Side Fence Replaced

Finally got the west side fence replaced. All cedar so it should last a few years.
We are recycling the old boards to make raised beds for the vegetables where the soil is not very good. The idea is to make the shape of it like an old Caribbean wood boat that has washed up on the shore. Stay tuned for pictures of that after I build the thing. But I have built a lot of real boats in my life, so should be easy. Heck, I'll even fill this up with water. 

Back Yard Garden Update - Mulching

Section by section the back yard is taking shape. Rose has this area planted and mulched.
I moved the gutter garden to the top of the fence and it works well there.
The paths are all boarders with strawberries and producing nice fruit.
Blackberry plants along the fence are just starting to product.
Two rhubarb plants now getting going.

English Peas

Backer Creek Trial Growers - Breans Update

The beans finally took off and we have been eating them up.

Deer - Apple Stealers

I don't get the deer hunting crowd making such a big deal of it all. When we lived in Virginia we just opened the door and there they were. Now living in Portland Oregon, we just open the door and there they are. Could hit them with a rock.

Baker Creek Trial Growers - Wheat Upate

The wheat did well with most all of it germinating and producing seed heads.
Caused quit a conversation topic with the neighbors. I thought it looked good and we are thinking of growing corn in that spot next year. It sort of provides a little barrier between the street and the front door and backdrop to the plum tree.

Bottom picture... We are drying the seeds and plan to eat them.

What Pepper?

Front / Side Garden Fencing and Planting Update

Front Garden, Side Garden? Don't know what to call it.
Anyway, finished the fencing some time ago and added more plants, so I'll put up the pictures that I have at the moment.

Wide gate to get "Walley" the garden wagon through. When I marked out the corner post to the right (where I started building the fence from), I marked from behind the drain to the post. Well, that didn't work out in the end. You can see the post against the garage is further back from the drain pipe than I wanted. Why? One, the PVC for the drain that runs to the street was not in a straight line, it is actually bowed and caused the middle post to have to be moved further back. Second, I found a lot of concrete against the garage when I started digging in that post, so again had to move it further back. At least I didn't find the gas or power lines when digging. 

Wide gate to get "Walley" the garden wagon through. I also used Pintle Hinges so I can pick the gate up and remove it all together. 

Fruit Tree Fencing work continues - Side garden

Continuing on with the fence in the front yard for the fruit trees.
The front section mostly completed. I have the long western side and the gate section remaining to complete.

Toady measured out the four post needed and set two in the ground before the rain go too heavy to work outside. Again, they are 8 foot 4" x 4" post, sunk in 24" holes. Once they are all in they will be trimmed to 4 foot tall and caps installed - matching the front section you see in the picture.

You may notice there is a slight "dog leg" from the right hand corner post back to the new posts. I could not run the front fence all the way to the property line, as the gas line comes in from across the street in this area. I did have the "Call before you Dig" guys come out and mark all the utility lines, so I knew it was there. I did see it when I was digging that post hole. I didn't want to sacrifice any more of the interior of the yard than necessary, so I put the other post where they should go and did a little dog leg.

The other issue as to where the right hand corner post is, is that I didn't want to cut down the tree, or even try to remove the roots of the old Rhododendron there. So, I cut the old Rhody off as flush as I could for the chain link fencing to go over it.

Those trees will block the sun a bit for that section of garden, but they are lightly leaved and a lot of sun still filters through.

This is the section were we will have the fire pit, already ordered, and seating area. Our intention is to have a Friday night custom of hanging out here and the neighbors and stop by for a chat and drink. Maybe some home made cookies, too.

Sweet Potatoes

Sweet Potatoes

• Row of 15 plants along the stones. 
• 5 different varieties. 
• They came as plants.
• What more is there to say really. 

Oh the plan you ask.. You were thinking it I know....

They were planted up by the stones because they should spread down hill towards the driveway and cover that area. You can't tell from the picture, but it is rather steep left to right. We may put some other plants there and they can grow around them.

PS: The larger plants on the right are the Snapdragons from last year that overwintered. Some didn't make it, but I cleaned these up and some already have flower buds on them. Those of you that know me know I love me some Snapdragons. Used to grow them in a small patch in our garden in Belleair as a kid. 

Backer Creek Trial Growers - Breans

Black Coat Runner Bean.

Planted 3/29/19

Hey, these look good. We planted a bunch of them by the garage where we have some tomatoes and beans last year. Partial sun, but they should be OK.

We always grow beans and are looking forward to seeing how these turn out.

There will be more vegetables growing along the garage, but I don't no what yet.

Baker Creek Trial Growers - Wheat

Wheat Red Fife - Planted Planted 3/30/2019 Lot# 15/Ja
Oh Boy... What to do with Wheat in our Urban Farm, aka small house with small yard.... We decided to use it as a backdrop to our 4 on-one plum tree we graphed. The Wheat is the dark dampened area next to the pavement.
So, from the front of the house you'll have a nice backdrop of 6' tall grass. We are thinking of completing the area with some other shorter grasses.
Talking about what we will do with the seeds. Probably eat them as wheat berries, but we have time to think about it.
PS: In our neighborhood people always stop by to see what strange stuff we are planting now. The word is out!

PS: I need to build a small wall around the area. Everything and everyone is magically drawn to walk on the wheat. I may try the old stick weave.

