Fall Composting - Where the Best Soil Begins

When should I start composting? What do I add to the pile? How long does it take? Can I add.....? I get composting questions all the time from friends and family; my answer is always the same - Start with leaves! In this video I talk about our method of starting our compost pile each fall. We usually get enough to let it cook down twice per year which equals a lot of fresh homemade compost for our gardens.

I have talked about this before in my fall composting with a string trimmer post and also in last year's easy composting method video. Good compost starts with leaves! they are all around us in the fall time and unless you live in the deep south, the jungle, or a desert you have plenty of leaves to use. Even if you don't want to rake up your own leaves there are probably plenty of your neighbors who are bagging up theirs and leaving them at the curb for the city to pick-up (if your city does that kind of thing). The bottom line is this, get as many leaves as you can because they are going to be the base of the compost you will use throughout the entire year.


Once I have all of our leaves raked up I start carting them to the compost pile in the back corner of our lot. It is nothing special, just a few cheap metal posts, some garden wire fencing, and a pile of leaves and food scraps in the middle. As I am carting the leaves to the pile I also take care of cleaning up the garden beds of all dead and dying vegetable plants from the summer and layer those on the pile in-between loads of the leaves. This creates a layers of alternating carbon material (leaves) and nitrogen material (green plants and food scraps). Once I have all of the leaves in I top it off with our food scraps from the last couple of months that have been saved as the compost from the summer finished up.

This is all that needs to be done for the fall. Just let the pile site and you can add your food scraps to it all winter long. If you prefer you can also cover the pile as many like to do but I have found that to be largely unnecessary.

In the spring time you need to start turning the pile with a pitch fork every couple of weeks and get it cooking down. As the temps rise it will start to reduce in size and after about 60 days you will be ready to add this fresh homemade compost to amend your gardens.

There should be no need to ever, and I mean ever, buy fertilizer for an everyday garden. Compost can provide all of the macro and micro nutrients that any plants need. Give it a try, you'll be happily surprised!

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Hoedown by Audionautix is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

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Cheap and Easy Tomato Supports - How to support large quantities of toma...

Every year I deal with this same problem, how to support all of these tomatoes!

Here are the best tomato cages I've ever used:

And here are cheaper, shorter galvanized cages:

All of these products and more recommended items from the SSL Family are available at the

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Simple Suburban "Farming" - How We Utilize Our Small 1/2 Acre Yard

Live in a small lot in the city or suburbs? Did you know that you can still produce a decent amount of food for yourself? Here in the U.S about 80% of us call the city or the suburbs our home but why can't we produce some of our own food too!

In this video I give a quick tour of some of the ways in which we are utilizing space around our yard to grow food. It is a work in progress but much progress has been made in the last 18 months since we started this venture. The goal for us is to produce as much of our own food as possible for now and eventually produce all of our own vegetables and fruit for the year.

We started with the chickens last year and some small garden spaces. The chickens have been the highest producers and most impactful addition to our small homestead. We feed them our food scraps and they graze in our yard; in return they produce six eggs per day for our family. That is a lot of eggs! Chickens are probably the only real livestock that we will be able to have here on our small lot and they are a perfect fit here.

The first gardening step we took was to watch the amount of sun that we get in various areas of the yard. Unfortunately the best area for gardening at our home is also the septic tile field and cannot be used. We decided to start with raised bed gardens. Closer to the house in a hilly location where traditional gardening would not work well. We current are using 6 3'X6' raised bed garden boxed made for free from pallets. These have been able to produce many pounds of sugar snap peas, over 180 carrots, 72 onions, over 15-20 cucumbers per week, basil, lettuce, dill, spinach, cilantro, and a potato harvest coming soon. You can pack a lot of food into a few square feet with the square foot gardening method.



Along our privacy fence we have about 96' of space that was not being used. This does not get full sun all day but it gets plenty for more than half. A garden bed was cleared along the fence about 36" wide and amended with compost, peat, and some sand. We then layered planting here so that we have some climbing or taller plants in the back along the fence, some tomatoes a along, vining plants along the front bottom edge and some corn plants scattered along the front edge in between the tomatoes. This is proving to be a very dense and efficient way to plant along this area and will produce a huge amount of food for us this year.

