And we thought Summer would never come!

There are plum and pear trees planted. The garden is sprouting beans, peas, greens, tomatoes and peppers. Everything is in order for the best summer yet!

I finished the final rain barrel installation this morning and I am glad to say that, after a nice heavy day of rain, I've got about 220 gallons of rainwater waiting for me to use it.

I've begun work on the chicken coop. I will post some progress images soon. The main garden bed has been prepped and I've planted some popcorn as well as kale and other greens there as well.

I've got Nasturtium flowers growing on my edges and I even got my hands on a moon flower to help the local bats this year.

This is going to be a banner season!

Life after PDC

I am currently working on several projects right now. Most of them will come to fruition in the spring. I don't want to make any promises at this time, but the projects include some permaculture design, chickens, blacksmith work, gardening in my backyard and potentially doing some community work in the Brightmoor area in preparation for a bigger move one day soon.

Not to be too cryptic about everything, I'll disclose some info on some of these. The foundations for the chicken coop are in…sort of. I plan to break ground on this project after the weather breaks in the spring. Finally… I have the design pretty much planned and now I just have to take the time to complete it. It should be fun once I get started, which will make it a bit easier to complete.

In conjunction with the coop, I am planning on having the gigantic oak tree removed from the middle of my back garden and after that, I'll dig a couple of swales and get some fruit trees started. This will be in addition to increasing the garden space again this year and getting the vegetables in early using cold frames and maybe even the greenhouse chicken coop.

In the meantime, I'm working on building a small blacksmithing operation. At first glance, most of what I'm doing with this is going to look pretty sad. I'm building my forge from found and recycled materials. I got my hands on a boatload of incredibly old tools, some that my grandfather used 70+ years ago. Everything is old and a bit beat up, but we have all the tools and supplies that we need to get started now. The plan is to begin by attempting to forge some knives and cutting tools. We may try to make some of our own blacksmithing tools as well. I'll be posting images and videos as we are going along.

More to come in the next day or so...

The window situation

I may have mentioned before that I am building a chicken coop with an adjacent greenhouse space to serve multiple purposes. The greenhouse will be a geothermal heating room for the coop, a place to propagate my seedlings in the spring and a storage area for garden tools and supplies. I'm going to build the window wall from old windows.

This morning I met with a lady I met at the Eastern Market Antique store who told me she had a "warehouse full of windows". Little did I know what she meant was that she had a warehouse with windows that I had to cut out of the walls... either way, I am getting enough old warehouse windows to do my whole greenhouse.

I also had purchased a few windows from random places, and I had one or two in my basement. So I guess I'm building several cold frames now as well, which is good because I know people who can use them.

I go to pick up the warehouse windows Tuesday. Hopefully the guy who is taking them out can get them without breaking them. We shall see. I'll post some pictures when all is said and done.

Permaculture 101

I've been schooling myself in permaculture all winter. I've been waiting for a class to present itself in the Detroit area for 2013 and so far it seems like I'm out of luck. Instead of relying on someone else to offer me a program, I've pieced one together myself. Basically it consists of purchasing way too many books and ignoring everyone around me for large chunks of time while I read about swales and edge and diversity of species...etc.

In addition to all of this reading, I've been proactive about learning through experience. I joined a co-op garden on the edge of Ferndale and I also enrolled in a composting class which runs twice a month in March, April and May. I plan on volunteering a few hours a week down at the CSA we joined last summer. I wanted to work with people who have already established a system and these folks offer a "work share" to make the program more affordable. So I guess I'm not technically "volunteering" but I'm really only taking what I grow and I'm not getting money for helping...so yeah.

This summer looks to be quite busy for us. I addition to the 10 x 10 plot I'm getting from the co-op, I'm also planning an expansion on my backyard garden space. I'll be essentially doubling my growing area. I'm using John Jeavons' GROW BIOINTENSIVE method to garden this year, which adds a bit more prep work, but should decrease the amount of labor time I spend in the beds. I'm definitely building my chicken coop this spring and we hope to have chickens in it by May or June at the latest. Our front porch needs to be demolished and rebuilt and then for the few days that I'm not doing all of this, we want to remodel our bathroom. Overwhelmed yet? Me too!

Here are a couple new pictures. My ever expanding library (I think I have at least 3 or 4 more books since this was taken.) and the preliminary images of the coop plans. I will post a high res image as part of the series I'll be doing during construction.

Chicken update

During the first council meeting, the Ferndale city council voted unanimously to approve an amendment to the ordinance banning chickens. Ferndale residents are now allowed to build a chicken coop in their back yard as long as it is at least 10 feet away from any residential structure.

I plan on getting my permit to build my coop and get it done before the end of the summer, but I think that getting the animals will wait until next summer. Between having a new baby in the house, getting the garden in order, taking care of my 2 year old son and working full time, I don't know that I'll have time to get started taking care of these high-maintanence animals. I doubt I'll want to even consider trying!

So, my plan is to have everything built and in order and then I'll see about getting some full grown hens or some pullets in the Spring of 2013. Building the coop will be a fun project for a few hot summer days when I'm not doing other things around the urban farm. And of course, I'll post pictures and instructions as I'm completing it.