FULLY INVOLVED: We Don't Need To Whisper

FULLY INVOLVED: We Don't Need To Whisper: post

Happenings in the yard

Well it's been a couple weeks since the Doggie Dooley went into service.  It is with great confidence that I can proclaim a huge success in the dog waste handling process.  The Doggie Dooley works as advertised and we are happy about that.  We pick up a lot of poop.

The rain barrels have been placed back in service and are filling with rainwater as we speak!  We are excited to collect the rainwater and use it for our gardens instead of municipal water.  

The pallet garden was briefly mentioned in the last post and I am proud to say that the construction is complete minus a trellis for the climbing vegetables.  We have a few plants started from seed and are waiting a little bit to make sure we are past all the frosty weather before we start planting.  

We have added a few plants to the flower gardens at the front of the house.  We added two Knockout Rose bushes and a Black Lace.  We are looking forward to seeing these plants flourish at the front of the house.  Follow the links to learn more about these cool plants!  

Knockout Rosebush

Rosebush #2

Black Lace

The "Doggy Doolie"

It has been quite some time since my last post, so I thought this post would be a "two-fer."  We moved from Elizabethtown last summer to a nice ranch style house in Palmyra.    We made some changes outdoors that were mostly aesthetic.  This spring, we have done some things and have things planned that are Earth friendly and sustainable.  So here it goes.

After we settled in to the new house we decided it was time for a dog.  Well of course one was not enough so we added a second after just a few months.  They are Olde English Bulldogges.

L-Maggie     R-Lewie

Just like any other dogs, they eat, sleep and most importantly (to this topic) they poop.  So, the problem at hand was to figure out how to dispose of all that poop.  There is quite a bit and bagging it up to send to the landfill seems like a horrible choice.  Well after a short search we decided to try the "Doggie Dooley."

The Doggy Dooley is a small septic tank used for digesting dog waste.  The process is very simple.  Dig a 20"x20"24" hole in the ground.  Assemble the Doggie Dooley.  Add dog waste and some enzymes and presto chango.... no more bagging dog waste.

Doggie Dooley assembled

Maggie supervising the work

The hole

0.17 cubic yards of dirt

The finished product

One may ask what became of the excess dirt from the hole.  Well, the dirt from the hole, as well as some dirt from excess compost in the flower beds will be used in a raised vegetable garden.

Preparing for the raised vegetable garden

Some pallets have been acquired that will suit our raised garden purpose and we are hoping to have great success with them.  We found a website through Pinterest and we are hoping this will be the outcome.  We are looking forward to getting it together to get our garden started.

The New Addition!

My wonderful wife got me a fantastic birthday present.  I know it seems crazy but I am very excited about our new addition, the compost barrel! 

We have already put a bunch of materials in to compost and it is cooking away.  We are excited to have compost from our own garden and lawn waste available for re-use in those very areas.  Word on the street is "SUSTAINABILITY".

Garden Progress

 The garden has been progressing very well. All of our plants that we started from seeds are flourishing except the peas and the spinach. The seed packets that we used were expired and from what I have been told, those two plants are very sensitive as seeds. We have so many more plants than we did last year and the rain barrels are really struggling to keep up. The Topsy-Turvy plants, the hanging baskets and the flower boxes are really the most sensitive to the lack of rain so those require daily watering. We did receive some rain last night, but only enough to fill one barrel. Pictures of the garden and plants are posted below for your viewing pleasure!

 

A long day of work

Today we really got to work on the gardens.  Last fall we removed decorative plantings along the sunny side of the house in preparation for a vegetable garden.  Our planting is now complete and includes a variety of tomatoes, green peppers, carrots, beets, celery, lettuce, peas, spinach, cucumbers, squash, strawberries and a pumpkin totaling approximately 100 plants.  We added some topsy turvey planters to our collection so we now have two tomato topsy turvey and one strawberry topsy turvey.  The rain barrels are in service and full of water.  We are excited to see how it all turns out.  Stay tuned--------

Garden Season Has Started

We have started our gardening season early this year.  We hope to have plenty of plants started when the growing season kicks off for us sometime after the middle of April.  The seeds were sown on March 14th.  A Burpee "Greenhouse" that self-waters was chosen to start the plants.  We can then transplant the new plants into smaller containers once they are started.  It is a litte tedious to have to move the "Greenhouse" out in the morning into the sun and then back inside at night but we are hoping for an early harvest and a much longer growing season.  Wish us luck!

One month ago.

It has been a months since the last post.  Here is the "skinny" on the garden:  The garden was doing very well, until we went on vacation.  I tried in vain to revive the plants but they were too far gone.  We were able to harvest  several tomatoes, two green peppers and two meals of broccoli.  The watermelons are a lost cause, unfortunately.  Perhaps I will have a watering system with at timer hooked to the rain barrels next year!

We have decided to expand our garden area this fall.  We will be removing some perennials along the southwest side of the house to make room.  We are looking forward to having more area for plants.  We'll see how it pans out!

