MamaStories

The cucumbers are finally coming in. Amie was happy to harvest some, though she won’t eat them. These, maybe… Still no zucchinis or squashes in sight, just like last year.

Of the dry beans, Jacob’s Cattle is the first one ready for picking. I love the sounds of the hard  beans rattling in their dry pods. They are works of art, each one. All of garbanzo beans were harvested by unknown critters. I was so looking forward to tasting one fresh from the pod.

I’ve harvested all my onions now: 40 medium to small sized ones. That’s much better than last year. Next year I can transplant them even closer together. One 4×8 bed could easily hold 250 of these.

Harvest of 31 July 2010

As you can see we’re eating mostly small tomatoes: Sungold and Be My Baby cherry tomatoes as well as husk cherries, and Ida Gold and Heinz. Mainly they’re the ones in the tops of the plants, where the squirrels and/or chipmunks can’t reach. I estimate that almost half of my tomato harvest has gone to them.

The big Brandywines are still ripening, and I hope I get the chance to harvest some. The eggplants are fattening up, but here again the critters are at work. It’s heartbreaking to go into the hoop house first thing in the morning and find yet another juvenile eggplant has disappeared.

In the big harvest picture you can see the three red peppers that came in so early on the overwintered pepper plants. What a treat! There are plenty of green peppers growing, some ready for harvesting, but I’m so fond of the red ones. The hot peppers are coming in too, one or two each week: that’s plenty for me. They’re hot!

We’re eating kale and chard whenever we want it, and I will start putting them up when they grow beyond the bounds of our appetites.  The lettuce  I sowed last month is hanging on in our hot, dry weather, but it’s not growing. We’re still picking leaves off the old lettuce plants, but they’re pretty bitter by now.

chamomile – it’s a start

I’m also taking and drying herbs, such as mints, comfrey, chamomile and feverfew. I’m on the lookout for a good course in herbal medicine. If anyone can recommend a good book…

You know, I wouldn’t mind sharing my harvests with the critters, if only they weren’t so wasteful. They take, munch a few bites, then discard.  My garden is littered with half-ripe, half-eaten vegetables. I tried this product called Repels All, and it worked the first time around, but now, not so much anymore. Next up to try is cayenne pepper!

The bees have still not drawn out the honey super. What with the dry weather not many flowers are growing, so  there’s a nectar dearth. Hopefully it will pick up soon and we’ll have one super of honey – I might take out two or three frames but leave the rest for the bees to overwinter on. I did get to taste some! I broke some comb when taking off the super to peer in the nest boxes and there it was oozing. I couldn’t resist. I took off my glove, scooped some up and licked my finger through my veil. So sweet!

Last but not least, a fantastic Freeycyle haul! We were so lucky to catch these items, which the owner so generously putt out on her driveway. A chipper/mulcher which will need some work and an already much-used hammock with stand.

Our herb spiral was a long time in the making. It just kept getting shoved down the list of things to do. But the herb seedlings were languishing in their pots, so I put my foot down and we did it in two days.

We decided to build the wall with bricks from top to bottom (1) because we have so many clay bricks left from our old patio. (2) We’re also  planning to build the base of our earth oven with these bricks, so there will be a visual continuity in our backyard.  And (3) we like neither the look, nor the instability, of just placing a ring of stones around and on top of a mound of soil.

So our spiral involved a lot of lugging of bricks and of a surprising amount of soil, but all in all it only took about 12 man-hours to complete it. And it was good fun: what a great shape to work with!

• Build it

First you lay out the spiral on the ground with one layer of bricks. The spiral can go in either direction, but I guess clockwise with the sun makes most sense (even though ours goes counterclockwise). Count on the inner column reaching at least 3 feet high. You can make it as high as 4 feet, then the slope will be steeper. But keep in mind that the plants will also grow, some over a foot tall.

Make the whole thing not more than 5 feet wide, so you can easily reach the center without having to lean or step anywhere on the spiral. Walk around it to make sure that you can reach all parts for easy harvesting. Bear in mind plantings around the spiral, and plot stepping stones or narrow paths.

Then start building up the inner column. There’s no need to cement, but make sure the individual bricks don’t wobble. Also, don’t pay attention to the grade yet, just concentrate on the inner column.

When you’ve reached about 2 feet, fill it up with soil. Don’t put your best soil at the bottom. We used the small soil pebbles that we sifted out of our loam for the garden beds: great way to get rid of some junk. Some advise putting gravel or stones at the bottom for better drainage, but we figured this would create a barrier between the “bed” and the land with its nutrients and beneficial soil organisms.

