces and metal electrical conduit for the vertical pieces. We plan, however, to use 1/2" diameter PVC for the horizontal pieces, which should allow us to use smaller vertical pieces. We plan to use 1 1/2" and larger pieces for the uprights, depending on what we can find. The article also suggests that the uprights can be 3' 3" in length, but we are hoping to use a minimum length of 4', which will leave a 3' tall cage after placing 12" in the ground.

This past weekend we visited the home improvement store to get prices on new materials, and then visited the Re-Store to check their prices. At $0.25 per foot the Re-Store is much cheaper on the pieces we'll use as the uprights. We can buy new 1/2" pipe for the horizontal pieces, though, for just $0.18 per foot. However, if we are able to find the 1/2" pieces at the Re-Store we plan to go ahead and buy them there, as it is worth a few extra cents to us to be able to use scrap material instead of buying new. This project is especially well suited to using up scraps, since shorter pieces can be used.

While at the Re-Store we picked up 5 pieces for the uprights, ranging from 1 1/2" to 3" in diameter. We could have picked up a 10' length of both 1 1/2" and 1/2", but couldn't haul those in the car. I plan to keep a small tape measure and hacksaw in the car going forward, so if we find such pieces we can measure and cut them to length, making them easier to haul.

Andrea estimates that we will have 15 to 20 pepper plants next year, meaning that we'll need the same number of cages. To build at least 15 cages we will need 45 uprights, measuring at least 4' tall and at least 1 1/2" inches in diameter, along with at least 90 horizontal pieces (assuming we only do two courses), measuring 24" long and 1/2" in diameter. The Mother Earth News article indicated that each cage would cost approximately $25, using their suggested materials. By making the changes we have planned, however, and if we can get our material from the Re-Store, we should be able to build one for approximately $6 or $7.

Even with our reduced cost, the cages will still cost more than buying a traditional wire tomato cage. Why, you might ask, would we go through the expense and effort to build one from PVC instead of just buying the pre-made cages. The first reason is ease of storage. Since the PVC cages can be fully disassembled, they can be stored in a relatively small area, which is an important consideration from us since we don't have a lot of storage space around here. The Mother Earth News article seems to suggest leaving the upright pieces in the ground, and only removing the horizontal pieces at the end of the season. I can see the benefits of leaving the uprights in place, since they may be hard to remove from the ground. We do not plan to do this, however, as it will limit the ability to include the peppers in our crop rotation plans, as well as exposing the pieces to the elements when it isn't necessary.

The second, and more important, reason for going with the PVC cages is their expected longevity. I'm not sure how long the wire cages last, but I assume they will eventually succumb to rust. The PVC, on the other hand, should last indefinitely. Also, if part of the cage does become damaged, it can simply be replaced, without having to replace the entire cage.

I'll do a follow up post on the PVC Pepper Cages once we actually build some, which will not happen until we plant peppers next spring. In the meantime we will be collecting materials and trying to decide if we want to use the same design for our tomato cages as well.

Sunday, December 2, 2012

12/2/12

The weather today was unbelievable. We had a high temperature of 70 degrees, which is much warmer than normal for early December. I was able to comfortably work outside in short sleeves for much of the day.

I began my work out today by sorting, and relocating more of the brush pile that I've been working through. After hauling a few loads, I remembered that I had another small job planned for this weekend, so switched to that.

The planned job was to empty the water from a barrel over at the garden, and test the rain barrel I made at Field to Fork for leaks. I wanted to do the two tasks at the same time, so I could use the water from the one barrel to test the other. This gave me an opportunity to try out the Triple Seven Super Siphon that I bought a few months back. The siphon hose worked well, and I'll be doing a detailed post on that later. Since the barrel only contained 30 gallon of water, I had to haul quite a bit more up from the creek to fill the 55 gallon rain barrel. After filling the barrel to the overflow I added an additional 10 gallon to make sure the overflow itself didn't leak. Neither the faucet nor the overflow leaked during the test, which is a very welcome sign. Now I have confidence that using a similar process for my other rain barrels should work well.

While I was working on my projects, Andrea was working on projects of her own. She cleaned the bird feeders, and added some drainage holes to the platform of one of them, which is a very nice feeder, but was poorly designed. She also built a platform feeder, which we'll use for putting out old pieces of bread and/or fruit. We've not been able to just throw such items out into the yard because the dogs will eat it. Hopefully the platform feeder will keep it safe for the birds.

