It might seem that I’m getting a bit ahead of myself, talking about the front gate while still awhile away from completing the wall that sits next to the gate.

But, I was stuck with inspiration over Thanksgiving while visiting our family in Boulder, CO. I came across an incredibly cool footbridge in the town of Nederland, CO, and immediately started taking pictures and sketching later that day.

Here’s what the bridge looked like:

Isn’t that woodworking beautiful?

So, later that day, I did a preliminary sketch on what a front gate version of this might look like:

That drawing still needs some tweaks for certain, but overall I was really happy with the concept.

I posted the draft to our Facebook page to get some feedback, and lo and behold, I woke up the next morning with an email in my inbox from Louis-Charles Pilon, one of Seattle Homestead’s facebook page fans.

Louis-Charles is a landscape architect at Topia (facebook page) in Montreal, Quebec, and took some of his time over the weekend to create a version of my sketch in AutoCAD, complete with some of his own excellent improvements:

My favorite improvement by Louis-Charles is the rounded edge applied to the two right angle brackets supporting the beam at the top.

So, building a variation on this front gate model is in the work plans for 2013. Last year when we had our brick patio and walkway installed, I knew we were going to be installing a gate or arbor of some sort. I also knew it was going to have 4×4 posts that were 8 feet tall, so it needed to be very sturdy.

So, we installed CB44 brackets (like the ones on the right) into concrete posts that went 3 feet deep. The picture below shows where the 4 posts are located (the brackets are covered by black plastic planters for safety).

This photo was taken in August, before we had put up the stucco on either side of the front gate. Currently this section now has the first coat of stucco on both sides.

So, here’s my really rough Microsoft Paint-esque version of what the completed wall would look like with the gate. It should go without saying that it’ll look a bit nicer in real life…

As I look at this mockup, it occurs to me that maybe I should make the pitch of the gate roof match the pitch of our homes roof.

Anyone have any other suggestions or ideas?

The Sunburst Front Gate Design is a post from Seattle Homestead about urban homesteading.

The post The Sunburst Front Gate Design appeared first on Seattle Homestead.

Hello everyone! It’s been a very busy summer and fall, and I’m a bit ashamed that this is only my second post since we began the earthbag wall project in June.

For those of you that are new to Seattle Homestead, we do an annual post that reviews the past year’s accomplishments and lays out goals for the year ahead. We moved in to our home in April 2011, so we’re finishing up our 2nd year and heading strongly into our 3rd year with a number of projects completed and in progress, and plenty more to come.

Here’s our goals for year one and goals for year two so you can see where we started and how far we’ve come.

In last year’s goals and year-end-review post, I made a lofty claim about limiting the scale of our projects.

2011 Homestead Things to Improve On: Scale – One permaculture principle involves starting with small-scale systems and building your way up, and frankly it’s one of the hardest principles for me to embrace and obey. We have so much we want to do on the property that it’s difficult to limit ourselves. As a result, not everything gets done as well as it could. Our garden, for example, could have been much more productive with some additional attention. We also lost a few of our fruit plants, such as the tea tree and possibly the raspberry cane. This is part of the growing process of course, both literally and figuratively, but scale is still something we need to keep in mind during our projects.

To put it mildly, the thought of scale went out the window a few shorts months after I wrote that.

Homestead Projects Completed During 2012:

The scope of our 2012 projects was extensive. We spent nearly every weekend from January to early November working on our yard – the main exception being 4 weekends in August that we took off for our wedding and traveling afterwards (it was a much needed break from the homestead, to say the least).

To summarize, we spent 2012 working on the following:

• Completely transforming the hardscaping of our yard by removing the existing chain link fence and hedges.
• Completing the majority of construction on a 120+ foot long earthbag wall (6 feet in height).
• Building a chicken coop and raising 5 hens that have been laying eggs since September.
• Adding a gorgeous brick patio and walkway to make the focal point of the new courtyard.

Here’s a glimpse at my best estimates of the time that was invested in each project:

Interior Home Improvements:

• Home energy audit, followed by:
  • Caulking near baseboards to reduce air transfer from crawlspace into the home
  • The audit was completed by a energy contractor, and the caulking was done by a local handywoman service, along with some other miscellaneous home improvement tasks.
• Subway tile backsplash in kitchen
  • Long afternoon project completed by Kristina and our good friend Bob

Removing things from the yard to make room for homestead projects:

• Sheet mulched remainder of front yard, about 1500 square feet
  • Time: One afternoon with 4 of us – January
• Removed unproductive & overgrown quince
  • Time: 4 weekend afternoons solo – Feb/March
• Removed dead cherry tree and saved the limbs and trunk for hugelkultur beds
  • Time: 45 minutes for Bob with chainsaw during April work party
• Removed 30 overgrown and hideous hedges that surrounded our property
  • This photo illustrates just how ugly these hedges were in the winter. The photo looks worse due to some camera filters, but you still get a feel for how overgrown they had become.
  • Here’s what they looked like in the summer after we moved in.
  • Time: Half afternoon workparty with 6 friends during April work party
• Removed 120+ feet of chain link fence
  • Time: Half afternoon workparty with 6 friends during April work party
• Shredded quince, hedges, and other branches
  • Time: 3-4 weekends for two of us during April and early May

Non-Wall-Related Yard Improvements:

• Built fence for dog run
  • Time: ~4 weekends solo during March & April
• Built chicken coop (95% complete)
  • Time: 4 weekends with Kris & I during Memorial Day & early June
• Built retaining wall in front yard and backfilled
  • Time: ~3 weekends mostly solo during March & April
• Patio and front walkway installed
  • Time: 3 full workdays for 3 crew members (this project was hired out to our friends at Akina Design in order to have it finished prior to family visiting in early August)

And Finally, Work Completed on The Wall…

• Had property surveyed to make sure we were building wall within city right-of-ways.
• Trenched and filled gravel base for wall
  • Time: One weekend in June
• Held an excellent weekend-long Earthbag Wall Building Workshop to kick off the wall construction.
  • This photo shows some of the progress by the end of that weekend.
  • 18 attendees!
• Bag Construction:
  • This part of the wall is 95% completed
  • Here’s a photo of the bag progress we had made by late July. We’ll have another post within a few months that describes the general building process for the wall with more photos.
  • Time: June, July, September, and October
• Stucco Wire:
  • This part of the wall is 75% completed
  • This was unexpectedly the most tedious task of the wall project. You have to attach chicken wire or another form of lathe to the wall in order for the concrete to stick to the bags. Attaching the chicken wire to the bags has been somewhat miserable, and we haven’t been able to find a decent way to make the process go faster.
  • Time: July, September, and October
• Stucco Scratch Coat:
  • This part of the wall is 60% completed, but it’s only the first coat of stucco.
  • Here’s a photo of the stucco going onto the wall.
  • Time: July, August, September, and October

And best of all, we also spent some time in 2012 on planning our wedding here in West Seattle that took place in August:

And the final cherry on top of an already great year – just this past week, Seattle Homestead was mentioned in Better Homes & Gardens for the January 2013 issue:

So, thanks to all of our new subscribers joining us from BH&G. I can’t promise that you won’t think we’re crazy, but hopefully you’ll pick up something you like along the way.

2013 Projects & Goals:

So, with so much completed last year, it only brings to mind how much is remaining for this next year. Priority #1 is completing the rest of the wall project and getting our yard back into a respectable state.

Currently there is about 40 feet of the wall that is tarped up, since we were unable to complete the entire base coat of stucco. As the temperatures warm up a bit and we get a few dry weekends, I’ll be back out there to complete the bag construction, and then start applying the chicken wire lathe to the bags so we can prepare to apply the first coat of stucco to the remaining section of wall.

From there, we’ll need to apply two more coats of stucco to wall total. The second coat will smooth out the roughness of the base coat (also called the scratch coat). The final coat will be the finish coat.

The final color of the wall will be a deep orange/red terra cotta color. To stain the concrete we’ll be using Copperas, which is a type of Iron Sulfate often used by gardeners to add iron to the soil and add more “green” to yellow plants. On the package of Copperas there’s a warning that says “this product will permanently stain cement.” Which just happens to be our goal . Take a look at some of the amazing colors that have been achieved by other people who have used Copperas to stain their cement floors:

By adding in coffee grounds to the Copperas stain we’ll be able to reach even deeper hues. Beforehand we’ll be testing lots of variations on hidden spots of the wall to figure out the best mixtures. Should have more information on this later in the year, and I’m really looking forward to seeing how it turns out.

Aside from that, the remaining work on the wall is a lot of finish work, and finally adding the stone cap to the wall. This section is a bit of an unknown for me, but I think it can be completed in under a month of weekends.

A bulleted list of tasks we’re looking to complete this year:

Finishing the Wall:

• Bag Construction
  • 5% remaining
  • Estimated Time Remaining: 1 weekend remaining for primary structure -
• Completing Garden Beds (the inside of our wall has raised garden beds attached to it):
  • Estimated 2 weekends remaining for bag construction on front of garden beds
  • Estimated 2 days for waterproofing of beds after stucco scratch & brown coat.
• Stucco Wire Application
  • 15% remaining
  • Estimated Time Remaining: 2 weekends with 2 people working both days
• Installation of Porthole Truth Windows
• Stucco Scratch Coat
  • 40% remaining
  • Estimated Time Remaining: 2 weekends with 2 people working both days
• Stucco Brown Coat
  • 0% Completed
  • Estimated Time: 2-3 weekends
• Wall Detailing
  • Installation of Address Numbers
• Tiling on Buttresses
  • Estimated Time: 2 weekends
• Installation of Stone Cap on Top of Wall
  • Estimated Time: 4 weekends?
  • To do:
    • Shopping for stone options and pricing
    • Preparation of wall top for mortar
    • Cutting and placement of stone
    • Mortar of stone
• Stucco Finish Coat
  • Estimated Time: 2 weekends
• Final Wall Stain
  • Estimated Time: 2 weekends

Other Hardscaping Remaining in the Yard:

• Front gate / arbor (check out the diagram that I sketched out for our front gate)
  • Estimated Time: 3 weekends
• Back gate by driveway
  • Estimated Time: 1-2 weekends
• Installation of front steps and removal of front railing
  • Estimated Time: 1 weekend

Plants:

While the wall will take up much of our time during the spring and summer, we do at some point want to get some plants in, seeing as that’s why we started this whole endeavor in the first place. We’ll also need to address some of the remaining ivy, holly, and blackberry in the back portions of the yard.

