Jeremy and Jeff on one of the completed timber stacks
Then we started doing the lay ups. A lay up is where you precisely position every part of a plane of the building and then very precisely scribe all the joints where they belong. This ensures that everything will (theoretically) fit together just right when we go to assemble it. So far, we've gotten one of the East-West planes done and one of the North-South planes. That leaves 8 more planes to complete. Fortunately, only one of those needs to be done before we can get back to joinery for a while.
One plane set and time to begin scribing
Other than requiring lots of unique steps, timber framing also requires some unique tools! Jeremy has been hard at work making 2 custom hammers - one smaller one for chiseling and one large one (called a beetle) for "persuading" timbers into the right place. This one is BIG! The square in the picture is 12" on a side for some scale.
The BIG one...otherwise known as a Beetle
But wait! That isn't all we've been doing! We also planted about 400 onions and 3 beds of potatoes. Our tomatoes, peppers, herbs and okra are growing nicely and getting almost ready for transplant into their own pots. The cabbage and broccoli are doing well in their pots on the balcony despite the cold snap and we have a host of sweet potato slips growing. It's feeling like garden season around here!
Onion starts along the fence
Tomatoes and peppers growing happily
Sweet potatoes and cabbage
Jeremy has been adding soil from the topsoil pile to some of the beds that didn't get enough last year so that they'll be ready to plant. We've also signed up for a pilot study of biochar in garden soil. We will have 3 different test crops (tomatoes, potatoes and cabbage) that we are planning to divide into the following test groups: control (no additions), compost & minerals (we will add compost and a sea solids solution), biochar with compost and minerals, and a half dose of the mineral and biochar. With these we hope to demonstrate what effect each component has on the overall growth and productivity of the plants in the beds. We plan to post updates on here as things grow, so keep your fingers crossed that we manage to keep track of this while building a house this summer!
We have some joyous and some sad news to share. First the good news! Our future goat, Peaches, gave birth to 3 beautiful daughters about a week ago. The girls are healthy and active and positively adorable! The bad news is that Peaches did not survive the process. Triplets are really hard on a goat (twins are the norm), especially a yearling, and these 3 were all tied up on the way out. She survived long enough to provide colostrum for the babies and then passed. She was a very sweet animal and we will think of her every time we look at her wonderful daughters.
Peaches' three daughters curled up for a nap
The last thing going on right now is that we will have to recover our hoop house in the very near future. For those of you that don't know, we had 2 large rips in the white plastic cover show up last October requiring a midnight recover of the hoop house with the old plastic we took off of it at its old home. Luckily we kept the plastic or everything in the hoop house would have been ruined. Sadly, the old plastic is...well...old, and isn't going to last much longer. We have been trying to nurse it along until warmer weather, but its about done. After repairing with duck tape, gaffers tape, epoxy and super glue, we have resorted to this contraption to hold it in place for a few more days.
Epoxy and strapping...not a long term solution!
This means that one of the days this weekend will be spent covering the greenhouse again. Luckily, we have new plastic on hand so hopefully it will all go much more smoothly than last time! If nothing else, we've had some practice.
Ok, I think that catches us up! Hope you're enjoying your spring!
I'm so sorry about Peaches! What a disappointment! Will you keep all three babies?
ReplyDeleteIs biochar what they give away for free at the compost facility? What, exactly, is it? Is one of the test plot going to be pure biochar with no additives? I am curious to see the effects. I feel like composting can be so complex, or so simple. I have to think a little of everything can't be a bad thing!
I was wondering if you could do a post on mulching. I am a bit confused by mulch. Which plants do you mulch when? I muched my potatoes as soon as they were in the ground, I know they will find a way though the straw. No weeds and need water once a week or less. But what about carrots? Peas? Beans? Do I wait for them to sprout before mulching? If I am seeing weeds, is it because the mulch is too thin?
Yes, we will keep all the babies. No milk this year, but hopefully 3x as much next year!
ReplyDeleteBiochar is untreated charcoal that has been inoculated with microbes. It is a good soil conditioner (it can loosen clay, for example) and it is a good host for soil life. It is basically inert in soil otherwise. Because of that it is not very helpful by itself. Its more of an activator/booster than a fertilizer in its own right. That is why we're only testing it in combination with the other things vs. the other things by themselves. This way we will see the impact of adding biochar vs. just using the other ingredients.
I'll see what I can do about a post on mulching. I don't usually mulch carrots, peas or beans because I plant them in big blocks where they shade out the weeds once they are a few weeks old. If they were in rows, then you would mulch them once they've sprouted. If you're seeing weeds coming up through mulch, then either the mulch is too thin or you're dealing with a perennial weed with a stronger root system (like dandelions). Those you just have to pull out so they don't come back. You'll have less and less of them each year until they're pretty much gone. I think that got it?
Makes sense on the dense planting not requiring mulch.
ReplyDeleteIt seems like my main 'weed' problem is grass creeping in between the Beds/walkway. I used cardboard under both and the walkway is wood chip, but the grass still comes through. And it is tough to pull up. Some roots are big masses the size of a baseball or bigger. We were told the whole place was brome hay, but I can't identify anything to confirm that. It seems more like a crabgrass, I guess. We do have quite a weed problem in the pastures that we are working in With frequent mowing. My understanding is that weeds help areate compacted soil in pastures and are a sign of poor nutrition. Now frequently and they die slowly while improving soil structure. Not so with gardens! They just take over!
I was thinking of biosolids, which the city gives away for free and is some form of processed/broken down human waste. I am curious about it, but the ick factor is large. I suppose it is more for 'pretty' plants?
I wouldn't put the biosolids on a garden for the simple fact that it is a combination of EVERYTHING that goes down a drain. it will have some amount of chemical residue guaranteed. Killing grass in a garden spot is really tough and brome is a tough grass. You can try pulling everything back, tilling the aisle, raking out the obvious roots and then covering it all with cardboard again. that will weaken the plants and make the sprouts easier to pull, but it won't totally kill it. You can also put down many layers of cardboard. When we killed off some Bermuda in town, we used 4 layers of corrugated cardboard plus covering it with black plastic for a while. It worked! Some grasses, like fescue, kill off easily. Others are just a pain! The weeds in the pasture can definitely be a sign of a nutrition problem. They can also be a sign of over grazing or selective grazing. You could try over seeding with a mix that includes a lot of nitrogen fixing plants to improve the soil over time. If well managed, the grasses and N fixers should over run the weeds over time. Mowing will help too since the grasses are adapted to that and most weeds are not.
ReplyDelete