PJ's Quest For Living Better

Jack Rabbits Fighting!

2010-06-09T21:21:00.004-06:00

Here is a video of 3 wild rabbits fighting on our front lawn!

Spring is here (maybe)

2010-04-15T21:23:00.003-06:00

I think spring is here now. At least its here enough that I think I can plant my first seeds. Today was great at 20 degrees. I saw that southern alberta got blasted with a big snow storm yesterday. Last weekend we had some really bad frozen rain/snow but I hope that is it for the year.
The last two years I have planted carrots, lettuce, and spinach in the fall just before snow(late Octoberish). This worked relatively well because I had some things germinate when the ground was still too wet to work in early May. Overall probably half of the seeds germinated. I have tried peas but this doesn't seem to work. With the lack of rain last year and snowfall this year there is no problem with wet soil for the most part. This fall I didn't get around to getting seeds in the ground so I probably won't have things up as early unless we get a really nice spring.
Anyways, lets forget about what I didn't do last year and focus on today. II put in a few feet of Mesclun and a few feet of spinach under my small hoop greenhouse. This weekend I will plant some carrots and try to plant more lettuce/spinach every week.

Mini hoop greenhouse temperature tests

2010-04-08T17:55:00.002-06:00

Last night I put out a digital thermometer inside of the greenhouse. This gadget has a feature that logs the min and max values. I don't know the exact outside temperature that we had but I think it was a low of -2 and a high of +16. Inside the greenhouse the thermometer had a min of -1.6 and a high of +34. I guess that means the house is doing a great job of warming the cold soil. In this test the one end was wide open as I haven't completed the build but I think this system will work.
Iast week I ordered a digital thermometer circuit to hook up to a microcomtroller to build a real nice logger but that's a topic bes left for another day. Hopefully I will have some time this spring to work on my automation projects.

Mini hoop greenhouse

2010-04-07T23:08:00.005-06:00

I have spent the last few months researching low cost greenhouses. Currently, one of the requirements of my vegetable garden is that it not only provides my family with a constant supply of food for the summer and for winter storage but to also allow us to reduce our family's food costs. As a result I can't justify spending 1000's or 10s of thousands of dollars on a greenhouse to raise a few thousands dollars worth of food. One of the main challenges of getting a good yield in Alberta is dealing with the very short growing season. Therefore, if i can build an unheated greenhouse that allows me to extend the growing season by 1 month in the spring and 1 month in the fall i will be very happy.
I stumbled upon the idea of hoop greenhouses using PVC pipe and inexpensive poly. This seems to fit all of my requirements.I am still uncertain as to whether I need to build a full size greenhouse as it might be that row covers would fulfill my purpose.I have already purchased two 6'x20' foot floating fabric row covers to use for frost protection as well as barriers for insects and other pests.Perhaps I should put up a few "portable" row covers using poly in the early spring and then change them to the fabric covers once summer hits or remove them altogether.The only vegetable that has problems with the row cover idea is the tomatoes. Typically my plants grow to 6 feet even with extensive pruning. I am going to need a fullsize hoop greenhouse to cover them I guess.
I am only able to have a small garden in my backyard due to the lot size and the nearly total shade that is provided by huge popular trees. The last two years I have had access to a much larger plot across town so that is where I grow most of my vegetables. In my backyard I have a small raised bed (~5.5' x 10'). I like to fill this with a various assortment of vegetables that I can pick from readily without having to drive across town to my large garden. I decided to build a small hoop house over the raised bed. Not only will this allow me to get an earlier start on spring, I can also use it as a cold frame for all the hardier plants I have started indoors including some bedding plant such as geraniums, pansies, violas, marigolds. I currently have 10 4' flourscents indoors scattered around my house and I have just about run out of space to stuff all the plants as I transplant them into larger containers.
I figure this small hoop will be a prototype for a large hoop house if I decide to build it. I started by pounding 3' lengths of rebar into the four corners of the raised bed and then 3 more along the length at appoximately 30" spacings.My rasied bed is probably much deeper then I really need so 3' rebar was just enough. In harder ground 2.5' would probably be good enough.I then used 10' lengths of white 1/2 inch PVC pipe to use as hoops. I had bought some metal strapping to use to fasten the pipe to the sides of the rasied bed but after putting up the pipe I figured I didn't really need it. If this were a larger house I would definietly use it though.