• Remove Ivy
• Remove Holly
  • Replace with Filbert Hedge? $60 for 5 plants at Raintree, covers 15 feet…
• Remove Himalayan Blackberry (lowest priority)
• Spring trees? Will need to wait until garden beds are completed to decide to order these.
• Fall trees? These are more likely than spring ones.

And, unbelievably, I think that’s it. I am seriously looking forward to hanging up my hammock on this finished wall…

2013 Homestead Goals & 2012 Year in Review is a post from Seattle Homestead about urban homesteading.

The post 2013 Homestead Goals & 2012 Year in Review appeared first on Seattle Homestead.

It’s been a while since I’ve had time to update the site. At this point, I think the quickest way to get you all up to speed is to give you a video tour of the homestead and show you what we’ve been working on all summer long. Take a look:

I give a better look at our earthbag wall, the concrete stucco process, our new patio and walkway, the chicken coop, our hens (and a couple fresh eggs), and what’s left for us during the rest of the year.

If you’d like to get a chance to try your hand at earthbag building, we’d love the help and we promise that we’ll make it fun. We’re in the home stretch of finishing up the wall before the winter rain starts to set in. If you’re interested in stopping by during a September/October weekend just drop us a line!

Links in the Video:

• Akina Designs – Seattle Landscaping Company that did our walkway & patio.
• How to Make Raised Garden Beds with Sod Walls – the garden beds that have been dug up quite a bit and changed since we last wrote about them.

September 2012 Video Tour: Earthbag Update and More is a post from Seattle Homestead about urban homesteading.

The post September 2012 Video Tour: Earthbag Update and More appeared first on Seattle Homestead.

The nearby hardware store wanted $35 for one of these 10x10 inch metal tampers...

Our Earthbag Building Workshop is about to kick off tomorrow, and I spent the day doing some last minute preparations with our instructor, Scott Howard of Earthen Hand Natural Building.

A big portion of the earthbag construction process is tamping the dirt into bags to make sure they’re packed tightly, and then tamping them again once they’re laid in place in the wall.

You can buy tampers at hardware stores, but they cost anywhere from $20 to $40 depending on the type and size. Our local hardware store was charging $35, and we needed a few of them.

Instead of buying them, we made 4 tampers today with branches and a bag of concrete. All together it cost $16, and it only took us 30 minutes.

Here’s how they’re made:

1) Cut the Branches to Size

You’ll want to choose branches that are sturdy, and at least as thick as what you’d see for a wooden shovel handle at the hardware store. Also, it’s best to use dried wood, since fresh cut wood might shrink a year from now.

We cut the branches to roughly 4-5 feet. Shoulder height or slightly less is appropriate.

2) Drill Screws Into the Bottom & Wrap Wire Around the Screws

The screws and wire help fix the branch to the concrete and make the entire tamper stronger.

Drill screws into the branch and wrap wire around each screw.

4) Set Up String to Hold The Branches in Place

The string is tight between two points, like a guitar string, and runs back and forth twice, and is twisted around itself. This way, you can place the branches between the strings and it will stay in place while you pour the concrete.

The string should be wrapped tightly between two points and twisted, so the branches can be held vertically in place while the concrete dries.

5) Cut Plastic Planters to Size

We used the cheap black plastic planters that you get plant starts in from the nursery. They’re about 6-8 inches tall, and 5-6 inches wide. You can use any similar container depending on the size of the tamper you want.

The large end of the planter goes on top of a piece of plywood. The small end (usually the bottom of the planter) gets cut off so that it becomes a plastic tube, and you can stick the branch in.

See the photos below for a visual, and click the photo to see a larger version.

6) Mix Concrete

We used quick set concrete. It sets in 15 minutes, is hard in 1 hour, and is 90% cured after 24 hours. Technically it takes 28 days to continue curing, but it should be usable by the end of the day tomorrow. The bag of concrete was our only expense since we had screws and wire laying around, and it cost $16.

7) Fill Planters and Use A Stick to Pack the Concrete In

The concrete goes in fairly easily, but you’ll want to take a small stick and poke it in to make sure the concrete makes it into all of the nooks and crannies. When the container is full, I rounded off the concrete smoothly to make the tamper look nicer.

Plastic Pots Form the Mold for the Concrete Tampers

8) Let It Dry & Break Off The Planters

Once the concrete is cured you can either leave the plastic planter on there or break it off, your choice. At that point you’re all set – tamp away! Here’s one of Scott’s finished tampers that he’s been using for years:

Finished Homemade Cement Tamper - Finished cost of $4 per tamper!

How to Make Your Own Concrete Tamper is a post from Seattle Homestead about urban homesteading.

The post How to Make Your Own Concrete Tamper appeared first on Seattle Homestead.

Photo Credit by VeryGeeky.

This article is a response to a Slate.com piece published by James McWilliams on June 6th, 2012.

The article, titled “The Butcher Next Door: Why the rise of DIY urban animal slaughter is bad for people and animals,” tries to make the point that animal slaughter by untrained people in an urban residential setting will cause issues and should be stopped.

McWilliams’ article raises a good point: Do we need to regulate animal slaughter in an urban environment as the trend of urban homesteading increases? If so, to what extent?

Unfortunately, McWilliams takes a legitimate concern and polarizes the issue with a sloppily-written article.

Where McWilliams Gets It Wrong:

I considered going through the article point by point, but here’s the primary places where he gets off topic, takes a situation out of context, and sets up straw man arguments:

1.  He cites an article about 71 people being infected with salmonella in 2011 by backyard chickens and ducks, but fails to mention that it occurred because of chicks all acquired from a single hatchery that is a repeat offender.
2. He quotes a woman telling BusinessWeek “[W]e just want to kill a chicken,” when the actual quote was “We don’t want to open up a slaughterhouse in the backyard, we just want to kill a chicken.” He also asserts that the woman was allowed to keep up to 40 animals on a 4,500 square foot property, without saying how many she actually had.
3. Throughout the article he slants the entire urban agriculture movement as a hipster fad, and paints a picture of tattooed Pabst enthusiasts neglecting their once-trendy animals.

Valid Concerns With Urban Livestock & Slaughtering:

1) Raising Urban Livestock is a Huge Commitment, and Not For Everyone:

No argument here.

The time commitment? For chickens it’s less than our time commitment of a dog when you count daily dog walks, but still nothing to scoff at.

In financial terms, chickens don’t necessarily pay off over time. The primary factor is how much money and time is spent building or buying a chicken coop. Even a talented do-it-yourselfer can quickly spend hundreds of dollars on materials, negating most of the cost benefits of raising eggs at home (even if you’re paying $5 per dozen for organic-fed eggs at the store). At that point, you’re really just raising chickens for higher quality eggs, grown very locally, and the pleasure of the hens themselves.

2) Potential for Disease is a Valid Concern:

While he blows the issue out of proportion for the average persona keeping a few chickens, he’s correct that there’s potential for disease. However, basic education on hand washing and the risk of salmonella is enough to prevent the overwhelming majority of issues with ongoing care of healthy animals.

As far as the risk of contamination of slaughtered meat, I think it’s a very reasonable concern, which is the primary reason for my stance on point #3:

3) We Need to Regulate Commercial Sales of Home-Slaughtered Meat:

It’s one thing to slaughter a few chickens for your own personal use – I’m OK with that since your lack of care will only affect you (and hopefully not your family members).

However, it’s another thing to sell meat to others without taking additional precautions. I fully understand any city’s desire to restrict commercial meat production to professional operations, and not allow home-scale meat production.

That said, making regulations accessible for small operations is also important so long as they’re following good procedures. I think it’s equally wrong to restrict production to corporate-sized producers.

4) Well-Planned Urban Livestock Regulations Are Necessary:

While I think most cities need to reevaluate their existing restrictions on animals, I also think that limits need to be put in place on minimum space per animal and maximum number of animals on a property.

Examples like the ones cited by McWilliams of animal hoarders mistreating animals are terrible and absolutely need to be addressed for the animal’s welfare. But restricting the majority of us raising animals responsibly based upon the actions of that extremely small minority would be comparable to stopping us from owning cats and dogs because of the same minority of transgressions.
I wish the Slate article had been better written – it’s a fair topic of discussion and not something that we should sweep under the rug. By choosing to raise our own animals in a neighborhood we take on the responsibility for caring for them in a way that doesn’t seriously affect our neighbors.

What are your thoughts? At what point does slaughtering animals at home cross the line, if ever? Should home slaughters be regulated?

Concerns With Urban Animal Slaughter is a post from Seattle Homestead about urban homesteading.

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I’ve mentioned our upcoming wall project a few times on this site. Above is the mockup and overhead drawing of what we’re going to be building in 3 weeks. All of the terracotta-colored wall in that diagram is specifically what we’ll be building. You can click here to take a look at the full-size wall diagram.

We’ll be hosting a workshop here at the homestead on June 23rd & 24th. Find more details about the workshop on our events page. Also, don’t forget to check out our contest:

The contest is now closed, thanks to everyone who signed up!

To register for the wall workshop email Scott@EarthenHand.com.

Please feel free to share our contest flyer on Facebook or Pinterest!

What Our Wall Will Look Like:

We’re planning on using concrete stucco for our walls. While I like cob as a material, I want to have raised beds up against our wall, which means wet soil touching the surface of the wall. To do that, I have to be sure that the wall won’t decompose, so concrete is the best option for this situation. Here’s some photos I have accumulated from around the internet that give you an idea of what our wall will look like once completed:

This stucco privacy wall is very similar to what we're going for. We probably won't have a bare roof to the wall - ours will likely be a stone or paver to shed water away from the wall. Ours also won't have the little windows, since we're trying to block out noise. Photo by http://dangergarden.blogspot.com

This stucco planter isn't the height of our wall, but has a great capstone and saturated terracotta color. This is very similar to how our planters will look that will attach to the completed wall, since we want those to be about 2-3 feet high and 2-3 feet away from the wall. Photo by Blue Wheelbarrow Landscapes in North Seattle.

