What did you do in the garden today?

[YourRabbitGirl]

Picked and ate some juicy rhubarb, scuffed up some weed seedlings out of the wood chips, fashioned a new garden gate out of an old section of picket fence.

It frosted heavy here last night and supposed to do it all again tonight, but nothing looks the worse for wear out there. The lettuce and other greens seem to love this cold weather, of course.

Finished building a coop for the chicks I bought. 8 white leghorns and 3 45 days... I'm actually taking care of them in preparation for my daughters birthday..

 

[Daisy]

Its unlikely I will ever be fully self sufficient but I am making as many steps in that direction as I can. Gardening is not something I did growing up and its all new territory to me. For now I am trying to stick within my limitations as I am a pro at over doing it!

Can you collect rainwater runoff from your roof to help with the watering? I know it is illegal in some areas.
I had a rain barrel set up in Wyoming (17" annual precipitation) and used it to water my flower bed. I set up a system of micro tubing (1/4" tubing for irrigation systems) to the base of each plant and hooked it up to the rain barrel. I had installed a faucet on the barrel so I could turn the water on/off for irrigating.

Cute idea I'll keep it in mind for the future. I only have retic set up on the orchard so far but often use the hose on the fruit trees as well anyway. I like to water with the hose because each plant here has different requirements. Plus, I can do my exercises I also catch run off from the car port in an old bin A barrel with a tap is a better idea, I can imagine which plants it could feed right now.

The house roof guttering catches, runs in pipes under the paths and pops up in the garden beds directly. It did lead to flooding the first winter I was here but I have built up the soil a LOT more since then. No flooding last year.

I am on mains town water so availability isn't an issue for me. The restrictions are only on reticulation. The quality is very poor coming from two town dams specifically for use on the towns gardens. It is a rising saline wheatbelt area with a retirement population, so they set it up with gardeners in mind. Most of us have native plants with a mix of cottage gardens and very few grow veggies because of the challenging conditions. A few have fruit trees.

When we build the new coop this spring, I intend to install a gutter on each of the roof sections. These will feed rain barrels, which will then be used to water the garden and fill waterers for the flock, as well as swim basins for the ducks.

I did this on the first little duck run I made, just to catch in a bucket, now I have moved them out to the old woodshed so its not set up yet and probably wouldn't catch enough for the pond but its worth doing.

Thanks for the article @Britesea

For now I am growing herbs in large pots which is working really well. I don't want to push beyond my abilities again at this stage. I have plenty of time, Keeping the natives and flowers going is my current goal as the bee population is amazing here, maybe I could aim for honey down the line

 

[Hinotori]

For pots, setting up drip lines is the way to go if you have a lot. All Mom has is pots now as she can't bend for soil work. She put in drip lines about 4 years ago to cover her 80+ pots. The size of the pot determines how many emitters are needed. She prefers the drip to the sprayer emitters as those kept breaking on her. You can adjust for constant low drip, or have it set to where you turn it on however many days and water until moisture is correct.

I'm probably going to follow her example once I get the raised bed area and pots situated in the silkie courtyard. I figure I can also set it up where it can fill the silkie's waterers when I turn it on.

 

[Lazy Gardener]

Finished building a coop for the chicks I bought. 8 white leghorns and 3 45 days... I'm actually taking care of them in preparation for my daughters birthday..

So, are you planning to give some/all of those chicks to your dtr?

 

[Mini Horses]

very few grow veggies because of the challenging conditions. A few have fruit trees.

Many veggies can grow well in pots...large ones but, fill will good soil and plant. If only you, just one or two plants would give you enough to enjoy with those herbs. Of course, some people do not want to garden veggies and that's ok, too! It's quite ok.

 

[Lazy Gardener]

Here you go. If I was container gardening, I'd use a DIY self wicking pot. There are many you tube videos out there, and almost every one of them has their own spin on the same basic concept. This one is practical, uses readily available materials, and is not too hard to listen to.

 

[flowerbug]

for arid land growing of things permaculture has a lot of good information on how to do that and improve the alkaline hardpan soils.

my only addition to what @Britesea wrote is that if you are going to use thread drip lines you can get some small plastic UV resistant tubing to put the threads through as that way you will get most of the water down to the plant instead of evaporating off the threads.

 

[Britesea]

Good idea, @flowerbug I was just quoting a post someone else wrote. I imagine the plastic tubing might be difficult to get, or too expensive, for a lot of those farmers in Kenya and Botswana; but here in the States, it would certainly help cut down on evaporation.

 

[Daisy]

It was finally cool enough to get some real work done today. I trimmed the front hedges with the hand held hedge clippers to get some muscle building in along with the job. I moved that last pallet in and stood it up along the wall to put all my rakes in it, I am so happy with that idea I got from here. Its not anything fancy but certainly keeps it all tidier for now. I have a LOT of tidying to do on the patio and just having those rakes in a row made a big difference to me. I watered the trees along the side and let the chickens in to turn the mulch for me. Raked the path and added the clipping to the mulch pile.

I moved the ducklings into the wire covered run so they could have a splash in the little tub. They are nearly big enough for a real pond! I was so pleased with mother duck, teaching them how to be hearded back to bed in the shed when the time came.

 

[YourRabbitGirl]

Picked and ate some juicy rhubarb, scuffed up some weed seedlings out of the wood chips, fashioned a new garden gate out of an old section of picket fence.

It frosted heavy here last night and supposed to do it all again tonight, but nothing looks the worse for wear out there. The lettuce and other greens seem to love this cold weather, of course.

Harvested some tomatoes that we used for dinner. planted some of the plants, removed some dead plants to make my farm look nice. had coffee, some french bread with butter.