The widest plastic I could find was 102" and I needed to find a way to join two pieces. I decided to overlap two pieces by about 6' which would give a length of about 15.5" and a width of 12'. I wasn't really sure what the best way to join the pieces together would be. For a larger house I would definetly research this some more and try to get a single piece of poly. I just used some clear packing tape on the top and bottom sides of the overlapping join. I think this will hold ok. We will see how well it holds up after a few rains. I think the two hardest parts of making a hoop house are putting the poly up with wind and making sure not to puncture the poly. I ended up using some 1x6 boards as strapping to hold the plastic in place allong the sides.
This used material I had on hand as i am cheap, so I am not exactly sure what I would use if I didn't have this. I personally don't know if I like the idea of just using staples.It seems like they would just rip in a wind storm.
I also tried cutting a 3" piece of black 1/2" poly pipe that had been slit along the length. I thought these could be used as a clamp.I tried putting them on quickly but found that the rough corners where I cut ended up punctering the poly as I put it on.This might be a good solution if the edges were filed smooth but it seems like it would still rub and puncture eventually.
I still don't know the best/easiest way to finish the ends. I have some overlapping poly that I have currently just wrapped around and held down by extra planks.I think I need to build two walls on the ends with some type of door.The other thing I haven't figured out is how to make one of the sides roll up a couple of feet in the summer to allow access for harvesting/weeding/watering.I think this design might not support this unless I cut vertical slits near the ends to make a flap or something.
You can see my current progress in the pictures below.

Lots of Marigolds

2010-03-30T00:01:00.002-06:00

Yesterday I planted 60 marigolds from last year's seeds(or maybe they are 2 years old). I just found them sitting in the laundry room when I was cleaning up. We will see if the germinate..

more Tomato seeds

2010-03-24T19:17:00.004-06:00

More tomotoes seeded

6 Golden Girl
4 Sub Arctic Plenty
12 Roma
8 Sugary F1 Hybrid

Seeding Marigolds

2010-03-21T20:26:00.002-06:00

Today I picked up a few seed packs of Marigolds and planted some.

19 Naughty, germinated March 23
9 Zenith Mixed, germinated March 23

Again, more tomatos seeded

2010-03-21T20:23:00.003-06:00

I picked up some more seeds from salisbury greenhouse today.
I was able to find the Sugary F1 Hybrids and some "Manitoba" which are supposed to be good for the prairies.

9 Sugary F1 Hybrid
10 Manitoba

More Tomato Seeds

2010-03-16T21:21:00.004-06:00

All my other bedding plants that I planted earlier this winter seemed to have pretty good germination. Unfortunately the tomatoes and some others appear to be suffering from damping off disease.
Tomatoes are one of my favorite vegetables so I figure seeds are cheap so I should just plant a lot of seedlings to handle the possibility of a high fallout.
Tonight I planted a few more small trays

9 roma - 2 germinated March 21
9 Sungella - germinated March 22
7 Golden girl - germinated March 22
2 Sugary F1 Hybrid - germinated March 22

Last year our family's favorite variety was Sugary F1 Hybrid. It looks like I ran out of seeds tonight so I need to go to greenhouse asap to make sure I can procure some more.

1 Thessalonians 4:11-12

2010-03-16T08:25:00.001-06:00

Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody.
1 Thessalonians 4:11-12

Planting more tomatoes

2010-03-13T22:49:00.007-07:00

Tonight I planted a few more tomato seeds. I think I am still a bit early but I have lots of seeds so its better to have too many plants come spring then not enough. At this point I am thinking about building a greenhouse but who knows if it will happen in time.
I planted :

3 Golden Girl -germinated March 20
3 Roma VF -germinated March 20
4 Sugary F1 Hybrid - germinated March 22
4 Sungella- germinated March 21

One seed of the Sugary F1 Hybrid that I planted last weekend has germinated. It does not look healthy I am thinking they got hit by damping off. I have been putting the trays inside of ziplock bags. Looks like I need to get some air circulating and get some fungicide.

First Planting of Tomatoes

2010-03-07T17:43:00.004-07:00

Last year(2009) I planted the following varieties on March 28:

Sugary F1 Hybrid
Sub Arctic Plenty
Early Girl Hybrid
Tiny Tim

If I recall, I think this was a bit late but I ended up with a reasonable crop that matured soon enough.

I decided that I should plant a few tomatoes a little early. I will plant every weekend until the end of March to spread things out a bit and to ensure I have good germination seeing as some of my seeds are several years old.

Today I planted 4 plants of Sugary F1 Hybrid. Last year was the first year planting this variety and it was our family's favourite. This produces a cherry sized tomatoe of reddish pink color but with oval shaped fruites slightly pointed at the blossom end.

I am going to wait 1 week before I plant other varieties.

Setting up blog stuff

2010-01-30T21:37:00.001-07:00

This post has nothing to do with gardening but rather some tips/hints for setting up a blog that I have found.
How to add google Analytics to your blog:
http://www.andywibbels.com/how-to-add-google-analytics-to-your-blogger-blog/