Summer? I think so!

Two cherry trees, and seven saskatoons in a semi-circle. The saskatoons are three years old already, so hopefully I'll get a few berries off this year. The cherries will take a while longer, maybe two years from now.


Hello again, it's springtime, and things are going well!

As you see in the pictures, everything is green as ever, and I've been planting everything in sight, and trying to keep it alive in the process.

There are a lot of non-garden projects that need doing yet, not least of which will be the solar panels that I will (hopefully) be ordering next month, getting the wind turbine up again, and putting up a wind fence. That should hold us off till Fall, and then I would like to do some water collection projects, starting with the burial of a water tank by the house.

All of this is made possible by our mortgage company, who is allowing us to defer our payments for one year (thank you!) and by this time next year, we will be $20,000 less in-debted, and hopefully be well on our way to independent living.

PERMACULTURE
For those who haven't heard it before, permaculture is short for permanent agriculture, or permanent culture. What it really means for us is relying less on outside sources of energy and "stuff", and providing more for ourselves, at least as much as practical. It also means making "systems" that feed into each other, making it possible to produce much more with less time, less money, and less infrastructure.
My first permaculture project were the two cherry trees and saskatoon bushes in the first picture. I planted the saskatoons in a semi-circle around the two cherries, with the shorter sasks facing the south, and solar gain. I plan on repeating this setup multiple times, as well as placing some shorter plants (strawberries) in a semi-circle around the saskatoons. I may plant other shrubs or trees around or near these ones, like nasturniums, herbs, and whatever else I can find that doesn't need a lot of water. Behind the trees, I will dig a small pond, and when the pond overflows, it will feed a mulch pit near the trees, which hopefully will attract tree roots. I will dump compost in there, rather than spreading it around the trees, hopefully saving time. The whole circle will have at the centre a small wooden platform that will shade the ground, and provide a place to pick cherries from, since I've got the idea to have this as a U-pick operation.

I know it sounds weird, but it's not really that unusual, and it ought to look pretty cool as well! I'm hoping that the mixing of trees and such will deter the normal bugs that can destroy berry crops, and that orchardists normally spray poisons on their trees to fight.

At various times in the summer, I plan to run chickens between the trees, who should do a fine job of fertilizing the ground, eating bugs off the plants, and eating rotten fruit off the ground. And that's how permaculture works!

GENERATOR
Up until two days ago, we were running our household electricity off a propane generator, which was a REAL pain in the...you know what I mean.
Several weeks ago, a friend of mine gave me a used generator, and said he didn't know if it worked, but it didn't produce electricity. I thought maybe the coils needed to be energized, and I figured I could probably get it going again.
Well, the other day, the propane generator died. Somehow the spark plug socket was completely stripped, and the spark plug kept popping out. After trying a million times to keep it together, I finally decided to try this free generator...I flipped the circuit breakers on, fired it up, and it worked!
Not only that, it has a 30 amp circuit, which means I can use up to 3600 watts at a time in my house. The last generators would only do 2400 watts, before the breaker popped, which meant no using the water when it was running.

As I'm typing this, the new generator just ran out of gas, which means it ran 12 hours on one tank! The propane one would only run for 7-8 hours before it was done. And a tank of propane costs around $15. All in all, I've traded up, and this genny is a Honda engine, which should last a looooong time, with proper maintenance.

Time for bed, church tomorrow!