Red Fife Wheat - Damp area next to pavement

Composted Horse Manure

Good friends drop off 3 feed bags filled with composted horse manure for our vegetable garden and fruit trees. 

Jennifer and her husband have a ranch and Mustangs. More poo where that came from.
Thanks Jennifer. We'll give you some yummy produce in return.

Backer Creek Trial Growers - Peas

Backer Creek Trial Growers - Peas

Planted March 23, 2019

Variety - Improved Maestro.
Direct seed in improved soil bed.

Every morning we run out to see if they have popped up yet.
When we had our Urban Farm in Virginia the peas popping up was the official start to the growing season.

Peas Improved Maestro

Peas Improved Maestro

Peas Improved Maestro

Garage Sprouting and Microgreens Setup

We installed a rack on the garage wall as part of our indoor growing area.
The rack is just the normal closet hardware from Lowe's, or Home Depot.

This allows us to change the spacing of the shelves and lights as plants grow.

One thing we did different this year...
Is I had some Styrofoam laying around to be thrown away. We use heat mats and thought it may be a good idea to put the heat mats on them to help the heat loss. So, I had to check the melting point of Styrofoam, but it is very high. We think it does make a difference, as the cooler air does not circulate under the heat map stealing the heat from the mats.

This year I am growing Microgreens for us. Maybe could be a commercial thing one day, ya never know.

Rose has her seeds sprouting on the bottom racks and the top racks are for the Microgreens.
So far it has been a great success.

We have had Salad Mix, Radish, Sunflower Seeds, Pea Shoots, and Beets.
On the bottom racks are the vegetables, tomatoes, peppers, etc... that will get transplanted outside at some point.

Just in front of the rack you can see a limb of one of our fruit trees. They have their own lights. We wintered them in the garage and they did very well.

Micorgreens and Sporting Racks

Pea Shoots Microgreens

Sunflower Microgreens

Backer Creek Trial Growers - Carrots

Backer Creek Trial Growers - Carrots

Planted March 24, 2019

Kuttigen Variety. We planted over 100 seeds. 20" x 20" x 16" high container.
The containers is a recycled compost bin that my brother gave me. I split it two, so we have 2 carrot bins.

Growing root vegetables is best in very loose potting soil where they can grow strait without hitting any rocks or compacted soil. This helps them grow straight and pretty.

Kuttigen Carrots Container Gardening 20" x 20" x 16" high container.

Baker Creek Trial Growers.

We are very excited to be chosen for the Baker Creek Trial Growers.

Our seeds arrived today. We are already planting and will be reporting progress on their FB page. Nice to watch and interact with all the other trial growers. I think we'll learn a whole lot from this. Fun, too! Food, too! (Maybe there is a use for Facebook - No way, close call.)
Rose and I are Urban Farmers at heart. Well, for us that means growing fruit trees, vegetables, and flowers in our yard - NO Grass...
Neighbors all love it. Stop by to see what is new. They had a bet going on how big the watermelons were going to get last summer.

Pepper Helps at Lowe's

Funny thing.... Pepper really loves going to Lowe's.
I guess she likes going out anywhere really, but seems to really like Lowe's.

She gets to go for rides, meet people and other dogs, and they give her dog treats at check out.
What not to like.

I like having here along, she is a blasts.

Pepper shopping at Lowe's

Meyer Lemon - Wintering in the garage

We freeze here in Portland, so can't leave the citrus trees out.
Last year the tree was much smaller and we kept it in the living room. It was warm, but not much light - it did OK.

This year we brought it into the garage. And although it is not heated much I rigged up some lights on a timer and gave it 12 hours a day.

Wow, the tree loved it and I thing may have doubled in size and the 5 lemons look great.
The 1st year Seville Orange, to the left, seemed to stay green and grow, as well.

Meyer Lemon over wintering in our garage. 

Potato Plants and Bags

This year we are growing three fingerling types of potatoes.
I love potatoes. We grew them in Virginia a couple ways.

1st I grew them in old tires.
The deal with potatoes is you "hill" them. Basically you plant them shallow and as they grow you keep adding dirt covering the stem. The stem responds by growing more roots and potatoes. As you keep hilling further up the stem as it grows, the more potatoes you get. So back to the old tires. I started with one tire, then as the plants grew added another tire and more dirt, and so one and so on. Ready to harvest, just take the tires off. Yep, lots of good potatoes. Good for small areas.

2nd, I like potatoes so much I planted them in a 4' by 16' raised bed. We got 30 lbs.

This house, we don't really have room for a whole bed of potatoes, so we thought we would try the bags. Sort of like the tire thing, as they grow we "hill" by adding more soil. They other good thing about the bags is the are 7 gallon size with handles, so we can move them around for sun. Ready the harvest just dump the bags over.

Pepper is helping Rose fill the bags and plant the potatoes.

Mason Bees

We got some more Mason Bees at the HOS event.

They are good for pollinating fruit trees and everything else really.

They like living in holes or tubes that are 5/16 of an inch - picky little critters.

I plan to attached them under the eaves where they will be out of the wind, sun and rain.

The setup...

The tubes get bent in half and then grouped up with a rubber band.

After that, I wrapped the coffee cans in grey tape (not shown), so they were not so, well red. Not sure if the red color would be off putting to the bees or not, or attract predators.

After mounting them, I used some electrical tape to attach the bees to the cans so they can find the tubes. The bees are in those clear tubes. You just open them up so the bees can come out when they want to. 

Captain Dave