Garden Protection Plan

2:55 AM in Aqua, garden, plan, protection

When we moved to our new place last August, we had just enough time to put in a small fall garden and get a few meals of kale from the 9 x 3 bed.  We also had enough time to raise a few meat chickens, and were planning on scaling up both endeavors considerably this spring.  Although it was a little painful through the fall to not have a full-size garden with tomatoes, chard, etc., it was nice that we had a chance to realize just how brazen and shameless the squirrels and raccoons in our neighborhood are.

So, now that were planning our garden for this coming summer, we know that were going to need a multi-pronged squirrel-deterrent system in order to bring our crops to harvest.  We also know, having studied squirrel behavior for many years, that simply testing their tiny rodent brains with increasingly complex challenges is unlikely to keep them out completely, but would definitely make gardening harder for us.  Instead, we need solutions that are more...permanent.  Heres what we came up with.

Our place is surrounded by dogs, so our primary line of defense (after the fences around the yard) will be a series of squirrel launchers that send the furry vegetable pirates into the neighbors yards.  Not that we want to make the squirrels our neighbors problem, but theyve all got dogs who will quite enjoy helping us out.  (And both permaculturalists and ninjas recognize the principle of working within ones surroundings.)  The second line of defense will be a squirrel pit trap.  What awaits the squirrels at the bottom of the pit trap is still a matter of debate.  A snapping turtle?  Punji sticks made from sharpened toothbrushes?  A tunnel that leads to Texas?  (Let us know your vote in the comments section.)  The last line of defense will be a marauding honey badger, discussed at length below.

Weve done a lot of thinking about it, and the more YouTube videos we watch, the more it seems like a (trained) honey badger would be an awesome livestock/produce protection plan.  They hunt both day and night, and have no fear of large predators.  They eat anything from grubs to snakes to raccoon-sized rodents.  They can even climb trees to get to the raccoons, which gives them a leg up on canine-type marauders.  They can be socialized and trained, which might even mean that after a few generations in domestication, they could be deterred from chickens and bees.  Theyre also excellent diggers, so they can help with soil preparation and root crop harvesting.

The only legitimate downside is that tame or trained honey badgers arent currently available to the general public.  Unfortunately, were also explicitly forbidden from owning a badger in our neighborhood.  But while the honey badger vernacular seems to consist mostly of hissing and snarling, if we could teach it to bark, we might be able to convince an animal control officer its a weird-looking dog.

In any case, we think there is a legitimate business opportunity here for anyone with experience in importing (or smuggling), breeding, and training exotic and dangerous wild animals, influencing policy decisions regarding what counts as a pet, and marketing progressive ideas to typically conservative crowds.  Let us know if you want to partner up on this venture! (We dont bring any of those skills to the table, though.)

Now that weve got our anti-squirrel system figured out, we just have to decide what to plant in the garden!  Thats a nice position to be in.


How do you protect your garden from mammalian intruders?  Do you have any ideas for improving our system?  Let us know in the comments section below!

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Garden Review

11:40 PM in Aqua, garden, review

Its the time of the year that were wrapping up the bulk of our gardening activities for the season.  When the frost threatened in mid-October, we picked all the remaining tender veggies, protected the hardy greens, and started putting the garden to sleep.  The fall greens will continue to trickle in, but the majority of the harvesting is done until spring.  And now that weve had a few weeks to let the fervor of vegetable processing subside, we wanted to take a look back and see how we did!

First, what did the garden look like?  This was our general setup: 15 beds at 3 x 9, or about 400 square feet of growing space.  However, we harvested basically nothing out of six of those beds due to poor germination, inconsistent irrigation, or marauding varmints.  So, we were actually working with more like 250 square feet.

Second, what did we grow?  Mainly tomatoes, squashes, potatoes, and onions, it turns out.  We totaled a little over 150 lbs total.  Back in January, we had set an arbitrary goal of harvesting 100 lbs of food from the yard, so blowing past that mark by more than 50% was satisfying.  It might not sound like much when some of our electronic friends are growing more than 225 lbs of butternut squash alone, but hey, we gotta start somewhere!

