The soaker hose...

I started the day bright and early today with my sweets, Paul, by getting yet another FULL truckload of manure this morning. Still, these beds are not filled. Sheesh... After I unloaded the truckload of crap I was ready to make this soaker hose. I feel silly but I was really excited about the hose. I've never used a soaker hose before and I thought it would be an awesome easy thing to make! I did a little web surfing and I found this article.

http://www.ehow.com/how_6550336_diy-soaker-hose.html

Let's see I have a drill... I have old unwanted hoses... Sounds like a good free DIY up cycle project to keep me outside for a while! :) By the by, Today was amazing! Soo pretty outside! I was pumped!

So, I sorta followed the instructions.. I never follow directions exactly, I make my own rules. Anyway, I decided I wouldn't drill holes in the hose between the beds and I left about 2 feet from the connection end so again I wouldn't just water the straw. I also just guessed the 3" mark, I didn't think it was necessary to be exact.

2 weeks ago Amanda went to home depot and got end caps for the hose.

I borrowed a cordless drill from my big bro. I used an old drill bit and started drilling holes.

Everything was fine then the drill ran out of juice when I was half way done! Ugh... So I got an extension cord and brought my old plug in drill outside to finish the job. This project was more difficult and tiring than I expected.

I put the soaker hose back on the beds in the correct places, I connected the hoses, turned on the faucet and excitedly followed the water down the hose and when I got to the garden beds I waited patiently for water to flow out of my brand new one of a kind soaker hose!!

IT WORKS!!!

kind of... :(

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Ugh... what a disappointment. I hope I don't have to buy a new one, that's so wasteful.

What's the deal? I was not expecting this not to work. I need to figure out a way to make the water pressure from my spicket stronger or I need to figure out a better way to water these beds. I suppose I can just use the old garden hose spray head thingy.

HRMPF!!

I won't give up... I just need to do some troubleshooting.

P.S. Yeah I made trellises. They might be over kill but I wanted to be sure they were tall enough for the yummies... :)

A little somethin'

First, I need to introduce one more helper who has been with Amanda, Nick, and me all those times we've been working hard out on the garden. She is a very important asset, she keeps birds and bunnies away, she helps clean up manure, and she adds some much need excitement at times.

Her name is Britches and she belongs to Paul and me. On March 8th, she'll be 2 years old, or 14 if you count in dog years. She's half Maltese half Shih-tzu or you can say Malti-Tzu.

I thought I would write a short post and share some links and really go into some detail on why I decided to have a garden.

I'd say I'm an over achieving intermediate gardener. So, I had to do lots of reading and lots of thinking about this ginormous garden. We are renters on a very limited budget so that made things a little difficult. I drooled for months over different cheap recycled raised garden beds, like wine bottles, old pallets, old tires cut to look like flowers, etc, etc, etc... I finally made the decision and I chose straw bales because they're an easy to come by, cheap, temporary alternative to wood or concrete. Plus, they're safer than glass or tires or because they won't shatter or leach nasty chemicals into the yummy vegetables. Also, I kinda have a thing for straw... Anyway, here's some useful blogs and websites I researched for ideas:

http://www.no-dig-vegetablegarden.com/straw-bale-gardening.html

http://www.strawbalegardens.com/

http://www.lensgarden.com.au/straw_bale_garden.htm

I really liked this garden and thought that since we were planning on growing so much that this would be a better option than just planting in the bales. :) I also just really enjoyed how she maintains her garden. I wish I had a recycling grey water cistern and rain barrels... ahhh... One day I will.

Now I wanted to tell all you Nashvillians about where you can buy a compost bin like ours. The city sells Earth Machines for $45! So get down there and buy a compost bin! I think even with out a garden it's a really awesome science experiment.

http://www.nashville.gov/beautification/compost/index.asp

Buy one at the composting demonstration site:

1019 Omohundro Place, Nashville, TN 37210
(click on name for a map)
Hours: Tues. - Sat., 8:30am - 4:30p.m.
Need directions? call 615-880-1955

Step 3: The Beauty of Compost... and Welcoming New Helpers

After we had unloaded all of the manure to completely fill one of the beds, Evelyn was charged and motivated.

"Let's fill the next bed with our compost," Evelyn said, as she directed Nick and I to helping her out with removing the composter. In her sweet, airy voice she repeated, "This is going to be so cool. I am so excited!"

