Cover Crop to Mulch & Compost

So I planted a cover crop of peas & oats in a few of my garden beds this spring.   I have already turned over the bed where the hot peppers were placed.  My last bed that has to get turned over to plant is for the beans.   The cover crop was over a foot tall by now, and has done a wonderful job of keeping weeds down in beds that won't be used till the soil warmed up.  When I turned the pepper bed the crop was only like 4-6" tall so wasn't a big deal to just turn the crop and all over.  But when over a foot tall it would have been tough to dug all that up and turn it over.  So I decided to hand pull it.

I didn't worry about getting it all out, just the majority of it.  A small bit and some of the root systems were good to keep there to turn over and add more organic matter into the soil to break down.  I did put some of it on the compost pile as I'll have more goat stall bedding to add to it, so needed more green to go with the carbon from the straw. 

 

After I put some on the compost pile I had a bright idea.... what about putting some of it around some of the other plants as mulch instead?  So I added it to the sides of the other tomatoes, tomatillos and ground cherries.  Plus with the added weight it would help keep the paper mulch from getting blown up. 

cover crops as mulch around the tomatoes.

The other bed I still have cover crop on is the potato bed.  It was actually by accident that I put cover crop seeds on that bed but worked out very much in my favor.  You see potatoes do NOT like really cold / frosty nights and we have had a few since the potato leaves have sprouted.  But the cover crop is taller than the potatoes so it protected them from getting too damaged.  Now that the frost night BETTER be over after this weekends frosty nights - I think I might start pulling up the peas and oats and just lay it on the ground around the potatoes to keep the weeds from getting light to germinate.  I did a little bit of it but will wait another week to finish the bed - JUST in case.

Potatoes with the cover crops pulled and laid down as mulch.

This was 1st year of using cover crops in my planting rotation and will definitely keep using them!!  The seeds are very cheap to buy - and all you have to do is just toss it on the beds and rake it around a bit - very easy planting!  And all the good weed control, mulch, compost... its called green manure for good reason!  I bought my peas/oats mix from High Mowing Seeds.


Here is just a little photo garden update on the rest of the beds....

Sante Fe peppers

Black Pearl - just an awesome looking pepper plant in general!!

Hot Hungarian Wax pepper - the pepper is almost bigger than the plant itself!

The is a Great White tomato - my 1st year for planting white tomatoes -can't wait to see how they taste.

Amish Paste tomatoes - future pasta sauce.

Anaheim Peppers

King of the North Bell Peppers.

Lots of onions...  broccoli, kohlrabi, and brussels sprouts.

Cabbage and onions - I think the onions are keeping the cabbage worms (moths) away!!

Lots of collard greens - we have to use some of these soon so I can thin the area out.

Mothers Day Cold Front - Protecting My Babies!!

As gardeners we always worry about that last frost.  Most of us get the itch when the weather starts to get nice to plant things even though a little voice in our heads tell us there is still a good chance it will get cold.  Here in Ohio we are going through that in the last week.  We had some great weather - days in the 70's and sunny - perfect gardening weather.  No massive rains to make the garden too wet to work in (lots of tractors in the big farm fields around here due to that fact!).  So on the weekend of May 4th I couldn't help myself - I had to plant some peppers!  I planted 10 sweet / mild peppers that I had been growing in my basement since late Feb.  It felt so good to get some plants in the ground!!  Also planted a few herbs we had purchased at the nursery.  So fast forward to May 10th with forecast of low 30's the entire weekend.   I was going to be away for the Mothers Day weekend so I had to get the protection put on Friday night.  Being Mothers Day it was kind of fitting as I'm sure many other gardeners feel the same way as I do - especially those who start plants from seed... but these plants are like our babies.  You nurture them as tiny baby seedlings, keep them watered, give them food, make sure they have proper light and heat - then they start to grow up so you try to get them ready for the real world by hardening them off slowly for a few weeks to be ready to be out in the garden on their own - kind of like preparing your teenager to go off to college or enter the real world of having  full-time job and living on their own.  

