Finishing the Coop

Why am I suddenly reminded of Stephen Sondheim's lyrics for Sunday in the Park with George? It's a little out of context, but just as George Seurat (in the show) says, "Look I made a hat/Where there never was a hat!" That's how I feel. We made a coop, where there wasn't one before! And this is a big-footprint item; it has height and heft and presence in the garden. It looks like an accomplishment.

The accomplishment is definitely mostly Tom's. I helped in certain stages and I can say I had a hand in creating it, but Tom is the star of this show. He continued on, weekend after weekend, working every spare minute on the construction. All the bits that were one-person jobs, he did, and did brilliantly. Have a look at our finished building:

The egg collection door

Ladder going up into the hen house

Nesting boxes

We have a couple things left to do. One is to buy locks for both doors. This is to keep the raccoons out, as they can open latches. The other is to make some sort of corner braces to hold roosts, both in the hen house and in the run. I cut some branches off one of our trees last week, and we'll use those for the roosts. And I'll need to buy some straw for nesting; I already have bags of sawdust from Dad for the run. 

The chickens have been ordered and are arriving next Sunday. We'll be getting two Rhode Island Reds, two Barred Rocks, and two Easter Eggers. They will all be older chicks, ready to live outdoors in the coop. Eggs will not be forthcoming until summer. But I think this age is the best of both worlds: They're still young enough to bond with us, but old enough to live outside and take care of themselves.

This was a challenging project and we again thank The Garden Coop for their excellent plans. We had never built anything of this size before, but we learned a lot of new skills and feel confident about building again in the future. 

Vertical Strawberry Wall

Ok, not an entire wall!

I watched an episode of Growing a Greener World which was all about living walls, and immediately I knew I wanted to try this with strawberries. When I ordered bare-root raspberries and blueberries, I also ordered 100 bare-root strawberry plants in anticipation of this project.

The fruit came yesterday. I left it in the boxes overnight, then around 7 this morning I unwrapped everything and put it into buckets of water to rehydrate.

The blueberries (Jubilee and Misty varieties) and raspberries (Latham) were planted in the conventional way, in open spots that get morning sun and afternoon shade, but we made a living wall with the strawberries.

First we needed a pallet. When we went to the hardware store to ask if they had any available, they said "how many can you take?" so pallets are easy to find. The first step is to wash it and make sure it's not made of yucky or treated wood.

You'll need landscape fabric, a plywood sheet, plastic sheeting, and lightweight potting soil. You'll also need some way to attach the pallet to the wall; we used L-brackets.

Here's the place we decided to put the living wall. This is Adam's Make-A-Wish train shed. I removed the train signs (he'll keep them inside the shed), and we marked out our spot.

Then we got the sawhorses in place and started working on the back of the pallet. First we attached the landscape fabric, then the plastic sheeting, with our staple gun. Then the plywood went on with screws. We also made a bottom panel out of some leftover tongue-and-groove from the chicken coop and drilled drainage holes in it. After the back was complete, we lifted it up and made sure we knew where we wanted it to go. Tom did some prep work with the brackets.

Then we turned the pallet over and dumped in two cubic feet of potting soil. We spread that out, then untangled the 100 bare-root strawberry plants (I got two June bearing varieties, Allstar and Honeoye, and two Everbearing varieties, Eversweet and Tristar) and spread them out on top of the dirt. Then we filled in with another bag of potting soil.

Next we had to mount this behemoth. This took three strong people. Tom putting in some brackets beforehand was genius, as we could rest it there. Plenty of dirt spilled out during this stage. After the pallet was secure, Tom finished bolting it to the studs of the shed.

I planted the top with several leftover plants, and packed dirt in. Watering it was a little scary, as lots of dirt fell out. I imagine as I water it (and it's going to need a lot of water, as it's in full sun against a white background), and over time, I'll have to add dirt.

Now that we've done this once, I'd like to do another living wall with coleus for our front porch, which gets only one hour of sun per day. I'd like to modify the pallet so that it stands up on feet. I can see lots of uses for this kind of planting.

Here are the raspberries and blueberries, planted with plenty of compost. It was a fruit day, for sure!

Enameling Class

I spent a few hours at The Crucible today, taking an Enameling class that Tom had given me for Christmas. It was interesting, and I had a good time.

The Crucible is a fascinating place in West Oakland. They have classes in glass blowing, metal arts, leatherwork, etc. All kinds of things that people don't do very often any more. None of us has ever taken a class there before, although I do like attending their winter art sale - I always find very unique gifts.

First of all I should say that I had never even heard of enameling before Tom gave me this gift, and I had no idea what to expect, so I went with a very open mind. My class consisted of seven people in a smallish room near the back of the warehouse, equipped with three kilns. All of my classmates were my age or older, which surprised me, since everyone I had seen at The Crucible before this was extremely young and hip. But I fit right in to this crowd.