In the back of the property we sectioned off a small 20' X 20' area and planted six apple trees. We covered the ground with free mulch from the city park and we now have an orchard in the makings. As these tress grow and produce more and more each year we will eventually be able to make apple cider, apple cider vinegar, pies, canned apples, and dried apple fruit snacks for long terms storage.



We have also landscaped up near our house and instead of flowers and bushes have planted an herb and strawberry garden. This will be a perennial garden and will continue to become more diverse each year. We also utilize space between other landscaped areas for tomatoes, cabbage, peas, beans, sunflowers, and flowers to attract pollinators. Even though these are smaller scattered spaces they have proven to be very productive.

Each year the gardens grows, a few more fruit trees are planted, a few more raised beds are built, and more land is cleared from grassy nothingness to food producing farmland. Although we are not buying a combine yet, the small suburban farm is an ever expanding adventure that we will never be finished with. Thanks for tagging along to see how the SSL Family grows  in the suburbs. 

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The Invisible Trellis - An Inexpensive Raised-Bed Trellis System

Check out this video to see how to build a very simple and inexpensive trellis for any size raised bed garden. Using some scrap wood that I already had I was able to keep the cost of each of these below $1. These are great for growing peas, cucumbers, pole beans, or any other vining crop.

In our case we have six 6' X3' raised bed garden boxes that were made from free pallet wood. I choose to run a trellis down the long side of each box so that I could maximize the amount of climbing crops I could grow. Our family loves pickles and peas so that will be the main use for them this year. This is also the best angle for the sun so that as the vining crops get bigger they will not block out the smaller crops in the box below.

I started by cutting 3 2X4's into 6' pieces and 6 2X4's into 45" pieces. This will make the trellis about 48" tall from the height of the dirt but you can make them shorter or taller of course. Next I ripped down the 2X4's into 1 3/4" wide strips (cutting each one in half long ways).  At this point you have made all the cuts that you need for six trellis's.

There are many different ways to connect the frames together but I choose to use a half-lap joint in this case. this will be the strongest joint that will withstand the wind and weight of the fruit hanging in the wind here in Michigan. I used a circular saw to cut each joint down 3/4" by making several close cuts at the ends of each board. I then chiseled out that area until it was fairly flat. These don't have to be perfect and if you mess up a bit you can always sand them flat once they are secured together. Check out the video for more details on this step.

Next I overlapped the half-lap joints and pre-drilled some holes making sure things were square before I drilled. Wood glue is used to secure the joints together along with some 1" wood screws. Once the glue has dried you can get them painted with whatever color you would like. I recommend using a deck stain or other sealer so that they withstand the weather.

At this point you are ready to secure them to the ends of your raised beds. 2 1/2" deck screws were used (2 in each leg) to secure them to the boxes. Next, make a mark every 3" starting at the top and working your way to the bottom on the outside of each leg. Using whatever size drill bit you have around (I always break my small ones) drill a hole at each mark at least big enough to get the fishing line through.

I am using 60 lb. test single filament for this step but you can use whatever size and strength line you would like. You can also use string or any other type of cord here if you would like. I chose fishing line since it is clear it makes them almost invisible during the off season when nothing is growing on them.

Start feeding the line through from the bottom hole and work your way up to the top using one single piece of line for each trellis. If you prefer you can also use one piece for each run back and forth but I chose for less hassle and just weaved the single line back and forth through each hole until I was at the top. Tie it off and the ends or tie a knot so that it cannot slip back through and you are done.

This trellis should be long lasting, stand up to the elements, and look a bit nicer than the standard lattice that you could pick up at the store. Plus, these look much nicer when nothing is growing on them which for us up here in Michigan, is most of the year!

Things you might need for this project:

                

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Music - "Learn To Fly" by Josh Woodward. Free download: http://joshwoodward.com/song/LearnToFly





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Square Foot Garden Planting Template

In this video I show how to make a easy and extremely useful template that can be used year after year to plant your gardens.

Last year we decided to start using some of the methods of square foot gardening in order to get the most out of our small raised bed gardens. The whole idea is that all of your vegetables are planted very close together using specific spacing for each variety. This is a much different process than traditional gardening and has many benefits.