I used a few tools to protect my babies this weekend, the baby peppers I put some hoops over them and used a layer of row material and the plastic over that.  Many of the plants I put on tidy cat buckets (who knew our stash in the garage would come in so handy!), other 'cheap' ways is to cut out the bottoms of milk jugs and 2 litter pop bottles.  The jug/bottle cloches are great for small transplants as well till they mature a bit since they still get sunlight but protected from harsh winds and temps. 

My garden of Tidy-Cats.  When using something solid like this for overnight protection,make sure
you remove them after it warms up the next morning so the plants get the sunlight they need. 

One new protection method I'm testing out for the 1st time this year is water wells.  I bought a 3pk at the nursery - it says you can plant tomatoes up to 6 weeks early.  They are kind of a pain to setup/fill - I used Mo's help as having the extra set of hands was needed.   I did use a variety that was supposed to be more cold hardy (Sub Arctic Plenty)  anyhow (as I had extras of them if something went wrong).  I planted them in mid April and I checked them out last night and they are still doing ok - almost starting to poke out the top of the wells so glad this is supposed to be our last cold front.  How they work is that through the day the sun heats up the water surrounding them and then it releases the stored heat thru the night to protect the plants from the cold.   All 3 of the tomato plants have buds blooming right now and have grown about 8" in height since I planted them. 

Tomatoes in the water wells, basil in the 2 litter bottle cloches

Some plants are cold hardy and normally will not need any protection for a slight cold snap.  Plants like radishes, cabbage, peas, broccoli, cauliflower, spinach, greens, etc.   Normally if you can plant the plants early in the Spring, they are safe from the odd, short lived cold fronts.  I did cover some of my cold hardy plants (some broccoli, cauliflower & brussels sprouts)  with the tidy cat buckets JUST in case because I'm one of those over protective moms I guess.  =)   Tonight's low will be in the low 40's so those plants will be fine - but the peppers, artichokes, tomatoes and basil will still need some protection - they like it over 50 at night. 

Artichokes in milk jug cloches.

Peppers in their low tunnel.

 Happy gardening everyone - I'm hoping to be able to plant the rest of my 'babies' this weekend (May 18th).  I still have over 60 pepper plants and 20+ tomatoes to get into the garden...  their 'grown up' home.

Hardening off the rest of my pepper and tomato babies.  They spent the weekend
in the workshop to keep out of the cold weather and crazy winds.

Spring has Sprung!

Last week we got 2.8" of rain within 48 hours and the temps have really started to stay warmer, things are really starting to turn green.  The spring bulbs are alive and starting to bloom to give color again to what was so blah after this what seemed to be forever winter season.  Here is a good show of what just 5 days can do to the yard with some rain and warm weather:

I have been hard at work this early spring working on the garden.  As you can see from the photo above that I finally have all the wooden side boards installed on all the beds!  I've almost got all the paths installed with their walkway materials.  I'm putting down very thick layers of cardboard and newspapers and then straw over top of that.  Hoping that will keep the weeds at bay as well as keeping my feet from being muddy when I work out there. 

Today is the first day the Forsythia is in bloom!!

Driveway entry beds.

Last night (4/15/13) I planted some broccoli and brussels sprouts that I bought at the nursery over the weekend.  I have some growing from seed in the basement but not getting a great germination rate (can't remember how old the seeds are), so decided to just get a head start and get some in now and then have a later crop of what ever ones end up starting.   Both of those are very cold hardy but supposed to dip down into the mid 20's this weekend so I'm going to be using old 2 liter and milk jugs with the bottoms cut out to place over them to give them some protection - cheap/free cloches.   

My older rhubarb plant came out a few weeks ago and is really doing well, has a good set of leaves on it.  The one my parents gave me last year just started to pop up on Sunday - was so happy to see that as it is a part of the plant that was my grandparents...  so its part of a 50+ yr old plant and I'd hate it if I killed it!!  I'll keep amending the area with more compost as rhubarb loves that!  Looking forward to trying new things with it this year after seeing a post of one of my fellow YourGardenShow friends blogged last year with great new ways to use it.

