Hobbies and interests

Dot's Personal webpage

Gardening Nature's Way

When we got our land we started raising chickens on a fluke. Then I discovered that their natural, un-hormoned, free-ranged, eggs didn't make me sick when I ate them. It was then that the light-bulb went on for me and I decided to get back to the basics wehn it came to gardening and use as little commercially prepared products as possible.

I use a comination of wood heat and electric thermostatically controlled heaters to heat the greenhouse in the winter. Oak, poplar, and cedar shipping palates are readily discarded by many businesses around here, so we collect a large stack of them at the beginning of winter and cut them up to burn in the stove. I never have to buy fire-wood. I use junk mail and sales fliers for kindling (a satisfying way to get rid of them) and return the ashes to the compost pile.

I have an Oregon Scientific weather station and keep a thermo-hygrometer in the greenhouse that sends a signal to the base unit in the house so I can monitor the temperature/humitity inside the greenhouse without having to actually go out there. That is either smart and efficent or very lazy depending on how you look at it!

For sunny days and the spring and summer months I have a thermostatically coltrolled squirrel-cage fan that we recycled out of an old A/C unit and wired to ventilate the greenhouse. I've used blue-board insulation to cover the openings and weighted them so they close automatically but also open automatically when the fan starts and creates a pull. It saves a lot of time and headache for me.

The walls are double-thickness corrugated plastic and I further insulated the inside of the greenhouse with bubble wrap. It works quite well and keeps the wind out. In the summer I use weed cloth stapled to the ceiling and upper 1/2 of the greenhouse walls to shade the interior for plants that are too young to go outside. I use the house year-round.

I use an old cool-mist humidifier that you can usually get from a 2nd hand store or department store, that one would use for increasing the humidity when one is sick. It is cheaper than the "greenhouse" models that are no cheaper than $75 as far as I've seen. It does a wonderful job on very dry days.

With all of this, I usually don't have to do much work to keep the temperature within an acceptable range. I just start a good fire in the stove (but not too good-pot bellied stoves can get rather hot if not properly stocked) at night and when that dies down the electric heaters kick in during the night and carry it through 'till morning. If the sun comes out and heats the greehouse my fan takes over and I just have to be sure I cut off my electric heaters and close the flue on the stove.

This summer we are going to rebuild the benches (these are left over from the greenhouse I had last year that blew over in the 80mph storm we have last June). When we do we will install a misting system that I can hook up to the hose from the outside and turn it on and mist everything on the benches. That sure will be nice!

More will be added and I'll include tips and tricks as the garden grows this growing season.

January-'05 greenhouse progress

I heat the greenhouse with a pot-bellied woodburing stove made at the turn of the century.

Taking a break from work

What a hobby!

Click on the pic to see other greenhouse and garden pics.

Favorites

Here's a list of some of my favorite movies:

I'm not promoting any I just thought I'd share..

The King and I; The Music Man; The Star Wars Saga; The Lord of the Rings; First Knight; Leap of Faith; Finding Nemo (yeah, I still like it anyway); Cocktail; The Lethal Weapon Series; Six Nights, Seven Nights; well. nearly anything with Harrison Ford in it.

Here's a list of some of my favorite music:

Christian music, Praise and Worship, Classic Rock, Classical, Country, Blues, Jazz, and Zedico.

Composting.....

NATURE'S GOLD

Yes, we compost as much as we can. How do we do it? Read on....

1) I shred the leftover papers from bill paying, junk mail, etc. (Never use the waxy paper or magazines - they may contain heavy metals you don't want to eat in them.)

2) We buy raw rough-sawn shavings (different than "regular shavings) that is much like coarse sand in consistency for the bedding in our stalls. It is low on dust and scoops well. Eventually this sawdust finds its way to the compost pile via the manure we get out of the barn.

3) We manily use horse manure but sometimes use goat manure as well. This adds nitrogen and heats up the pile. It can be 10 degrees farenheight outside and the pile will steam when we turn it!

4) Back in the kitchen, I keep a small bucket under the sink. Kitchen scraps go in here and are also added to the pile. What's in there? Well, vegetable matter, cooked (usually what my youngest-picky eater won't eat at dinner) or uncooked. Also added are paper towels, fruit trimmings, various "science experiments" that I clean out of the refrigerator, as well as old vegetable or fruit juice that's no longer fit to consume. The one rule of thumb is NO MEAT of any kind (this will draw flies and make the pile STINK).

Since we have a good bit of room we just pile it up back by the tractor barn and let it "cook" there. Eric will stir it with the tractor each week and then when the batch is done it is used in the garden and around new trees that I plant.

When compost is "done" it smells like good-tilled earth, it has not foul odoo of any kind.

Any information contained in this site is anecdotal and is not intended as a "how-to" in any way.

"Take what you want and leave the rest."
Thank you for visiting my webpage. I hope you enjoyed it.