Planting using a template allows you to have complete control over where each seed goes. This can save seed and does not require anywhere near as much thinning if any at all. All you do is drop one or two seeds (if they are small) into each hole and wait for them to sprout (don't just stand there staring it might take a few days). Once they have sprouted go back and reseed any of the spots that did not sprout. If you save your own seeds then you already know how important it is not to waste seeds.

The obvious benefit to using the template is the spacing. You are guaranteed to have perfect rows of vegetables and each will have it's optimum room to grow. There is a great site that I use each year when I get ready to plant here - http://www.mysquarefootgarden.net/plant-spacing/. There is a list of common vegetables and how many you should plant per square. It also gives you some rules of thumb to use if your plant is not listed there. The most common plant spacing per square foot is 12, 9, 8, 4, 2, 1 and some plants actually take up more than one square foot in which case you don't really need a template.

I first designed the template on cardboard and gave it a try to see if it actually helped make planting easier. I was surprised at how much fun it was and the kids loved using it. So, I decided to make a more permanent design.

The first step is to get a 12" X 12" piece of wood. Any wood will do but not too thick as you don't want it to be heavy. Once you have your wood cut and sanded start marking grid lines every 3/4" horizontally and vertically. Every fourth line should be a different color (I choose orange). This will give you a 16 square grid to start with.

The next step is to mark the spots where holes need to be drilled. I would recommend checking out the video for the best placing. Once the holes are marked you can drill them out using any size drill bit you choose. I used a pea seed as a guide to select mine. I wanted it to be just big enough to fit through as this is one of the larger seeds I normally plant.

Next I used a couple of different sized washers to make circles around the holes and then painted them various colors. This  will allow you to identify the various seed spacing easily. I then added some handles using a small piece of 3/4" X 6" piece of wood.

The next thing that I needed to do was to cut out a section where the template will need to fit around the corner and center support posts in our raised beds. I marked out two 3.5" X 1.5" squares on the bottom two sides and then cut them out. I then used two small hinges to secure the cutout pieces back to the board. This will allow me to move them out of the way when needed and swing them back in to place.

Lastly I designed a small push stick using a 1/4" dowel and a square piece of wood as a handle. This was then color coded with markings every 1/4" so that you can easily make holes to whichever depth you need. It also pushes the seeds down tot he proper depth. 

The template has been working great so far and the best part is it gets our kids excited about planting in the garden!

 

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Music - "Shot Down" by Josh Woodward. Free download: http://joshwoodward.com/song/ShotDown

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Where to Get Free Mulch

What is the lowest price you can get on landscaping mulch? Free! We have been sourcing free mulch for our garden beds, landscaping, and trees for a few years now and will never go back to bagged big box mulch! Although they do have some pretty colored wood chips in a bag (what are they using to dye that stuff anyway?) we have found the ultimate place to get the same product for free.

Last year I did a post on dressing up our trees and preparing them for winter and I also did a post on planting our fruit bushes and vines. In both occasions I used this same supply of mulch but thought I would go into more detail on where we are getting it from.



We have spent many years buying bags of mulch from the big box stores spending up to $100 per year to dress up our flower beds and around some of our trees. One day while at our local rustic city park we noticed the big pile of wood chips off to the side. I couldn't believe that they would just pile all that there for anyone to take. I called the city to be sure it was ok to load up my truck and have since made many trips to this park to get my annual fix of mulch.

Different times of year yield different grades of mulch so you have a choice of what you want based on your use. I have noticed that if you go first thing in the spring you have your choice of last years wood pile which has been semi broken down and would be great to sift through to amend garden beds. You also have the years first trimming which is usually shredded pine branches and needles from cleanup around the city and the recent Christmas season (city pickups up Christmas trees I believe). Later during the summer you have fresh mulch coming I each month with varying colors and shades that is perfect for landscaping.



Many people are trying things like the back to Eden gardening method or deep mulch gardening.  There is no need to pay for truck loads of wood chips and mulch when you have access to free resources like this. Some cities may even offer deliver for you for a small fee or even free depending on where you live. This is just another great free resources for starting gardens landscaping with sustainable materials, or just adding to your orchards.