This garden wall on the right of the photo is a similar height and color, and gives you an idea of the courtyard look that we're seeking. The lion heads and suns on the wall are also a nice touch that we might do. Photo from FilmNorthFlorida.com

Why On Earth We’re Building a Wall:

We live on a busy arterial road, with lots of road noise. Our home blocks out the noise well, but a large part of why we bought our home was to be able to garden and enjoy our yard, and that’s difficult to do with cars zipping by throughout the day. Yes, we should have  accounted for that a little better before we moved in, but nevertheless, here we are with a noisy yard.

Options for Blocking Road Noise:

I spent a lot of time researching methods to block road noise. Near highways where the noise is exceptionally bad, it tends to be either a concrete wall or a berm. After lots of research, the summary is that plants won’t block road noise, wood fences won’t block much road noise, but a wall or barrier built with soil, water (like a cistern), or stone can block road noise well.

Berms work incredibly well, that probably would have been our first choice on a larger property. But, berms take up a wide space that we don’t have, and visually… let’s just say they’re an acquired taste in an urban setting.

So basically we were left with the option to build a wall. We could have just built a tall cement wall and been done with it, but we wanted to do something more sustainable that required less cement, which isn’t very environmentally-friendly.

Over the course of 6 months I considered a variety of natural building options including a straw bale wall, a cob wall, and a ferrocement wall that would double as a cistern. The final wall option that felt right was using earthbags. Using a cement stucco over the earthbags will use about 15% of the total concrete, and achieve the same visual look.

What the Heck Are Earthbags?

Earthbags are just normal polypropelene sand bags, but they’re filled with dirt instead of sand. They get stacked on top of one another like bricks to form a structure, and they stick together with 4-prong barbed wire placed between them. After the structure is built with the earthbags, it is typically covered in a stucco or plaster made of cement, cob, or lime.

Here’s a photo of an entire home being built with earthbags:

Earthbag Home in Progress - Photo by John Fuhrman - Click for Large Version

Here are photos of the same home after it was finished being covered with cob:

Earthbag Cob Cabin - Photo from EarthenHand.com - Click for more

As you can see, once it’s finished it doesn’t look too different from any other natural building.

Finding Materials:

I thought that it would be difficult for us to find enough clay nearby for an entirely cob wall. Earthbags, however, don’t require a clay to sand mix ratio as specific as what’s required by cob. Because of that, it seemed to be the easier project in terms of acquiring the materials necessary to complete it.

Our Wall Workshop with Earthen Hand:

After deciding earthbags was the method I wanted to use, I reached out to Scott Howard of Earthen Hand Natural Building in Portland, OR. Scott is the builder of the cob/earthbag home pictured above, as well as a bunch of other projects in the Pacific Northwest and abroad.

We decided the wall would be a good opportunity for a workshop here at Seattle Homestead, and set a date of June 23rd & 24th (3 weekends from now!). The workshop will feature 2 days of learning about how earthbag building works and what it can be used for, and then getting outside and getting hands on experience with wall construction.

The cost of the workshop is $180 and includes lunch both days. Registration and signup info can be found on our events page. There is a discount for participants who bring a friend or sign up for another one of Earthen Hand’s natural building workshops.

To register, email Scott@earthenhand.com and let him know you’re interested in the Earthbag Building Basics Workshop on June 23/24 in Seattle.

Getting Ready for the Wall Workshop:

Over the last few months we’ve removed all of the ugly privets that used to surround the yard, taken out the 130 foot chain-link fence, and just had the property lines surveyed so we can dig the trench for the wall footing and be ready for the workshop in a couple weeks.

We’re looking forward to showing you all what the finished product looks like!

Our Earthbag Wall Workshop & Contest is a post from Seattle Homestead about urban homesteading.

The post Our Earthbag Wall Workshop & Contest appeared first on Seattle Homestead.

I mentioned in our 2012 Homestead Goals that we were planning to get chickens this year. About 4 weeks ago we picked up 2 Barred Rocks and 3 Rhode Island Reds from Jason at Shoreline Farm Supply – who graciously gave them to us for free since he had extra from a customer who decided they didn’t want all 10 that they ordered.

Our baby chicks at home, shortly after getting their brooder set up

Baby chicks in the brooder. The two plastic containers had a pen between them for the chicks to roost on. It worked for about a week before I built them a bigger one with a branch.

Moving the Pullets to a Temporary Chicken Coop:

I went and picked up a used coop that I found on Craigslist. It cost more than it was worth, and it’s not big enough for 5 full-grown hens, but I needed to get something premade to buy me some time while we finish a proper home for the chickens. We’ll resell the coop on Craigslist once we’re finished with it.

Our chicks turned 4 weeks old last Wednesday, and we moved them into the temporary coop last Friday.

Our dog Ben inspecting the temporary chicken coop, looking for a way in.

Pullets running around the chicken coop - getting used to their new surroundings and the great outdoors

Our chickens are at the awkward teenage stage where they look gangly. I'm sure there's acne under those new feathers.

"What are you looking at?"

Construction Begins on the New Chicken Coop:

Rather than spending a ton of time designing a coop, I decided to just purchase plans for a coop from TheGardenCoop.com. I’ve had my eye on the style for awhile, and at first I thought about just using it as a rough template without buying the guide. As the three day weekend approached last week, I decided that spending $20 on the downloadable plans would save me many hours of headaches and trial and error.

We spent this weekend building the chicken coop – it’s 70% complete and I’ll have more photos once it’s done. Here’s an example that’s similar to how ours will look:

Ours will look fairly similar to this example once it's completed - we'll be using similar recycled fencing as siding on the henhouse (top left), and we also chose to use galvanized metal as the roofing. Our wood won't look quite so light, though.

It measures 5 feet deep by 9 feet 6 inches wide, and the top of the door sits slightly over 6 feet high. We also chose to use galvanized roofing and rustic recycled-cedar fencing as the siding for the henhouse. More pictures coming in the next two weeks as we finish the construction.

Currently, we have the coop frame built, rafter and roofing installed, hen house framed, and hardware cloth (the wire mesh) is mostly installed. We still have to finish the walls and siding on the henhouse, build the door, install hardware cloth on two of the ceiling sections, and finish some other “tweaks.”

The Chicks Have Arrived and Chicken Coop Construction Begins is a post from Seattle Homestead about urban homesteading.

The post The Chicks Have Arrived and Chicken Coop Construction Begins appeared first on Seattle Homestead.

Amy Beaudoin of West Seattle Natural Energy

Seattle Solar Electricity Q&A with Amy Beaudoin

I sat down last week with Amy Beaudoin of West Seattle Natural Energy, a solar & wind energy installer based here in West Seattle. We talked about a bunch of questions that I had as well as questions submitted by readers on topics like:

• Things you can do to improve your home’s efficiency before considering solar power
• Cost-effectiveness of solar
• Average size of residential systems and cost
• Current incentives & rebates for installing solar electricity
• Financing options through loans
• When it makes sense to go for solar and appropriate system size

Listen to Podcast:

Download here or click the play button to play the audio:

Resources Mentioned:

West Seattle Natural Energy:

• West Seattle Natural Energy Website (Also find them on Facebook & Twitter)
• WSNE Project Photo Gallery
• Here is the 5.2 KW solar electric system featured in the top photo of this post.

Washington State Solar Financing Resources:

The first two were mentioned in the podcast, but there are two more from Umpqua and PSCCU below that also offer green loans at decent rates:

• Generations Credit Union (Olympia, WA)
• 1st Security Bank of Washington (Branches throughout Puget Sound area)
• Greenstreet Lending from Umpqua Bank (Throughout Pacific Coast)
• Efficiency Loans from Puget Sound Cooperative Credit Union (Puget Sound area)

Transcript:

Kane: Okay – so I am here with Amy Beaudoin of West Seattle Natural Energy, and you can find their website at WestSeattleNaturalEnergy.com. And today we’re talking about solar electric installations, especially in the Seattle area, but around Washington as well. And so I’ve collected a bunch of questions from people on reddit.com/r/homestead and the Seattle Homestead Facebook page, and we’re just going to go over some questions people have about solar installations and see what Amy has to say. So to start off, could you just give us an idea of how long West Seattle Natural Energy has been around and what type of jobs you guys are doing, that sort of thing?

Amy: We have been in business for a little over four years, and we have just over 30 solar installs to date. So we do mostly residential, a little bit of small commercial, and we do primarily solar PV, but a little bit of solar hot water and small wind in the correct areas.

Kane: Great. Well, before we even get into solar, one of the best questions I saw was, “What type of advice and recommendations do you give clients on reducing their energy usage and consumption prior to figuring out how much solar they need?”

Amy: The biggest thing you can do is check your home for things like insulation – do you have good insulation – is your attic insulated? Is your floor insulated if you have a basement? Is your siding good? Are your windows good? Those are big things that you can do first before you spend a lot of money. Smaller things – you can get better appliances – you know, get rid of the old, outdated ones. There’s a lot of good rebates right now. Change out your light bulbs; CFLs are great or LEDs even – they have great LEDs – a little more expensive, but still really saves on the power bill.

Make sure your doors have weather stripping on them, your windows have weather stripping – little things like that. Don’t leave everything plugged in all the time. Computers have power save. I don’t like to shut my computer down all the time, so I don’t do that. But cell phones – things like that that don’t need to charge overnight – they can charge for like two hours. So those are the biggest things I think you can do. I mean, the city of Seattle has some really good rebates. Snohomish County has good rebates on exterior weatherization and appliances, so – and Puget Sound Energy does as well.

Kane: And if I’m correct, they do subsidized loans for those as well?

Amy: Some of them do – mostly Snohomish County. Seattle doesn’t have a great loan program, but they have a rebate program and free recycle, so that’s nice.

Kane: Okay – great. And I forgot to mention before, but we’re here in a coffee shop, so you’re gonna hear some coffee grinding going on as well. Okay – and so a big concern with a lot of people in Seattle is we’ve got tall pine trees everywhere and a lot of shade. So how often do you go out to a site and maybe not recommend solar specifically for those types of things?

Amy: I would say about – not very often – maybe less than 10 percent. The nice thing about solar is you – if you are willing to be creative, there is generally something you can do. Perhaps we can put it on a garage versus your home roof. Perhaps we can build a porch cover or a patio cover in a sunnier area of your yard. It can be hard, especially in Seattle, because we have small lot sizes, but there’s usually something we can do, and sometimes it’s even as easy, if you’re willing, to do something like maybe limb a little bit – a few trees, because we can tell you exactly, by using our Solar Eye, which branches are gonna impede sunlight.

