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. 

I'm baaaaaack........ Get ready for a novel! =)

Its been a long while since I last blogged... I apologize.  I'm gonna try to do better, I promise.

So had a heck of a year as far as the garden went, even tho we were in a drought the garden produced an amazing amount of food.  The drip irrigation system helped a great deal!  This was the first year of growing on 'raised' beds, more like mounds.  I was trying to keep the garden from getting flooded like years before so I dug trenches for paths and tossed the topsoil onto the beds next to it.  Of course when I try to adjust my garden for flooding, we get a drought.  =/   The plan is to never walk in the planting beds to keep it from getting compacted.  I did a soil test early in the spring and with the help of reading the e-book by Michael Astera The Ideal Soil: A Handbook for the New Agriculture I had a plan on what I needed to add to the garden beds to get them 'ideal'.  Its an easy read and very interesting, his website also sells a great deal of the minerals and nutrients commonly needed.  He even gave me his advice via email, I had lots of questions! 

After I got all the paths dug out, and believe me THAT was a good workout, I put down all the old bedding from the goat stall... goat poo and all!  It made the paths a lot less muddy and I figured as it broke down it, the worms would love it!  The one thing I didn't think about was how much the weeds would love to grow on the sides of the mounds.  The hens would scratch the beds looking for bugs and move the dirt onto the paths too.

I was able to can a lot of things this year!  I did some of my regular stuff like canned tomatoes, salsa, pasta sauce but I also wanted to try some fun new things.  So I made some caramelized red onion relish, sweet jalapenos, apple butter, pepper & onion relish, hot pepper butter, tomato based table sauce, sauerkraut, chipoltes in adobo sauce, sun relish and a hot pepper peach jam.  We are pretty well set for a while and have lots of options to give as gifts for this holiday season!  In addition to all that I made a boat load of hot sauces... I think there are at least 10 different kinds.  I went a little crazy on growing hot peppers this year and boy did they do well!  I purchased an Excalibur dehydrator this summer and man did I use it!  I had that thing full of hot peppers most of the fall!  I have jars and bags full of dried hot peppers.  I decided to buy a coffee grinder and grind some of them to a powder and purchased some small spice jars so I could give them as gifts too.  Others were interested in buying them so I created a little online website for them:  Mo Better Hot - Hot Pepper Powders   In addition to drying the peppers I also dehydrated sweet onions, tomato slices, celery, carrots, herbs.  It was a great investment!

Some of the hot sauces and dehydrated hot peppers

Mo Better Hot Powders

But now its fall and its time to start the garden / yard clean up for winter.  Its so sad for me - I hate not being able to work outside during the winter, and I hate being cold even more!!   So after evaluating how this years garden did with the raised beds - I wanted to try to do something to keep the dirt from coming down into the paths and even more so - help keep the weeds from taking over the edges!   So I'm trying to add some wood side boards.  I ordered 8x2 10' boards.  My beds are 30' long so need 3 boards per side of a bed.  I had 12 boards delivered last week - figured I'd do 2 beds this fall to have a couple ready to plant early spring and can work on installing the rest in the early spring.  This also gives me a chance to see how they make it thru the winter.  I did not purchase treated wood as the chemicals used to treat the wood leaches into the ground, and I don't want that in my food system.  So I worked on staking out the area with twine to be able to edge the sides in a somewhat straight line.   I worked on edging the sides last night after work and was able to get one done tonight before it got too dark.  Supposed to be in the 50's all weekend so I'll be working on the beds all day.  I have to weed out all the chickweed that took over and after getting 2 beds installed with the boards I can even out the dirt, if there is a little too much dirt I can use some to build up a new flower bed area I'll be constructing next spring by the new rain barrels I installed behind my drum studio this summer.  

One side installed.  2' stakes used to keep board in place.

My tools... the straight edger, the 2' stakes and a mallet - good workout pounding the stakes in!

Other things in the garden I've worked on this week was to put out the cold frame Mo bought me a few years ago.  I've placed it so the celery I started from seed will be covered - hoping I can over winter it since I learned how hard it is to start celery from seed!  I'm also going to try to start some cold hardy greens in there, maybe some radishes too - if they don't grow no loss but might as well try.

I want to start using cover crops more often, I was only able to get one bed covered this fall - but now I have a huge bag of cover crop seeds so I'll plant it early Spring and let it grow till its warm enough to plant stuff like peppers and tomatoes.  Then ya just turn it into the ground and its considered "green manure" .  The seeds I purchased are oats and field peas.  Its still green but can tell up close that its starting to get a little frost damaged.  This bed will be dead in the Spring and I can just work it into the soil.  It helps keep weeds from taking over as well as add organic matter back into the soil.  This bed is where the corn was planted this year, and corn takes a lot from the soil so I wanted to make sure I was able to add something back in right away.  The peas being in the legume family, are nitrogen fixers which means they put nitrogen back into the soil - something corn takes a lot of when it grows.

oats & peas cover crop.

I've started a new compost pile toward the front of the garden this fall with all the corn and sunflower stalks.   I'll be starting to add our green compost items from the kitchen to it.  I picked this location as its were nothing much else grows due to the tree shading it a good part of the day.  The pile has already shrunk quite a bit since I created it.  You can't ever have enough compost!!!

 Working on putting some of the fruit beds to bed for the winter.  I got the straw down on the strawberry bed, need to finish weeding and get a mulch layer around the blueberry bushes, and put chicken wire over all my newly planted grape vines - learned the hard way last year how much the deer like to eat grape vines... they munched them down the barely an inch left.  =/   I will be installing my grape trellis next spring, have the posts waiting, my neighbor is gonna come down with his auger and easily drill the holes for me.   Still need to build something for the blueberries next year so the birds don't eat more than we do - some sort of structure that we can put bird netting on but still not too hard to get in to pick.  Anyone have ideas?

Strawberry bed and Blueberry bushes (and weeds...)

My up & coming vineyard!  =)

future grape trellis...

 We are also trying to plant a lot more trees on the property.  Kind of a pain when mowing but will be worth it.  I get a lot of freebies from being a member of the Arbor Day Foundation.  We just planted 6 more trees (with some still needing to be planted - maybe this weekend).   Worried that the deer will nibble them down to nothing as well I placed old clay drain tiles over some of the real small ones and some got chicken wire cages.  20 years from now the backyard will be nice and shady!  We also buy a live tree for Christmas and then plant it in the yard.  This will be our 3rd Christmas tree to plant after the holidays. We also find a lot of trees just popping up in the beds, guessing from birds 'depositing' seeds as they go potty...  photo below shows 2 more I recently found - I think they are some sort of cedar?

Our yard of small trees and clay pipes. 

One Eyed Tom guarding the new Christmas tree.

Baby trees in the landscaping.

So that is my fall update.  Its Friday night and today I just got the best of the best when it comes to seed catalogs....  Baker Creek!!  Its almost more of an art book as it is seed catalog - photography is wonderful!  Its all heirloom seeds, its time to sit back with a glass of wine and start planning next years garden!  I love to keep trying new varieties every year!   I think I want those zinnias on the cover!   RareSeeds.com is their website - check it out, you can request a catalog on there too. 

Have a wonderful weekend!  I'll try to post more Sunday showing how the 2 garden beds look all finished.