Give your local city hall or township offices a call to see where they put all of there tree trimmers for the year. I'll bet you'll be surprised at how eager they are to get rid of them!

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Starting Seeds on a Budget - Start Your Garden Without Buying Supplies

Are you looking to start or expand your garden this year? Lets go down the check list of things we might need - potting soil, seed plugs, seed trays, grow lights, compost, peat, vermiculite, fertilizer, manure, pest sprays, raised bed kits, trellis, tomato cages, and on and on....... I remember the first time we decided to have a small garden in one of your flower beds. We started at the store buying seeds and dirt and all of the things we thought we would need and spent about $100. That year we barely had anything grow and forgot to have someone water while we were on vacation. Not a great first experience but we were determined to start again.

In our new home a few years ago we decided we were going to go big and year after year we are adding more and more to our garden. But we aren't huge fans of spending $10 in supplies to get $5 worth of vegetables, anyone else feel like that when you are starting out? Yes, over time you get things that you can use over and over each year thus making it more and more worth while. But what about now, do we really need all of this stuff to get a garden going?



In my opinion most people (including us) spend way more than they need on gardening supplies and then are disappointed at the results their first couple of years. It does take time to get the soil just right, it takes time to learn what works best and when to plant and harvest. Gardening is not something that you can just go out and throw some seeds in the ground and have an awesome garden your first year. It takes time and in some cases a small amount of money. I have found that you have a choice in many cases, time or money.

We are expanding our gardens over time as to lessen the impact on our wallets and allow us time to develop good soil as we expand. We have also learned that while we are not going to win any awards for the prettiest seed starting operation you can get started with little to no money invested at all.

We started saving any containers with clear plastic lids last year and have saved up quite a few of them by now (probably more than we need!) These make the perfect tiny greenhouse seed starting containers. Instead of buying a heating pad and seed starting trays just use the things you already have. We have found these to be the fastest way to get your seeds started! This year in fact most of our seeds were already popping through the soil in the first 48 hours.

The next thing you need to get your seeds started is soil, there are a lot of different ideas with what works best here but again I just use what I have to get going. Last year we made a mix for our square foot gardens of our compost, vermiculite, and peat. I grabbed a bin full of this soil and brought it in as soon as it was no longer frozen. I sifted through and got out any large pieces (leafs, sticks, etc.) and then filled my containers. The only down side to using this type of soil is that you might also germinate a few blades of grass or something from last years planting so just be carful and pay attention to what sprouts. If one of these things is not like the other, pull it out.

Seeds are pretty easy to come by and don't be fooled by expiration dates on those seed packages. With proper care there is no real expiration to most seeds. Germination rates might be lower after a few years but I wouldn't worry too much about that. Look for seeds during the off season in the fall or winter. Most stores have clearance sales at this time and you can get your seeds for as much as 75% off. You can also save seeds from your plants year after year. This is a skill I have not yet mastered but will be trying some of this year.

There are many ways to save money on gardening supplies and still have great results. We are all tempted to go out and buy all the best stuff, shovels, and rototillers, etc. But that is mostly not needed. Check a garage sale this spring and you will likely find all kinds of gardening tools for dirt cheap:)

I hope that this has inspired you to get started or add on to your garden this year. Follow along for more tips and tricks this coming spring and summer and lets all try to feed our families a little more from our garden each year.

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Suburban Aquaponics - Moving Outdoor Plants Indoors

Check out this video to see how we are getting a longer growing season out of some of our summer plants. The cold weather came early this year up in Michigan and we had a few plants that we didn't get to see much production from. Our Bell peppers plants just didn't grow very well this year and ended up getting over crowded in our square foot gardens. Since we have the aquaponics system going year round it makes it easy to grab anything from the garden at the end of the season that we want to keep going and plant it inside. I have had pretty good luck so far growing indoors with this system and it is so easy to transplant into and out of the aquaponics!


I have had the best luck transplanting plants into the system but no the best of luck transplanting out if it. Once most plants get used to the lazy lifestyle of the easy aquaponics growing they don't like to get back into a regular dirt situation. While growing in the system they have easy access to water and nutrients and don't develop very deep thick roots like they would in dirt. So when you move most plants out of the system into a normal garden they have a lower survival rate. I have been able to move out some apple tress that were in the system for awhile but trees develop much differently than most other plants.