• Rhubarb Salsa
• Rhubarb Sorbet
• Strawberry Rhubarb Jalapeno Spread (really can't wait to try this one!!)
• Vanilla Rhubarb Jam

50+ yr old rhubarb plant from my grandparents garden originally.

The other one, well ahead of the other plant.

 I planted peas about 2-3 weeks apart on either side of my pea fence.  This year I'm using one of my old doggie play pen fences, got them when the dogs were puppies and even used them for the hens as a run until they figured out they could fly up & out of it... (hence the chicken tractor project).  Last year I had used one of those string trellis pea fences - I think it was from Burpees that I found at Lowes.  Unless you are only planting a handful of peas - don't use that product...  worthless.  Once the plants got heavy with fruit the string started to break and folded over on itself, making it VERY hard to harvest.  That is why I decided to use metal this year.  After I planted the 1st round of peas, the weather took a dive - got really cold, snow, etc...  those peas are just now coming up.  The ones I planted 2-3 weeks after that are now also starting to come up - so much for the staggered planting time to extend the harvest.

Peas popping out of the ground.

The other items I have going in the garden is onions and potatoes.  Mo stopped at the nursery on the way home from work last week and got me a good supply.  I have all the potatoes in and the onion bunches - but still have some onion sets I need to get out.  We will have a LOT of onions this year.  =)  I'm trying to plant the onions along the edge of the beds to use up that normally wasted space, as well as being a companion plant for many other plants - especially the cole crops like cabbage, broccoli, etc.  "They" say that the onions near by should help keep the cabbage loppers away - which was a major pest for me last year so we'll see is it does help at all...  if not my trusty bottle of soapy water and tweezers will be used again to hand pick them. 

Some of the onions planted on each side of the bed. 
Cabbage will be going in the middle.

I also purchased a set of 3 water wells for tomato plants to try it out.  Supposed to be able to plant out 6 weeks early using them.  I have a variety I'm growing this year called Sub Arctic Plenty that is supposed to be more cold hardy than normal - so I might try planting 3 of those out with the water wells early next week to give it a try.  


Watch for my  next upcoming project blog which is a french drain in the driveway... 

Red Barn / Chicken Coop Project Update

So these last few days have been Red Barn days...  I spent all weekend and after work tonight working out there.  So just to recap the project was to build new chicken coop and tear down old one that took up the whole middle area of the barn.

Saturday my parents came over and Dad & I worked in the barn from 10:30am till after 6pm.  My main worry was the framing for the entry door.   I recycled the old solid wood door that used to be at the back porch.  Worked perfectly!  As with everything at this place - nothing is square or plumb so we had to make adjustments and MAJOR shims to get the door frame plumb compared to the board already there (like 3-4" shim at the base!).

Door Frame done & door functional! 

Then we worked on putting the bottom plate for the outside wall, this was also interesting and the boards were so out of whack - but my dad is a genius and he suggested using the circular saw and cutting down a little in the area that was high - then using chisels to notch the area out.  Made a huge difference for how the base plate laid.  He thinks some of those old floor boards were cherry - all I know when I was doing the chiseling - it was some hard wood!

Dad doing some chiseling

After the base was in we attached the studs which was easy as there used to be studs that someone cut out (from the corn crib that was there)  so we just attached the studs to the side of the old studs at the top attached to side of attic - not like we have to be 16" on center for a chicken coop.  =)  We put a few roof supports on - thought originally was gonna do chicken wire on top.   Then we started to build up the outside wall as you can see in this photo there are gaps in the siding so not so protective from the elements. 

Framing done and half of the outside wall filled with recycled boards.

Once we got all the outside walls lined with boards it was time to add the chicken wire.  We overlapped a few inches and then later I would add zip-ties every few inches along the seam so nothing could get in.  We also added a board over the bottom chicken wire so predators couldn't work the wire up at the bottom and get in. 

This is what the new coop looked like when my parents left on Saturday.