The teacher explained that enamel is basically ground-up glass, applied in layers and then fired by heat. There is liquid enamel, too - which is how our Le Creuset pots are made, enamel over cast iron. Cloisonné and Limoges china are made by the enamel method, as well.

We used powdered enamel rather than liquid. We were given a small rectangle of copper and we went through four layers of enameling, with various stages in between of cooling and cleaning. The kilns are kept at 1500 degrees (!!!) so there was a good amount of time spent on safety procedures. We all ended up with a product that we liked, and I intend to put mine on our Christmas tree. I'm not sure I'll ever do this sort of thing again (unlike a cheesemaking class, say, which is easy to replicate at home), but I enjoyed learning about it.

Some tools at a workstation. The red things are sifters.

Colors and examples

Colored jars of powdered enamel in a drawer

my rectangle of copper, covered with the first layer of enamel, before firing

a rectangle on a screen, just out of the kiln

The kilns. If you look at the one on the far right, you can see the heat coming out the crack of the open door.

The temperature in the kiln. Yikes!

Finished products. Mine is the one with the poppies that look more like misshapen orange fish underwater.

Seeds have arrived!

Not much got done here in the garden this past weekend, for two reasons. One, it was raining! Glorious buckets of rain, much needed after a completely dry January. And two, my daughter and I were away at a theater competition in Fullerton (that's in Orange County, down in Southern CA). When I got home late Monday night, the skies had cleared and the seed packets had arrived!

I ordered all my vegetable seeds from Renee's, as usual. Her seeds always do well in my garden, and when I've ordered from other companies, the results are just not as successful. I believe that's because her small company is located quite near where I live, and she grows all these varieties in her test garden. The seeds that she collects from the plants on her property also do well in my climate. That's my theory, anyway.

I also got some flower seeds from the same company. These are all varieties that did well in my garden last year, plus the bees really liked them - and I did too!

I also ordered some more native wildflower seeds from Larner's as I do every year. Judith has a wonderful demonstration garden and her seeds are terrific. When we visited, we saw how they collect and separate them. I do some of that here with my own flowers, but it never hurts to have more.

I'm planning a trip to a new-to-me nursery in San Francisco, Bay Natives. I would like to purchase some larger bushes of manzanita as well as some other native plants in larger form. I see they also have artichokes, so that will fulfill Kate's wish to have an artichoke garden.

I ordered six raspberry canes, six more blueberry bushes, and 100 bare root strawberry plants from Stark Brothers, a business I learned about on Growing a Greener World. It's not a local nursery, but I've never ordered bare root plants before, and I haven't been thrilled with the blueberry bushes and strawberry plants I've gotten from local nurseries. I expect that order to be delivered some time this week.

And of course, I'll get tomatoes and peppers from the Contra Costa Master Gardeners, as I did last year. Here's the info on their sale:

3 Great Tomato Plant Sales In April!
Mark your calendars!
Next week,  our Master Gardeners will startthousands of tomato, pepper, eggplant and tomatillo seeds in anticipation of our 4th Annual Great Tomato Plant Sale.  It's sure to be amazing once again!

More details on the varieties available next month.

Don't miss out -- mark your calendar for these dates!

Our Garden - Walnut Creek

Saturday, April 4, 10 A.M. - 3 P.M. and

Saturday, April 11, 10 A.M - 2 P.M

West County Sale - Adams Crest Farm, Richmond

Saturday, April 11, 10 A.M. - tbd

I really missed working in the garden this weekend. And I was about as far away from nature as you can get, being on a college campus for two days, and then in Disneyland the other two. Although Disney did have quite a few flowers in bloom, and we saw many butterflies and bees working the blossoms. Still, it was more of a 'people' weekend then a 'garden' weekend. Kate's group did very well in the competition, and it was a very interesting time for me, as the children were taught by professionals both at the college and behind the scenes at Disney. Theater was my life for many years, and I would have loved something like this when I was in high school. For Kate, it wasn't so fun. Lots of crowds, much asked of her, intense competition, and so on. Disneyland is overstimulating for the most grounded person, let alone an autistic one! We managed to have a good time for the most part, despite all the challenges.

We got very little sleep, and work was tough today. When I got home, I found a little present on my porch from a neighbor, which brightened my day considerably!

Sweet little eggs from her newly-laying hens! Aren't they beautiful? Soon, we'll have something like this every day at Poppy Corners: We intend to finish the coop this long President's Day weekend.

Urban Farm Tour

The Institute of Urban Homesteading organizes and hosts Urban Farm Tours every year, and this year they will be having one in Oakland (June 13), one in Hayward (Sept 19), and one in Walnut Creek (June 6). Our garden has been selected to be one of those on tour on June 6! We are so excited to share our yard with all those interested, and it's gratifying to be part of a big movement of folks taking a greater interest in growing their own food. We're happy to share anything we've learned in our own process of 'getting back to the land.' Even if it's only a tiny parcel of land. :)
So mark your calendars and join us at Poppy Corners on June 6! We'll be glad to see you. More information to come, as it becomes available.