Greenhouse pics!

It's been a busy and productive week!  I've been hammering away at the garden, I built the framework for, and put together my new greenhouse, and I've started training for my part time job counting people.

The frame sections.  2x4x10', cut to an angle at the top, and joined with a triangle of plywood.  Braced with a 2x6, the bottom of the "legs" are cut flat.

The end cap being braced.  I ended up bracing with rope, as you can see in the bottom photo.  It works excellent! 

Just needs plastic, some end plywood, and a door.  I will be putting some padding at the top of each frame section to avoid cutting the plastic on the screws holding the rope on.  I will paint the whole thing white to protect the plastic and reflect light.  

I've already sectioned off the garden with old tires (I'm not using them for planting this year), I've got about 1/3 acre or so this year, including the greenhouse.  Over the next few days I need to build a table, get some planting trays, make some soil cubes, and start some peas in the ground.  The greenhouse plastic will have to wait until I can get some assistance in May.  I will make a temporary shelter for the soil cubes, which are pretty small.  I have a frost blanket too, in case it gets really cold, but it's been pretty decent, no freezing overnite for the last 1.5 weeks.
Well, it's off to work again!

Screw it, I'm starting anyway!

We're past the middle of April...by now I should have been industriously digging, putting down compost and manure, and perhaps planting peas, brocolli, cabbage or spinach.  Instead, there is still 2 inches of snow on the ground, and this early in the morning, the ground is still frozen from last night.  And I am quickly running out of days off to do all of the things I had planned!
So, I'm starting a bunch of stuff anyway.  I'm going to layout the boards for my hoophouse, and maybe build the end pieces from OSB and plywood.  I might try and find some cross bars to start the framework.  The greenhouse plastic is waiting for me in Calgary, I'll be picking that up tomorrow.  I still need a new axle for my trailer, which will cost $188 (not too bad, considering the trailer is $1000), and I will pay for and pick up my garden tractor.  I also have the back of my truck filled with gravel, which I've been using to fill in my driveway, and I'll be making some garden pathways with gravel and some extra soil.


GARDEN
I keep changing my mind, but after doing some research that I have actually done before (I'm a little dense, ok?) I've decided NOT to rototill anything!  Instead, I'm going to lay a couple sheets of newspaper directly on the ground, and pile hay, straw and manure in rows, leaving a tiny gap to plant into down the centre.  I will buy several bags of peat, mix it with manure, and that will be my "soil" for planting.  I might shove a digging fork into the planting row, and wiggle it to try and loosen the clay down below.  I've also got about 200 strawberry plants, and 30 asperagus crowns to dig in, but that can wait for some better weather.

ENERGY
I finally got almost all of my solar panels mounted on some homemade racks, and collecting sunlight.  I had 12 panels total, for some reason one of them doesn't work.  I don't know how I can fix it, and sending it back for a warranty repair would cost as much as the panel is worth...I guess I'll be running with 11 panels then.  I also took down my wind turbine to see if I could fix it.  It looks like I'm going to have to tear it right apart, it might be the bearings that are shot...but the sun should fill in quite nicely for power!
I was surprised at two things over the last two weeks;  the solar panels don't produce as much power as I thought they would, and number two, we don't use nearly as much power as I thought we did!  We're using an average of 3-4 kwhrs per day, which is about half what I expected.  I found this out because the solar charge controller tells me how much power the panels made over that day, and we haven't run the generator for a while, so we're using less than we're making.  In fact, yesterday, the batteries were full at 2 pm, and for the rest of the day were equalizing!  It's too bad our batteries are crap, or we would have several days worth of power.  They barely last overnight now...

MISC
I have a part time job!  I may have mentioned this, but I've got all the details now, and it is a sweet, sweet gig.  I have to deliver census forms to a certain area, which just happens to be on my way to work.  I also get paid mileage for driving there, and also a per/hour rate, only $15, but it's better than minimum wage.  So, essentially, I can drive to my zone a couple hours before I start work, work a few hours, go to work, drive back, and be paid for it!  Well, at least the part from my house to my zone.  The mileage rate is decent too, it more than covers gas in my very efficient Corolla.  The one little difficulty:  The job starts right at the beginning of May, which would be prime gardening time.  Hence, I'm trying to get everything done now...

