how to make rain barrels July 3, 2009

this post outlines how we set up rain barrels for collecting rain water off the roof of a garage.

water access at the plot has been an issue…. we are definitely not going through the expense to get city water hooked up and we have not cozied up to the neighbors quite enough yet to consistently borrow an outdoor spigot, so our solution for this season is to install a couple of rain barrels using the roof of an adjacent property, which our neighbor agreed with.

a friend secured a couple of 55 gallon drums. finding a cheap, reliable supply of barrels seems like an easy task, but i have yet to find one close to home…..at the house we have a couple of open barrels with screened covers for mosquito suppression yet no real overflow device. this set up works well at home, but at the plot i wanted something more high tech. i opted for closed air-tight barrels.

essentially a tube is connected to our neighbor’s gutter to allow water to enter the barrels. as the barrels fill, the tube fills and then the rain in the gutter simply passes over the hole for the tube and continues down the gutter and out the downspout as it normally would. also the water entry tube is the only air connection to the barrels so when emptying the barrels, the water drains easily. other than that one intake, the barrels are air tight.

after much planning and drawing and a couple of trips to lowes, i ended up with this mess of PVC fittings.

try explaining this project to the local hardware store!

props to this dude for an inexpensive bulkhead fitting. i used the bulkhead fitting on the connection to the gutter and on the outlet at the bottom of the barrels.

all hooked up and ready to install

the platform was salvaged on trash night from a neighbor down the street who was tossing some old saw horses. i cut them so they were a bit shorter and screwed them together on the top with some 2X4s and on the bottom with 2X8s, in hopes that this evenly distributes the 800+ lbs of weight of the barrels when full.

view of fittings underneath barrels

spigot attached to base

3/4″ PVC pipe for the outlet, the straight ball valve will give good strong flow (the home unit has a hot water tank spigot and i’ve been pretty disappointed with the amount of water we get out of it).

pipe fittings for water intake

1″ PVC pipe on the top. here i drilled 1 1/8″ holes for the NPT threaded PVC fitting and used a gasket just to be sure (and a bunch of caulk in the end)

gutter fitting and dam made of caulk

gutter attachment

the gutter attachment is 1 1/2″ electrical fitting with a tube drain gasket on the bottom. the holes will hopefully allow more water to enter the barrels even in a light rain. also added the “caulk dam” to insure water really gets in there.

ready to roll....

here is the system all hooked up. we have since had rain and used it to irrigate another unsuccessful carrot planting. the carrots failed but the rain barrels are a smashing success. upon reflection i would probably use tubing instead of hard PVC pipe. we are better prepared to hook up our planned 650 gallon poly tank for next year.

got questions or suggestions for improvements, please leave us a comment and thanks for reading!

purple beans and garlic! June 30, 2009

tonight we harvested our first batch of purple string beans….yes, they are purple, which really helps in the harvesting process….but they do turn green when cooked. they are delicious. nothing like fresh-picked dinner!

purple beans

we only planted a little bit of garlic last fall and it is now hanging in the garage to dry out. we buy our garlic from seeds of change. they only ship in the fall for fall planting. we plan to put a 12′ x 4′ bed in this fall.

fresh garlic

part of the harvest....ready to dry

veggie update June 28, 2009

the garden is lush and green. visions of grilled peppers and fresh, red tomatoes will soon be reality!

peppers staring to grow

tomatoes growing strong

garlic is ready to harvest

edible flowers

did you know you can eat daylilies? google daylily recipes and see what strikes your fancy.

plot update June 10, 2009

baybranch farm got themselves some land ….

the plot thickens

it’s kind of crazy but we hope to garden / farm this 40′ X 120′ vacant lot near our home. this year our main goal is to build the soil and setup the infrastructure to grow grow grow vegetables next year. one of our first experiments is to “sterilize” some of the soil with some clear plastic.

killing the grass with plastic

near the beginning of may we put this 20′ X 35′ section of plastic down. it was way more work sealing (needs to be air tight under there) than one would expect. we tested the soil temperature last sunday and it’s already about 100 F, we are hoping for 120 F by mid july. after we remove the plastic the plan is to either rototill, or plant a cover crop and rototill next spring.

late spring and it was apparent there would be no soil ready to plant any time soon, so we installed three raised beds.