So if people are willing to – and we’re not gonna tell you to tear down your trees, obviously; that would be counterproductive – but there are some things you can do. And we are a small enough company that we like to be creative with that. Some of our installs that you can see on the website are different; they’re not just standard “slap it on your roof and go away” type deals. There’s some thought involved in it. So we find if people are willing to be creative and thing outside the box, we are, too. And there’s usually something we can do. We have been to places where they have 100-foot pine trees, and – sorry, not much you can do with that.

Kane: Sure, and I bet most of the people in that situation just assume it’s not an option and probably don’t call you out for consultation in the first place.

Amy: Most – most – but one thing to consider is that if – not necessarily here in the city with the lots we have, but if you have a small bit of property out in the county or other areas, there’s objects such as tracking systems, which go on trackers that follow the axis of the sun. Those can be put in a yard so even if your house is in the shade, perhaps you have a vegetable garden. What we like to tell people is if you have enough sun to grow vegetables – and not last year, because last year sucked – but generally, if you have enough sun to grow a vegetable garden – to have that – you have enough sun to have a solar system.

Kane: Okay – and is there a specific time of day that people should be – is afternoon sun, for example, going to be more valuable or midday?

Amy: In the summer, yes. In the summer, you wanna have an area that is unobstructed from about let’s say 9:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. until at least 5:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. at night. So you need that window, full day sun in the summer is fine. And you have to look at it – don’t look at it ever in the winter because just the way it works – we won’t get as much production in the winter, and that’s fine. But in the summer, if you have 10 to 12 hours of clear – even 8 hours of clear, you’ll do great.

Kane: And so knowing that there’s not going to be as much production in the winter, do you guys optimize the fixed-angle panels specifically for the summer months?

Amy: Yes, it is always, always put up for summer out here.

Kane: And so Seattle and especially Puget Sound area or if Washington state ones, are there any sort of zoning requirements that homeowners should be aware of?

Amy: For standards in the city of Seattle and most of King County, there is no permitting as far as putting it on your roof. You have to get an electrical permit, obviously, but there’s no building permit. The only time we have to get building permits is if we’re doing a tracker, because with the poured foundation, or a nonstandard install like a patio cover or something to that effect. But no, there’s no zoning regulations. There’s no permitting issues.

And one interesting thing to consider is that Washington state two years ago passed a law saying that if you lived in an HOA that they could not ban you from solar panels. That is a law, and we can certainly give you the law of findings. So we just installed our very first system in an HOA. All it really involved was an extra meeting with the Homeowners Association to just talk to them and answer questions. But for years people have not – that’s been a big problem, so now you have that right.

Kane: That’s great. And even with that rule in place, did you have any pushback, or were they pretty okay with it – just had some questions?

Amy: No, what they really wanted to know is, “What is it gonna look like?” And in this particular install, it was on a three-story house. You can’t hardly see the roof. I mean, I could barely get pictures of it from the road. So, yeah, not a big deal.

Kane: Great. Okay – and so a lot of people reading Seattle Homestead are gonna be interested in doing whatever they can to go 100 percent renewable on their energy. And so for a small and relatively energy-conservative household, is that pretty easily done? Do you see a lot of homes that are getting 80 or 100 percent of their electrical needs, or is it more supplemental?

Amy: It’s supplemental, but the way that the metering credits and the state rebates work, for now at least, that you only have to put in a system that provides about 40 to 45 percent of what your home uses on a daily basis to have no power bill. So even if you’re not being 100 percent solar or whatever you’re choosing, that doesn’t mean you’re not – you can still reduce your power bill significantly and have no power bill.

Kane: And that’s because of the financial payback aspect of it.

Amy: Yes – yeah – and then that metering – which means you are gonna lower your power bill because the power company will credit you for everything you produce, whether you use it or didn’t use it, and then the state also reimburses you once a year for everything you produce. So in the long run, you don’t have to do 100 percent systems. 100 percent systems, you would have to have an insanely large house, a lot of roof space, and financially it would be – you could do it, but we recommend people stay on the grid as much as possible because then they pay you for it. If they’re gonna offer you money, I say, “Take it.”

Kane: Okay. And so with the net metering – just to be really clear – so if you produce 120 percent of what you use during the day, you’re getting paid back for 120 percent or the 20 percent?

Amy: You will get credited for 120 percent. Basically, the way it works when you get your bill it will have two line items. It will say, “This billing cycle you used X kilowatt hours. This billing cycle, you produced X kilowatt hours. You owe us either the difference, or you have a credit on your bill.”

Kane: Okay – so not only are you not paying the $0.065 per kilowatt hour, but you’re getting the rebate on top of that?

Amy: Indeed – yeah.

Kane: Great. Okay – well, that is good to know. So continuing in that vein, what’s the average size residential system you install, and are you targeting that 40 or 50 percent coverage? Are there people that are trying to go higher than that?

Amy: We – when we do our site surveys and do our bids, we like to give people three sizes of system: a minimum size, which to get the 30 percent tax credit you have to have one kilowatt, so we generally start in the one-range, we give you a midsize system, which is gonna be the breakeven, no power bill system, and then we give you a large system, which would be how many panels can we physically put on your structure. So there is a limit as far as size goes.

Kane: And does it seem like most people opt for the middle?

Amy: Most – some usually find something that works within their budget that gets pretty close to the middle, if at all possible, and then some choose to do smaller installs but then add to it, or – we have very few people that have wanted – that have just gone over for the sheer – because they can factor. A couple – and that’s great – you know. So they have no power bill and then some. But, you know, the state rebate does have a cap on it. It’s $5,000.00, which is a lot of money, but still – so there isn’t financially a huge purpose in putting a huge, huge, huge more-than-you-need system. For out here, the average – average is kind of hard – but average out here is about three to four kilowatts.

Kane: Okay – to cover total use during the year or to break even?

Amy: For the breakeven – for the no power bill.

Kane: Okay – and so earlier you were saying that the average cost per kilowatt is $6,000.00 or $7,000.00 right now?

Amy: It’s right now between about $5,500.00 and $8,000.00 depending on the product that you buy.

Kane: Okay – and the $5,500.00 would be the most affordable panels and stuff.

Amy: Yes – but they’re all U.S. made. We actually use the SolarWorld panels out of Beaverton.

Kane: What was the name again?

Amy: SolarWorld.

Kane: World – okay.

Amy: Mm-hmm – they’re out of Beaverton, and that kind of goes along with the sustainability aspect because we’d rather purchase local. You know, I mean, we’d never, ever use foreign panels, ever. So everything is at least made here, so our standard panel system is Enphase microinverters, which is one inverter per panel, and SolarWorld panels.

Kane: Okay – and so those panels that you’re installing, how many kilowatts does each panel – are you installing, you know, 1.65-kilowatt systems, or is it every half-kilowatt?

Amy: You get – the SolarWorld panels are 240 watts per panel, so you need 4 of them basically to have 1 kilowatt. So our kilowatt systems end up being a weird percentage, because if you put in eight panels or – you know, whatever.

Kane: 0.96, I think… And is that still okay for that minimum one-kilowatt size?

Amy: Yeah, as long as it is at least one kilowatt, so we usually try to install five panels just –

Kane: 1.2 or whatever.

Amy: — to be better – yeah.

Kane: Great. Okay – and so if you’re talking about roughly $6,000.00 per kilowatt, then the panels – per panel can be broken down to about $1,500.00 roughly, after minimum system size, anyway?

Amy: Kind of – I mean, you have the panels, and you have the inverter, but you also have the balances of systems, which is the racking and the wiring and the labor. So – kind of – yeah.

Kane: All right – rough calculation. Okay – so I guess a lot of the questions we had were focused on return on investment and cost efficiency. So let’s talk about the incentives and rebates first, since that’s what most of the calculations are kind of centered around. What are the current rebates and incentives, federal and state, and then what does the timeline right now – as of early 2012, what does the timeline look like for those phasing out?

Amy: The federal tax credit is a 30 percent tax credit, and it is a credit, not an income reduction. It’s 30 percent of the entire cost of the system. So whatever you would write a check for, you get 30 percent of that. It’s an easy form to fill out for your taxes. So that’s the only federal incentive we have right now. It is good through 2016, although I can’t imagine we wouldn’t renew it – but you never know. The state incentive is good through 2020, and there are three levels. The first level is $0.15 per kilowatt you get paid, and that is for standard panels –

Kane: And installation.

Amy: — and installation. The second is $0.36 per kilowatt, and that is if you use a Washington-made panel, but a non-Washington inverter. So for instance, say an i.Tech panel with an Enphase inverter. The third system is $0.54 per kilowatt, and that is for all made in Washington systems. We have two versions here. We have Silicon Energy in Marysville; they have a panel and inverter system. And then i.Tech which is in Bellingham; they have a panel and inverter system as well.

Kane: Okay – so then the natural follow-up question is how does the cost for the Washington-made modules and inverters compare to the other U.S.-made ones, and are they pretty comparable in terms of lifespan and output?

Amy: The panels are all the same, for the most part. The Silicon Energy is a little different, but as far as efficiency ratings and how they work and how they perform, they’re all the same. They’re very good panels. They’re well made. They have very good warranties on them. No one can say for sure the lifespan of a solar panel, but they’ve all been tested.

Kane: Sure – just estimated to be the same.

Amy: Yeah – well, they’ve all been tested in labs up to – environmental chambers for 60 years. So there you go. The warranty is 20 years, at least.

Kane: And the warranty, does that cover 75 percent output or something like that?

Amy: It’s power production, so they’re warrantied to work at at least 80 percent of their rated value for 20 years.

Kane: And how is that tested?

Amy: They put them in environmental chambers. I don’t – haven’t seen the exact –

Kane: Yeah – and we gotta wait a few years to see anyone claiming on that, I guess.

Amy: Yeah – well, and they also – to get their UL rating, which have to have in the United States, they have to withstand a Midwest hailstorm, so they take ice balls, and they put them in those baseball shooter things and shoot ice balls at them, and if they break they don’t pass.

Kane: Wow! Okay.

Amy: So they’re very, very, very durable.

Kane: Okay – so they can handle Seattle mist.

Amy: Yes, they’re good with the mist. You drop a tree on it, you’ll probably break it, but it is permanently affixed to your home, so generally your homeowners insurance would cover that anyways.

