Another Banner Day, the Garden Construction is Done!

It is a fact, everything is done on the block raised bed garden with a roof and wind break! I am so very happy to have it done. I think Caroline is happy to have it done and me happy!

Ain’t it a beauty?

Here is a photo of the person who did most of its construction.

The roof and the windbreak let in all day sunshine but keep the wind and rain at bay. The wire fence keeps the chickens and turkeys out of the garden, we will make them a good place for dust baths where the ol’ banana trees were (more info about such stuff to follow). I will be keeping records and posting same as to what was planted, when and the success. I will also post what problems I have and how it was resolved (IF). BTW, the wood slats I had Juan use over the Poly sheets have already begun to prove no self destructing vibrations up and down which would destroy the poly sheets due to wind. A strong gusty wind didn't bother a thing, nice, very nice. 

Caroline showing our neighbor, Linda, the start of horseradish root we received for Linda McEnery. Thank you Linda. Maybe I should have zoomed on them but it was so bright I had a hard time seeing the LCD viewfinder.

The white material will break the wind while still allowing the afternoon sun into the garden. I’m hoping that the clear poly roof and the “al malla antitrips blanco” material will let in all the sun light necessary to grow tomatoes, okra, BELL peppers, bock choy, lettuce, carrots, radishes, beets and whatever we can get to grow along with marigolds and herbs to help deter bad insects. That woven material came from ferreteria Agroservicios Cafeteros Occidente S.A. San Ramon 2447-4534 for C1,261.00/running meter. Normal 5% discount, perhaps cash has something to do with the discount. The material is 3 meters wide, the ferreteria that I had bought from before, they were out, only had material 2 meters wide which was what I had expected so the extra meter wide was a surprise but we just folded it back from the bottom up and left it like that. I think it was very close to the price per running meter that I had paid for the 2 meter material.

I thank all of you for your critique, encouragement and just making such grand comments on our endeavor. That makes things soooo good, thank you!

Much, much more to come. . . . . . .

Roof, Roof, Roof!

Hooray! We have a roof over the garden!!!!

Ain’t it great? Notice the wood strips we used to keep the screw heads from pulling thru the poly sheets. Back behind us is a chicken farm, last year they had several sheets of metal roofing blow off the chicken building. I thought for some time about that and the fact that I didn’t want that problem with the poly sheets, they aren’t cheap. Tomorrow I will install the chicken wire and maybe the windbreak cloth. Next week, the planting of the first seeds (well maybe a little before that, after all this time who can wait???? Of course I’ll post more photos of the chicken fencing and the wind break. I did look very close at the amount of sun light getting thru the poly sheeting compared to the amount with no poly. That was a major concern. So many folks told me that it wouldn’t work that there wouldn’t be enough sunlight getting thru to grow veggies, well I now am sure they were wrong. Of course the proof will be in what does or doesn’t grow but that is the case with any endeavor to do with gardening. Soon I’ll take photos of a sun rise thru the garden area to give you an idea of the orientation of the garden. Next week will begin the starting of seeds in the window greenhouse.

The greenhouse faces east-southeast, it will get great morning sun and as the sun gets hot it will be filtered thru the tree outside the greenhouse. With the tree and the back open it never gets super hot, there is now a water spigot next to the greenhouse on the left.

Can you find all six of the chompipes in the two photos?

They almost disappear don’t they?

And of course one of our helpers, what would be a day without our furry friends. Samonia is a good helper but she keeps dropping her hammer J. Others have come out and gone back in, too much work for them (they know where the food dish is)!

More update and photos tomorrow.

Sorry about this but my internet provider has been messed up and my blog wouldn’t load, so I hope you enjoy this as late as it is, hopefully my next posting will be on time. Art

Back working on the garden after a log wait.

A new chapter in the garden blog.

It has been a long time coming but the garden will get it’s roof this week.  Yep, the corrugated poly sheets got here Thursday. I have been painting the wood strips that we will use over the poly sheets to keep the strong gusty winds from pulling the screw heads thru the poly. Last year the strong gusty winds blew several sheets of corrugated sheet roofing off of the chicken farm behind us. I don’t want to chase $16.00 sheets (replacement costs for one sheet) of roofing down the road, besides the sheets bang up and down all the time without the wood strips holding them down.

