Update - Seeds, Garlic, and mint tea

Well, it's been an eventful summer here on my little garden.  The Zucchini I tried I put out too early and it got bitten, and hasn't done well at all.  I'm ready to pull it out when the next flower just drops off.

I ate my first 12in long bean, which was probably a bit early even for it, these things are supposed to get really long.

I picked out all my garlic, let me see if I have a picture somewhere:

I can't stress how helpful these greenhouse posts have been.  They're perfect for hanging the garlic to dry, and also nice for reaching the middle of my raised beds without stepping on the dirt.  Very very awesome.  Notice the garlic bulbs are a little sad, but still it's the first year i've ever tried it, and I put them in late.  Hopefully this years will be better :).

I got out several multiplier onions, all ranging from about ping pong ball to a small baseball size.  Looking forward to putting the ones that last the winter back in in the spring.  A few that came from seed have grown, a couple that look pretty nice, i'll try and grow them all next year to see if any of them are promising.

The lettuce has finally gone to seed, and i've gotten about 200 black seeded simpson seeds so far from 1 plant, we'll see how many i get total, it's not slowing down.  I also got about 100 romaine lettuce seeds, we'll see if they mix at all.  I'm going to plant them pretty soon when I get the zucchini out.

I planted some new kale seeds in the front where there's a lot of shade, we'll see how they do in the summer.  I was planning on planting another plant or so every week to see when the best time to plant kale is in my yard, I'm hoping to get as much kale as possible :).  I'll keep this updated with pictures and all that in it's very own post as things progress

I got some more basil and cilantro planted out in the front yard.  The mint in the front yard is growing well, and one of them isn't, it's odd.  But today I picked some mint, about 5 or 6 sprigs, and boiled them in a few cups of water to have my first herbal tea from the mint.  It's pretty good stuff, with just a little honey.

I'll keep everyone updated with images and all that, but it's been a while since my last post.

Improving on the hoop house 2013

Well, it's winter time and i have to work on something, but can't really plant so what do I do?  I come up with new ways to work on the hoop house.  I'm hoping this year to find out how different plants do in the hoop house.  Some of which i'm planning on planting tonight to put outside early february.  Just to see how they do.  I'll plant a few every couple of weeks, and see which ones actually live :).  But that's not really what this post is about, i'm sure i'll post on that later :).

This post is on an idea that i had last summer to make the hoop house plastic much less painful to work with :).  And that is, i'm adding some weights to the sides of the plastic to hold it down.  Last year I put cement blocks on the plastic to hold it down, and it worked great, except the 1 night I had to take them off because it got so hot last year (it was 90 degrees inside the plastic like in early march) I never wanted to put the plastic back on, it was simply too much work taking it on and off.  As a result the plastic never got put away properly, and got cut up to be used as a super awesome slip and slide which the kids absolutely loved (our property is a big hill).

Stuff I had to buy (per 10ft raised bed)

• 1 package of grommets - like Brass Grommet Kit Size 4 (1/2 in.) (Google Affiliate Ad) (though lowes had it a bit cheaper, just make sure to get 24 grommets and a kit)
• 6 mil plastic (though I already had plenty :))
• 2x 3/4 inch electrical conduit pipes.  The metal ones, slightly larger than the ones i bought to build the hoophouse supports.

Other items to get

• 1 sheet of cardstock paper (normal sized sheet)
• some other large square measuring device (i used a cardboard box from christmas that was flattened, you could use anything that's got straight edges and is 2 ft or so tall.)
• a hammer to work with the grommets
• a piece of wood to go under the plastic so that you can cut out the holes

How to build half #1

This is "the finished product" of half 1

1. Cut off a piece of plastic roughly 16-18ft long, by 10ft wide.  That gives an extra 3-4 feet on each side of the raised bed.
2. Take your sheet of cardstock paper, and put 2 marks on the edge, at 1inch and 5.5inches.  This paper becomes your guide as to where to punch the holes, and it made things super nice.
   
3. Every 1.5 feet or so use the cardstock to mark the plastic.  So that there is a mark 1inch away from the edge, and then one at 5.5 inches.  Use the side of the sheet of paper on the side of the plastic so that you know your cuts are "square".  This helps make it so the plastic doesn't twist and pull funny, and it's why we used a piece of cardstock.  Use a perminent marker to mark the spots.
4. Use the hole punch that comes with the grommet set and punch out a hole where you have your marks, cut out every mark.  
5. Use the grommet tool to put in the grommets by folding the holes and matching them up.  This will make a pocket for the conduit pipe to fit into.  This is why the holes needed to line up, so you fold the plastic over, and put a grommet through both pieces at once.
6. fold the plastic in half length wise, and put a mark on each side 5ft from the middle.  This gives you the marks for where the pipe should go.
7. Slide your first conduit pipe into place
8. Done