This evening Andrea also put plastic up on the windows in my bedroom/office. The windows have been needing plastic for a while, because the insulated window coverings cause condensation to form on the glass. This gets transferred to the window coverings, which caused the last set to mold. I want to tr to prevent that with the current ones, as they are much better, and much more expensive, not to mention harder to clean. Hopefully the plastic will prevent this problem, as well as help to prevent heat loss.

12/1/12

I had plans for spending most of Saturday outside working, but we decided to go shopping instead. I know that doesn't sound like a very good use of my time, but it actually turned out to be a very productive day. Andrea had already decided to to to Richmond or Lexington because she needed to buy some fabric to finish up a quilt she is making someone for Christmas. There were a also couple of places I had been wanting to go in Lancaster, then Friday evening I discovered, via a post on Permies, a farm in Lancaster that I also wanted to visit. I figured it was better to skip a day of working in order to go with her and combine several things into one trip.

Our first stop was the Wonder of Life Farm in Lancaster. A few months ago we had visited the farm for a tour, which I described in Our Visit to Wonder of Life Farm. I had bought a pair of alpaca fiber socks when I was there, and had been wanting to pick up a few more. Through the month of December they have a fantastic deal on their alpaca fiber "footies", so we decided to pick some up. We bought 6 pair, 3 for each of us, for the cost of what 2 pair normally would have cost. I also picked up a pair of gloves, which I thought would make a good pair of driving gloves to keep in the car. We chatted with Maria a bit while there, but didn't stay long because she was preparing for a fair in Berea later in the day.

After leaving the farm we stopped at Napier Brothers Clothing, which seems to have one of the best selections of Carhartt products in the area. I wasn't really needing to buy anything, as I had recently picked up a Carhartt coat at another store, but still wanting to look around. They have a great selection, and the prices really aren't bad. I considered trying on a pair of insulated coveralls, but decided to wait since I'm hoping to lose some weight. I'm sure that we'll be going back in the future.

After Napier Brothers we drove out to the Marksbury Farm Store to get some lunch. I was really looking forward to one of their beer cheese burgers, but unfortunately they weren't serving lunch. We looked around the store, but didn't buy anything. We did, however, notice that Pike Valley Farm, which is the farm we were planning to visit next, is one of their suppliers. After driving back into Lancaster to grab lunch somewhere else, we then headed towards Pike Valley.

Pike Valley Farm sells a wide variety of organically produced products. They offer beef, poultry, pork, eggs, fruits/vegetables, and even herd shares for raw milk. We picked up 10lbs of grass fed ground beef, a beef heart (for Luke and Jack to split), and a dozen eggs. We had also hoped to buy some chicken breast, but they were out of stock. Luckily, though, we were able to pick up a pack at the Good Foods Market. If we lived closer, we would seriously consider purchasing a herd share in order to get raw milk. We can't, however, justify a weekly drive of an hour and a half, each way, to pick up the milk. The time investment and wasted fuel just isn't worth it.

Next we drove on into Lexington, where we made a quick stop at Good Foods. Next week is the quarterly Owner Discount Days, so we'll be going back then, but we needed to pick up some chicken. As mentioned before, we bought a pack of Pike Valley Farm chicken. It was the same price as what we normally buy there. If we like the chicken, we'll likely switch since Pike Valley is local and we like their policies. While at Good Foods we also talked to them about buy rice in bulk. Right now we buy it from their bulk food bins, which is fine for fairly small amounts, but that really isn't enough to last us 3 months. They do offer special orders of 25lb bags, but we missed the cut off for being able to pick up next week. We'll definitely put in an order for the next time we're going, though, especially since they off a discount on special orders.

Our final stop in Lexington was at the fabric store, where Andrea found what she needed to finish up the quilt she's making. We then had a light dinner and headed home, or so we thought. On the drive we decided to stop off in Richmond, to check prices at the home improvement store on some PVC pipe that Andrea needs for a project she's planning. We then decided to stop at the Re-Store in Berea to see if they had any, and check their prices. At $0.25 per foot, their prices were nearly a quarter of what it was going to cost to buy new. we picked up a few pieces, although will definitely need to pick up more before Spring, which is when she'll be doing the project. Don't worry, I'll do a post about it, so readers aren't left in the dark until then.

By the time we got home it was nearly dark. We unloaded the car, then relaxed most of the rest of the evening. It was a fairly tiring, but very productive day. We came home with some new products to try, and a lot of good information.