Kane: Okay – great news.

Amy: But as far as the difference between pricing, a standard panel system is, like we said, about $5,500.00 to $6,000.00 per installed kilowatt. The i.Tech and Silicon Energy systems are about the same cost, so we’ll use the same number for them; they’re in the about $8,000.00 – maybe $7,500.00-a-kilowatt range.

Kane: Okay – and so you’re looking at maybe 20 – 30 or 40 percent more?

Amy: It’s about 30 roughly – 30 to 35 percent more depending.

Kane: Okay, so obviously some of that is covered by the 30 percent federal tax credit, but when would it make sense – what size and system, for example, would it make sense to go with the Washington-made one versus the U.S.-made one? And is there a time factor in that?

Amy: The – you have roughly seven years – well, seven and a half years –

Kane: For the Washington credits?

Amy: — for the Washington credits. A Washington system takes roughly seven years to pay off, so if you are in the market for –

Kane: So 2012 is the year.

Amy: Yes – well, yeah, and it runs out in 2020 – well, I guess you have, yeah, seven and a half years from now. So if you’re going to do a Washington system, and you want the lower ROI, then you have to do it within the next – I’m gonna say 18 months to be a little – to beat the -

Kane: To get the best benefit.

Amy: Yes. Then after that point, we really are gonna have to see what the legislature does, but between – in the next two to three years, unless Silicon Energy and i.Tech lower their prices, it will make no point to do it because you’re not gonna have that much time to recoup your loss. So if you’re doing a huge system, all the systems are really good. It’s a personal financial goal, really. If you’re considering it, what you wanna look at is, “Do I have one amount of money?”

Let’s say I can only spend $25,000.00. That’s all I – I got a loan for it; that’s what I have. We can get you more solar and more production if we do standard panel systems with microinverters than we can with a Washington system. So if you – if what you’re trying to do is just do something with the funds you have available, we would recommend that. If you’re really in it because let’s say you’re retiring in less than ten years and you wanna have that portion of your fixed income taken care of – the electrical side of it – then a Washington system is a great way to go, because by the time you’re retired you’ll have it paid – basically, it’ll pay itself off, and you’ll know certainly by then what your average power bill is gonna be, if you even have one.

So those are the two big differences. Most people it comes down to which panel do I like the looks of? Do I like the microinverter versus the monolithic inverter?

Kane: Okay – so it’s really centered around what you can afford to put out right up front and what sort of financing you’re using and your goals?

Amy: Yes.

Kane: Okay. Well, that’s – I think that’s really helpful to a lot of people that are seriously considering it. So going along with financing, I’ve heard that within the last year or two there are some banks that are now offering solar financing. What’s the current situation for that sort of thing?

Amy: There’s two banks – they’re actually credit unions that I know of that do specifically green loans. Their rates depend on your credit score. They’re generally in the 7 to 8-ish range, which isn’t horrible.

Kane: It’s comparable to a normal HELOC loan.

Amy: Basically – yeah – but because you’re doing a solar system, they might give it to you more readily than, say, you know, if you walked into Chase or something like that.

Kane: And do you know the names of those two banks? Oh, okay, got it in the West Seattle Natural Energy literature guide here.

Amy: First Security Bank of Washington, which they are located – they have a branch in Lynwood, I believe, and then Generations Credit Union, and they are in – they’re down south like Des Moines or something to that effect.

Editor’s Note – there are two additional banks – Umpqua Bank and Puget Sound Cooperative Credit Union – and all 4 banks can be found in the resources at the top of the page.

Kane: Okay – great – and we’ll have those on the website as well. So – okay – that’s good to know. All right – well, so we’ve talked about the production credit, and the panels, and so the expected payback and breakeven, it sounds like roughly 7 or 8 years for the state-made panels, relying on that payback incentive, and you said 10 or 11 years for the other U.S.-made panels?

Amy: Yeah – and one thing if people are considering it seriously is to consider the fact that electric rates are on the rise, and those quoted figures are for today’s power rate. Right now, in western Washington, we pay basically between $0.094 and $0.098 per kilowatt, so just under $0.10 per kilowatt. What a lot of people don’t know is the reason we have cheap power is because of the Bonneville Act, and that was a federal law that was put into effect over 100 years ago. The 100 years was up last year.

They decided to not renew that, so every single power company – all of them – is going to have to get us, their clients, up to a retail rate, because that is not what we’re paying right now. So power rates have already gone up. It’s not by a lot. It’s by fractions of pennies, but between now and the next three years we have to be where kind of the average is for our area. The average – our closest neighbor that buys power from Bonneville is Portland. So Portland pays right now roughly about $0.18 per kilowatt, so almost double what we pay.

So one thing to really consider is if you wanna do it, and you can afford to do it sooner rather than later, you do it now before your bill – because a lot of people say, “Well, my bill is only $100.00 every other month.” Okay, that’s fine, but that’s today. So that’s something to definitely keep in mind, too.

Kane: Okay – and so among the solar community, are you expecting parts and things to go up in price as you see an increase in rates? Is that kind of an expected thing for manufacturers?

Amy: Yes, it’s come down a lot because after the last election everyone got on the green bandwagon and manufacturers assumed everyone was gonna do it, so they overproduced panels and other things like that. So we saw a decrease in price – significant decrease in price in the last two years. It’s starting to go up a tiny bit, and a lot of that has to do with the economy. As people have more money, they’re gonna charge us more for our goods.

Kane: Sure.

Amy: Oh, one other thing to point out – I forgot – is that right now if you buy a solar system, you do not pay Washington state sales tax on it, and that is going away in June or 2013, so you’ll save 10 percent right there if you do it before next summer.

Kane: Okay – well, that’s very good to know. Okay – so June 2013 – all right, so that’s about the year and a couple months’ mark. Okay – great. Well, I think that is all the big questions I had, and that definitely answers a lot of my own questions and some of the ones that readers had. So will you be available if you have some follow-up questions? I can email those over to you.

Amy: Yes – we have – our website has a contact form on it, so if you have other questions you can certain fill out the form, and we’d be happy to get back to you. Our website is WestSeattleNaturalEnergy.com, or you can certainly email me questions. The email is info@WestSeattleNaturalEnergy.com.

Kane: Great. And so just to be clear, what’s your area that you guys do installations in?

Amy: All of western Washington.

Kane: Okay – great. Okay – so pretty wide area there. And all right – well, I think that’s everything I had. So we’ll go ahead and take some follow-up questions. And yeah, thank you very much, Amy, for taking the time to answer all my questions. And I hope we can do another one in the future just about solar hot water and maybe wind in the area as well.

Leave your questions in the Facebook comments section below and Amy and the crew at WSNE will get back to you!

Seattle Solar Installation Q&A with Amy from West Seattle Natural Energy is a post from Seattle Homestead about urban homesteading.

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Photo: Front yard is coming together as the retaining wall takes shape, and most of the yard is sheet-mulched. The bushes are on their way out and so is the chain-link fence, in order to make way for the garden wall.

The new year is here and we’re approaching one year of living here at the homestead. We got plenty done from our 2011 homestead goals but there were a few things left off that we’d like to tackle this year. Here’s a summary of what we accomplished, and what we’re looking forward to doing in 2012:

2011 Homestead Successes:

• Getting 500 sq feet of garden beds in place.
• Getting our home interior in shape – painting, decorating, fixing, crown molding, and more.
• Planting 4 apple trees, 5 blueberries, plenty of strawberries, and 450 sq ft of garden space.
• I (Kane) finished my permaculture training with Toby Hemenway in October – that took 6 full weekends between May and Oct 2011 but was well worth my time.
• Acquired tons of free wood chips (6 yards in my truck and 20 yards delivered by the folks at Burien Tree Service) and sheet mulching most of the front and side yard – over 2000 sq ft of lawn removed when you include the garden beds.

2011 Homestead Things to Improve On:

• Scale – One permaculture principle involves starting with small-scale systems and building your way up, and frankly it’s one of the hardest principles for me to embrace and obey.  We have so much we want to do on the property that it’s difficult to limit ourselves. As a result, not everything gets done as well as it could.  Our garden, for example, could have been much more productive with some additional attention.  We also lost a few of our fruit plants, such as the tea tree and possibly the raspberry cane. This is part of the growing process of course, both literally and figuratively, but scale is still something we need to keep in mind during our projects.
• More blog posts! – I’ve got at least 4 or 5 updates from the fall that aren’t finished, so I’m going to try to sum those up soon. 2012 is going to be extremely busy, but I’d like to get at least one or two posts per month posted here.

2012 Goals:

• Build the Wall: We’ve got the ball rolling on building our wall this summer, and we’re planning to host a wall-building workshop around June. More details on that soon!
• Chickens: We acquired half of the materials for a chicken coop last year, but never got around to starting that project. We’d like to get that built this spring, perhaps if we finish the prep work for the wall early.
• Hardscaping: We’re hoping to finish at least the firepit area of the yard after the wall is completed, and hopefully a few other summer landscaping projects. We’re hoping to host some guests in August for our wedding, so we’ve got a deadline to hit!
• Clean Up: We’ve already removed the dead quince, a ton of Himalayan blackberries that have overstayed their welcome, and taken down a dead tree.  But, there’s still quite a bit of branches to prune, and ivy, holly, and blackberries to remove. The tricky part is removing them well and immediately filling the space, since nature abhors a vacuum and all three of those plants tend to come back as strong as ever.
• Blog Goal – More Interviews: We’ll be publishing an awesome solar electricity interview on Tuesday, and we’d love to interview some other experts as well as homesteaders. Every person I know in the permaculture & urban homesteading community has some awesome projects going on, and I’d like to get a few of those people interviewed here on the site, and even feature some guest posts. If you know someone like that, let us know using the contact form!

So, what 2012 garden & homestead goals do you have to share?

2012 Homestead Goals & 2011 Year in Review is a post from Seattle Homestead about urban homesteading.

The post 2012 Homestead Goals & 2011 Year in Review appeared first on Seattle Homestead.

At my permaculture design course last weekend the guest speaker was Douglas Bullock, of the well-known Bullock Brothers Permaculture Homestead on Orcas Island. Douglas was lecturing on the overall topic of soil, and specifically spoke about nitrogen-fixing plants, sheet mulching, microclimates, and last but not least, orchard design and his personal fruit tree recommendations for Seattle.