The "composter" (that's what I call it, anyway) is a trashcan-like device that you bolt down into the soil. It allows for ample airflow and ventilation (decomposing organic waste emits lots of gasses), while having a tight-locked lid to keep out yard critters (including large, conspiring masses of wild rabbits). These devices are usually pretty expensive, so you can create a basic compost pile on your property... or go through a city program (Evelyn and Paul got this one at a fair price through the City of Nashville recycling or something... I don't remember exactly). If you do end up making your own compost pile in your backyard that does not have a protective container, be sure to take extra precautions to deter scavenging animals.  This little website offers helpful guidelines on what to include (and what to avoid) in your compost pile:  http://www.envocare.co.uk/makingcompost.htm

For the past few months, Paul, Evelyn, Nick and I have been saving all our banana peels, tea bags, coffee grounds, paper towels, leftover salad, etc. and storing it in this container. Everyone once in a while one of us takes the time to take a big stick and stir the garbage cocktail and add dried twigs and leaves. Once the composter was pulled off of the compost pile, we were thrilled to find layers of dark, rich, and altogether beautiful soil that originated from various types of kitchen waste.

Nick, Evelyn, and I stood back in awe of our decomposed fruits and veggies (and even those plant-based "plastic" utensil things from Whole Foods). Paul was at work, and unfortunately did not get to be with us when we unveiled the mound (fortunately for him, he missed the manure as well!). We broke down the stuff with a shovel and hoe and transported the healthy compost to the second straw bale bed. I felt like a kid, shoveling through the compost, completely curious about its contents and how in the world it managed to become such a great resource...

and then we saw them. 

Pink, grey, and brown; wriggling through the mess like it was a party, their accordion-like bodies slinking through the compost. "EARTHWORMS!" Evelyn shouted. We all smiled. The jewels every gardener treasures, the simple little tube of an animal that gives so much to the rest of the world.

Evelyn picked one of them up and let it rest on the palm of her opened hand. She laughed heartily, the little creature flipping around while she held it, searching for the darkness of the dirt. Nick and I picked some up, and instantly felt like children. This whole gardening thing takes me back to the wonder and innocence that fills us all as small kids... playing with bugs, in the dirt, wondering where all this big world comes from.

Genesis 1:24
   And God said "Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals, each according to its kind." And it was so. God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according their kinds. And God saw that it was good.

We are very excited about all the worms that we welcomed into the garden bed that afternoon. It is odd to think that a thing so small could be such a vital building block for so many other creatures, and amusing to consider an earthworm as a wild animal. However, this small being is a mighty, earth-shaking, wild animal. We are happy and thankful to have them working with us on our Warfield Garden.

Step 2: Crap as a Precious Commodity

In order to be as resourceful as possible with this project, naturally, we would scavenge the "free" lists on Craigslist. Evelyn and I were like bloodhounds with our noses to the trail; everyday we would check the free and garden and home posts online to see if someone was giving away anything that we needed.

I came upon a local Rabbitry offering "Rabbit Fertilizer," a.k.a. rabbit turds mixed with straw and dried leaves, for $5 for a 13 gallon trash bag full, which we thought was a great deal for fertilizer. We do have a slight bunny problem -- basically, we have our own personal wild-rabbittry in the brush that borders our yard -- so I, personally, did not want to risk using poop that might attract them to our produce. I imagined we would fertilize the garden beds with rabbit fertilizer and wake up the next morning with four hundred rabbits in the backyard circled around the garden, as if they were having a sort of conference about taking over our veggies later.

Luckily Evelyn discovered a farm that was giving away horse manure fertilizer for free, so she jumped on the opportunity the next day and brought home a whole truck bed full... which resolves my worry of the rabbit conference, but now I am imagining a herd of wild horses bulldozing Nashville to hang out in our back lawn with all the manure. I am not really for sure why I think all animals might feel welcomed by a pile of their own species' manure -- that's really weird of me.

We transported the horse crap into one of the straw bale beds (a whole truck bed full was only enough for one of the raised beds) and covered it with dry leaves as a mulch. The dried leaves should decompose into the manure a bit before we transplant the seeds at the beginning of April.

While making multiple trips between the truck and garden beds with a barrel full of horse waste, I was dreaming about how wonderfully healthy this fertilizer might make our produce later this summer. Honestly, its amazing how precious this crap is to our whole project. It was very sobering, once the pile had been unloaded, to be scraping up the last bits of horse manure and picking up clumps off the ground (we were all wearing gloves by the way) like it was a treasure, all in order to help our garden grow.

Amidst the smell, I was reminded of people in ancient times or in less developed parts of the world working and utilizing every resource they had, and praying for provision and substance -- that their efforts would not all be in vain. We are so oblivious at the work and muscle that goes into our food while traveling down lighted grocery store isles, grabbing things off the shelf and rushing to the checkout. After we finished unloading all the turds, I found that I had livestock poop on my overalls and had worked up quite a good sweat.