Does that look like $240.00 (20 sheets)???? Well, no matter, it will give me the kind of roof needed to keep the rain off and still let the sun light thru. I’ll sort of have a green house without walls. This poly is supposed to last a life time, now whose life time they are using for a scale is the big question (of course it should last as long as I do).

Juan did manage to get the gate put up already, you can’t see the green fencing to keep the chickens out of the garden but it goes up to the middle cross brace on the gate. We may have to clip one wing of the chickens to keep them from flying over the fence.

Oh yeah, the mutts are growing!

They are now the Hounds of Baskerville!!!! Nothing is safe from the jaws of steel, they’ll chew anything even with us buying soup bones from the market for them they aren’t satisfied.

Oh yeah, we added some poults (turkeys) to the flock.

This was them when we got them at 3 weeks, cute huh?

You don’t see how much they have grown but here they are 4 ½ weeks. To us it seems like they have doubled in size. Caroline had said some time back that she would like to have turkeys. About 2 weeks ago Lorraine’s brother had to show me all of his animals which included 17 young poults. I had asked him if he would like a couple of silkie chickens so after he said yes I asked if his momma sold the poults. I said I would like to get 2 for us to raise for the table, it was to be a surprise for Caroline. Well I couldn’t get them for another week at which time I took Caroline along. Boy did she get excited about the poults. What I didn’t know was she planned to keep the 2 for raising our own stock. After that was disclosed I went back to see if I could purchase 2 more for this year’s holiday meals. I also picked up 2 poults for our neighbor and will hold them till she gets her coop finished.

Well it is back out to finished painting the wood strips so we can work non-stop tomorrow. I’m hoping that we can get the whole roof on tomorrow, if it is up to Juan we will. He is a real go-getter!!!! For sure there will be an update tomorrow.

Well the internet was acting up so this didn't get posted when I tried. Actually that worked out OK as the wind was so strong we didn't even try to work on the roof. the wind is supposed to drop so we may try tomorrow, Wednesday the 16th.    

Just a quick note!

Just a quick note. I removed the tarp over the garden and put it on the roof temporarily to keep any rain out of the garden so it can dry out. I will be working on installing a water spigot in the end of the garden so I’ll be shoveling the compost around and it is so much easier when it the compost is dry. The added benefit was seeing the air flow over the roof.  It is as I had hoped, I don’t foresee any problems with the wind raising the roof (pun intended).

 I took this photo just as the sun was rising over the mountains to the east, gave a beautiful contrast to my photo.

 At the same time I was out looking the roof over there was this Thanksgiving Day rainbow in the valley. This really set up my feelings for the day! There was just a light mist which gave us the rainbow. A few minutes later when I came out of the chicken coop the mist and the rainbow was gone (that is the corner of the chicken coop on the left). It pays to be an early riser!

"A good day for Juan getting things done"

Yesterday morning was not a good day to work or so I thought. I almost called Juan and had him stay home but it cleared up after a while and he went to work. It is a bad day for me, temperature of 100.4, it wiped me out. I wanted to at least do some small things but, nope, the body and mind said they were taking the day off so I might as well just sit and watch the boob tube or fuss with the computer. Guess what I did, sat on my butt and veggied out. Sometimes that is all you can do.

Anyway Juan was busy, busy as always, it did take him a little longer to do things as there wasn’t the extra pair of hands or a go-fer. I’ve never heard him grump about things, he just goes ahead with whatever and gets it done. I will say one thing, he does like the small electric chain saw that I have. I should get him one for Christmas!

We need to get 4 more 1X3s for the roof and then the corrugated clear poly roof can go on. I have searched everwhere but cannot find the wavy board that you can put under the corrugation to give the plastic more strength. Too bad I can’t bring some back in my luggage.

If I can, I will take the blue tarp and put that over the roof to let the compost dry out, plus it will allow me to start fussing with other things like maybe some place to store the few garden tools we will need. Now that you can see the results of the block garden, you can see that there is no need for a tiller, no need to dig the garden up in the spring so I don't need all of those tools and the back breaking work that goes with them. I also want to run a pipe out for water. I goofed, I was going to have the pipe come up in the end of the garden for water. I may just go ahead a dig it under the footing and bring it up inside the garden, much better than any other place for ease of use.