BUSINESS
I need a website, but I don't have a lot of time right now to set one up.  Watch for it though, at www.sunset-meadows.com in the coming months.  It will be, of course, a work in progress, and the first posts will be my podcast, which will be a once/week thing, eventually going to 2-3 per week.  Eventually, this blog will appear there, and not here.  In time, we will have an online store, zillions of pictures, and articles about all sorts of nutty and cool stuff.
Bookmark it now!  www.sunset-meadows.com

Mud, and "There is nothing new under the sun"

Happy April!  I think some of you lucky blighters are starting your gardens...I must confess jealousy, but on the other hand, I do have a lot of non-gardenish work that is also exciting.  My truck is stuck in the mud, again (yearly tradition) but I have an elaborate plan involving large chunks of wood and jacks that should free it tomorrow.

FAMILY

I must begin with the best...my son turns 1 in a few days!  He's become even more adorable, and is still not walking or crawling (not that I'm complaining) but seems to always find some wood chips to eat off the floor that the broom missed.  He already doesn't like brocolli, but he'll eat wood chips and puzzle pieces...

My daughter is continuing her homeschooling, and I have to admit, it's difficult to stay on track and actually get down to it, but once we get the books out, and start working, it's fun, most of the time.  You MUST have the patience of a rock with a child, but still not let them get away with goofing around too much.  I have learned one thing: 

Learning must be enjoyed, and when it stops being enjoyed, it stops being learned!

So, at various points during our lessons, I let my kid just write some silly word, or draw a picture of a fork, because she enjoys it.  Then, I gently bring her back on focus.

ELECTRICITY
This could be a blog post of it's own, and it's the big non-gardenish project that I am undertaking.
*drum roll*
My solar panels are not just in my possession, they are also (mostly) installed, and producing power!!!
I purchased 12 in total, and I have managed to get 7 up and running.  They are freakin enormous, not to put too fine a point on that, but I can manage them myself if I'm careful. 

Not a moment too soon for the solar panels either.  I'm running out of generators to destroy!  We've got our Honda-engined one that sometimes produces power, and sometimes doesn't.  Mostly doesn't.  The dumbarses who run the parts dept at Champion power equipment Canada, sent me two wrong parts, and not enough of the proper parts to fix my almost new generator that has less than 350 hrs on it.  To say I was angry would not fully account for what happened then...

In better news, I pulled out an older generator that I had tried to start, and failed...and got that running!  I need a different plug socket for that one.  I also discovered that the stripped spark plug socket on my propane generator is repairable with a kit that I purchased off Ebay just now.

So, hopefully in a few weeks I will have 4 functioning generators that I don't need, rather than needing one that I don't have!

Oh yes, my wind turbine is still not producing power, I think there is a major shortout somewhere inside the turbine itself, which will require a takedown and overhaul...booooooo.  It was windy today too, and not very sunny.  It always irritates me when energy gets wasted because of some technical problem.

Stay tuned for pics of the solar installation as it comes along!

One last observation about electricity.  I found out that our fridge was on the "auto-defrost" setting since we moved in...whoops.  It was also set too high, so it was turning on what seemed like every 10 minutes.  I think that fridge has literally wasted 1000 kwhrs because of those two things, because the batteries can last quite a bit longer these last few days.  We just need 1 more laptop and we should be in happy-fun-times-awesomeness-town.

GARDEN/BUSINESS

Well, there's mud and lots of it!  A record snowfall is now melting and there is standing water everywhere!  It should dry up a bit this week, and then it's go go go time!  Deploy rototiller!
I have a couple of experiments I'd like to try.  I'm going to try a few different methods and see what works the best.  I will rototill a section of my garden, incorporating a ton of manure and compost, leaves and wood chips, and maybe some cattle bedding from my neighbor.  That will be the first and only rototilling done there.
On a different section, I will flame off the grass, and pile the mulch directly on the dirt, and plant into that.
Then, I'd like to shred a bunch of wood from the dump, and make some hugelkultur beds (wood covered in dirt) along with some hay for a bit of nitrogen, and plant into that.  I will keep the winners and shoot the losers.
I've also been very seriously examining the idea of raising about 200 chickens in a paddock type arrangement with electronet fencing.  I would sell a bunch, and keep the rest to eat.  If this works, I could increase next year to 400 or so, and use whatever profits to buy calves to raise. If I can, I will do more than 200 this year, but that's my minimum.
There's also my idea to grow buckwheat, hull it and feed it to chickens, then use the hulls to make pillows which I could sell online.
Then, there's all of the neat ideas my wife has been coming up with, namely, making soaps, perfumes, and lotions from herbs and flowers.
We just need to make some solid plans, and follow them through!
It's time to crash, I was up at 3 am to work overtime...it never ends.