• Learn from our mistakes

Then curse, because you realize you’ve forgotten to put in the sprinkler (if you’re using one). Break the wall open and dig out the soil where you want the sprinkler system to go. Select from your large store of pvc pipes two pieces about 4 feet long for the horizontal part and one a little over however high you make your spiral for the vertical part, and any broken elbow connector from the trash. Through this assembly thread a short piece of hose (the box stores sell cheap “remnants” 15 feet long). Make sure to get the ends (connectors) right. Bury the system in the soil underneath the spiral.

Put the whole thing back together again and forgive your oversight: it is the cost of your enthusiasm. And that you put the hose in the wrong way, blame that on the hot sun beating down on your brain and the sweat pouring into your eyes. And in any case, they have adapters for that.

As you fill the inner column with soil, fill in the outer path as well, so the brick wall is pressed by the soil on both sides. Carefully tamp down the soil on both sides at the same time, adding to the stability. Once the first layer is done, add the last foot to the inner column.

Now grade the slope by adding bricks to the wall and filling the winding path with soil. Use a hammer to gently tap the bricks here and there, moving them if they’re sticking out to much or have been displaced. This way also try to make the wall lean slightly inwards, for better stability.

As you can see, a lot of the column will be visible when you’re done. So be sure that you like the look of your building materials. By the time the plantings have reached maturity, it should be lush with green, but some of the bricks will still be visible.

• Zone it

The whole point of the spiral is to create a variety of microclimates out of many combinations of  wet/dry, cool/warm, sun/shade. This allows for a greater variety of herbs to be planted together, each in their favorite niche. The most important microclimate zones on the spiral are:

(1) The top, where the water begins but where it won’t hang around for very long. It is also always in full sun. So this is the driest part of the spiral.

(2) The slope, where the water runs, can also be dry, but you can adjust the level of water retention by creating small  cups and trenches around you plants so the water can pool. The side of the spiral that is facing North will get the most shade once the plants have grown. (In the beginning, when it’s just seedlings, or seeds, there’s isn’t much shade on a 3 foot high spiral.)

(3) The base, Part I. I divided the base into two parts. Part I is the end of the sloping path, where the runoff water will collect. Thus it is the wettest part. I augmented this aspect by creating a barrier that will keep the moisture in. I buried some bricks right under the surface of the soil.

Then I covered them up so the visual of the spiral isn’t ruined. I also created a low retaining wall all around that area.

(4) The base, Part II. The part of the base against the clay brick wall is a real hot spot, at the moment. It faces South in our case, and the bricks soak up the sun, warming the soil behind them and radiating heat onto the soil in front of them.

(5) The gaps and cracks between the bricks.

• Plant it

Now, to match the plants to the zones. Planting the herbs on the spiral first, top to bottom gives you a good idea of how reachable they will be come harvest time, so place your stepping stones strategically. So down the spiral they go:

The drought/heat/sun-loving herbs are: rosemary, thyme, then oregano, sage, , marjoram. You’re already well down the slope. Add chamomile, parsley, cilantro, etc.

In zone (3) put chives, and all the mints (contain the entire bottom area if you’re afraid they’ll take over your spiral). If it gets really wet down there (depends on the soil, the steepness of the slope and the orientation) you can put watercress.

In zone (4), I will put heat-loving basil – which IMHO would be out of place on the spiral because it is an annual and will yearly leave a gap, and because it can grow too tall.

In (5) the cracks, I put pennyroyal, which is a small mint that is not too invasive. It likes it wet, so I’m not sure if this is the best place for them.  So far they’re doing pretty well. We’ll see.

I can’t judge the plantings yet, as they’re all still seedlings. I’ll update as I learn more from my observations as the plants settle in and grow.

• Conclusion

To me, a herb spiral is the emblem of permaculture design.

(1) It allows more plantings in the same space by cleverly stretching the surface into the third dimension.

(2) It allows for a greater variety of herbs to planted together, each in their favorite niche.

(3) It conserves water: runoff is used over and over again as it goes down the path.

(4) It is aesthetically pleasing, a marvel to the eye, and a story piece  too.

If you have a partner who needs convincing that this is a serious undertaking, I recommend you slip this schematic into their email. The herb spiral was originally conceived by Bill Mollison and was most recently popularized by Toby Hemenway, in his Gaia’s Garden.