So Sunday I got up and got right to work after the sun came out...  8:30am.  I knew I had to rip down the old coop 1st as I needed the extra 2x4s from the upper wall addons as well as the OSB board.  Over night I decided to make the ceiling solid and not chicken wire.  So planned on recycling all the old stuff from the other coop to build the roof on the new one.  The new roof isn't pretty by any means - using scraps there are a lot of seams but it works...

Removed the door and the front top section - at this point there was no looking back and
had to finish new coop that night for chickens to have somewhere to sleep and be protected.

One wall gone, top of the one down and the wall is actually leaning in -
was stuck by an eye bolt sticking out of the front wall board. 

The new roof.

The only issue with the roof is that there was a gap between the barn attic and the roof that something could sneak in.  So we used some of the old chicken wire that was the roof of the old coop and I got up in the attic and stapled the wire to the roof and to the attic so entry point was lost.  Then we found another place under the attic where there was a small gap - so we gathered up all the scrap 2x4s we had around here and it was like the puzzle game on Survivor as we had already put all the saws away so Mo would hand me some pieces to see how it fit then she would keep working to get pieces that together matched the space perfectly - she did a great job!  I also used some of the spray expanding foam stuff to fill any gaps that might be big enough for something to try to enter.  The girls slept in their new house for the 1st time that night.  I didn't get back in the house till 11pm!  

So Monday comes and I was actually happy I couldn't go work on the barn and had to work so my lower back had a little time off!!!  I went out around 5:30pm tonight (Monday) with my Jeep and tow strap in hand... with notion on pulling out the corner posts.  Now reminder that the wood used for these stalls was Amish rough cut oak lumber - HEAVY!  The corner posts were 4x6 8 or 10' posts that were cemented in the ground.

1st post down - easy as pie!  =)

2nd post still easy to pull out but made a bit more mess
when the cement popped out.  That was one of the hens making
sure there wasn't any bugs that popped up from the hole. 

The 3rd and last pole I pulled with the Jeep was not so easy,
the cement stayed hooked on this one, so pulled it all the way out of the barn as
later this week I'll have to take the sledge hammer to it to pop off the cement.

The posts that I removed will all be reused out in the pasture where there were some kind of crappy posts used and the goats last fall broke a few - so these will be the replacement - they won't  be breaking these oak posts I know that!!!  Saves me from having to buy new posts for that project too.

So after I got the posts out I got to work on the final part that had to come out - the back wall.  That went pretty fast, as I was getting a nice flow going after doing so many of these these last few days.  I still have 1 more post I need to get out since I took the back wall out - I have it pulled to a 45 degree angle but just couldn't lift it up out of the ground - might have to bring out the Jeep again later this week!  I started to move things around a bit, got the shelf my parents gave me a month or so ago in its new place - put it on a rubber mat so the metal feet aren't on the wet ground.  the floor is very uneven so I have to figure a good way to even it out - might even try to scrape it with the snow plow to see what happens.  I'm just happy to have an open barn that you can see right thru!  Sooo much more space to do things and store all the yard equipment.

My view all the way thru the barn!  Could not see the other door when old coop was there.

We had to move all the dry firewood to this area - we used old stall doors
as pallets to sit the wood on, lots of future camp fires!  Also scrap lumber as well as
the rest of the old coop roof chicken wire that I need to roll up yet.

All my gardening stuff that needs to find new home.  This little area has a back wall still because the guys that came to straighten the barn last summer used the back of this wall to attach a base that goes to the barn wall - so eventually gonna use this wall for something like a gardening table (since I had to remove my old one at the start of this project).  The pile of wood on the right side of the photo is old bad lumber scraps that will be burned - have to move it but my back was too sore to do tonight.

Have a lot of clean up yet to do - once all those tomato cages get moved outside
that will open that space up a bit.

This was the lumber I took out tonight that will be used for the sides to my garden beds.  Garden was waaaay too muddy to try to carry out there tonight.   Thick 2x6 oak boards. I had taken the boards from the the sides of the old coop out to the garden already on Sun - so this is just part of the boards I removed.

