More About That Greenhouse ...

Adam's nearly finished the greenhouse.

The structure is complete. He bought plastic sheeting and duct tape to cover it. Right now, however, the weather is too cold (high of 31 degrees today) and windy (brrr!) to put plastic on a hoop house. But ... soon.
We could've bought better plastic for more money. This plastic may last only the first year. But it was at hand, and the package has twice what we need for this hoop house, so Adam can make smaller hoop houses for this next year.

Our goal is to get some plants growing as soon as possible. We can recup our money (which is less than $100) in this greenhouse if we sell plants this spring. We'll grow our own plants for our own summer gardens and sell the excess.
Anywho, on Saturday I came home from the market to find that he'd moved the greenhouse to the back of the field (between the barley field and the back fence) and was beginning to assemble it.

The wood for the front and back came from the ceiling in Anna's little house, so it was free.

The greenhouses' location: from the corner of the fenced field where the house is, you look across through the pine copse to the back of the field. See it back there?

I took the dogs out a minute ago to let them romp. The wet furrows in the winter garden are icy now.

The mustard greens still look good. But this is exactly why we need a greenhouse ... not just for spring plants, but for next fall/winter. This winter garden (haha -- that's  a stretch!) has been a pain. Too wet, wet, wet. Next winter we will have better greens.

greens and ice

Starting the Greenhouse

We've been discussing how to proceed here on the farm. We want to start planting and have early crops, but the compost is not ready to use as soil yet to make raised beds. So Adam decided to build a greenhouse -- a hoop house. Here are the picks thus far:

 He's building it in front of the barn where he has electricity for his saw/drill. But later he will move it (in sections) into the highest part of the field in the full sun.

 He bought a 100 foot coil of black PVC. It was cheaper that way, $25. It ended up being closer to 125 feet long. He cut it into 25-foot lengths. He mounted them to the sides where those short stem walls are.

 It will have a little prop window in the back and a door in the front for ventilation. It is 10 feet long, 8 feet wide, and almost 8 feet tall in the middle

 The wood was given to us by a friend.

 These great metal shelves were also given by this friend; he's closing his restaurant. They will hold the plants we grow there from seed.

They will be up about 2 feet off the ground. Under the shelves will be raised beds. We'll grow plants on the shelves in the spring, and grow crops in the raised beds in the fall/winter.

Above, Adam shows you where the doorway will be. He'll cut off those pieces, of course.
We had such warm temps over Christmas that lots of bulbs are already coming up. They will be fine -- crocuses and daffodils.

Our winter garden. This is the best of the greens (kale, I think) so far.

 It is not curly kale. Something's nibbling it a bit, and it ain't me!

 These are spicy mustard greens.

 We stop by Starbucks every time we're in "big town" to pick up their old coffee grounds for our compost. This is what it looks like in the bag:

 Adam's composting proceeds apace. It is his favorite farm activity. That's the big trash bag of coffee grounds in the front, to give you some scale.

 Our bees are doing fine this winter. Adam put wads of grass in their gates to keep the cold winter winds out of their hives. But in December the bees chewed it all up and carried it away! He'll need to put sticks on there instead.

It's a quiet time on the farm. Too wet to burn our burn piles. Next time I'll share more pics of the orchard.

Soggy Christmas Eve

I went sloshing out in the field this morning wearing these:

Lots of rain last night, and the ground is saturated.

Adam has yet to get water pipes into some of his trenches, after all this time, because they have never yet been dry enough.

The rows in the winter garden are full again. Those poor greens, how they do soldier on!

It's Christmas Eve and it was 85 degrees this afternoon. Thus is the South! The bees were flying, but we really wish they wouldn't, as there's not much for them to eat right now, but they burn energy (i.e. use up honey stores) when they fly.

Adam's trying hard to get his compost wet. You wouldn't think it would be hard with all this rain, but the rain only seeps in a little ways, and the compost remains dry inside. So he has to turn and turn it.

From the bottom of his first bin you see dark soil beginning to form.

Maggie loves the outdoors. She leapt onto the burn pile happily.

Adam still works on his water system. Here are the pipes he's removed from nearer the house (where it's wetter), to the back of the property where it's drying. A little. Not much.

He got his four barrels up on the backside of the barn. He rebuilt the table on the left and built the one on the right from scratch.

Barn roof water flows into the gutters and into the blue barrels as before.

He put in some PVC lines to direct the rainwater ...

And attached that line to the new black barrels too.

And attached a spigot to one black barrel. A hose attaches there.

He was excited about all our rain last night and went back to the barn first thing this morning to see all the rainwater he'd collected. He'd found an old toilet float in the barn and put it into one of the barrels with its little stick pointing up, so he can easily see when the barrels are full.

He was rather disappointed this morning though. He's accidentally left the spigot open. All that rainwater came into the barrels and right back out again. All in one place. Needless to say, the area below the barrel tables was quite wet this morning.

I think this weed is sorrel. In spots where all else is bare, healthy tufts of this herb thrive anyway.

Adam and Peter have been working on the orchard, and Adam's pulled out lots of grapevine. Here's a stretch of vine that's not yet been pruned and pulled out.

Here's a portion with vines removed but a few scrubby pines and wax myrtles remain.

Here's the front of the orchard where the most clearing has happened. There's little remaining except the pruned grapevine stumps and a line of fruit trees down the middle. We're unsure what they are exactly.

The mass of grapevine Adam's pulled out for me to work with.

Our pecan trees continue to drop nuts, but I think we're done collecting them for this year. It's been so very wet, and they sit in the soggy mud. It doesn't do them good. We'll hope for a dryer fall next year.

Merry Christmas to everyone from our little farm! We'r'e eager to see what the new year will hold for us.

The Steaming Earth

Adam is the compost wizard. He loves nothing better than to fork leaves/manure/straw around for a few hours, watering it and watching nature do her magic of making dirt. His compost piles are quite warm these days. See the steam from the heat inside?

Maggie loves to lie on the compost piles for that very reason.

She's a cutie.

His oldest bins are getting rather dry and have ants in them. Nothing wrong with the ants, but it is a gauge for moisture. Compost needs water. This was yesterday. Today he's watering all the compost.

A stray piece of onion from the kitchen found its way into the compost and is now happily growing there.

The big pile has the potato trash can nestled in it, and boy-oh-boy are those taters growing well!

These taters are an experiment to see how it works as a growing method. Adam is pleased.
This past week, one morning we walked around the whole farm (all 3.84 acres - haha!). I'd never walked the far fence line before. Here's a shot of the buildings from the other end of the field. L-R: Anna's little house, the main house, the garage, the bee hives the red bard (barely visible) and the red water container.

Adam's wheat field shines in the morning light. It's recovering a bit from all the rain.

The winter greens garden still hangs in there, although it doesn't grow much. We had more rain this morning, so it's waterlogged again! I imagine we'll get some eating out of it eventually.

That stunning oak tree. I never thought an oak could look so pretty.

The next morning when I went into the field to see Adam, Maggie was holed up under the old horse feed trough. She likes cool, muddy places. Perfect farm dog.