Clip from MHP gardener - http://youtu.be/9W11fWbsShM

 

 

 

 

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Fall Composting With a String Trimmer

Leaves, leaves, leaves! There is one sure thing about the fall and that is there is no shortage of leaves! Every year I watch people rake up all of their leaves and either burn them or put them at the curb to be hauled off by the city. This is a resource that we should all be using in our yards, gardens, and flowerbeds. It seems very silly to spend all that time and effort collecting leaves from your yard just to get rid of them! And then on top of that, when spring time comes around, we will them go out and buy fertilizer and compost to put in our gardens! Leaves and grass clippings are one of the most abundant resources for a good compost pile that most everybody has (unless you live in the southwest, I suppose).

This post is not as much about how to compost but more about how to deal with leaves and how important they are to your compost pile or bin. Using leaves as the primary resource for you compost is important but it is not as easy as just throwing them into the pile and calling it a day. It is necessary to shred the leaves up as best as possible to prevent the leaves from matting down into a layer that will be hard to move and will not compost.

What else is needed for the compost to start working? Well, the best thing to do is to add some nitrogen material such as kitchen scraps to get the process going. It is also necessary to turn the pile as often as you can to keep air moving around throughout. Even in the coldest months the pile will begin to compost although slowly. As the weather warms turn the pile more and more and by early summer you will have composted all of those leaves into rich dark soil. This soil is full of just about everything that your garden could possible desire.

Another tip if you have a small yard, just offer to rake your neighbors' yards for them, they would love it and you will have rich garden soil in the spring!

TED talk on composting:

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Suburban Aquaponics - Replacing River Rock and Transplanting Crops

I went through the process of removing, bucket by bucket, the river rock that has caused me much trouble over the past several months. I am replacing it with something called beechwood pebbles that I am getting from a local landscape supply for $90 per yard. My system took almost one full yard to fill but the good news is that this new stone is much lighter! I will be adjusting my system pH in the coming weeks and planting out some new crops.

The river rock that has been in my system keeps the pH locked at 8.2 and there is nothing I could do to bring it down lower than that. The limestone and other fossils mixed in with the rock I purchased at Home Depot were the cause. I later learned that this was a source or calcium carbonate and that it would constantly bring the system pH up and out of the preferred range of 6.5-7.

Over the past several months, I have been slowly switching out the four grow beds and it has been quite a process. All of the new rock has to be washed and sorted (to get out the smallest pieces) and then hauled downstairs to our basement in a bucket. Prior to that, the old rock has to be hauled up and out of the basement bucket by bucket and then the grow beds cleaned up.

I am excited for the upcoming winter growing season and look forward to bring you all along, thanks for stopping by and watching!

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Aquaponics System Design - Bell Siphons

When I first began looking into aquaponics the first thing I wanted to understand was how these things called bell siphons worked. I watched countless Youtube videos and read a number of articles and guides to get a better understanding of how they worked. I was fascinated with the simplicity of the bell siphon.  These small self contained siphons can automatically time the fill cycle in each grow bed without any expensive timers, pumps or equipment. These are very cool little contraptions!

I have been running the bell siphons in my current setup for a little over eight months and have had great success with the design that I have chosen. Don't get me wrong, there are many different approaches to the bell siphon, but I do not think it needs to be overly complicated. I have seen some designs that seem to over engineer this simple device and end up making them harder to adjust, more expensive, and harder to setup. the design that I am using is cheap, easy, and simple to understand and so I hope that this video will help answer some of the questions that I had when I began my setup and hopefully make things much easier for you!

Thanks for watching!

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Fall Fruit Tree Preparation with Sustainable Materials

Check out this video to see how we are managing our young orchard to prepare for the coming fall and winter. Each year we try to grab a couple of fruit tress when they go on sale and over the past two years have collected a small orchard's worth of fruit trees. Some we have planted from seeds from grocery store apples and some we purchase in the fall every year. We are excited about having an abundance of apples, but also some cherries, pears, and plums. The apple trees grow great up here in Michigan and we will be using them for vinegar, cider, and for eating. Apples are the kids' favorite fruit at our house.

