Sunday, July 10, 2011

Summerization July 1, 2011 Garden Photos

We went on vacation the first week of July so prior to leaving we had to summerize our garden. (This is a good idea to do even if we did not go on vacation as it is always a good idea to reduce water and weeding needs). We purchased 6 bales of hay to mulch all of our garden rows to prevent the ground from drying out too fast and to reduce weed growth. Here are some photos of where we are with the garden as of July 1, 2011. A lot of our plants are really small as we had an exceptionally cool and wet spring.


View of the west half of our garden.





View of the east half of our garden.




View of the middle row and hoop house.




Our asparagus producing well for several months.




Asparagus and Okra.




Okra about to start blooming.




Bush beans don't produce as well as pole beans but don't require support.





Pole beans starting to bloom. The turnips below are flowering.





Pole beans starting to climb the hoop house.




Our cool season stuff inside the hoop house is starting to die out although the carrots, Amish Deer Tongue Lettuce, carrots and Oakleaf Lettuce are doing well.




Cabbage and Deer Tongue Lettuce.




Kale and Chard produce all summer long.




Cucumbers starting to flower.




Our grapes are looking good for early July. We are having big problems with Japanese Beetles.




We have grape vines above our berry bushes and strawberries all around our garden.



Good looking grapes! We have Concord, Norton and other varieties.




A volunteer Gourd growing amongst newly planted Blueberry bushes. The strawberries below are hard to see withthe new straw mulch.






Peppers, Asparagus and Cucumbers.






Asparagus, Cucumbers and Okra.







Garden view.






Tomatoes and Okra.







Peppers. They are small because they were all grown from seed and I got a late start with our cold wet spring.




Tomatoes and Peppers.




Tomatoes and Peppers. Our strawberries (behind) produced about 25 pounds of berries this spring.




Tomatoes starting to flower.






Tomatoes freshly mulched to lessen watering.

Sunday, April 17, 2011

Tree house siding and roof


The tree house is coming along. We have the windows installed and it is time to start on the siding and the roof. The roof really holds it all together and strengthens the walls.




Here is the tree house from below showing the walls and the newly installed windows.



A view of the windows from the inside. I got these windows from a Habitat for Humanity re-sale store for about $5 each.



Working on the tree house at night. I used steel clips to attach the 2"x4"x12' boards on their sides to the top plates of the walls.
The roof frame is 2"x4"x12' boards to support the 1/2" treated plywood sheets. I have a 3' overhang over the deck on front and a 1' overhang on the back.


Most of the siding is done with the exception of some corner trim and soffit work, but it is starting to look like a functional tree house. The kids are starting to use it for play.



Drip edge is installed prior to tar paper and shingles on the roof.



You will need help to get the heavy tar paper and shingles onto the roof. We fashioned a pulley system to a tree limb above to lift the materials to the roof.



Tar paper is laid down and nailed with roofing nails in an overlapping fashion starting at the low end of the roof working your way to the top, so that water can't get under the layer below the top layer.




The same goes for shingles. Starting at the low end you overlap up to the top, so that you cover up the nails of the shingle layer below. The shingles and the tar paper have lines on them to keep everything straight and to make sure you keep the appropriate amount of overlap.



Here is where we are today. I still need to finish corner trim, do some soffit work, insulate (if we decide to), install the wood stove and finish off the inside, but for now we have a functional tree house. Hopefully we will add solar panels soon, but for now we have an extension cord supplying light at night. I hope you have as much fun as I have had.





Saturday, November 27, 2010

Get on a Budget and get healthy

There is nothing more old-fashioned or important to sustainable living than being on a budget (living within our means). My wife and I have struggled to get on a family budget for years now. We are not extravagant spenders, but we are typical Americans who like to eat out occasionally, buy our kids stuff, have decent cars, and vacation a couple of times a year. Our budgeting process has allowed us the opportunity to prioritize what is important to our family, as we allocate our limited funds. I won't discuss how to get on a budget as that has been written about by many more qualified people than me. I want to share all the additional benefits of being on a budget that have been a pleasant surprise for our family. At first it was a struggle to limit ourselves and control our spending urges, but with time, we realize that being on a budget is beneficial to us in many ways non-fiscal. Fiscal responsibility has led us to be more physically active, spend more time together as a family and limit our unhealthy habits.

