Showing posts with label poly tunnels. Show all posts
Showing posts with label poly tunnels. Show all posts

Friday, September 5, 2014

Fall Garden Update Sept 5, 2014


It looks like the ghost of Riley.  Actually, when I snapped this picture Riley was right in front of me, smiling.  Between the time I pressed the button and the time the shutter clicked - he left the room.  Yes, he's that fast!!!!


My pals, Buddy & Riley!!!


Looking onto the front sidewalk and ornamental bridge from our front porch.


Front porch with the 3 terracotta colored planters my daughter Melanie gave us.  We bought the paint for our walkways, etc to match her planters.  Sweet!  Thank you for the flower planters, Melanie!!!!  We love you!!!


The wooden sidewalk turned out nice after 2 coats of paint.  It took a lot of work.  Bleach & 2 pressure washings before we gave it with 2 coats of paint.



Buddy & Riley on the walkway.


Strawberry rows around the back yard.  Buddy is on the freshly painted wooden sidewalk.


Our side flower bed with the peppermint in the whiskey barrel.


Side flower bed by the cement pad in the front yard.


Side view of the new sidewalk and grass we planted this spring.  It's dormant, but will look nice this fall.


Our new wooden sidewalk that George made to go from the driveway in front of the garage to the house.  We painted it with the new paint that fills in cracks and is not slippery when wet.


Riley by our strawberry barrel and just to the right of our doggie septic barrel.


Riley on the run..... Our herb terrace is on the right just below Riley.  We'll put a poly tunnel over the herbs to help them winter over.


Top view of our new steps that George made for our garden.


Our winter crop of parsley (volunteers) lettuce & broccoli. 


Leeks, peppers and Russian kale.  (Potatoes, onions and lettuce has all been eaten or harvested and put away.)


Tomatoes & peppers!


Carrots & beets that are still growing in our garden.


George built us new steps going down into our garden area.  Thank you, George!!!!


New Zealand spinach.  I just cut it back to the wood frame a couple of days ago.  This is ONE spinach plant.  It doesn't bolt.  I love growing this spinach!  It's the never ending spinach plant!


Our peppers, spinach, kale, turnips, black salsify, beets and spinach.  Beautiful!!


Greenhouse from front to back.  I took out 6 bushels of weeds from the walkway today.  I have a little blister on the little finger of my right hand - & I used gloves, too!


Empty bed in the greenhouse.  


Tomato plants at the end of our greenhouse


My daughter, Melanie, gave us these 3 - two gallon barrels.  We'll fill them with water and use them as heat sinks in the winter.  They will help keep our greenhouse warm at night during the winter. The final (third) off-grid hydroponics tote for greens.


The second off-grid hydroponic tote for greens.  Below it are the poly tunnel covers, which we will put out before the first freeze & cover the herbs & veggies out in the garden that remain.  The black tote will be filled with water to use as a heat sink.


Fertilizers and off-grid hydroponic buckets/totes for lettuce & greens.  We have to get netty pots & pearlite.


Front left of greenhouse is where we store our hand tools.  


Today I weeded the walk way area in our green house.  You'll see a black bin under one shelf.  It will be filled with water to use as a "heat sink" in the winter.  There are 3 - two gallon barrels (2 black, one terracotta) that will also be filled with water for heat sinks.


Buddy & his toys......


The brown cabinet on the left holds our dog food.  The bins below have bird seed for all the birds that come in our yard during the winter.  On the right hand side is our food dehydrator.  That has been a wonderful help in preserving the vegetables and herbs from our garden.


The little golden brown cabinet on the left is one I ordered from Collections, etc.  My daughter Shannon put it together for me when she was in high school.  Thanks, Shannon!!!
George made the little shelf unit on top for nick-nacks.


Our second fridge & upright freezer.  We put the fresh garden produce in the fridge.  The freezer is filled with veggies and fruit from the garden and local farms.


The tops of our fridge and freezer on the back porch.


I planted a lettuce mix.  No poo-pooh.


My ginger root (from Safeway) has finally sprouted - after 6 months of waiting!  I put coffee grounds around the sprout to keep the slugs at bay!


My single New Zealand Spinach plant that remains out of all of the seeds I planted!!! I put coffee grounds around the plant to keep the slugs away! 


Our horseradish plant has been attacked by slugs, so I'm on a slug hunt!  I put coffee grounds in the planter.  Hopefully that will discourage the slimy buggers!


My gardening books are in our reading corner.  


My bright red strawberry pot has faded over the years.  I have parsley growing in the bottom openings and corn salad greens sprouting in the top opening.


Storing Casey & Curran's kitchen table (under the TV, lamp & radio)


The oil painting with "A Water Pitcher with Flowers" George's Aunt Loraine painted for us.

Thursday, June 12, 2014

New Greenhouse

New Greenhouse 

We bought a new portable greenhouse on ebay - to replace our Redneck greenhouse that was falling apart.  I spent $110.99 on it - including shipping and handling.  We couldn't build a 10 x 20 greenhouse for that price, so we're pleased.  George built the beds along one side and across the back of the green house, to grow plants in year around.  We have black shelving and black containers to hold water - for passive solar heat during the winter.  We should get the cover put on, soon.



The container with cucumber plants is a under the bed shoe storage box.  The beds are 3' wide and 20' long (10' across the back)  The beds took 2 yards of mushroom compost and about 1/2 yard of walkway bark.


The light colored wood chips were left over from our chicken coop.


In the front bed, George has finished installing the automatic PVC watering system he made from scratch.  We got the idea from LDSPrepper on Youtube.


Carrots & beets are in the front bed, broccoli, cabbage and spinach (bolting) in the second bed & herbs are growing in the terraced hillside by our compost tea barrel.  You can see the poly tunnels George made so we could get an early start on our veggie garden.


We weeded out between the rows & filled up one of our compost bins this week.  There are still some areas left to week.  I love the Japanese weeding tools I bought at Ginger Street in Rainier!  It makes weeding a snap!


Strawberries in the barrel are doing great!  The thimble berries need to be taken out of the hillside, so we can terrace it, too.


Strawberry rows around the back yard are producing well!  We have a lot of happy little strawberries & a few big ones, too!


Cement blocks we didn't need for the greenhouse.


Herb Garden & a better view of the 3 section compost bin.  (The first section has volunteer red potatoes growing in it, so we put our chairs in front - so Buddy won't traipse through it.


Poly tunnel is over the green pepper plants.


You can see George working on his automatic watering system.  


There is George working..  you can see where I quit weeding - where the bark ends.  I'll finish the weeding over the next week & we'll put in more bark then.  As you can see - the grass and buttercups really filled in during the winter.  The Japanese hand hoe is one of the best tools for getting under the roots and makes weeding a cinch!  


This bed is about 10 x 8.  It has onions and potatoes in it.  the poly tunnel gave these plants quite a head start.  (Look at the weeding around the bed I still need to do.  YIKES!


Looking at the garden from Bob's house.


Looking at the greenhouse from Bob's place.



We took off some of the vinyl covering the raised beds, to install the watering system.


The greenhouse frame (closer view.)


My sweet George finishing up the first section of the watering system.  (There will be 4 sections of 4 beds each that will alternate running, so they will have good water pressure.)


Riley in the right hand corner by the greenhouse.   


The watering can in front is for perspective.