What did you do today to prep?

[CounterOfBeans]

Nice garden, Coastrange! Maybe big enough to call a truck farm!
I hear you on the drip lines and seep hoses. Got them out, water's going to be at a premium this year! Planing on pumping bath water out to a barrel, which I just picked up!

Might be wanting to figure out a way to catch as much rainwater as you can too.

 

[Sgt Nambu]

Way beyond that. Barrels at the down spouts in purdy cedar outer barrels.

 

[CoastRange57]

You must be all geared up to do some SERIOUS…. I mean SERIOUS…. canning when harvest time rolls around.

We freeze a lot, I know that is not the best storage solution, but the wife is still working full time, me about 1/2 time so time is of the essence. We dry store the potatoes and onions, dry about 1/2 or more of the onions. Green beans are frozen. Have a refrigerator jsut for apples, but will being making cider and juice this year. We buy in caliuflower because it is just a pain to grow.

We can about 25 pounds of tuna each summer though. Carrots and beats we just dig as needed, leave them in the ground until the slugs get them in late winter. This all keeps us busy enough in the late summer and fall.

 

[CoastRange57]

Nice garden, Coastrange! Maybe big enough to call a truck farm!

Interesting enough, 2 years ago I got the bright idea of having a truck farm. I have the back ground and have been involved in agriculture all my life, crop science and ag engineering major in college.

So I prepared and plant about 1.75 acres of various produce, got my marketing together and had at it. It was going to be a u pick , you dig operation and was priced accordingly.

Now do you think that anybody wanted to come out and dig / pick their own produce ?? They wanted to come out and buy picked produce, but harvesting it themselves was not going to happen. Hiring people or picking it myself was not an option, and I had about 2 to 3 people or families come out each week and actually harvest it. The other local truck farms that picked the produced and arranged it all nice in stands sold out pretty much every day.

So at the end of the season, I gave a lot away to neighbors and my chickens ate veggies for 3 months. Now I just have enough for family and some to give away.

 

[CoastRange57]

Might be wanting to figure out a way to catch as much rainwater as you can too.

We used to have a container nursery operation here, and I designed and built a surface water recovery system when we used to overhead irrigate. We have a small pond that is lined and fills up with the flood waters in the winter, so that part is great,and the drip system never even comes close to depleting the pond.

 

[CounterOfBeans]

We used to have a container nursery operation here, and I designed and built a surface water recovery system when we used to overhead irrigate. We have a small pond that is lined and fills up with the flood waters in the winter, so that part is great,and the drip system never even comes close to depleting the pond.

I guess with as ambitious a garden space as you first described, I should have just assumed that you had your ducks in a row.

 

[The Heretic]

 

[The Heretic]

I was thinking of turning those logs into poles, but never got around to it and figured that the hassle of treating them so they wouldn't rot in the ground wasn't worth it at this point - so I started cutting them up for firewood. They are maple, and I have plenty more where those came from after the thinning and a small grove of standing maples (or some similar hardwood) too.

That little area there is a compacted gravel bed about a foot thick, that used to have a mobile home on it. I am thinking of scraping the rock into a pile to expose the dirt underneath and put a garden there as it gets the best sun.

 

[The Heretic]

The problem is that there are water and septic tank lines under there somewhere.

 

[erudne]

Impressive operation, love the saw and log lifters. I wish I could advise you about the pipes, there is some sort of electronic gadget that can find em but beyond that I'm clueless.

 

[CoastRange57]

You can take two pieces of solid wire about 24 inches long 16ga or 14 ga, marking flags, or what ever you have. Bend them at a 90 degree angle so that about 4 inches is 90 degrees perpendicular to the other.

Put the bent portion in your hands, hold them loosely in front of you about 8 inches apart. Start walking around and when you cross over most any kind of line, he two wires will cross. Don't force them, let them do it on their own. Plastic pipes will cause them to do this, metal electrical lines as well, even more so if energized.

You may not locate exactly over the top of them, but it will get you in the close vicinity. All underground conveyances has some type of low level electrostatic charge.

 

[mjbskwim]

A small excavator would be the safest bet.A backhoe type rig has more PSI on the ground and breaks stuff easier.
A bobcat with tracks would work also,unless the lines are just under the surface

 

[erudne]

Shall I tell you how many pipes I've broken using a track-hoe?

 

[abu]

just put together a pre packed 3 month supply of food in a 44 gallon drum. my own design.
purchased fishing gear for myself and my daughters and began bowhunting training with the kids at the local archery club

 

[mjbskwim]

Shall I tell you how many pipes I've broken using a track-hoe?

Haha,yeah me too but I have save more than I have broke. I did a lot of underground both in downtown Seattle and Tacoma. Pipes from the 1890's
Get 1 with a blade to push it into a pile. Or a little dozer
What happens with a rubber tired hoe it when you pick up a load of material most of the weight is on the front tires for a bit and that's when you break stuff.
Or a track hoe with a thumb and a long "I" beam. We use those to smooth out areas if we don't bring a dozer in also.The idea is to get all the gravel off the area with pipes before picking it up.

 

[The Heretic]

I need to get a shorter bar for cutting firewood. The long bar is good for stumps and fallen trees, but most of the logs I am cutting up for firewood don't need that long bar, and it makes it awkward to prevent cutting into other logs or rounds or worse, the ground - especially when there are rocks in the ground.

The nice thing about a chainsaw is that you can cut wood with it much faster than by hand - I can cut enough wood in half a day to last a month, and that is with my bad back and being out of shape. The amount of fuel is minimal compared to the amount of wood you cut - less than half a gallon for a cord of wood.

The log jack is helpful in getting the logs above the ground, especially the large ones that are too heavy to lift by hand. I need to get a longer handle on it though - the one that came with it is too short for the heavy logs. It is a lot cheaper than powered equipment to lift the logs.

But when I split the wood I do it by hand - it doesn't take that much more effort or time to just use a splitting maul in my experience. It is the hauling and stacking that takes a lot of time and I hate doing that, but you have to do it or it is just a mess.

 

[The Heretic]

I am sure the pipes that cross the area are probably mostly below the gravel, but I know that they come to the surface in a few places for connections because I can see them, so since the new house connected to that older system, I don't want to risk breaking them. I think it might be better to just haul some top soil in and lay it on the gravel, or just not do it at all since I will be moving when I retire.

 

[JackThompson]

Ordered some tobacco seeds to grow yesterday. I'm eventually going to quit smoking, but even if I do, there is value in being able to grow it for trade.

 

[FortunateSon]

Gave myself a gentle dose of reality.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/health/med...at-could-actually-kill-you/ss-BBiEHCz#image=1

 

[erudne]

made a run into E. Portland, my how the place has changed.
got 3 outa 4 errands completed