Unwanted things:

(1)

(2)

Things hung to dry:

(3)

Things newly trellised:

(4)

(5)

Flowering things:

(6)

(7)

(8)

Things bursting:

(9)

(10)

Take the quiz:

(1) oak seedling (2) caterpillar on cherry tree (3) kale seed pods (4) favas (5) tomatoes in hoop house (6) can’t remember, sowed it under the bird feeder, bachelor’s button cornflower? lupine! (Thanks Barb!) (7) overwintered vetch (8) strawberry (9) peas (10) tomatoes

The rain came, in a thunderstorm at night. It has cooled everything down a fair bit and saves me from having to water the garden this morning, for which I am thankful. But it barely half filled four of the five  (food-grade) barrels (the second barrel in the line up on our most capacious downspout remains empty, because the first one in the line needs to fill up to overflow into it). Let’s see how long it lasts.

The bean beds (three of them) are looking neat. When Amie looked out the bedroom window she said: “The beans have finally squished out!”  And isn’t that exactly what beans seem to do?

Here are some pictures, for your comparison.

This is what the veg garden looked when we moved in (summer 2008): leaves, stones, rusted pipes and fencing, lots of broken glass, poison ivy and pachysandra.

This is March 2009, when we had barely made a dent in the above jungle, but I love this picture so much:

I wish I had a picture of the peak of last summer – our first summer gardening. I’ll look around for some shots to cobble together. But this now is today:

I made a mistake in my calculations of the square footage of the garden yesterday. It’s not 650 sq.f. but 930 sq.f.  of beds (which includes the terraced beds and some herb beds by the side of the house, but not the as yet untouched lower front garden or the area with the berry bushes and hazels in back).

As you can see, the hoop house has its new poly cover. The plastic arrived yesterday and we installed it in the evening.  After pulling off the old plastic and putting on the new one DH and I were covered from head to toe with pollen. The stuff coated everything, until the rain washed it away. Something else to be thankful for.

It’s 10:30 am and I just came in from an hour of watering the garden. And from the heat. It’s 87 F (30.5 C) and the sun’s a scorcher. Most plants are holding up well, except for the brassicas. The kale especially is doing some spectacular wilting.  The beans are coming up nicely, in more-or-less straight lines, and all of them together. In a day or two I’ll spot the empty spots (where the squirrels or chipmunks dug ‘em up) and will tuck in replacement seeds.

And I used up all the water in my three 60 gallon rain barrels. I concentrated on the veggies and the new transplants, and was very stingy with the bushes, trees and canes. Still, it was all gone in a matter of days.

So yesterday I hooked up another 60 gallon barrel, and today I’ll try to rig up the large drum that was given to us last year. It’s made of metal, is rusting  a fair bit, and it was painted, so in contrast to my plastic  food-grade barrels, I’m hesitant to use it on the veggies. But it will do where I plan to put it, in the “utilitarian” part of the property, where it will serve for rinsing pots and whatnot. Then I have a fifth, 40 gallon barrel (food-grade) that I still need to find a good downspout for.

I water with a galvanized 4 gallon watering can, which I refill from my barrels (which are slow when they’re low), so it takes me a while to work my 650 930 square feet of beds. We’ve been thinking about putting in soaker hoses, but the cost is prohibitive, and anyway I like my daily hour visiting each plant personally with a drop to drink. That way I know what’s going on with them on a day to day basis. And I stop to weed a bit, and to train the peas to the trellises…

Yesterday NOAA promised a 40 to 60% chance of rain tomorrow and the day after, but today I see all that welcome rain has evaporated to a 20% chance of thunderstorms. I know those: a sprinkle and that’s it. Water is going to be an issue this year!

Again, mostly pictures. Too tired to write a lot of words.

Gooseberries and currants growing all along the back fence

Soon to be cleared winter beds, garlic and rhubarb in back

Raspberry bed – free transplants

Cherry tree in stone circle – currently with wild irises, soon to be permaculture guild

Slightly grumpy child (in PJs, again)

3 new beds (4×8, 4×4, 4×4) to be planted tomorrow

Amie’s castle

Background

Inspired by Eliot Coleman’s Winter Harvest, we built our first hoop house in December 2009.  We got it in place right in time for the first winter storm. It was made of pvc pipes and 6 mil landscape plastic. The only “specialized” thing about it was the clamps we used to clip the plastic to the pipes. It cost $250, tops.

It gave us a pretty good Winter and early Fall harvest, but it was not hassle free. It simply wasn’t strong enough. Snow load was a problem, which we addressed with a small modification (version 2.0), and lots of timely shoveling. Then the winds came, and we had a couple of close calls for a more drastic redesign. A couple of days before we planned to dismantle the by now tattered thing, it actually did blow away!

Seeing the possibilities of a hoop house in Summer (warming and protecting hot-weather crops such as tomatoes, eggplants and peppers) and in Winter (very early harvests of mache, spinach, brassicas, among others, and overwintering biennials for seed saving), we decided to put some more time and money into it. We reused almost all of the pvc pipe “ribs” and their connectors, and are reusing the plastic until a new one comes. All the new costs went into wood and metal hardware (connectors, screws, etc.).