Harvest

Not a whole lot going on here on Cedar Street.  The garden is doing very well and we have been collecting crops for a week or two now.  The topsy-turvy tomato has produced some very delicious fruit and has another 15 or 20 green orbs hanging from the vines.

The pepper plants are progressing very slowly and it would be nice if some of the peppers would be ready along with the tomatoes.  Alas, they are not cooperating and we will have to enjoy our peppers separately from the tomatoes.

We have harvested enough broccoli for one meal.  This was the result of four plants.  I'm not so sure we will plant broccoli again as they take up a lot of space and the yield seems low.  They have grown well, but we don't have the space to grow enough broccoli to meet our needs.

The watermelon plants are growing like crazy, and if I could eliminate the chipmunks, we could have a bunch of watermelon.  We have two watermelon that are softball sized, and several more that are marble sized.  The chipmunks seem to like the marble sized fruit as the fruit vanish quite frequently.  We'll find a new spot for the watermelon next year and work on removing the varmints. 

The live trap I have for the chipmunks has failed, as they have escaped multiple times.  The trap specifically lists that it effective for trapping the little furry buggers, but they seem to sneak out through the cracks.  Their bellies were full of sunflower seeds for a little while, however my charitable attitude for the chipmunks has expired.  Perhaps that's why the watermelon have been disappearing.  Spiteful little buggers, I must say.

The rain barrels have been working as designed.  We have been in a bit of a dry spell again and I'm going to have to break into the second drum soon.  I have been using six to ten gallons of water daily to maintain the broccoli, tomatoes, peppers, watermelon and five flower boxes.  A third and fourth barrel may be in the works for next year, pending an appropriate location suitable to the house and downspouts.  We plan to expand the garden area next year and I feel the current water collection activities will be inadequate without increased capacity.  I haven't been watering the remaining flower gardens as the plants have passed through their bloom due to the exceptionally high temperatures this spring and summer. 

Heather and I went to the garden that is funded by our church to help harvest some of the crops on Thursday.  The garden is hosted by one of the church's farmers, the Eppler's, just down the street from the church.  During our conversation with Ms. Eppler, she explained that because of the heat this spring a lot of the plants grew very quickly but did not pollinate when they normally would, so some of the harvesting is a little more challenging due to plant size.  I volunteered to pick various squash, a decision I regretted soon after I dove in with my shorts and short-sleeved shirt.  Relief came in the form of a shower several hours later, but I survived.  Not really much of a sacrifice in the scheme of things.  Heather's brother, Chris, and his wife came up with the idea of the church having a garden to help people in need around the area. It seems to be working well. The church purchased the plants and some people have taken the plants home to tend, other plants were put on the farm. Chris's garden is doing well and he has taken several car-loads of vegetables to local people in need. It's a great idea and a few extra plants go a long ways to helping those in a less fortunate situation.

Five weeks of Silence

     It has been a little over a month since I last posted anything about items in my blog.  It has been an interesting four weeks or five to say the least.  We saw almost no measurable rain during June.  The rain barrels had enough water to last just over three weeks with no rain before they were emptied.  Earlier this week we received several days of rain so the barrels are full again and the ground is not so parched.  I will have to admit that I had to break out the hose and use the city water to maintain the flowers while the rain barrels were empty.  It was above 95 degrees each day for the last week of June and the plants would not have faired very well without the water.  I guess the solution is more rain barrels!

     The topsy-turvy is performing perfectly.  There are nearly two dozen tomatoes on the plant and some of them just started to turn red yesterday.  From our four watermellon plants we have lots of flowers and two small watermellon on the vine.  The sweet pepper plants have almost forty flowers on four plants so we anticipated having plenty of peppers.  The brocolli florets have just started to form.  The brocolli plants are enormous and we are looking forward to seeing the finished results.      

Topsy Turvy update

While I was watering the tomato plant today I was astounded by the amount of growth that I noticed.  The longest extended branch on the plant has grown almost 8 inches in three days.  There are numerous new leaves, flowers and branches coming off the bottom of the plant.  The weather has been hot, humid and sunny with afternoon thunderstorms.  Day 38 is on the top and Day 41 on the bottom.  The tomato was planted on April 24th so we should have some tomatoes ready between July 10th and July 31 with any luck. So far this planter has been phenomenal but we will see what happens went the tomatoes start to hang. 

Storms and the aftermath

We had some nasty storms yesterday.  Monsoon like rain (3.2 inches reported by a local spotter) and great big hail stones.  The plants around the house took a beating, but it appears as most came out just a little beat up, not destroyed.

 I found something interesting as I was surveying the rain and hail from under the protection of the deck; water was flying out of the rain barrel where the hose from the downspout inserts.  This should not be happening as the water should have enough back pressure from sitting down inside the rain barrel to stop the flow and send it back down the downspout.  So today I made a trip to the hardware store and returned with some adapters and a longer piece of hose.  I just finished assembling the pieces and tested the finished product with the garden hose.  I think we're back in business.