So now what everyone has been biting their nails to see since I originally posted I was gonna do this project...  ha ha.   The (semi) finished new chicken coop!!! 

We stuck up some extra blue board we had around here to keep too much cold wind from getting in till the weather warms up for good.

Mo added the blue board inside to block the light from their nesting boxes since they like it darker for that.
I'll eventually build something with wood.

The other things left to do to the coop is:

• Put on some of this roofing tarp stuff I have on the top of their roof in case the wind blows snow up under the main roof (there is gaps) so the OSB doesn't get wet.
• Add inner door jambs with 1x2's just fill in any gaps.
• Add the hardware cloth we bought to the open inside wall as its more protective than just the chicken wire.  
• Add latch on inside of door so if we are in there working, the chickens can't get out.
• Not really coop related but clean out the barn attic - nasty varmint poo up there and  junk from the previous owner. 

Its Freezing Outside... so its a Basement Project Day.

A month or so ago I lifted up the edge of the vinyl flooring I put down in the back room of the basement where we put the dogs when we have to be gone for a while.  It wasn't pretty...  Rest of the flooring I put in down there were the snap together plastic tiles that are marketed for garages.  They work great in that they sit up off the floor so there is air circulation under them, and some of them are actually vented - in areas where I have water supply in case of spillage.  But I didn't want to use those back there for the dogs cause there are cracks... so if by chance they had an accident and didn't do it on the potty pads we put down for them...  pee seeps into the cement and dries up - nasty!  So my thought was a solid piece of vinyl - worked great, except didnt think about the floor being damp in the humid months under there... so guess what I found when I lifted it up last month.....mold.   Yet another new project was added on my list!  So I hit the drawing board (aka Google) to find solutions to my problem.  Still needed to use the vinyl - but I needed it to breath under the flooring.

Half of the floor flipped back and cleaned off.

First thing was I had to remove everything from the one side of the room to start.  I pulled back and flipped it over the other half of the room.  With my spray bottle of bleach water and roll of paper towels I was ready for combat!  I sprayed everything down good - let it stand for 10mins and wiped all the nastiness off.  Now some of it wasn't mold but effervescence as I did seal it with a Radon sealer before I did the flooring so the sealant pushes up lime and stuff as it reacts in the cement.  I repeated this 3 times waiting each time after spraying to let the bleach react and kill any mold spores.

What the part I haven't got to looks like...  blah!  The white is just mineral deposits tho - nothing bad,
but the darker stuff is mold. 

I also sprayed down the cement good with bleach as well, I'm letting that just soak in, once I have the flooring all cleaned and dried I will roll it up then move it out of there.  Once that is done I can rinse the floor with clean water (luckily there is a floor drain in the room) and will repeat with more bleach water and scrub it and rinse and let dry for a few days with fans blowing over it.  I used a tidy-cat bucket to throw away the dirty wet paper towels since it has a snappy lid to keep it sealed. 

My Supplies - this is that other flooring used in the other part of the basement.

 I found a company in Canada called SuperSeal who make a whole bunch of dimpled materials - some that you may have seen on TV if you are like me and watch HGTV/DIY channels - larger version of this is used on the outside of basement walls to waterproof and create channels for the water to run down thru.   They sent me samples and when I was ready to buy I went back on their website (www.superseal.ca) and they advertised that they now sell some of their products at Menards - PERFECT!  So I went and purchased a roll couple weeks ago and today just seemed like a great day to start on the project.

Tried to get photo so be able to see the dimples on both
sides of it allowing the cement and the vinyl floor to breath.

Once I get the floor all dried out I will lay out this subflooring down and then put the vinyl flooring back on top of it.  I'll keep an eye on it but I think this should allow enough ventilation of the cement to keep this from happening again.  This product will also probably make the floor a little softer to walk on as well and maybe keep the floor warmer for the dogs since it has the air space as insulation from the cold cement floor.  