From our sunroom I get these awesome sunrises, OK, so I went out side to take the photo but it is what I can watch while I have the important first cup of coffee going over my plans for the day and changing those that have to be done later.

This morning I didn’t get to watch as I was trying to sleep in with my temperature. If it doesn’t drop then it is a trip to the clinic for the “cure”.

Well I guess I will try and find something I can fuss with or answer some emails. Then again I just might sit in the sunroom and watch the chickens, perhaps take a nap, who knows????

I am finally caught up with the garden construction!!!!

OK, this gets me caught up. It is surprising how far behind you can get without realizing it. The weather has been fair. Had to run to the saw mill and get more wood for the framing of the roof. Things are plodding along.

Look at all the blue sky, no rain in that. The weather gets better and better but then the wind has made its presence known. You can see the shredded leaves on the banana trees. Three banana trees have blown over already but they come right back, too bad they aren’t the good eating bananas.

Juan is doing a marvelous job of framing the roof out. Actually he does good at whatever he does, be it woodwork or cement/blocks. Once the roof is framed out then we wait for the poly sheets to finish the garden.

 I have tried to start some bell pepper seeds but I don’t think they are any good. Several gardeners that I know say they have problems with seed germination here in Costa Rica. Most agree that they think it is the high humidity that affects the seeds. Most now seal their seed in plastic bags and either put them in the fridge or freezer. The seeds I have are ones that I bought locally but kept on the shelf. They were inoculated seeds but whatever, they don’t seem to be germinating. Of course I am starting the seeds in the window greenhouse so they should really pop. I have a couple of other plants recovering in the greenhouse and they are doing great so I guess it is a seed problem. I will try and get seeds in San Jose next time I am there at El Semillero, all I have to do is to find the place in San Jose where the streets have no names.

OK, you asked how the pups are doing, well here they are in all their glory. They are growing fast, if you could see their front feet they are large, so is their appetite.

Of course they do cooperate, ha, ha! They have grown some, Caroline can hardy keep them in one place.

The silkie chicks are doing great. Mrs. PJ has scratched the wood shavings all over herself, the water container and out from under the board the feed gets scattered on. You only see 6 chicks, one is under the board, camera shy maybe!

Catching up, one day at a time!

Got some more work done on the garden. I’m doing this in a daily progress report but not on the days they were done, I’m catching up. I should get things back to a proper daily update soon.

Juan got the batter boards all in place strung his chalk lines and set the roof support posts. Yes, I do help but the credit goes to him, he does most of the work with me being the once-in-a-while helper, the extra hands and also I get to be the go-fer, I go-fer this and go-fer that.

Each of the post goes deep and has rebar pieces put though crosswise to make sure that the wind doesn’t pull the posts out of the cement should they shrink a little allowing the wind to work them up and down till they pop out which happen to a neighbors patio roof. This wood isn’t supposed to shrink but I’m not taking any chances, the 6’ sheets of poly are $10.00 each and I need 20 of them.

All 7 of the silkie hens eggs hatched (her name is Mrs. PJ, the rooster’s name is PJ as Caroline thinks the feathers going down his legs makes him look like he has pajamas on). The little fuzz balls are doing fine.

Notice that the little guy has feathers on his legs all ready, I think they were there when they hatched. It was unusual in that it took 3 days for all the eggs to hatch, perhaps that is something unique to silkies, I don’t know but 7 out of 7 is very good.

The Fresh Step litter buckets make very good feed containers in that the tops snap down which keeps the mice out of the feed. It takes 5 buckets to hold a bag of chicken feed and 1 more for the cracked corn treats. I need one more bucket for a second bag of cracked corn so I can keep the two balanced when I buy feed. Fresh Step stopped putting the kitty litter in the buckets, darn it! I gave some away not knowing they were stopping using the buckets, oh well, things always work out, I’ll just have to clean out one that I use for storing something else and put that into a 5 gallon bucket.

 Here is a photo taken a while back of a sunrise ground fog developing. From the time I took this photo the fog filled the valley in less than 5 minutes. Where I was standing is where the wood/chicken shed is now.

More photos to come!