Project completion feels sooo good!

I completed the last 8 feet of the fence today. It's nice to be able to cross that off the list. The final piece doesn't match exactly, but I can't be too picky since I bought my supplies at different times from different stores. Like most of my projects, it isn't professional, but I'm satisfied. Now I have some grading to do to the yard near the fence and eventually I will attempt to grow grass back there.

I have a small part of the garden extension in progress now. I dug my root bed hole 10" deep and I built a cedar box to contain the amended soil. This, paired with the 8" high walls of the raised bed will provide 18" of good growing soil for carrots, radishes, onions and either parsnips or turnips this summer. I also just acquired a 5 foot tall upright chest freezer for storing all our frozen veggies at the end of the season. I got my grid set up in my primary bed and I transplanted the garlic that came back from last summer.

The next image updates will show the grid in the primary bed as well as the new raised beds I'm in process with now. In the meantime, I have to get some seed in the ground in the next week or so and then keep my fingers crossed for no hard freezes after the sprouts start. I have a couple of cucumber plants and about 7 tomatoes as well as a small variety of herbs growing under my shop light in the basement.

I think the seed tray warmer has been both a blessing and a curse. While it does seem to be making the plants grow well, it causes the moisture to leave the peat quite quickly, making it a bit of a chore for me to keep them all watered. I plan to find a way of rectifying this situation in the future, but for now I just check everyday.

Here are the pictures of the fence:

Before:

From Stuff I Made

After first section:

From Stuff I Made

Finished product:

From Stuff I Made

I am now 43 pages through the total 178 (not included appendices) in the Introduction to Permaculture and my mind is just swimming. There are events in life that cause a person to change the way they look at the world...reading this book is one of those events for me. Everywhere I look I see the layout of the landscape and think about how each element connects with it surrounding elements. Learning about this stuff has truly been life altering for me.

Fence Progress/Permaculture Study

  The fence is coming along swimmingly. I got 12 feet of the total 20 finished and leveled. I opted to do 12 feet all at once instead of splitting it up into 2 - 8 foot sections and a 4 foot section because I had 12 foot 1x6s already and I found it to be much easier to level one large piece than several small ones as I have done before on other fences.

  Once I get the 20 foot section finished, I will put up a gate perpendicular to the rear fence and I may even build a temporary fence across the 12 feet of cement left from the garage. Here are a few pictures:

From Stuff I Made

From Stuff I Made

  12 feet down, only 8 to go...and then possibly 4 more...and then possibly 12 more.

  My final note:

I recently decided to do some deeper research on this "permaculture" topic and found that there is a farm near Sydney, Australia that teaches the method during a 2 week course. In reading the farm's website I found out that they use a book called Introduction to Permaculture as their textbook for the course. Amazon doesn't sell this book, but some of the marketplace vendors do so I ordered it. It ran around $40 and I have to say, it was worth every penny. The author is Bill Mollison, the man who coined the term "permaculture" and the information within the book is simply mind-boggling. He has at least two other books devoted completely to the idea of building self-sustaining systems and this farm in Australia teaches his methods through practice. Anyway, here is a picture of me loving the book:

From Stuff I Found

  I haven't found a part of this book I don't like yet. My hope is to one day implement as much of this theory into my everyday practices as possible and maybe even teach it to local urban farmers and even possibly the environmental sustainability commission here in Ferndale.

  My next update will provide some information about the square foot gardening plan for this year. I've already posted images of my beds in the Stuff I Made album. I am getting close to splitting the albums up due to the variety of work I am doing around the house now. There was never a need to have things separated before, but I need to archive some old stuff and separate the house projects from the permaculture plan and the gardening. So that is what is coming.