Last year we had a very hard winter and found that our little bunny friends got hungry and decided to eat just about anything they could chew. They ate our bushes, tree trunks, and anything else they could chew on. As soon as I started to notice this I began placing some paper towel rolls around the trucks to protect and deter the bunnies and this seemed to work well. I am doing the same this year but ahead of time!

We have also noticed found that our city and neighboring city has a pile of wood chip mulch at the city park that they leave for anyone to take. This has been a huge help for us this year and we have used it to landscape, prepare our fruit bushes and vines, mulch around our trees and bushes, and just use as compost in the garden when needed. I would recommend checking with your local city hall to see if they do the same because this is an awesome resource to have for free!

Through the last year or two, we have also started using cardboard as a landscape cloth for all of our landscaping, gardening, and trees and it works great! We have barely had to do any weeding at all in the areas where I have used it!

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Aquaponics System Design - Selecting Grow Beds

Before I setup my aquaponics system one of the very first questions that I asked was, "what kind of containers can I find that are safe and inexpensive?" There are so many options out there to use for building your very own aquaponics system and I wanted to give my opinion on a few of them.

Most of us have seen the IBC tote systems and 55 gallon drum systems, but there are other options as well and all have their advantages and disadvantages. I originally was looking for IBC totes for my system.  But during my research, I saw a couple of videos and articles online of others using 55 gallon drums. I had seen these online for sale before when I was looking into building a rain collection system. Once I starting looking into the barrels further, I knew this was going to work for me. I paid just $10 per barrel and split them in half to make two equal grow beds. They were easy to clean and capable of holding the heavy weight of gravel. The other advantage I have found is that the built in bung connection takes either a 3/4" male threaded adapter or a 2" male threaded adapter making some of the plumbing a bit easier.

Over the past nine months, I have been very happy with my choice of the 55 gallon drums for my aquaponics system and grow beds. Next year, I plan to make an outdoor system that uses pond liner and I may also use some IBC totes in a greenhouse down the road. For my indoor system, however, I would highly recommend using the barrels as they are one of the best solutions available.

What ideas do you have? Leave a comment below if you use something different, I'd like to hear about it.

Food grade plastics according to the FDA are -
PET (PETE)
HDPE
Vinyl (PVC)
LDPE
PP
PS
http://www.ehow.com/way_5819448_do-tell-food-grade-plastic_.html

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Suburban Aquaponics - Benefits of Indoor and Outdoor Gardening

Knowing the benefits of indoor gardening and outdoor gardening really helps when deciding which plants to grow in your aquaponics system, and which plants to plant outside.

Indoor gardening can be ideal during the colder months, and you have full control over the elements.  You decide when the lights come on, how much humidity, and the temperature.  Also, there are no pesky bugs to eat your plants.

Outdoors is wonderful, too.  You have all the light you need, height for tall plants, and room to plant whatever you want. 

As with anything, you need to keep in mind the climate where you live, the length of your growing season, and available yard space for your garden.  We hope this video helps you plan out your own gardens, and maybe even consider an aquaponics system!  Click HERE for more information on aquaponics.





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What We Love Most About Square Foot Gardening

We really do like square foot gardening, really.  We get so excited to see new growth and the beginnings of tiny vegetables forming.  The peas don't even make it in the house they're so good and, yesterday, I lopped off our first zucchini and threw it right on the grill.  It's just a lot slower than growing in aquaponics and we are not the most patient people you will ever meet.  But I'm pretty sure we've found the best outdoor gardening option for our family.

Why?  The soil mixture retains water like a sponge.  And I have not had to weed my gardens.  Not once yet.  To me, it's a miracle.  I cannot tell you how many gardens we've tried to grow in the past that ended up overrun with weeds and dried up when we went on family vacations.

Before watching my video (riddled with the background noise of dogs and children), I'd like to share a few things about us:

1.  We have a small yard in a small subdivision.  It gets even smaller when trying to find a place that gets full-sun all day, our options were very limited.

2.  We have a horrible track record when it comes to gardening.  A few years ago (and at a different house), we spent hundreds of dollars starting a garden and our only harvest was a few measly carrots that looked like thumbs. 

