Good Earth

Let the planting begin. This weekend’s temperatures were in the 70’s for the first time since last October, so it was time to finish the fence and start planting. But all this was made possible by a lot of work accomplished in the past few months.For our vegetable garden, we chose a sunny spot in the side yard. While the soil at our home is enriched by ancient glaciers, it’s also full of nice round boulders from the runoff of those same glaciers. So using a tiller, or digging by hand, can be a mission impossible.

We decided to cheat, and build an elevated box garden. We first purchased some 8” by 2” boards and made a box that was 32 feet by 12 feet in size. Then, we had a local supplier dump several yards of screened healthy topsoil, and put our backs to work. It didn’t take long to fill the boxes with the dark dirt, and then we had a nice ready to plant miniature field.

However, we found that other creatures enjoyed this patch of ground as well. We noticed dawn raiders in the form of cute rabbits wandering about, and realized a garden full of fresh lettuce and carrots would be seen as their personal salad bar. And our own cats decided the ground made for a giant easy to use litter box.

So, once more to Home Depot, and I returned home with some “rabbit fence”. This is a wire type fence about 28” high. I attached some boards to the garden box, and stapled the fence to the boards. A couple of simple gates, made wheelbarrow wide, completed the mini farm.

So now our future salads are well protected from four legged interlopers. With marigolds at the corners to help keep the bugs at bay, the ground has it’s first splash of color and life.

Free Water

After looking at the water bill, and then looking at our newly enlarged garden, a thought came to me. Not one of those “aha” or “eureka” moments, but more like an “Oh, duh.”

It’s spring here in the Northwest, which means it is raining most of the time, with water pouring off the house and onto the grass I will soon need to mow. So what if we could somehow capture that water and use to water the garden, I thought. And then realized that we modern internet savvy people are, in fact, idiots in comparison to people who lived only a few generations ago.

I began my search for a barrel on the internet. It’s interesting to consider sometimes how we lived before this rather bizarre invention. I can remember telling people in the mid 90’s of how, one day, they would see internet addresses on the side of UPS trucks. They scoffed. My prescience did me no good, at least financially, but at least I can sip some tea and feel smug for a moment.

I found many professionally made plastic barrels with spigots, all at rather high prices for something I see as being very simple. And when you add shipping, it gets a bit crazy. So, I thought again, what if I make my own? Self-sufficiency… such thoughts are frowned on in this age of experts, professionals, and licenses.

I discovered that bottling companies purchase large quantities of fluids in food-safe 55 gallon (and even larger) containers. They often throw these containers away, or sell them for very low prices. The nearest source was over 2 hours away, however, and I’m rather lazy about driving that far for a big piece of plastic.

A few days later, while wandering the local hardware store looking for some bit for the house, I overheard someone talking about “barrels, like you can use to collect water…” and followed the sounds to discover a dozen or so blue 55 gallon drums out back for sale at $20 a piece. I managed to stuff 2 in the car, and trundled home with a happy grin. Buddha provides.

Next, I drilled two 1 inche holes, one a few inches from the bottom, one a few inches from the top, slightly offset. The top hole is for overflow, the bottom I attached a $2 brass spigot from Home Depot. They offset is so the overflow doesn’t dribble on the faucet. I then just drilled many tiny holes in the steel cover, redirected the downspout to the top of the barrel and voila. The most difficult part was getting the whole thing reasonably level.

After about 36 hours of Northwest drizzle and spritz, I had I a full barrel of nice free water. It won’t be enough to water the garden all summer of course – I’m not raising cactus after all. But anything that lowers the bills without much money or effort is well worth doing.