Third, how did it compare to our meal plan?  Most things were quite a bit less, but the summer squash and zucchini exceeded our plan by a lot.  We didnt have any delusions of being able to grow all our vegetables in 250 (or even 400) square feet of growing space, but we hit about 20% of our total annual vegetable demand (or about 50% during the harvest season).  That is, over the summer, we were bringing in about 7 lbs/wk of produce from the local farmers market, and harvesting about 7 lbs/wk from the garden, which was about as much as we could keep up with.  Those 14 lbs/wk through the whole year work out to 728 lbs of veggies.  For what its worth, our meal plan called for about 675 lbs of vegetables over the course of the year (not counting garlic powder, onion powder, or herbs, if we wanted to make those, too), so not too far off.  Is it just us, or does the fact that our theory and our experiment line up so well make you really excited too?  ...Just us?  Ok, nevermind.

Well just finish up then with a few pictures to show you how the end-of-growing season frenzy played out here.  This is the 25 lbs of veggies we brought in right before the frost.  Its about 80% green tomatoes.

These are the volunteer potatoes we dug a few days later.  The volunteers made up about 60% of our potato harvest, probably because they got to start growing right away in the spring while the rest of the garden was still too wet to dig and plant until early June.

Part of putting the garden to bed is pulling out the delicious weeds, like these dandelions.  But wait!, you say?  Youre harvesting and eating the quintessential spring green that supposedly turns irreparably bitter after blooming, in October?  Why yes, dear readers!  Soaking the greens (and roots!) in cold water removes most of the bitterness any time of year.  Its great!

All the damaged volunteer potatoes ended up in this casserole, along with some freshly smoked bacon, some of the damaged tomatoes, green beans, some onions and garlic, and a creamy plain yogurt sauce.  It doesnt look terribly colorful from this angle, but the flavor was great!

The sweet potatoes, nearly all of which were damaged on harvest, ended up in this quiche, along with more tomatoes, onions, garlic, and plenty of herbs.  Yum!

We had made buffalo-seasoned cauliflower before, but then we got the idea to try it with other veggies, too.  The eggplant, with its spongy, sauce-saturated texture, was the best, but the summer squash and zucchini werent bad, either.

We made multiple types of pizza; these two had a buffalo-type sauce, except with spicy salsa instead of Franks hot sauce.  Our recipe needs some tweaking yet, but the concept is good, and the pizza was delicious!

How is your gardening season wrapping up?

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Garden Lessons Learned

12:40 AM in Aqua, garden, learned, lessons

The garden gives us many things--delicious vegetables, emotions ranging from frustration to sheer giddyness, and perpetual education on the ways the world works (including some forced reflection on our own habits and tendencies). Weve celebrated the vegetables in our last two posts, so before we forget, we wanted to write down some of our garden-themed teachable moments from this last growing season.  It will be strongly irrigation-themed.  The pictures have some detailed notes to help us remember, so if you dont want all that, scroll to the bottom for the executive summary.

Gardening in Colorado without some kind of irrigation is like discussing politics with your in-laws: not likely to go well.  Raising chickens without water has even lower odds of success.  So, over the last couple years, weve built up a sort of infrastructure of hoses that waters the chickens and the garden mostly automatically.  This year, we added a barrel reservoir and some motion detector sprinklers.

A hose splitter coupled to a shutoff valve was the key to the barrel reservoir system.  (In the picture, hose water from the house comes in from the left, the barrel is off to the right, and the branch going toward the chicken butt leads to the drip irrigation tubing.)  Close the shutoff valve and open both branches of the splitter to fill the barrel.  Close the hose inlet and open the shutoff valve to drain the barrel out into the garden.   It worked great! ...except for a couple things.  First, the barrel drained out at an appropriate rate for the plants, but was empty after 24 hours.  So, we had to fill it every day to keep the transplants healthy and get the direct-seeded plants to germinate. (except we didnt, because were apparently too lazy busy to even walk out to the garden to flip a valve and wait 15 minutes for the barrel to fill once a day...) Second, if we wanted to run on ditch water, which was the original intent of the barrel reservoir, the 55-gallon barrel was woefully undersized, and so was our pump.  Wed probably be better off with a 500 gallon pond and a siphon into the drip system.  We like the pond idea, so thatll be our first-choice modification next spring.  But if we dont get to it, well probably break down and buy a pressure regulator and automatic timer for the hose. 

