Keyhole Gardening bed mimics Hugelculture...

Someone over on permies.com posted a link to this interesting article about using (what amount to) hugelculture principles to make a drought-resistant keyhole planting bed.

Good read!

First day in the garden!

My dad and I were talking over dinner Friday night about projects, and how many I tend to take on, and how many is too many.  My mom perhaps gives me too much credit (as moms so often do) by using the analogy of Michaelangelo (the painter, not the ninja turtle) whom apparently had a tendency to take on too many projects and had to be prodded to finish older ones he had already begun.  This is me to a "T", but I think that's probably where the similarities end.

However, this weekend proved itself to be an excellent example of why it can be beneficial to have multiple irons in the fire.  Timing, weather, temperature, and circumstances often keep you from being able to work on one project or another, and having multiple projects going on at once means you'll always have something to do.

The basement is coming along nicely.  We spent the first half of the weekend chipping, scrubbing, and mopping the layers of sediment off the concrete.  It looks like they had a small flood at some point when their sump pump failed.  The previous owners (a very nice elderly couple) never used the basement for much, and so they never bothered cleaning up afterwards.  But we wanted to paint the floor, and so we needed it squeaky clean.

We rented a floor buffer/polisher and some scouring pads.  It took the better part of an entire day to get the floor clean enough to paint.

Over the course of Saturday evening and Sunday morning, we painted the floor and got a second coat of paint up on the drywall sections of the wall.  Then we headed upstairs to let things downstairs dry.

With some bonus time on our hands, amidst chilly winds and the occasional toss of snow flurries, I actually got out and about in the garden today.  I weeded the garden beds for the first time this season.  We patched some muddy ruts in the driveway with gravel left over from the greenhouse floor fill.

I prepped the "stinging nettle beds" along the sides and back of several buildings, getting them ready to harvest the nettles when they start coming up.  I also did a number with a machete on the on the wild grape plant that consistently overtakes my giant raspberry bush behind the barn in the hopes that I can actually get some fruit off it before the birds eat it this year.

Also got to digging down in a few of my raised beds, giving the ol' Hugelculture practice a try.  I dug out the garden bed about a foot below original ground level, then buried a fair bit of punky wood bits leftover from the wood shed and some charcoal from the fire pit.  Mixed in some compost and coffee grounds with the soil when I covered it back up with soil.

My understanding is that Hugelculture pits can be dicey in high-clay situations like we have here in Central Ohio, so I want to give this a try before I incorporate such practices in all the beds.

My back hurts.

My lovely, brainy and talented girlfriend has just started blogging over at http://foxgloveandfolksongs.blogspot.com/

Drop by and check out what she/we are up to.

We've been graveled!

Hooray!

Friend Chris of next-door-neighbor Bryon stopped by yesterday with his big yellow backhoe and saved me at least an entire weekend's worth of backbreaking manual labor by moving the entire giant pile of gravel from the tail end of the driveway to the interior of the greenhouse.

Watching the guy maneuver a large vintage piece of heavy machinery with inch-by-inch precision was pretty awe-inspiring.  Now all we have to do is rake the gravel out to an even bed and we'll be good to go to start moving in the planting benches!

Would have loved to snap pics (staring down the scoop of the thing as the gravel poured out was pretty neato), but I was too busy helping Chris know where to dump the gravel and madly shoveling out space for the next scoop to be dumped.

I owe Chris a big one, and I'm beyond fortunate to have neighbors and local folks who are willing to go out of their way to help pitch in on a neighbor's project.  I hope I can repay the favor in kind.

Pics of the greenhouse with all trusses installed....

A combination of lousy weather and camera difficulties mean it's been a while since we got the last of the roof trusses up on the greenhouse, and I still haven't managed to get a good picture during daylight hours.

Today presented the opportunity, and I managed to snap a few.  Next we'll be putting up the walls, then the roof and polycarbonate panels, then the siding, doors, and finishing touches.  Can't wait to get this bugger built!

Greenhouse update in pictures...

As I haven't updated the blog since last month, it now badly needs it as we have made some major strides in greenhouse construction despite having little free time to do so and frequent engineering challenges.

What follows is a record of our progress building this thing.  I will use this meager platform to offer only one bit of advice... if you decide to build a building yourself, for the love of everything holy, USE PRE-ENGINEERED TRUSSES.  They are not fun to design and build, and even after you do so you'll find out how much the tiny mistakes you make (and you WILL make them) add up to huge problems when you try to install them.

That is all.  Now let's roll that beautiful bean footage...

Greenhouse progress...

Now that we finally, finally (finally) got a break in the weather here in Central Ohio (meaning it hasn't pissed cold rain consistently for at least 24 hours running), we're jumping on the opportunity to get major construction begun on the greenhouse.  The weather this weekend was absolutely gorgeous, with nary a cloud to be seen, temps in the cofortably seventies/eighties, and a pleasant breeze.  

Our goal this weekend was to get all the posts set in concrete.  Having to continually wet-vac six to ten inches of smelly stagnant water out of each of twenty-one holes is a chapter of this construction saga that I am quite content to put behind us.

The remaining skids of cement got delivered on time, and they even helped us remove the skid that had been completely blocking our barn entrance.  In a seemingly impossible boon, we found that the some fifty bags of concrete that had been sitting outside (albeit under roof and tightly tarped/wrapped) through one of the soggiest early falls in recent memory were not affected in the least, and had not set up despite all the moisture in the air.  

Our second-biggest advantage was my new 4.1 cubic foot cement mixer.  This bad boy can easily mix two 80lb. bags at a time, and makes what is normally the most grinding part of cement work much easier.  You do  however still have to lift each bag off the skid and into the top of the mixer.  Thus, I am still crushingly sore.

At the end of Saturday, we managed to get nine out of twenty-one poles in the ground, including all four corners.  The day also featured a full-tilt cleaning binge followed by a visit from family friends and fellow antique mavens the Streffs.  I gave them a grand tour of the property, found maple trees in my swale (must remember to tag them before the leaves drop so I know which ones to tap come wintertime), and even found an old brown glass Adolph's Meat Tenderizer bottle sticking out of the mud.  

An especially trying Sunday found us needing to "move" a 34-inch deep hole a good six inches through gravel and clay, we FINALLY crossed the finish line, and finished pouring the last post hole just as dusk and clouds of ravenous mosquitoes settled in upon us.

Broken and exhausted (but jubilant) we limped back inside for dinner on Sunday.  Next up... framing!