He gave me permission to pass along his recommendations for fruit to plant in the Maritime Northwest, which included best of breeds for apples, plums, peaches, pears, mulberries, kiwis, hawthornes, and figs. His recommendations were heavily focused on Seattle, however all of the varieties mentioned below would be pretty good for Seattle, Portland, Tacoma, and the rest of Western Washington, Western Oregon, and similar parts of British Columbia.

Apple Varieties:

• Good Early Apple Varieties: Vista Bella, Oriole, Discovery, Gravenstein
• Good Mid-Season Apple Varieties: Hudson’s Golden Gem, Zestar, Jonagold, Cox’s Orange Pippin, Splender, Sweet 16, Molly’s Delicious, Spartan. He also included Karmijn de Sonaville, with the provision that it needs a good hot summer in order to taste good – otherwise it’s not so great.
• Good Late Season Apple Varieties (Savers): Melrose, Mutsu, Ashmead’s Kernel, Gala

Plum Varieties:

• Good European Plum Varieties: Rhina Victoria, Bleu de Belgique, Italian Prune, Seneca (big, juicy and sweet), Elma’s Special, Red Washington, Damson (good for jams)
• Good Japanese Plum Varieties: Beauty (very heavy producer that will break branches, but it doesn’t keep well), Shiro (also heavy producer, but no broken branches, and makes a great plum wine), and Methley

Peach Varieties:

• Good Peach Varieties: Frost, Avalon Pride, and Q18

Pear Varieties:

• Good Pear Varieties: Comice, Baus, Bartlett, Red Bartlett, Orcas, Ubilene (?), Harrow Delight, and a new one that will be for sale soon called Suij (pronounced like “sigh”, it’s a half cornice / half winter pear and it tends to ripen in March or April, so it’s great for fresh winter fruit)

Mulberry Varieties:

• Good Mulberry Varieties: Illinois Everbearing, Lavender (good for drying), Persian (needs a very sunny spot, and interestingly has more chromosome than any other living thing)

Hawthorne Varieties:

• Good Hawthorne Varieties: Super Spur Mayhaw

Fig Varieties:

• Good Fig Varieties: Hands down, without a doubt, Douglas recommended Desert King Figs, because it has a high-quality first crop, which is rare among most of the breeds that are designed to have a great 2nd crop. The 2nd crop is OK down in California, but up here in the Northwest we never get 2nd crops, so we have to make the best of the first crop.

Nut Varieties:

• Douglas’s recommendation was to call Burntridge Nursery and see what they recommended. He did say chestnuts were good if you had a squirrel problem – I can’t remember the reason he gave us, but squirrels avoid them for some reason.

Paw Paw Varieties:

He said there are few Paw Paw varieties that will ripen well in Seattle. If your goal is for good production and you don’t care about messing around with more experimental varieties, he’d recommend skipping on the Paw Paws.

Vine Choices: Hardy Kiwi, Fuzzy Kiwi, or Grape

He also gave a super easy guide to deciding between kiwi and grape vines based upon soil and sun:

• Poor Soil, Good Sun: Plant a grape vine
• Good Soil, Poor Sun: Plant a hardy kiwi
• Good Soil, Good Sun: Plant a fuzzy kiwi

General Advice on Food Forests:

Most of the primary issues with fruit in Seattle are made worse by excessive moisture and crowding. Douglas advises to take this into heavy consideration when planning a food forest type orchard. He recommends looking into atypical plant and tree choices to avoid issues like apple maggot, and to give your trees good space. Also, keep a blank space in your mulch around the base of the tree, or you’ll run the risk of small rodent’s chewing the base off and killing your tree.

Stayed tuned for more from Douglas’s lecture, including a quick guide to finding nitrogen fixing trees and shrubs.

Douglas Bullock’s Fruit Tree Recommendations for Seattle is a post from Seattle Homestead about urban homesteading.

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We took some photos during early June of how things are doing in the garden. We got a late start on planting, so typically you’d see a little more activity from most of these plants by now, but they’ll catch up during June.

Click on any image to see the larger version:

Water droplets on spinach from the night's rain.

This is a snap pea shoot, which has been in the ground about 10 days. The pole on the left is from a small tripod teepee that will support a number of peas growing in the same spot. This variety is Super Sugar Snap from Territorial.

Chive Flowers blooming - I just ate my first one for the season yesterday. I planted quite a few chive seeds around the base of my apple trees, I'm hoping they germinate soon...

A shoot of corn coming up - we planted a super early variety called Early Sunglow Hybrid that only takes 63 days to mature.

I left town for 3 days, and our mustard plants (which had been overwintered) had skyrocketed about 2 feet in the time I was gone.

Pole Beans coming up - this variety is Red Noodle Yard Long Bean - which produces 18-inch long beans in 90 days. These pole beans will grow up the large teepee that we made. The stuff that we can reach will be harvested as soon as we can, and the higher up stuff we'll pull down at the end of the season.

Our clover again, about 1 month after it was planted. You can see that it's doing best in the cracks of the soil and other areas that allowed the seeds to germinate without drying out. There is also some grass growing up from the sod that we flipped over. We've been pulling that out by hand.

One last shot of the beautiful spinach, since it's the biggest thing in the garden right now aside from the globe artichoke.

These are my milk jub cloches. They are intended to protect tomatoes and a few warmer loving crops - but I don't necessarily recommend them. After testing them out, I think they might block light from the plant and I don't think they retain any heat. Next year I will be testing out clear plastic containers (I still can't justify using those expensive glass ones sold in the catalogue, but of course I think they work best)

The leaves on our dwarf apple trees are starting to emerge.

All photos by Kane Jamison, please feel free to reuse them under the Attribution-NoDerivs Creative Commons License with a link back to this post.

Early June Homestead Photos is a post from Seattle Homestead about urban homesteading.

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I mentioned in my post about building raised beds that I chose to add New Zealand white clover to the edges of the raised bed to act as a living mulch.First off, I should explain what a living mulch is, and how it differs from a cover crop:

“A living mulch is a cover crop interplanted or undersown with a main crop, and intended to serve the functions of a mulch, such as weed suppression and regulation of soil temperature. Living mulches grow for a long time with the main crops, whereas cover crops are incorporated into the soil.“  Definition from Wikipedia.

6 Reasons Why I Chose Clover as a Living Mulch:

So essentially, what I’m doing is allowing the clover to grow on the edges of my raised beds initially.  If it travels its way into the beds, that’s OK with me.  Here’s why:

1. Less Weeding: It will prevent most weeds and grasses from forming on the walls of the raised bed
2. Retains Moisture: Just like normal mulches, the clover will retain moisture in the soil by absorbing all of the sun before it hits the soil
3. Withstands Traffic: It should be able to withstand the occasional traffic involved in reaching into the garden beds
4. Nitrogen Fixer: It will fix nitrogen into the soil, which in turn benefits the plants in the raised bed
5. Improves Soil Tilth: Clover’s root system improves friability of soil almost immediately
6. Attracts Pollinators: Clover attracts bees, who will hopefully stick around and pollinate my fruiting vegetables as well as my nearby fruit trees & bushes

(These 6 reasons are also a great example of the permaculture concept of stacking functions – more on that later.)

But Isn’t Clover a Weed?

I have had a few people ask me why I would add clover to a yard, because they thought it was a weed.  First off, clover is only a weed if your goal is 100% grass.  If that’s your goal, read this article on how to have a beautiful organic lawn.

I personally like the appearance of clover better than grass.  Clover does have aggressive tendencies: it spreads quickly, and can block out other growth.  My clover will be used in a place where it is surrounded by a wood chip pathway on one side, and a garden bed on the other.  If the clover gets into the garden bed, that’s OK with me.  I can always pull back the area of clover where I want a plant to be, and then plant.  In the meantime, all of the area covered with clover will be getting a dose of nitrogen and will be relatively protected from weeds.

Also, I mentioned in my post on raised beds that much of my current garden bed soil will eventually be moved around.  When that happens, the clover will get mixed in as a normal cover crop would, and will improve the soil then as well.

Doesn’t It Compete With Other Plants for Nutrients?

Yes, a little bit, but that’s OK. First off, I take good care of my soil with plenty of organic materials and other natural amendments throughout the year, so the soil shouldn’t be lacking for nutrients.  As mentioned above, if the clover ever gets in my way, I can just rip it out by the handful and whatever I’m planting will have plenty of space. Furthermore, I’m a firm believer that planting polycultures (many plants all grouped together) will always do better than monocultures (think big corn fields with nothing else growing).

On a side note, here’s a good read about polycultures being more productive than monocultures from a recent study at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science:

“…analysis shows that plant communities with many different species are nearly 1.5 times more productive than those with only one species (such as a cornfield or carefully tended lawn), and ongoing research finds even stronger benefits of diversity when the various other important natural services of ecosystems are considered. Diverse communities are also more efficient at capturing nutrients, light, and other limiting resources.” (Source: ScienceDaily.com via Virginia Institute of Marine Science)

How to Plant the Clover:

I used a broadcast method (aka scattering the seeds) to add them to my raised bed walls.  If you use a broadcast method, be certain to do it (A) in your rainy season when the heat is gone or (B) cover it with a light layer of soil. If the seeds dry out or sit in the sun to bake, they won’t germinate well.  In my picture, you can see the seeds that fell into soil cracks were the only ones that performed well.

White Clover Seeds Germinating - You can see that the seeds that fell into cracks in the soil were much more likely to start. I seeded right before a hot and dry week unfortunately, so I learned this the hard way - Keep Your Clover Moist While It Germinates!

Where Did I Get This Idea?

There’s nothing new about it.  People have been using clover as a cover crop for a long time. Masanobu Fukuoka wrote extensively about using white clover specifically as a living mulch, so he gets full credit for what I’m doing.  Here’s a good article by permaculturalist Larry Korn (the man who translated Fukuoka’s book, The One-Straw Revolution, into English) about Fukuoka’s farming method.

Where Did I Get The Clover Seed?

I purchased 1 lb of it with my seed order at Territorial Seed Co. this year specifically for this purpose. The exact type I bought was New Zealand White Clover, which cost $11 per pound of seed.