raised beds at the plot

we used 2X8s to build 4′X12 beds, covered the grass with cardboard boxes we have been saving for this very purpose, and filled the beds, one yard each, with Sweet Peet. it all went well using the trusty baybranch trailer. we were able to move the trailer right up to the beds and push most of the soil straight in. (i did have to drive on the sidewalk as someone had blocked access to our lot, as usual…..the neighborhood kids got a big kick out of this!)

filling the raised beds

filling the raised beds

one thing we will need a great deal of is compost. i figure, why buy something that is so simple to make and we are “closing the loop”, so here is our attempt at larger scale composting.

starting a new compost pile

we are filling with food scraps from work and any grass we cut at the plot. the straw bales will allow air into the compost and insulate the compost allowing it to decompose almost out to the edge. we also use the straw as our “brown” (carbon source) in the compost pile. a few weeks after we started this we picked up another 22 bales of straw.

the trusty baybranch trailer in action

with the extra bales we filled the first bin and are ready for a second pile.

compost piles with straw bales

here is a shot of the plot in its current state, fence and rototilling underway.

one huge hurdle yet to tackle is access to water … that’s the subject of the next post (since i should be working on that right now!) got any suggestions for us, please post a comment….

garden update June 8, 2009

we got potatoes!

potatoes are growing…..soon we will have to add another set of 2 x 6’s and more dirt, but looking good so far.

woo hoo - peppers!

Dude, check out that garlic

tomatoes working their way up the trellis

potato tower May 20, 2009

i’ve read about planting potatoes in old tires but the idea of food i’m going to eat next to an old tire doesn’t seem like the greatest idea, and getting sign-off to put a stack of tires in the yard from mrs. bickle is never ever going to happen, so i had resigned myself to not growing potatoes anytime soon. then … i was just minding my own business (actually trying to find info about the BCS tractor i really want) … i strolled across this great small farmer blog, One Straw: Be The Change which ultimately let to the Seattle Times and plans for a 4ft high potato tower. so off to lowes for some 2×6s and screws. for about $30 i’ve made this.

potatoe tower

since sun is still a premium at the homestead, this is sitting in the only sunny spot left, at the end of the drive right next to the side walk. our neighbors love us! i used a few cardboard boxes on the bottom and just placed it right on the grass. the dirt is Sweet Peet we are HUGE fans of Sweet Peet and are hoping the potatoes are also.

finally in went some potatoes, and a couple of sweet potatoes for good measure. hopefully i will report back with raving results.

planting potatoes

tomato trellis May 19, 2009

we started tomatoes from seed on january 25th…we were worried about them at first, but now have 23 tomatoes that are hardened off and thriving. yesterday we built a trellis for them and strung them up to bask and grow in the sunshine! here’s a pic of about half of them…

salad – from the garden May 18, 2009

we are eating salad from the garden….yummy!

from this....

....to this

worm bin upgrade May 15, 2009

recently we upgraded our worm bin to a tiered system, sometime referred to as a flow through system. we started based on these plans, but modified to what we had, worms are not all that picky. i’d like to modify it with a drain to easily get the “tea” from the bottom bin.

here’s how we built the new bin for vermicomposting:

materials

• 3 rubbermaid (or $6 bob’s plastics) containers
• scrap 2 x 4’s
• drill
• utility knife
• screws and washers
• screen

how to make it

1. attach 2′x4’s to sides of 2 of the plastic containers with screws. the purpose here is to create some space between each container when you place them together.
2. drill holes in the bottom of 2 of the 3 containers with a drill bit (about 1/4″). this allows the worms to travel from one bin to another.
3. cut out part of the top of one of the bins and replace with mesh screen to allow airflow
4. place the bins together, 1 inside the other
5. place soaked shredded paper or leaves inside the bin and add a handful of dirt and your worms (red wigglers)
6. continue to add veggie/organic scraps to the bin and cover with the wet paper
7. the holes in the first bin allow compost tea to drop into the base container
8. as the 2nd container fills with scraps, add soaked paper to the 3rd (top) bin and begin adding your organic wastes to the top bin. the holes in the bottom allow the worms to travel up to where the food is making collection of worm castings easier

see pictures for a better idea of how we made our bin…..

Worm bin upgrade

strawberries! May 7, 2009

this year we are planting strawberries! since we didn’t have any topsoil, we used a mixture of compost and sand, neither of which hold water very well…..so only half of the plants seem to be doing okay. will post first strawberry when we get there!

mixing compost for the strawberry bed

filling the pyramid

a young strawberry plant