Next, despite being admonished to never buy cheap hoses, we did just that our first year here.  And sure enough, mom was right--after only a year, it had leaky fittings on both ends and several hopeless kinks in the middle.  But coupled with some hose repair fittings and a knife, we were able to convert the non-kinked parts of this otherwise useless hose into several shorter hoses that delivered water to the custom-built drip irrigation system.  The best way to keep the cheap hoses from kinking is to not move them.  So a stationary drip irrigation system is a perfect application, and if we had to start from scratch, wed probably buy a new cheap hose just to cut it apart! 

Also, for what its worth, the mineral deposits made some of the fittings on the fancy hoses useless, too.  Our water is apparently pretty hard.

We tried growing some potatoes and sweet potatoes in feed bags as an approximation of those fancy ones that are supposed to make harvesting a lot easier.  But not having the feed bag taters on an automated irrigation system meant they were doomed from the start since these guys dry out even faster than the in-ground garden.

The motion detector sprinklers were a great addition to the garden.  We were losing several tomatoes a day (and our entire corn crop) to renegade squirrels, raccoons, and misbehaving chickens, but the sprinklers helped quite a bit.  We werent sure if the sprinklers would be sensitive enough to pick up a squirrel, but witnessed one of the little devils making his way toward our acorn squash, only to hightail it back the other direction when the sprinkler went off.  That made our week right there!  The sprinklers did have some drawbacks, though.  Its hard to keep them from leaking, and tightening too much causes the bases to crack.  We tried just making the leaks part of the drip irrigation, which sort of worked.  Except eventually, the ground became saturated and the force of the sprinkler going off was enough to tip the whole setup partway over, such that the motion detector was pointing at a useless 45° angle above the ground.  Also, the batteries ran out completely after about 6 weeks, but the motion detection started to weaken even before that.  The lack of sprinkle triggering was not lost on the renegade varmints.  Ultimately, it might have been better to pony up for the more expensive solar powered version.  Well see what we can do to fix the leaks for next year.  Maybe we can customize these guys, too.

Lastly, a non-irrigation-related picture.  Some of the volunteer potatoes made a valiant effort to quell the encroachment of quack grass into the garden, and paid the price for it.  There were several with quack grass roots going right through the tubers!  A very visual reminder that if we dont keep fighting against the weeds, theyll take back over in short order.

So, to summarize, the main lessons are:

1. Fully automated irrigation is necessary for our undisciplined lifestyle.
2. Cheap hoses are ok for some applications.
3. Motion detector sprinklers are good, even better with live batteries and no leaks.
4. Squirrels, raccoons, and quack grass form a relentless axis of evil, but can be battled to some extent with sprinkles and potatoes.

What did your garden teach you this year?

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Good Bugs in the Fall Garden

1:23 AM in Aqua, bugs, fall, garden, good, in, the

Last Thursday we had the first frost warning of the year, and at slightly higher elevations, there was snow!  In September!  Fortunately, we escaped such a dreary fate, and actually didnt even get frost.  That was nice, because it gave us time to notice a few things while we were out in the yard this weekend (other than the jungle of tomatoes racing to produce some red color before the next cold snap comes).

The first is that the bees were more active than they have been for a while, in part due to the warmer weather, no doubt.  But weve also got a second bloom of dandelions going on, and theyre busy collecting the pollen and nectar.  Also, a lot of our broccoli was kind of doomed from the start because we didnt get it in the ground before it got leggy.  As a result, it made a bunch of loose heads, parts of which started blooming before the other parts were even there.  But a silver lining is that the bees seem to love the flowers.  Brassicas have highly nutritious pollen for bees (and here), so we dont mind sacrificing some of our crop for their sake!  Its good to see them out foraging in droves again since August was kind of a lean month.