More Information about New Zealand White Clover:

Territorial Seed Description: Trifolium repens – Growing to only 8 inches, this low perennial clover has a growth habit similar to White Dutch Clover but will stand drought conditions better, is more vigorous, and tolerates a wide range of soils. Used for both a spring and fall cover crop, New Zealand White Clover can be sown between row plantings or as a solid seeded cover. A terrific green manure as it fixes up to 170 pounds of nitrogen per acre and attracts beneficial insects. Sow 1/4 pound per 1000 square feet; 6–10 pounds per acre. Pre-inoculated.

Interesting White Clover Factoids:

(Source: University of Hawai’i PDF, See Below)

• Initial taproot may grow to 3 feet deep.
• Regenerates itself both by seed and by spreading vegetative growth.
• Grows on a range of soils, but better on clay and loam than on sand.
• Decent tolerance of shade, heat, flooding, and drought (all important here in Seattle).
• Depending on moisture availability, can produce about 1 to 3 tons of dry matter per acre, containing 80 to 200 lbs of nitrogen per acre.
• When growing white clover, farmers should see immediate improvement in the top soil. White clover’s extensive root system make the soil more friable, improving tilth and water infiltration.
• Susceptible to potato leafhopper, meadow spittlebug, clover leaf weevil, alfalfa weevil, and lygus bug. Slugs will also attack white clover.
• Competition with your primary crops can be reduced by mowing and hand pulling back the clover. Competition may be higher during drought periods.

For More Information on White Clover:

Excellent PDF Download from University of Hawai’i about White Clover: (Download Clover PDF)

Photo Credit: Martin LaBar

6 Reasons Why I Chose Clover as a Living Mulch is a post from Seattle Homestead about urban homesteading.

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Pictured Above: Here are our finished raised beds before planting. All together there are 7 beds, all roughly 5′ x 9′, totalling about 450 sq feet.

It’s May, and I need to overhaul a large section of the yard to make way for this year’s vegetables.  I have big plans in store for replacing the existing fence around our home.  Because of that, it was important to me that this year’s garden would allow me to work around it to start working on the fence.  Eventually, the homestead will be bordered with wonderful raised beds with rock walls.  In the meantime, this is what we did.

How to Get Rid of the Sod:

My plan was to dig up the entire East side of our yard; it’s the sunniest large area and was the best section to place most of our gardening.  However, to do this I had to somehow get rid of over 400 square feet of grass.

Many permaculturalists advocate sheet-mulching, which basically involves covering all the grass up with a weed barrier that will eventually break down, such as cardboard, newspaper, or burlap.  There are a lot of glues and other chemicals used in the manufacturing of cardboard and newspaper that I personally did not want in my garden.

Burlap sacks would have been great, but they cost money around here and take awhile to break down, so I’m skeptical that plant roots would have an easy time breaking through.

Enter the sod cutter:

Removing the Grass:

This is what a sod cutter looks like. The blade on the bottom left shakes forward and backward and slides underneath the grass. You can set the depth from about 1" to 2" beneath the soil.

A sod cutter is essentially the larger cheese slicer  you’ve ever seen.  You walk behind it just like a lawnmower, but instead of clipping the grass, it slides a blade under the sod.  When it’s done, you get those neat 12 or 18-inch wide strips of sod that are typically rolled out onto new lawns.

Normally I would have just used a flat shovel and spent the whole day to do this – a sod cutter definitely isn’t a mandatory tool to create a raised bed with sod walls.  However, my friend Michael called me early last week to let me know he was renting a sod cutter for another project, and that I could borrow it once he was done since there was a 4 hour minimum.  The cost to rent a sod cutter was $55 for a 4 hour period and $85 for a 24 hour period (rented during May 2011). I paid him the extra $30 overage fee since we kept it longer than 4 hours, and so it essentially cost $30 and saved me at least 3 or more hours of shovel work.  I probably wouldn’t rent one of these again unless I was removing 500 sq feet or more of sod.  Anything less is doable in an afternoon by a couple people.

Cutting the Bed & Building the Walls:

Cutting up a total of about 450 square feet took less than 1 hour with the sod cutter.

The next step was to use the cut strips of sod to build the walls for our raised beds.  Here’s a rough outline of how the grass was used:

The strips of sod in blue were flipped over in place to form the walls of the raised bed. The remaining strips were moved on top of the blue areas (grass facing down) to build up the sod wall. The white lines are roughly 12 inches apart.

Building the walls actually took longer than cutting the sod did.  There were 2 of us moving the sod strips into place and it probably took 45 minutes.  Cutting the sod took maybe 30 minutes after we got the machine running.

Pulling Back the Strips of Sod

After the sod walls were built up, here’s what they looked like:

Raised beds with no fill yet, just walls. The black thing in the middle is our composter, which had to be moved at one point, so we set it down inside the bed.

Filling the Beds with Compost, Wood Chips, and Soil

The next step is the start filling up the bed with compost & soil.  I prefer to use what’s on location as much as possible, so I layered a ton of grass clippings, then sticks and twigs and branches from our yard to fill up the bottom layer. From there, I dumped about 6 yards of poplar wood chips in the beds about 16 inches high. On top of that I dumped about 6 inches of soil.

I did end up having 10 cubic yards of “veggie mix” soil delivered.  It would be nice to build all of our soil from onsite and improve it up over the years, but this is one area where I need a quick infusion of nutrients.  It will likely be the last time I need garden soil brought in, so it’s a worthwhile expense to me.  The total cost of the soil was $367 including tax. A small price to pay for awesome veggies, I suppose.

Hugelkultur

At this point, I’m sure a few people will point out that all of those wood chips have huge carbon levels and will lock up all the nitrogen in the soil.  These beds are a form of hugelkultur (proper hugelkultur would use more stumps than wood chips, but they have a similar effect).  The first couple years there is a chance that nitrogen will get sucked up by the wood chips.  Compost, grass clippings, and a few other nitrogen sources on top of my heavy feeding crops should help to mitigate this.  Eventually, the wood will have soaked up so much nitrogen that it begins releasing that nitrogen.  So there’s a long term payoff that I think can be reduced in the early years.

In the meantime, that wood soaks up huge amounts of water, which is in turn soaked up by my veggies.  That’s important here in Seattle, where we have very dry summers.  This first summer, I’ll still have to water regularly, since the wood chips haven’t had enough rain to soak up.  In year 2 I will theoretically need to water far less than a traditional raised bed without all of the rotting wood inside.

Poplar Wood Chips - I hauled 3 truckloads of this from some freshly cut poplar trees not far from here. In total there was about 6 yards of these wood chips

This is what 10 cubic yards of soil looks like. This is a veggie mix consisting of 50% top soil, 25% Cedar Grove compost, and 25% organic "moo doo," aka aged cow poop. To give you some perspective, that wheelbarrow is much bigger than most (and it's a 2 wheeler), and it's sitting uphill from the dirt pile.

Here you can see that there are 6 wide mounds forming the raised beds. All of the mounds are 10 feet long, and they're all 4 to 6 feet wide. Additionally, beyond the fence there is a 7th raised bed by the driveway, where we get our maximum sun. The space in between the mounds will be sunken pathways.

Here you can see some of the layering of the beds. Out of sight at the bottom there are grass clippings and tons of branches. On top of the branches we poured about 16 inches of wood chips to form mounds. On top of that we dumped some coffee grounds and grass clippings, and then we topped that with finished soil.

I observed after building the walls of the raised bed that rainwater was accumulating on the uphill / West side of the raised beds. So I dug a trench underneath the pathways. Now the water will follow the blue arrows when it rains, and soak into the soil underneath the beds where the plants can access it. The trench and pathways will have wood chips filled in, which I don't believe will affect the drainage trench significantly.

This shot shows 6 of the 7 raised beds after all layers of wood chips & compost & soil have been added. You can see they are substantially higher than the pathways alongside them, roughly 24 inches I think.

Add Some Finishing Touches

I lashed up a quick pole bean teepee last night and planted some pole beans at the base of it, along with some mycorrhizal inoculant. This tee pee is roughly 10 feet tall at the connection point. Obviously we won't be harvesting everything at the top, but we should be able to harvest most of the dried-out beans when we take the teepee down at the end of the growing season.

Finish With a Living Mulch

Raised beds can be notorious for drying out quickly, because the water tends to obey gravity.  As a result, it is super important to have some sort of mulch to help the beds retain whatever moisture they have. I have decided to use a “living mulch”, which is just a mulch made out of a cover crop of some sort.  In this case, we will seed the walls of the raised beds with New Zealand White Clover. This will act as a living mulch by preventing weeds from forming on the wall and retaining moisture, but it will also attract bees and fix nitrogen into the soil, not too mention look good.  For more information see my post about clover as a living mulch.

Broadcast White Clover Seed - Note - if you broadcast seed like this, be certain to cover it with 1/8 of an inch of soil if you want it to sprout properly. I noticed that the only seeds sprouting for us were the ones that fell in cracks (where they didn't dry out so fast).

Total Cost

My grass clippings, branches, sod and wood chips were free.  I spent $8 on a pound of clover seed and used about 60% of it.  I spent $30 on the sod cutter.  This could have been free with a shovel and a couple friends.  I spent $34 per yard on the veggie mix soil.  I probably used 2 or 3 yards for the garden beds, so let’s say $90 on soil.  This also could have been free if I had just used soil on hand.  While my total cost was $130, it’s important to note that $120 was spent on shortcuts.  The primary cost of building these beds is a little sweat and finding the materials.  So these raised beds can work for any budget.  Also, had I not raised them so high, I would have needed less material, which would have made the beds much closer to free.

So, that’s how we built our raised beds.  They are still an experiment in progress, so be sure to follow along with us for the growing season to see how they turn out and too see what we would have done differently.

How to Build a Raised Bed with Grass Sod Walls is a post from Seattle Homestead about urban homesteading.

The post How to Build a Raised Bed with Grass Sod Walls appeared first on Seattle Homestead.

One of my goals for year one was to have some basic fruit in place.  Most will not bear fruit this year, but giving them a full season to set roots and grow will mean a decent crop in 2012.  So, I just put in a last minute fruit order at Raintree Nursery, thinking I might still have a chance to get a few things in the ground before it gets too hot out.  It’s mid-May, however, so I may have to baby them a little unless we have an exceptionally cool May & June.  Here’s what I ordered:

Three Four Dwarf Apple Trees:

The Melrose apple trees are on mini-dwarf M27 rootstocks, so they’ll be ideal as container plants.  The Golden Sentinel and Famuese are on semi-dwarf M7 rootstock, so they will hopefully do OK in containers.  The columnar will grow tall and compact like the one in the picture.  All might have some fruit this year, but especially because of how late they’ll be planted, we’ll be removing the fruit and allowing the trees to focus their energy on healthy roots and growth.