The main improvements are in the wooden baseboard and the wooden end walls. These will prevent any snow from accumulating along the bottom and stressing the pvc pipes (breaking the connectors on top, as happened before). And obviously they will prevent the whole thing from flying off again.

Our new design was inspired by this one. Our improvement upon that model is that ours is movable, in that the modules of the structure are all detachable and that the plastic is clipped (not stapled) to the structure and can be easily unclasped.

~

Construction Steps

We started by making a box out of four 2×10x12 and two 2×10x8 spruce boards. It encompasses 4 beds in each of the three positions it will take in our garden (it’s still a movable hoop house, for crop rotation). This makes it 20′ x 12′.

Since there was no way we could transport two 20′ boards, we attached a 12 footer to an 8 footer with ties and stud shoes, like so:

At the corners we used these Simpson rigid corner ties. All these connectors are readily available in the big box stores.

We screwed these corner connectors  to the end wall baseboard (the 12 footer) only. The idea is to be able to take the whole thing apart easily, so we want to parts not to be attached. If attachment is necessary, we used bolts, for having to  unscrew screws each time we move it would ruin the threads in no time and force us to replace boards too often.

Then we pounded 2′ rebars into the ground at those places where we want the ribs to be positioned (9 ribs so 18 rebars):

That part in place, we moved on to the end walls. First we made two of these frames out of 2×4s (we used a pneumatic nail gun):

The base of this is, obviously, 12′ wide. The height, 7′,  was determined by the height of the rib arches. Onto these frames  we screwed the plywood sheets. Then we sandwiched the two end walls together:

We used a rib to mark out the rounding edge:

Then we cut along the marking with a jigsaw – both walls at the same time:

Voila:

We painted the walls with exterior house paint (two layers):

Once the paint was dry, we moved the end walls to the garden. They were heavy, but with the help of Amie’s Radio Flyer we got them into place against the inside of the baseboard box. There we braced them to the baseboard with the help of hex bolts (5″, which were a little too big). Amie had fun watching the T-nut go in as she tightened the bolt.

It was a blustery day – hence Amie’s cap – but once attached these walls weren’t going anywhere!

Next we fitted this foam which is used for insulating water pipes over the rough edges of the plywood, so that, when we slide the plastic over it, it won’t tear. Amie had fun prying the foam tubes open.

Then we placed the pvc pipes over the rebars: they’re the bendable  grey pvc, 10′ long, 1″ in diameter.

We fastened these to the baseboard with galvanized pipe clips.

We used the same clips to fasten a long pvc pipe (two 10′ pipes fit together) along the outside upper edge of the baseboard:

In similar fashion we bent and then attached a pvc pipe along the edge of each end wall. These pipes are to snap the plastic to, with these snap clamps which we reused from our previous hoophouse.

~

Still To Do

We are reusing our old plastic, which doesn’t quite fit this version and is torn and dirty, but it will do until the greenhouse plastic arrives. Apparently, that material got cleaned out in the rebuilding of Haiti after the earthquake, so we’ll have to wait till new materials come in. The sheet will be 11 mils clear, 24ft x 24ft = 576sqft (@ $0.32 per sqft that’s $184.32), purchased at Northern Greenhouse Sales. It comes as one sheet, which will make attaching it easier and will make the whole thing look much neater.

Also missing are the doors. At the other two positions in the garden the ground is not so level, so we’re worried about how well the frame of the doorway will keep its shape. Putting in two swinging doors that fit into those frames is not a good option, so we’ll probably go with doors that slide along rails at the top and the bottom. These will be made of a wooden frame with plastic stretched over them. We’ll need doors only by the time the weather turns cold again, so we have some time to figure that one out.

Another thing missing is ventilation. Even without doors, it gets pretty warm in there already. In summer we might need extra ventilation, probably with two fans, one in each end wall. We’ll cut out the holes for these once we know their size.

Finally, we haven’t yet cross-connected the ribs on top. That structural element will become necessary in winter, when it snows. Until then we want to keep our options open. Maybe we’ll reuse the pvc pipes but run a tension line through from one end wall to another to give it extra stability.

~

Initial Assessment

The only drawback I see, so far, is the wood. There’s a lot of wood now, and right on top of soil too. The beds, made of the same boards, have weathered their first year in the soil well. They’re darker, but I see no rot or termite damage, even not on the ones used for the potato towers. So I’m thinking they and the hoop house boards will last at least a couple of years. Five, let’s aim for five. Knock on wood!