We also went ladybug hunting to get some pictures for the Lost Ladybug Project.  The populations of ladybugs have been undergoing dramatic changes lately, with some native species on a steep decline.  The picture on the left is a seven-spot lady bug, which is relatively common and is a European import.  It was guarding the potatoes and tomatoes.  The one on the right is a two-spot ladybug, a rare native!  It was hiding in the crab apple tree.  Man, how lucky are we! (Follow the link above to submit your photos of ladybugs, too, whether they seem lost or not!)

Finally, a little bird told us that the sunflower seeds are getting ripe.  If we wanted to feed any to the chickens, we better act quick!

Whats going on in your garden this time of year?  Let us know in the comments section below!

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How to Survive the Occasional Garden

2:12 PM in Aqua, garden, how, occasional, survive, the, to

You may know that I garden in the soil and using aquaponic techniques in South Florida.  Our climate and pests can make gardening in zone 10B a real challenge.  But it is not the largest challenge in my gardening life.  My largest challenge is maintaining the gardens in my North Carolina mountain cabin.

I may be there one week a month, three weeks a month, or not at all for months on end.  Just because I am not there on a regular basis does not mean that I accept that I cant have beautiful gardens.  It just takes lots of planning and dependence on some old, time-tested plants and a few new ones as well.

The first challenge in my North Carolina mountain garden is that it sits at 3,200 feet in a mixture of clay, rock, and some pretty good soil...it just depends on where you dig.  It sits in USDA Zone 5B and I have spent my life gardening in Zones 8, 9, and 10.  In other words, a totally different part of the south where winters are milder and you almost never see the mercury plunge below freezing for long.  So the first thing was learning to garden out of my comfort zone.  I depended quite a bit on regional gardening boards, the University of North Carolina, and the gardening column in the local weekly paper.

My second challenge was to find plants that could thrive in the sunshine in the spring when there are no leaves on the trees, the dense shade in many areas once the leaves are on the trees in the summer, and the brutal cold of winter with the first snowfall happening in October or November.

I realized within the first year that annuals are pretty much out of the question, except as accent plants. My go to plants became the ones that are either hardy evergreens (like boxwood) or plants that become dormant in the winter and resume growing in the spring.  Bulbs are great for this!

Hurray for daffodils, crocus, tulips, iris, daylillies, gladiolas, and hostas!

Daffodils in Snow

These bulbs/corms can provide a procession of color in a bed without much fuss or muss. They dont need heavy fertilizing and can thrive on neglect.  Just a little dividing every once in a while and a covering of leaves in the fall are about all the attention they require.  The crocus and daffodils begin the procession of color.  They will even sprout and bloom through the snow.

Daffodils without Snow

Daylilly

 

Next come the tulips and iris to end the Spring season.  Come summer, the daylillies, gladiolas, and hostas  provide colorful foliage and pretty flowers.  The daylillies are particularly handy when you are planting on a slope and need good roots to prevent erosion. 

Hydrangeas are a great bush for the occasional gardener.  They grow and bloom each year from the prior years growth.  The dont need any sort of pruning unless you are looking to simply control the size of the plant.  My experience is that few pests want to eat the plant but the birds and butterflies love them.  Because they are dormant in the fall and winter months, you dont have to worry much about them freezing.  We have had below zero temperatures and the hydrangeas didnt seem to mind a bit: they just slept on.

Oakleaf Hydrangea

Other great bushes that are fairly fuss-free are azaleas, buddleias, and camellias.  I have been told that camellias can have pest problems but that has not been my experience so far.  If you are in a cold zone, just make sure that you select a camellia that is cold hardy.  Some are and some arent.  I learned the hard way.  Another great blooming plant that can take the cold and neglect is the rhododendron.  It will bloom in the shade, part-shade or even the sun.  Its cousin the mountain laurel also prefers to be left alone, making it a great choice for the occasional gardener.

Speaking of plants that want to be neglected, no occasional garden would be complete without a knock-out rose or two or three.  I love roses, but can only grow them in pots in south Florida because of our nematode problem.  In North Carolina, they can be grown in the soil but require care

Knock Out Rose

enter the patented Knock Out Rose.  I have both single and double types and both perform beautifully.  Come winter you just know they are dead because they dont have a leaf on them, but in spring they start to grow quickly.  Because I have such shady areas, it is important to have plants that arent prone to mildew problems.  I havent had a bit of mold problem with these roses at all.  Makes me think about replacing the ones I have in my full-time garden!