We sincerely hope that this encourages all of you out there to try gardening.  Don't let living in a subdivision, past failures, or lack of time hold you back.  You CAN grow your own food!





This post has been shared at:  Homestead Barn Hop, Natural Living Monday, Simple Saturdays Blog Hop, Simple Lives Thursday, The Backyard Farming Connection Hop, The HomeAcre Hop, Wonderful Wednesday Blog Hop

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Square Foot Garden Update: Not Impressed Just Yet

Phew!  It's been a busy week with the holiday, normal chores, and getting our "new" camper trailer ready to take up north this week.  Now, everyone who lives in Michigan knows what we do, but for those of you who do not live in Michigan, we like to go up north every chance we can.  What's up north, you ask?  Lakes, campgrounds, seasonal resort towns, trails, rivers, cabins, and a whole lot of nothing, too.  You can't ask for a more relaxed, laid-back vacation than in northern Michigan and it's Upper Peninsula.  Torch Lake, UH-mazing.  If you haven't been, you should visit Torch Lake at least once in your life.  And Copper Harbor, there are no words to describe that part of our state.  It's perfect and gorgeous and just so awesome up there.

So, I have been patiently watching the slow progress of our square foot gardens over the past few weeks.  I cannot tell a lie, we are not impressed by their growth.  I honestly think our aquaponics system may have ruined us for gardening in dirt.  Notice the 8-inch tall tomato plants in the square foot beds above.  Now, look at this baby.......

Almost 4-feet tall!  This tomato plant was started from a clipping of a tomato plant growing in our aquaponics system.  All of our cloned tomato plants are flourishing, and fruiting.  My husband calls it his Clone Army....he thinks he's so funny.  Here's another one of our pride and joys.

It has been cooler here in Michigan than what's normal for this time of year, so maybe that's why the garden is slow to grow.  But we are enjoying the benefits of not weeding and the moisture retention in our square foot garden beds, that's for sure.

Would love to hear from readers about your garden growth so far!  Anyone out there square foot farmin'?


This post has been shared at:  Homestead Barn Hop, Simple Lives Thursday, Simple Saturdays Blog Hop, Natural Living Monday

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What is Square Foot Gardening? A Brief Overview

Our little homestead is located in a suburban subdivision in southeastern Michigan.  That basically means we have a short growing season and barely anywhere ideal to plant a conventional garden.  Most of our backyard is taken up by our pool and the septic field.  Sooooooo, raised beds it is.  But even better than that, square foot raised garden beds.  Why, you ask?  Here is some information that caught our attention and sold us on the idea to be square foot farmers.


Square Foot Gardening is very intensive.  You can plant more veggies in a smaller space than in a conventional garden.  There is also little weeding (yay!) and because the special soil mixure retains water extremely well, we have less of a chance of killing our plants (we need all the help we can get).


Here are the key elements to square foot gardening:


1.  Raised Beds:  Garden box frames should be no wider than 4 feet x any length, and 6 to 8 inches deep.  We opted for 3 x 6 raised beds.  Todd built ours using free pallet wood, click here to learn more about that process. 

2.  Special Soil Mixture (Mel's Mix): 

1/3 coarse vermiculite
1/3 peat moss
1/3 blended compost  (your backyard compost pile is the best option for blended compost, otherwise, you have to obtain several different forms of compost)


3.  The Grid

1 foot by 1 foot grid and must be permanent.  On top of each frame place a permanent grid that divides the box into one foot squares. The grid is the unique feature that makes the whole system work so well.

4:  Plant Spacing:  Depending on the mature size of the plant, grow 1, 4, 9, or 16 equally spaced plants per square foot. Choose fruits and veggies that make sense for your family and for the intensive planting style of the Square Foot Garden.

Here is a great resource for knowing how many plants to plant per square.  Numbers will vary slightly depending on which website you use.
http://plantandplate.com/p-downloads/PlantandPlate-SFG-planner.pdf


TIPS

Here are a few tips that really helped me when planning and planting our gardens:

1.  Plan out your garden first on paper.  I planned out our two beds on this piece of paper. 

This helped me determine how many seeds to buy and start indoors.  Which leads me to the next tip,

2.  Start your seeds indoors, especially if you have a short growing season.  We also got a great jump-start on our tomato plants by using the cloned clippings from the plants in our aquaponics beds.  We started out with plants almost two feet tall!  Learn all about that easy process here.  Best way to start tomatoes in my opinion!