~

Materials List and Cost

Wood

• $54.88: four 12′ spruce boards (10″ high)
• $28.74: two 8′ spruce boards (10″ high)
• $42.72: sixteen 2×4x8′ studs
• $9.68: two 2×4x12′ studs
• $73.76: four 4′x8′ plywood sheating (15/32 RTD)

Hardware

• $21.76: four  stud shoes
• $3.93: four 3″x7″ ties
• $20: four Simpson rigid corner ties
• $22.08: sixteen 5″ hex bolts with T-nuts
• $2.52: sixteen lockwashers
• $10.88: forty galvanized pipe clips
• $24.84: eighteen 2′  1/2″ rebars
• $28.24: 5 lbs of exterior 3″ screws

PVC

• $28.80: eighteen 10′ long and 1″ diameter grey (flexible) pvc pipes
• $19.17: nine pvc cross connectors (at the top)
• $24: 40 pvc snap clamps from Creative Shelters

Other

• $5.82: six foam pipe insulation tubes
• $57.48: one 20′x100′ 6 mil landscape plastic, to be replaced soon by $184.32: 11 mils Clear, 24ft x 24ft = 576sqft plastic (@ $0.32 per sqft) purchased at Northern Greenhouse Sales.

Total

That makes for:

• $479.30 for the hoophouse with the old 6 mil landscape plastic, or
• $605.14 for the hoophouse with the new one-sheet 11 mil greenhouse plastic

Woah, I can’t believe it. After days of 70-80 F weather, the temperature is plummeting, down down down, to 31 F. Tomorrow will be blustery and chilly, and that night will again see temps of 31 F.

So every plant that could be moved was moved out of the garden and the screened-in porch, into the guestroom and the kitchen – which now looks like a greenhouse, except with dirty dishes in the sink.

The new hoophouse is up (yes, more on that tomorrow), but it doesn’t have doors yet, so it’s a tad drafty in there. I covered the beds with the newly transplanted tomatoes, peppers and eggplants with row cover. The tomatoes will survive, since they were seriously hardened off, but the others are still tiny seedlings.  Ah well, can’t yank ‘em back out of the ground, can I? Anyway, if they don’t survive, I have plenty of backup seedlings.

I hope the newly planted trees, bushes, vines and strawberries all survive: they’re out in the open. I’m glad I didn’t get to plant all the other seedlings, and also was remiss in planting the asparagus. Oh, and the mushroom spores.

I hope the bees do alright. They come from warm Georgia all the way to New England for this nasty surprise. I took a quick look this morning and got the distinct sense that the colony is dwindling, which is normal, as the dying bees are not being replaced by new bees yet. They were still good on syrup, which I take to be a good sign, and there was lots of comb, which is an even better sign.  The idea was to do a serious inspection tomorrow to check for eggs, maybe capped brood, and/or the queen (the first would be a sign of the latter). But on a cold and windy day I believe it’s best to not open the box for fear of chilling them.

I made compost tea and fed it to the seedlings though sadly not to the garden, as I found my watering can leaky (something heavy fell on it and split is at the seam). And this evening our neighbors came for dinner and I served a dish with homegrown kale (bolted kale tastes just as nice) and spinach, as well as a salad with homegrown lettuce. What a treat!

Excerpt from chat between DH (at office) and myself (at home):

• me: It’s soooooo windy I fear the hoop house will fly off.
• DH: It won’t.
• me: Really?
• DH: Yeah. Really.
• me: Check your email.

I had just sent him this:

Yup, that’s our hoop house, SPLAT.

Amie and I were outside for a while in the morning, trying to get the herb spiral going, but the wind got so bad we had to flee inside from the sticks and branches coming down from the trees. We were in the dining room drawing and reading when there was this loud flapping sound followed immediately by a whoosh. I ran to the bedroom window and it was so weird not to see the top of the hoop house where it had been for many months.

But I count ourselves very, very lucky, for many reasons.

1. No one got hurt.
2. No plants inside the hoop house got hurt.
3. I still had little metal hoops over the garlic and rhubarb bed you see in the foreground, so none of these were crushed.
4. The whole flapping mess got caught by the trees, so it stayed away from the road.
5. The timing couldn’t have been better: it sheltered the tomato seedlings through last night’s frost, and we were going to dismantle it anyway over the weekend.
6. And most importantly: THE BEES WERE NOT THERE. If they had not been delayed by a week, their hive would have been right in the path of the flying hoop house and indeed right where it landed. Now that would have been a mess. I can see myself running out there, in veil and gloves…

So there you have it, dear reader. Never say never.