Lord knows that staying out of the bars and consuming less alcohol is good for any marriage/family/liver. I will still do an occasional happy hour with friends, but the bartenders no longer know me by name. One thing that I need to figure out is how to get my friends to do healthy activities with me that do not involve sitting around drinking beer. Either that or I need to get some new friends that are also on a budget. I have never been a smoker, but I am amazed at how many people waste a huge chunk of change on cigarettes every day. How many smokers could save thousands of dollars a year by not smoking? Do I need to mention that this is also healthy for your body? I was buying three gas station sodas a day when my debit card was wielded freely. I was consuming about 1000 calories of sugar water and who knows what other chemicals. Even diet soda is a huge waste of money and has all kinds of chemicals and artificial sweeteners that can't be good for me. Now when I need a caffeine boost, I have iced tea.

A quick analysis of our spending clarified that we were spending too much on eating out. I would eat out nearly every day at work and our family would eat out several nights a week in the evenings. Now I bring my lunch to work. A couple of sandwiches, fruit and yogurt is so much better for me than a burger and fries. I have lost 10 pounds. Our family is way more healthy eating at home in the evenings. An additional benefit is time together as a family at the dinner table each night.

We were spending $60 a month on Satellite TV. That's $720 a year. That is just about the cost of the tree house I am building with my son. We have found the library again and it is still free. We read books instead of wasting time with a Nintendo or X-box. It is sad how many kids waste their lives playing video games when there is so much beauty out there to be explored.

Being on a budget has forced us to limit our consumption. Birthday presents are less expensive and fewer than pre-budget years. My wife is not a shopper (thank God), but our kids have gotten caught up in the Webkinz craze, and they have way more toys and clothes than they could ever use. It seems like our family used to spend our weekends shuffling stuff around our garage and/or storage room or picking up the house with all the clutter we used to buy for the kids. Now our home is manageable because we have less stuff. Extra stuff is a waste of time. Simplicity is not items to buy to organize your life, it is simply having less stuff.

When gas was over $3 per gallon, I tried to become a bicycle commuter. I really enjoyed the few times I biked to work and may try to become a regular bicycle commuter in the future, but the twenty mile round-trip was more than I can handle at this time, mostly due to time constraints and kids activities after school. For people who live closer to their work, I would highly recommend this healthy way of saving money. It makes you feel like a kid again.

Vacations are closer to home which helps us support the economy of our own state as opposed to a trip to Florida or Colorado. Less time in the car and more time hiking, canoeing, swimming and biking. When we do get back to Colorado we will be camping instead of staying in an expensive cabin. When in Colorado aren't you supposed to get closer to nature anyway?

Our mental health is better now that we know we are not adding to our overall debt and we are actually whittling away at it. I can't imagine how amazing it will feel to have a debt free family. Also, I am happy that we are teaching our kids about trade-offs, that they can't have everything they want, and I think they will grow up to be responsible adults with the teachable moments living on a budget provides.

When we first started our budget it became very apparent that we would not be able to entertain in the fashion most of our friends had become accustomed to. Nice bottles of wine, steak and cocktails are expensive. You really get to know who your true friends are when you host with chips, salsa and Bud Light. To be quite honest, I think a lot of people find it refreshing when one couple frees a group of friends from the high standard of expensive entertaining and our friends get together more often now that it is a low brow affair. Most people are in a similar financial situation, entertaining like they have more money than they actually do, and find it refreshing when someone has the courage to lower the standard. Who are we trying to impress anyway? These are supposed to be our friends.

I bet if you evaluate where you are spending your money, you will see that a lot of your money is being spent on items that are not good for you or your family. So take your kid on a bike ride or get familiar with a nearby State Park. It's free and it's healthy!

Monday, October 25, 2010

Harvesting grapes and making juice

Some grapes are very difficult and require a lot of chemical applications in order to have a decent crop. If that is what you want and you don't mind dumping lots of chemicals on your plants, you can probably grow almost any kind of grape you want. My grapes are not beautiful, but they do not have any chemicals on them.

This was our first year of good grape production. Here they are in early summer.


I have several varieties of grapes. I am certain that I have Concords (and they are a good variety for beginners) and I have others that I have taken as cuttings from friends and farmers that are great producers as well.


Our first year of really plentiful grape production. I think the vines are about 4 years old (summer 2010).