How to build half #2 (requires you to have the hoops setup on the hoop house for steps 1-3)

1. The most annoying step :), go outside (for me it was tonight, which is about 20 degrees outside and snowy).
2. Put the plastic over the raised bed, put the side with the conduit on the ground, and pull the other side over the hoop house.  Make it nice and straight, and make sure again that the conduit is just barely on the ground, but that the plastic is nice and tight.  I hope someday to get a video of this to make it make more sense :).
3. Make a mark on the side that doesn't have the conduit right at the ground, this is where the other pipe needs to go to so that each pipe rests on the ground and there isn't any slack.
4. Go back inside with your plastic, whew.
5. Take your box, and put a mark 3.75 inches below that mark, and another one 2.75 inches below that mark.  Why 3.75 and 2.75?   That mark is the center point where your pipe will rest, and so you want that to lie right in the middle of the 1 inch and 5.5 inch.  If your box is long enough you should also make a mark at 2.75 inches above the mark, mine wasn't, and that's not too bad, i can always use my cardstock to make the other mark.
6. Use your box to make a bunch of marks on the plastic on the other end.  you should make all 3 marks on the box (using the cardstock if u were only able to make 2). 
7. Use a straight edge to make a line between the lower marks, you only need to do this if you're going to cut off the extra plastic like i'm going to.  If you're not going to do that, then don't worry about it.
8. Punch out your holes and install the grommets just like on side #1
9. Add the pipe to side number 2
10. Done

How to use

Now, each winter you can just stretch the plastic over the raised beds, and use the weight of the conduit to hold down the sides.  Ahh, much better.  Now, this whole thing is all theory, i'll tell you in later posts how this turns out :).

The finished product:

Notice how the poles fit nicely on the edge and there's no extra plastic all over the place.  Very nice :).  Also, It's snowy outside so I had to go put the plastic on by myself and it only took a few minutes.  So far i'm very happy with my upgraded hoop house.

Update 1/9/2013

I planted some of my extra garlic and onions out today (as a test to see how the hoop house works, and how much protection it adds, i'm planning on starting up some collards and lettuce as well to plant out next week, i'm hoping to get stuff in there early that dies, and plant more each week or so just to see which ones do the best). 

I add an update here because the pipe also makes it really easy to pull back the plastic to work in, it was extremely nice.

Building a raised bed

I've built 4 of these in the past, and so I decided these next 2 should be blogged about :).  The raised beds that I create are 10ft x 4ft and they are 10 inches tall.  I think that 6 inches would be plenty if you have decent soil, but if you're going to be composting a ton, or just adding new soil, then the 10 inches will be nice.  This article is explaining how I build them, and things that i've learned in the process of making these, and i'll have nice photos of you of my latest 2 i'm preparing up to go outside.

Materials Needed

• 2*  10inch x 10 ft boards - i'm using treated in this latest set, i've used just normal pine but i'm sure that will break down in a couple years (which was a great idea for me because my first few weren't very good)
• 1*  10inch x 8 ft board
• 1 box of screws that are 3 or so inches long
• 1 drill with a drill bit roughly the size of the screws you got

Price per box

Not counting the drill and what not the boards ended up costing me $35 per raised bed.  I always build them in sets of 2 because my garden is 20ft wide.

Things to consider

• Most importantly get boards that are straight.  Some of the ones i got were warped, and they still don't lay quite right, it's definitely worth the few minutes to go through and pick out the best boards you can find.
• Lowes, and I believe any other hardware store, will cut the boards for you, make sure that the 2 10ft boards are exactly the same length, and have the 8ft board cut down to 2 4ft pieces.  Just make sure that the 4ft pieces are exactly the same width.  The people at the store are happy to make the cuts for you, and they like making sure their work is good, it's why they work there.  Let them do it :)
• you may need to level out your ground, there are several ways to do this, look into an A frame level, or there's another one that uses hoses and what not which is probably easier to build I just don't remember the name right now :) when i build one to level out my land i'll make a post about it.
• Build the frame on a level surface, a living room works perfectly :).

How to build

This is harder to explain, and easier to come up with your own ways to do :).  The thing to pay really good attention to though is to make sure that you use a square on the corners to try and get as close to 90 degrees as possible.  I will often use one of the other boards because i don't have a square, but anything that you know is a perfect square (or close enough) can be used, just make sure that the edges line up nice and even.

Be sure to drill the holes in the side of the boards where you'll screw it to the other board.  When I didn't do this it made it extremely difficult to screw in, and worse split the wood several times.  Drilling the holes lets u line up things nicely and helps to keep everything even.  Make sure to only tighten the screws when you know everything is lined up nicely.  

My first time creating these I didn't follow any of these points, and my finished products were off by a few inches, which with boxes this large ends up meaning I can't get the boxes to be flat, and soil will often spil out the sides.

What does the finished product look like?

(insert photos here when i find my camera :))