Hydroponics, Aquaponics...I want to try it!

I decided I would also set up a floating hydro garden in the back room. I get lots of sun exposure through the doors as they are almost all glass and on the south side.

My experiment didn't really work though. I think I will try a traditional hydro garden first. Although I REALLY want to do aquaponics and raise tilapia at the same time. That just looks like such a cool idea to me. And I think I have the perfect place. When I was doing pottery and had a kiln (I tend to take up lots of different creative pasttimes) we had to cut a hole in the wall of the garage to vent out the fumes. Well I'm thinking that I can put the garden bed outside and keep the fish in the garage, and run the pvc and tubing through that hole. That keeps the fish same from outside stuff and allows my plants to have sunlight. I'm going to try it!!

Found a great site for a cool setup - FAST (Faith and Sustainable technologies). Here's a link to the page that has the barrelponics manual on it.

http://www.fastonline.org/content/category/4/15/29/

Maybe this fall I can try it out.

A New Garden Helper!

We have a little addition to the family who is a BIG contributer to the garden. It's...

GANDALF THE WHITE!
Gandalf is a French/English mix Angora.

Now after a few days we realized that cage was just way too small for him and we pulled out one side of the bars, added a ramp, and surrounded a 4x2 area for him to run around in. The result being that he learned to pee up top on the grating area - a good thing! And the bottom carpeted area is all relax and have fun! Plus he can easily go back into the cage on his own after he's been allowed to hop around the house.

But, what else did we learn? Those pretty wooden cages are terrible. Because he pees against them and they absorb the smell. So that beautiful (expensive, ack!) cage went out back and became a compost bin. And we expanded his cage out of modular stackable crates until he now has a nice big area that is super easy to clean. The top is open. One half is used for the ramp and the other we put a "floor" and on top of it we put in a rubbermaid container with newspapers. On top of the newspapers we put a few PVC pipes (to put some distance between the bottom of the bin) and on top laid the old grate floor from his cage. Now I just reach in, grab the rubbermaid container (it's about 3' long, 18" wide and about 6" high), dump it out, wash it and pop it back in. SO EASY!

Above: Jade and Gandalf checking out Jake's science experiment of growing stalactites.

Below: Hanging out in the living room.

What a scholar! Looking for a good book? He's chosen the NIV concordance of english to greek, aramaic and hebrew; Bible encyclopedia; and I think the Life and Time of Jesus the Messaih.

Anyhow, he contributes daily to the health and growth of the garden. And he's so cute too. Not a cuddler though. He actually still doesn't like us too much. I heard they get better after being fixed and after they're 2-3 years old. He's just about 1 year right now. I've clipped him a few times when his hair has gotten long. He is so tiny when he's been clipped. And even though he's not terribly fond of us he does come running to the side of the cage every time I come in from the garden waiting to see what treat I've brought him. And when I'm at my craft table beading or painting he comes over to the door and waits for me to let him out to hop around some new area.
He also has a medium sized gated run that we can set up outside and I'll bring him out in that to get some fresh air while I garden.

Baby Birds!

It was sad. I found 2 dead baby house wrens around the garden area. But wait...what's that? 2 babies who survived! We brought them in and put them in a small box with a towel to stay warm. The next day we bought a cage to keep them in until they were old enough to go out on their own. Now begins the routine of playing mama bird. Every 20-30 minutes these little ones are HUNGRY! And they peep, and peep, and peep and let you know it. They start about 6:30AM and they go to sleep around 8PM. All day, every 20 minutes. LOL

They started on soaked dog food until they were old enough to accept mealworms. Now I get to feed them worms with tweezers. They love the mealworms! And they are really starting to hop and "fly" if only for a few little flaps around their cage. I took them outside to play in the garden beds a few times - in the ones with the wiring around them. They had so much fun hopping around! I brought out the mealworms and laid them on the soil so they could learn to pick up the food on their own instead of being hand fed.

Wow, they're really starting to fly around that cage. We let them out and did they have fun flying around the room. Sometimes they'd come land on us and chirp, sometimes the poor things thought that the branches I painted on the wall were real and they would fly over to land....and it was just a wall! They landed on the vines and fake plants on the plant shelf.

Hmmm, now they're getting older and they will need to learn to be on their own soon. At this point we start putting the cage outside during the day and opening up the door. They fly out to the back woods during the day, but about every hour or so they fly back and scream for food. LOL. And they will even peek in the windows until they see me and start yelling for me. Sometimes I just have to walk out the back door and hold the tweezers up in the air and they fly in for a meal.

After a few days they still want to be fed, but they don't want to come as close to me anymore. That is good, but sad too. They go longer and longer without needing to eat from what I give them. They still fly into their cage at night to come in for the night, but after a little over a week they just fly into the yard. Then one day we go whistle for them and they don't come back. After about 5 minutes one of them shows up. They must have gone far because it usually only takes a few seconds. The other one never does come back. Then about a week later they are both gone and on their own.

It was a great experience and even though I was pretty much homebound for at least 3 weeks to take care of them it was worth it.

Rain Barrel!

Yeah, I got a rain barrel finally! It was blah and boring so I painted it to make it look pretty :)

Mixing it Up

Time to mix up the Mel's Mix. We laid out the tarp and dumped all of the compost types together. I had worm castings, chicken compost, mushroom compost and cow compost (several different brands). Guess who showed up during all of that? The mosquitoes! Time to call it a night!


Next day we mixed the blended compost with vermiculite and peat moss and started filling the beds. Next are the trellis' and cages around some of the beds.

We planted sweet potatoes and some transplants from the store of green peppers and tomatoes. It was way to hot and humid for the peppers and tomatoes so they would bloom, then drop off either right before it fruited or as just a tiny little pepper. One pepper made it over a few inches and I took it before it could drop.

Building Boxes

Next Step, building the boxes! Guess who got to do THAT job? :) Ted built me 5 boxes to get my garden started. I've had the seeds for a while at this point - couldn't wait to get started! I think we built these in June 2008.

SFG boxes only need to be 6" deep, but I needed to sink mine into the ground due to the slope in our yard so mine are 12" deep. After almost a year of using them I'm glad I went deeper.

We tried keeping the grass between the boxes but it was so difficult to mow, so that went bye-bye and in came some weed control fabric and mulch. Weed control fabric does not, in my opinion, actually do what it claims. :)

Getting Started!

Wow, I'm going to have to catch up with a year's worth of gardening since I lost my previous blog site.

Starting in May 2008 I decided to try a garden. I had no clue where to start or how to go about it. After a few days of researching online I decided to try my hand at Square Foot Gardening. I live in a typical suburb with a small lot and could not dedicate the whole yard to traditional gardening. If you don't know about SFG, you can check out the website at:

http://www.squarefootgardening.com/

So lets start with pics of how I planned my garden back in May 2008.