In about a half hour we have a lot of fruit. In the field we use clippers to cut clusters off. We will later remove the stems and bad fruit.



Inside, under the sink, I remove the stems and any bad fruit. Bad fruit usually floats to the top and can be easily skimmed off to discard. The remaining fruit is used to make juice.




A big metal pot is used to cook the grapes. I place the clean grapes in the pot and add enough water to cover the fruit. I then boil them, reduce to a simmer, and mash them for about 15 minutes after boiling. Some people like to use a juicer to chop up the grapes prior to boiling. This helps, but is not necessary.



The mash is filtered through a strainer to make the juice. Some people like to filter the juice through cheese cloth, which removes all large particles and most of the color. We just refrigerate the juice and drink it fresh for several days. If you want to make wine or can the juice, follow the links below.




Upon completion, there is mash left over.
We filter this many times before discarding the mash.









Pruning Blackberries

Blackberries are one of the easiest berry bushes to get started and are a reliable producer for many years. The only maintenance required is pruning them back to a manageable size every year after harvesting the last berries in August. I have tried many varieties, but I have found no types that are superior to the thornless varieties in fruit quantity, taste and reliability. I wanted to see if the thorny types had better flavor or bigger fruit or any advantage that would justify having to deal with the nasty thorns and I have found no justification, so I have torn out all of my varieties except the thornless ones. I wish I knew what kind I have specifically, but with most of my fruit trees and berry bushes, I go out and talk to friends and farmers and take cuttings of plants that produce well with no chemicals, and often they do not know the variety. If you observe your own neighborhood or the country area around your city you will start to notice trees and berry bushes of all kinds that look kind of neglected (indicating that they are not sprayed with chemicals) yet they have good fruit output. These are the plants you want to choose for cuttings. Click here for info on taking cuttings.


Blackberries a couple of weeks from being ready to pick.

Ready to start harvesting. Blackberries produce for 2-4 weeks.


My thornless blackberries grow to be about 12' tall by the end of summer. Notice the 7' high hoop house in the background. I let them grow all summer and prune them back after harvest.



After harvest, I cut all the canes back to about 4' high and specifically remove all the canes that produced fruit this year to the ground. All brambles are different, but blackberries only produce fruit on canes that grew from the previous year so anything that had fruit on it this year will not have berries the next year.



It is easy to tell what canes had fruit, as you will see some of the unharvested seed heads on top of the canes. Cut all of these to the ground and get rid of them. They do not compost well so I burn them. The growth from this season will produce fruit next year. By cutting the shrubs back to 4' after harvest, the canes will have time to put out side shoots and grow to about 6' before fall, thus providing a thick mass of one year old growth that will produce fruit the next year. No home should be without blackberries. Good luck.





Monday, September 27, 2010

How to build a tree house - walls

Here is the drawing I put together to build the walls from. Nothing fancy, but it helped me think about quantities of wood and how I would need to cut the 2x4's to allow for the sloped shed roof.

I built the walls on the ground in my driveway so that they would be square and flat. This is nearly impossible to do on rough ground. Make sure you buy your doors and windows prior to building the walls so that you can make your rough openings large enough for them. I got this solid wood door, two windows and door hardware at our local Habitat for Humanity re-sale store for $27.


We built one end wall with 7' tall 2x4's, the other end with full 8' 2x4's and sloped walls connecting in between. This allows for a shed roof with 1' of fall. Note the slope of the wall leaning against the truck. We tilted the walls up in the driveway to make sure they lined up before we carried them to the site on the back of the truck, hoisted them up one by one and nailed them together. I needed the help of two neighbors to get them to the site, and lift them up to the deck 10' off the ground. Up to this point, the deck and floor joists have all been screwed together, but the walls are just nailed together. The bottom board of each wall is treated lumber, but the vertical studs and top of the wall are not treated as they will be protected by a roof and siding eventually. Up to this point all floor joists, posts and deck boards have been treated lumber.


By having the windows and doors to measure, you can be sure to make your openings the correct width, so that they can be easily installed up in the tree house.


Here are the walls installed up on the deck. It is starting to look like a tree house.


Here you can see the tree house that is approximately 8' x 8' on the 8' x 12' deck so that there is a 4' x 8' deck outside the front door. The angled boards on the inside are used to make sure the walls are square and vertical. They will not be needed when the roof joists and siding are on the outside.