If you notice the one thing I have not mentioned in the occasional garden is the presence of grass.  Having a lawn is labor-intensive.  You have to feed it to encourage it to grow and then turn around and mow once you are successful in getting it to grow.  If you arent going to be around on a regular basis, you arent going to have a great lawn.  My approach is to let the grass that wants to grow go ahead and grow and I pay someone to mow all three acres that has some form of grass on it once a month once the weather is warm, and weed eat the non-mowable areas every few weeks.

Hosta

Whether you own a vacation home and are looking for gardening tips or you just want a beautiful garden without putting much work into it, I hope you will use these ideas to create your own garden that only needs your occasional attention to survive.  If you want to visit the Smoky Mountains and see what is blooming in my garden, go to Cabin On a Creek and check availability.  Its the occasional gardeners place where peace and quiet come together.

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The Survivors Garden

4:44 AM in Aqua, garden, survivors, the

In this blog I have covered what it takes to survive in the garden and what it takes to survive gardening.  Today I am privileged to tell you about a very special garden for survivors.

This past Saturday I was honored to visit the Alexander "Sandy" Niniger Veterans Nursing Home in Pembroke Pines, Florida.  This facility may be small (only 120 beds) but it provides dedicated care to our nations veterans with dementia and Alzheimers disease.

The facility had a small, rarely used garden area that had fallen into disrepair.  Enter a young man by the name of Jake Cairo.  Jake had a vision to make this small space a place where the veterans could get some sunshine and fresh air, enjoy the singing of birds, and watch the flittering of butterflies and the buzzing of bees.

Jake met with landscapers and nurserymen to determine what would grow best in the area.  He figured out how to work with the foundation plants and irrigation that were already in place.  The podacarpus could stay if it were trimmed to a hedge and the Firespike could be saved as well.  Then he pondered how to honor these veterans of the various branches of the military.

 A plan began to form and he consulted with some trusted adults to see if he was on-track.  Then Jake went to work.  He ordered special stones engraved with the different branches of the military.  These are real stones, not plaster or plastic imitations!

 He recruited friends, family, and fellow teens.  They went into a frenzy and transformed the area into a place of beauty that could bring joy to people whose lives were growing dim due to the ravages of dementia, Alzheimers and other deteriorating mental conditions.  Hedges were trimmed, birdhouses refurbished, plants installed, and mulch spread thick enough to slow down those relentless weeds.

The day I visited, there were butterflies aplenty and a mockingbird went from rooftop to treetop.  This bird sang every song in its repertory. A song fit for survivors of all stripes.  Those who never give up, those who keep pushing on, those who we must remember...even as they themselves forget and are forgotten.

Native Porterweed

Oh, did I mention that the young man who took on the planning and execution of this garden rehabilitation is Autistic?  Yes, Jake Cairo is on the Autism Spectrum; and this garden was his Eagle Scout project.  Jake took on what most kids wouldnt dream of, much less accomplish.  From the time he began scouting Jake was determined to become an Eagle Scout and give back to the community.  I would say he has met his goal. Jake says this is just the beginning and plans to be an adult volunteer in the Boys Scouts of America.

So lets pause now to honor those who serve, like the veterans at the Sandy Nininger Nursing Home and those like Jake Cairo who are willing to overcome their own obstacles to serve those with greater obstacles.

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Hydroponic Garden for profit

10:15 PM in Aqua, for, garden, hydroponic, profit

Hydroponic Garden for profit

 

Lowest water consumption and lowest use of fertilizer
Lowest impact on ground water, too
Feed yourself; Feed others
Run your own silver mining operation
When your neighbors are starving, take their silver coins and gold
Viewer discretion advised; Humorous, but somewhat obscene

 

 

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Protein Veggies Ultimate Survival Garden

12:23 PM in Aqua, garden, protein, survival, ultimate, veggies

Aquaponics is a method of growing plants without soil and added fertilizers.  If you are familiar with hydroponics, then think of aquaponics as taking it to the next level.  Add in a tank of water with fish and you have aquaponics.  The fish contain bacteria in their digestive tract that is excreted in their urine and feces.  These bacteria break down the ammonia into nitrites and nitrates, providing nutrition for the plants.