I couldn't end this post without a gardening update....  Many of my peppers are getting their 1st set of real leaves.  Peppers do grow slowly so happy they get an early start in the basement.  Have a few varieties tho that have yet to germinate - one being the new variety I was most excited to try - not sure what the dealio is - will have to try to start some more and see if I have better luck this time.  

The Red Barn Project Begins!

So today I decided to start jumping in on my 'redo' of the red barn.  I've had the idea of building a new chicken coop in the SE corner of the barn where there is a platform area from the previous corn crib storage area that was once there.  Currently the area the chicken coop is in now is an old mini-horse stall.  I made higher sides so we could enclose the top with chicken wire to keep barn cats and actual predators out.  The barn cats used to get in and sleep in the nesting boxes, guess they are warm.  Altho there is nothing 'wrong' with the current chicken coop its just makes the space in the barn a bit awkward.  You have a small area north of it where we have some firewood drying and the old mower and carts stored, then you have a small walkway between the platform and the coop and south of the coop I had most of my garden equipment/supplies.   So by building a new one off to the side it will open up the entire barn.  Right now I have some equipment stored in the big barn, some in the red barn - so it will be nice to just have everything in the one barn, and can be pulled in and out of either north or south doors.

General Plan

So today I started by clearing out the area where the new coop will go, and then pulling up the HEAVY rubber floor mats from my garden area (which also used to be a stall).  Those things have to weigh 100lbs... what a workout!  When I originally took out that stall I left the back wall and made a little garden work bench - well the rubber mats were sitting underneath the legs of my workbench so just decided to rip out the bench as well as the entire back wall.  These are 2x8" of rough saw oak lumber - HEAVY as well.  With the help of my handy-dandy sawzall I was able to cut right thru the nails attaching them to the posts and then out to the garden they went.  Was able to get enough boards just from that for about 4 sides.  Still have 8 more sides to get lumber for - but I have a feeling after I get the the old coop torn down that will be close to the amount I'll need and no need to buy anymore. 

Here are some photos of the red barn as it stands after the work done today.  Its a mess, I'm almost ashamed to post it but its just one big storage area right now and I have to keep moving things around as I work in different areas.

Where my garden workbench used to be.  All but the bottom
board removed, its down in the ground which is frozen, so will
have to wait till I can dig out the ground to remove it.

The mess that is my gardening supplies as of now.

The current chicken coop (plastic to help keep wind out in winter - they still have lots of holes for ventilation tho.

Area that will be chicken coop - rubber mats on floor.
Will have to add to walls (plywood & insulation) on left side. 
I will be building framing on the right side - this will be covered in wire fencing
for summer and then in winter will screw on plywood boards to close it up.

The narrow walking gap between platform and current coop.

North side of coop - equipment and firewood mostly.   All the wood boards
for the walls will be used in garden when taken down. Will be
so nice have this entire area opened up after its all done!
On the left side you can see a white door - this was our old door that was
replaced on our back porch - hoping the 'recycle' it in this project for the man door into the coop.

Some of the oak boards removed from garden bench area.

on sad note - behind the wall of the garden bench I found this on the ground.
We believe it used to be a cat.  =(   

Also started on my mini hoop house today. 

 You can also see the load of  cardboard I added to the one path.  This will help keep the weeds under control as well as keeping the mud off my shoes since the paths are lower and tend to stay muddier/water logged a lot longer.  I will also be adding newspaper on top of that and then a thin layer of straw to make it look a bit nicer.  The worms usually love the area under all the pathway mulch. 

I had the piping from when I tried to make a wooden structure for the hoops last year.  This year I've added 2' rebar into the ground, leaving a few inches above ground to connect the pipe onto.  There will be 8 hoops in total - putting them 2' apart (using one of the rebar as a spacer).  Mo bought me clips for Christmas that I just put the poly on the hoops and then the clips hold it in place and can be easily removed to get into the hoop house to work.  I plan to put the poly on soon so it can act as a greenhouse to warm up the soil - then start some greens in early March.  I will probably attach a 1x1" board to the top of the hoops to keep them from leaning one way or the other.

The rebar I used (3/8" x 24"), and one of the hoops attached to the rebar in ground.