A shower was much needed, but Evelyn was motivated. Next, we were going to open the compost bin and see what had happened to all our banana peels, salad leftovers, old twigs, and stale bread the last few months. Boy was she excited.

Step 1: Rolling in Hay

We have lots of straw scattered like confetti in the yard... and our friends that stop by are asking about the bales of hay strategically placed in the back corner of the lawn. 

Last week Evelyn traveled to Home Depot to pick up sixteen large bales of hay at $4.50 a piece. After her extensive season of raised garden bed research, she concluded that it would be cheapest to use bales of straw to build a raised garden. After they serve their purpose of being the walls of the garden containing our soil and plants, we can compost the straw for next year. Therefore, we would not be wasting any materials, and they would break down right back into the earth. This was also cheaper and less labor-intensive than building a traditional raised bed wooden box -- you can move the bales around like a little kid's building blocks!

Another cool thing about straw bale gardening: after the straw bales are exposed to precipitation and sun, they begin to decompose and you can plant directly into the bale, maximizing the area available for planting to perhaps include pretty flowers in the edge of your vegetable garden.

We spent approximately $72 to construct our garden beds, compared to the hundreds of dollars we would have spent on wood, nails, etc. to build a traditional raised bed.

The next step was to line the bottom of the hay-lined rectangles with compostables like cardboard, newspaper, etc, in order to keep the so-called grass from our dry lawn from growing up into our garden. We searched our attics for cardboard boxes (inhaled large amounts of dust in the process), in addition to purchasing the Sunday paper, and broke the boxes down, spread the newspaper, and laid them on top of the grass. This completely covered the ground in attempt to keep things growing up from the lawn into our garden.

Thankfully the bales were placed in their semi-permanent fashion before Nashville's "big" Monday snow. We received approximately two to three inches, which immediately called for the city to shut down... again. We all find this amusing, especially the affects of the white fluffy stuff on the already crazy Middle Tennessee drivers.

A view of the straw bale formation blanketed in snow:

 

Below is a closer photo of the gardening area (and two of our wonderful gardeners--our CEO, Evelyn, dons a lovely knit hat with a pink puff on top).   In addition to the cardboard to line the bottom of the beds, we also included twigs and branches that will eventually break down into soil.

Introduction

Two couples, Paul & Evelyn and Nick & Amanda, have teamed up together to build a produce garden in their shared Nashville backyard entirely out of recyclables, compostables, and spending the least amount of money as humanly possible.

* * *

Paul & Evelyn are two cool individuals that primarily eat organically/vegetarian and have created a garden together before. They dream about one day running a self-sustaining farm together and building a house entirely out of straw bales, which sounds a little crazy, but if you think about it that's REALLY economical... grass is absolutely everywhere and grows like a weed. They aim to anchor this farm on a patch of healthy land in between Nashville and Knoxville, the cities their two families are from. They are vegetarians, both currently in school, have a black cat named Marcus that is trained to use the toilet, a dog named Britches that licks the dirt a lot, a turtle named Smee, and some assorted fish.

Nick & I (Amanda) are two newly married individuals that never have attempted to grow a garden together, although growing up our parents made us work in theirs. Nick once lived on a farm in Ohio and I am from a small, simple little town -- so we are pretty used to getting dirty, working in the yard, and we are not afraid of bugs (well, maybe cockroaches and poisonous spiders). Although we do not eat organically, it currently is out of our budget with all my piles of student loans, we are super excited and filled with anticipation at the prospect of having fresh, healthy and full-tasting produce later this year. Nick and I reuse & recycle, but we have not really got on the popular "green" bandwagon... we are excited to learn as Paul and Evelyn teach us more about how to reuse and choose items to build a garden that is better for our environment, and compostable!

Evelyn (with her passion and dream for having a self-sustaining farm) is basically like our CEO/Project Manager of the Warfield Garden. She has been researching this project for the past few months, practically all winter. It was her brilliant idea to create a raised garden bed out of straw bales for our backyard, since our soil is all rocky and hard, and I will write more detail on our construction in a later post.

The boys, Paul and Nick, are obviously the muscle of the project. Good strong men are great resources to have in the early stages of garden development.

I, Amanda, will be documenting this process in writing, just for fun, and maybe to help out other Nashvillians looking for information on building an organic and environmentally conscious garden that will lower their grocery bills and make them feel really, really "green."

We welcome gardening advice and the sharing of great information resources from any of our readers!