Systems can be as complex as you want

Or as simple as you want

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Speeding Up The Cycling Process

8:55 AM in Aqua, cycling, garden, process, protein, speeding, survival, the, ultimate, up, veggies

Speeding Up The Cycling Process

When cycling aquaponics systems, the process can be speeded up by adding bacteria to the system, rather than waiting for it to show up on it’s own. Heating the water to the optimum temperature will speed things up further.

Aquaponics, ækw??p?n?ks, pisciponics

Bacteria can be obtained from the following sources:

• Media from an existing aquaponics system
• Filter media from an established, disease-free aquarium or pond
• Squeezings from a filter sponge, from an established, disease-free aquarium or pond
• Gravel from an established, disease-free aquarium
• Commercial bacteria product eg. Cycle – the jury is still out on the effectiveness of these products

The best temperature range for cycling aquaponics systems is between 86-95°F (30-35°C). This is the optimal range for the nitrifying bacteria. You can use a suitably rated aquarium heater, or multiple heaters, to raise the temperature during cycling. You will need to monitor the temperature, and the easiest way is to use a floating pond thermometer. Once cycling is complete allow the temperature to drop to the right level, then do a water change as mentioned previously.

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The Garden Kitchen

12:21 PM in Aqua, garden, kitchen, the

Wed wager that in our social circles, the phrase kitchen garden would evoke romantic images of a small patch of vegetables and herbs situated just outside a kitchen window, lush and green, and frequented by friendly honeybees and hummingbirds.  The produce should be picked fresh, then brought inside, cleaned in the sink, and incorporated into a supper entree or side dish not more than two hours from harvest.  But weve found that in the heat of summer, such images leave out the important consideration of the temperature inside the kitchen, which, in the presence of a hot oven or stove, quickly rises to levels that are all but romantic.  To remedy the situation, we constructed a second piece of infrastructure (along with the Dakota rocket silo) to move some of our hottest cooking operations outdoors.  That is, in addition to our kitchen garden, we now have a garden kitchen.

We were fortunate enough to have been bequeathed the cabinet and sink by the previous occupants of The Lab, who left them in the shed where we wanted to put a chicken coop.  However, similar items can frequently be found on Craigslist (at least in our area), free for the hauling.

Opening the doors reveals two things: there is a larger amount of storage space than well probably ever use (partially due to the bumpy ride between the garden where we use it and the garage where it is stored), and that we built the chassis such that the cabinet doors open over top of the tires.  The second part took more than one iteration.  A couple of other notes: the chassis itself is just a simple box of screwed-together scrap 2 x 4s, with inside supports at either end and one in the middle to hold the cabinets up.  Also, our mechanism of attaching the tires is not quite satisfactory, since the axles are only long enough to pass through the outer board, held in place by a nut on the other side.  That configuration makes the wheels toe out (more visible in the last photo below), which increases the effort required to push the cart around the yard.  A better design would have the axles running all the way from one side to the other.

The connection for the sink line to the garden hose was at Home Depot.  The ferrule on the sink line side is facing the wrong way, but it doesnt leak under our ~60 psi water pressure.  The sink currently just drains into a bucket, but an enterprising fellow could easily run a drain line out the back if he preferred.

On one of the skinny sides, we put a handle to help steer (as in, lift this end and rotate the whole thing like a garden cart). We also screwed the cabinets into the chassis to keep them from tipping up when we push the cart.  The cart currently lives in our garage, but weve considered building a temporary structure with a roof to keep it out in the yard.  So far it hasnt been too much work to push it out in the morning and back in the evening.  It also has worked really well for the first few batches of jam we made, providing enough flat space to fill and seal the jars, and running water to wash things up.

Do you process your produce outside in the fresh air?  What type of setup do you use?  Let us know in the comments section below!

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