garden DIY

Rainbow Trellis

DIY

I’m not sure what got into me, but I went all playschool on my new tomato trellis. We’ve given over three entire beds to tomatoes this year.  The two flanking beds have stakes that are simply painted 2×2′s.  I wanted to break up the monotony, so I screwed together some scrap lumber into a shape [...]

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Composting with Chickens

Barnyard

My compost pile is located inside the chicken yard– part coincidence, part deliberate decision, and it’s been a good combo. The compost pile has always been beside the outbuilding which is now the chicken house. When I enclosed a space connected to the chicken house, I included the compost pile area and it’s naturally the [...]

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A Suburban Guide to Buying Lumber

DIY

Back when I started building things out of wood, I had no idea what I was doing. I would go up to the man in the hardware store and describe what I wanted and he would help me the best he could. Over the years and over numerous simple projects I am not an expert [...]

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Tater Boxes

DIY

The biggest headache of raised bed gardening is root crops.  Even if you could build a box deep enough for them, you couldn’t rotate….unless ALL your boxes are that deep, which is PRICEY if you’re buying your dirt. So, here’s what we’re a-gonna do: I built myself a little 2ft x2ft -ish box from boards [...]

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Cinder Block Compost Bins

DIY

What can you do with: a gillion cinderblocks an ever-growing piles of organic trash an ugly hidden part of the yard begging for a purpose Something so ugly and at the same time so beautiful…. Here are the pdf instructions for constructing this bad boy, minus the ‘doors’. I don’t like my compost spilling out, [...]

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