• Melrose M27 (2 of these)- “This flavorful red apple is top rated for reliability and keeping. Properly stored in the garage, it can keep until May. A heavy crop of tart apples, great for cooking or eating fresh, ripens in late October. Melrose is the official Ohio state apple.” As an added bonus, Raintree threw in an extra one of these with my order.
• Golden Sentinel Columnar Apple on M7 Rootstock – “A large flavorful yellow fruit that ripens in early October. 2-3′ tree.” This tree is a columnar variety, and cross pollinates with other mid-season pollinators such as the Famuese below.
• Famuese Apple M7 – “This small orange-red apple has been an American favorite for more than 250 years. It is also called the snow apple because of its white flesh which is sometimes streaked with red. The apples ripen in September, are tender and juicy with a great sweet/tart flavor. They are prized for fresh eating and cooking and make an aromatic bitter/sweet cider. It is a mid season bloomer.“

Tea Breeze Tea Plant

One Tea Tree:

• Tea Breeze Tea Plant – This one seemed to cool to pass up, and Kristina will be very pleased that she can make tea with it.  I still need to research whether this will make a good container tree, but they’re supposed to be easy to keep pruned and prefer part-shade.  Raintree’s site describes them as a “beautiful white-flowered ornamental variety that is also used to make delicious tea.”

Shuksan Strawberry

Seascape Strawberry

Two Strawberry Varieties:

I have no clue where I’m going to put these yet, but strawberries do great around here and at $5 for 25, I couldn’t resist picking up a couple bundles of them.

• Shuksan Strawberry (bundle of 25) – Good freezing and fresh eating, this is a reliable performer in the Northwest.  “Large crops of medium to large, firm, dark red berries in late June every year.”
• Seascape Strawberry (bundle of 25) – “Highly productive, day neutral variety produces an impressive center berry that is ideal for dipping in chocolate. All up and down the West Coast, backyard strawberry aficionados are raving about its excellent flavor, large size and disease resistance. Plants don’t need much chill to set fruit, so berries ripen early and continue to appear non-stop over a long season, from June to October. Proven successful in California and the Pacific Northwest, it is sure to entice gardeners in other parts of the nation too.”

Two Blueberry Varieties:

I have the perfect container in mind for our blueberry plants, I just need to get it filled up with soil.  It should be able to fit 2 blueberries side by side, as well as some companion plants alongside of it.

• Bluegold Blueberry – “Bluegold produces very heavy crops of sweet, flavorful fruit during mid-season. The beautiful, compact, rounded bush grows only four feet tall but bears large clusters of easy-to-pick berries. Unusual yellow fall foliage and yellow winter wood followed by bright white spring flowers make Bluegold a year round beauty. It is among the more winter hardy varieties.”
• 

  Reveille Blueberry

  Reveille Blueberry (3′ size) - “The unique crisp, almost crunchy texture and the outstanding popping flavor make this a must for your blueberry patch.Its upright, narrow easy to grow habit, to 5 feet tall, make it a great hedge plant. Heavy pink spring bloom yields loads of medium size light blue berries. Hardy to 0 deg. F, it thrives in hot climates or in the cool Pacific Northwest. Needs at least 600 chilling hours for best production.”

One Lingonberry:

For orders over $50 they’re throwing in a free Lingonberry or Raspberry:

• 

  Red Pearl Lingonberry

  Red Pearl Lingonberry – “Heavily productive, easy to grow! Selected from the wild in Holland for its tasty fruit, vigorous growth and brilliant green foliage. It grows to 16 inches and spreads rapidly.”

Everything I ordered was from their Spring Clearance listing.  The ordered totaled $87.50 before shipping, which was about $22.  I also found a $10 coupon, so altogether, just under $110.  While this order won’t have a huge payoff this year, most of the plants we ordered should be bearing some fruit by next year, and should easily pay for themselves early into their 3rd year.

Photo Credit: All images in the post are from Raintree Nursery’s website.

Our Year 1 Fruit Tree Order is a post from Seattle Homestead about urban homesteading.

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We have a huge list of things we’d like to accomplish here at the homestead, but to keep things in perspective I’m creating a list of project goals for 2011.

Take Care of Zone Zero – I’m going to have more information on the permaculture concept of zones soon, but for now a quick link to zones on wikipedia will do.  We just moved into our home in April and taking care of zone zero (the house and everything inside of it) is a big priority for us.  Because we spent the first 14 days painting just about every wall in the house, we still have a lot of work to do in terms of household repairs, cleaning, organizing, and decorating our living space.  Luckily, after finishing all of the interior painting, Kristina plans to set me loose upon the garden while she takes care of much of the organizing and decorating, enabling me to catch up with my garden daydreams from the past 4 months.

Raised Beds & Garden – My long term plans for the entire yard include a border of decorative concrete raised beds about 24 to 36 inches in height.  But, that’s a lot of work, and a ton of soil.  This year’s priority for raised beds involves removing sod / lawn from a large square area on the East side of the house (probably about 300 to 400 square feet initially), and building up that bed to at least 12 inches in height. My plan, in order to use as much free resources as possible for this temporary raised bed, is to dig out 12 inch wide strips of grass from the bed area, and lay them down on the edge of the bed to build a 12 inch high sod wall around the bed.

The remainder of the project will involve heavy composting of grass clippings, twigs and branches from the yard, some food scraps and rabbit poop donations from friends nearby, and whatever other free materials I can find in the area.  I’ll likely end up bringing in a few yards of ready-to-go compost & top soil to cover over all of the composted items, as well as some mulch on top of that.  After the bed is built up, hopefully by the end of May, we should be able to plant seeds & seedlings that were started in early May.  You can see the plans for the raised bed in the photo below.  The red/orange area is where the beds will go.  The yellow is the fenceline of the property.  Click for larger photo.

Build a Chicken Tractor and Raise Hens – We went back and forth on whether to keep chickens for a few months.  In the end, we’ve decided to get some chicks in the next couple weeks for a couple reasons. (1) Chickens are very productive, and we’d love to have the eggs not only for our own use, but to sell and barter and gift as well.  Another chicken yield that I look forward to is plenty of manure, which will be needed for soil building in the next couple of years. (2) I have a ton of free salvaged lumber on hand, and big wheels from a broken lawn mower, and extra hinges, etc.  Basically all I need to purchase for the tractor I plan to build (more on that later) is 3 pressure treated board for the base, and 1/4″ metal hardware cloth (since chicken wire ironically is not suitable for protecting chickens). (3) We’re excited just to have them.  Not much to be said here, they’re great creatures to have around an urban homestead.

Here’s a photo from the Country Living Expo of a chicken tractor that was being raffled off.  The chicken tractor will be 4 ft wide by 10 ft long, 8 feet tall at the peak of the roof, and will have 40 square feet of grass space and 12 square feet of coop space, plus vertical space as well.  I think that the tractor will be able to comfortably accommodate 4 hens, and a maximum of 6 hens based upon the square footage limitations that I’m comfortable with.

Plant Fruit – While my budget doesn’t currently allow me to go on a $600 shopping spree at Raintree Nursery like I’d like to, I still want to get some basic fruit trees, bushes, and vines started.  Specifically I’d like to have a couple dwarf apple trees, a few blueberry bushes, some grape and kiwi vines, and possibly some more exotic species. We already have unidentified cane berries of some sort blackberries growing on one side of the property, so I’m holding off on those at the moment.  Some of these I still might try to get planted during spring, but there will also be an opportunity to plant some items in the fall after we’ve settled in.

• Fruit Update 1: According to the neighbor I just met, we also have a very old plum tree in one corner of the property.  Apparently the fruit isn’t very good, but there’s a chance the tree could be improved through pruning until the fruit was good enough to can or brew.  Plum wine, anyone?
• Fruit Update 2: Here’s our fruit order for year 1.

The Fence – This is the biggest priority wild card in the projects for the year.  Currently the homestead has a metal chain-link fence around 90% of the yard.  However, we live on a fairly busy arterial street and the fence does nothing to keep out noise from cars.  Also, we’re located on a corner with a bus stop, which is great if we want to head downtown, but it also means we can occasionally hear those loud bus brakes throughout the day.  The solution? A new fence wall. My rough fence plan is to have a 1 to 3 ft high concrete wall around the North and East perimeters of the yard, which will double in function as the back of our raised beds in the future.  On top of the concrete wall I plan to have a cedar fence connected to the cement via post anchors of some sort.  This is the largest project I’d like to tackle this year and I don’t have experience in pouring concrete for walls, only for footings, so there will be plenty of discussion about the fence in coming months.  Update Fall 2011: This project has become more focused since I wrote this post originally. At this point, we’re looking to make this a cob wall, which will be much more effective at blocking noise than the wood fence. More information soon.

Improve Home(stead) Efficiency – As the summer winds down and the heaters start to come back on in the home, it will be time to start tackling some home efficiency projects.  Seattle City Light (the city electric company for those of you outside the area) offers discounted home energy audits to customers, so this will likely be one of our first steps.  They have a number of other assistance options available as well, for things like appliances and larger home improvements, so we’ll likely be looking into each one of those as well.  Our home has some other efficiency-related projects as well, including insulating the crawl space and installing some water-saving devices in the bathroom and kitchen.  Our home is 100% electric, so I’m motivated to get some of these things done before we attempt to keep the house fully heated with baseboard heaters.

Update 5/2: Mushroom Logs – Can’t believe I nearly forgot to mention mushroom logs…  In a shady & moist environment like Seattle, Mushrooms can be an amazing way to boost the productivity of full shade areas that most gardeners typically give up on.  I’d like to get these going early, because the first flush (another word for each harvest of mushrooms) can take 6 to 12 months or longer depending on the mushroom strain and the conditions they’re grown under.  I plan to start out with a few of the more common strains, like Oyster &  Shitake.

There’s plenty more things that I’d like to get done this year, including a patio & firepit area using some salvaged bricks, but we’ve got plenty on our plate for the year already, so writing these primary goals down is the first step towards getting them all completed.

Seattle Homestead Goals for Year 1 is a post from Seattle Homestead about urban homesteading.

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