3.  Plant the tallest plants on the north side of your square foot garden beds, especially the veggies that need trellises or supports to grow.  This helps the shorter plants get all the sun they can. 


4.  And here is the most important tip, the tip I read and forgot about, and did not follow.  So please don't be like me.  Water your soil BEFORE you plant your seeds!  I know that's a good idea in any garden, but this soil mixture is the thirstiest, spongiest soil you could ever hope for.  It took me FOREVER to water after I planted, especially since I didn't want to wash away the fragile plants I had just planted.


Learn more and meet the inventor of the Square Foot Gardening method: 
http://www.melbartholomew.com/what-is-square-foot-gardening/






This post has been shared at:  Homestead Barn Hop, Simple Saturdays Blog Hop, The Backyard Farming Connection Hop, Simple Lives Thursday, The HomeAcre Hop, Natural Living Monday, Wonderful Wednesday Blog Hop

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Create a Raised Bed Garden Using Pallet Wood - 100% Free!

We are finally getting our square foot gardens setup.  I needed ways to save money and build some nice raised beds for the backyard. In this video, I go through the process that I used to tear down some pallets and create a couple of 3' x 6' raised-bed gardens. This is one of the first projects that I have done that was truly 100% free!


Please let me know if you have any questions.

Todd


For more on square foot gardening please visit  - http://www.melbartholomew.com/





This post has been shared on:  The Homestead Barn Hop, Simple Saturdays Blog Hop
, The Backyard Farming Connection Hop, HomeAcre Hop, Simple Lives Thursday

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Planting Fruit - Grapes, Raspberries, Blackberries, Blueberries

We live in small rural subdivision and finding space in the yard (with full sun) to actually grow all of the things we need is not always an easy task. In this video, we go through the process of using some spare yard space along a fence to prepare and plant some fruiting bushes and vines.  We enjoy converting our small lot into a productive homestead, and in the coming years we will be adding more fruiting bushes and trees. We are looking forward to future fruit for snacks, pies, jams, jellies, and whatever else we can make!


Thanks for visiting,
Todd

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Recent Happenings Around Our Home(stead)

As I write this, Todd and the two youngest are outside working on the chicken coop.  Kayla is inside the coop grinding off the nails and screws that are sticking out.  I'm not sure how I feel about that, but I am thankful she at least has safety glasses on. 

I will be leaving my cozy spot in front of my computer and heading out to help them paint, but before I do, I wanted to share what projects we're working on now.  

Chicken Coop
Wood Burning Pool Heater
Fruit Bushes

2 YEAR OLD DAUGHTER INTERRUPTION, followed by another, and another, and another.............I am off to stain the coop!

  

Okay, I'm back and the detachable chicken run/tractor is as stained as it's gonna get.  I love how in order to get the stain on the boards at the bottom, you have to run your brush along the dirt on the ground.  I save those boards for last.  Kayla doesn't though, and most of the boards she painted have dirt and rocks stuck to them now forever. 

The run is ready for the wire mesh.

 

Yesterday, we dropped off our old computers, printers and monitors at a local junkyard for recycling and picked up this "beauty" of a burn barrel.  Todd will be turning this barrel into a wood-burning pool heater.  I am super excited that our pool will be warm enough this year for us to comfortably swim in.  It is heavily shaded by our backyard trees and barely any sun hits it for the solar cover to work.  He ordered this barrel stove kit from Amazon and it will be here around the first week of June.

 

 After we found our barrel, we purchased six fruit bushes from our local TSC.  The bushes were cheaper than what we found online or at Home Depot.  Since Michigan is still pretty cold, we are a bit apprehensive to plant them now.  So they sit in our south-facing window soaking up the sun next to our seedlings.

Kayla was also busy yesterday building a little roost for the chickens for their brooder box.  They loved it!  I'll post pictures in my next weekly update on the chickens.  They are still doing great!

Blessings!

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