There is something that I don’t understand. How can we as humans create a world that is so driven by war and hatred. Every major religion has love at the core. Every people speaks of love and peace. Yet we always find a way to turn others into enemies. It doesn’t have to be this way. All we have to do is stop. Some day, some way it has to happen. Why not now?
If you look around my garden, you are going to see re-purposed materials. Pallets and windows, old deck boards and paving stones, it is all likely to have a home in my garden eventually.
Yesterday I showed you my new cold frame made from old house windows and reused deck joists. Today I want to give you a glimpse at some of the things in my garden that are made of recycled materials.
This solar dehydrator is the most sophisticated of the stuff I have built for my garden. The walls are made out of old shower doors that came out of our house. The frames on the walls are made from pallet wood as is the frame of the solar collector (the part that juts out in the front). The glass on the solar collector is from old windows, but I can’t remember where they came from. The 4x4s that hold it up were gathered from the free wood bin at the outlet store for a local hardware store. In this case I did actually buy some materials but normally I don’t. I bought the plywood and the sheet metal that is used to gather the heat in the collector. I also bought screen material to cover the racks on the inside, but the racks themselves are made out of old pallet wood.
I took it even a step further, and after a couple of years of using it only as a solar dehydrator I decided I could take off the solar collector in the spring and use it as a greenhouse. I think I used it as a greenhouse for two seasons. I painted some large stones black and put them down in the bottom so they could gather heat from the sun during the day and slowly release it at night to keep it warm. It worked great.
On really cold nights, I had a small heater fan on a thermostat that I kept down at the bottom with the large rocks, and it would only come on when it was really starting to get chilly. It works great as both a solar dehydrator and as a greenhouse.
But I found that I needed more space in my greenhouse, so I built a greenhouse out of pallets. The greenhouse actually started out to be an ice shack, but it never made it there. I had found a very large heavy duty pallet and salvaged it with the idea of using it as the base of the ice shack. I had used re-purposed 4x4s and attached them as skids or skis to the base of the pallet. I figured this would allow me to move it around better on the ice and would give it enough substance to drag around without fear of tearing up the pallet when dragging it behind the truck. But I never got the sides on it before my back went out on Christmas Day 2013 and stopped those plans.
It sat in my shed until that spring when I decided I needed a greenhouse more than I needed an ice shack. So I figured out how to put up walls made out of pallets, and then tried to figure out how to add a roof without making it too heavy. To that end, I found some old PVC pipes that had been part of the set of “The Jungle Book” put on by Red Cedar Youth Stage (local children’s youth theater). It seemed like a shame to see them thrown away when there was bound to be a need for them someday.
Add some shelving made out of pallets and some purchased sheet plastic and you have a greenhouse for not much more than the cost of the screws and plastic sheeting. The heat collecting mechanism in here is a combination of those black rocks from the other greenhouse, and, you guessed it, a re-purposed basketball hoop base. The base is black, and it holds about 40 gallons of water. It gathers that heat in the day and lets it out all night.
One of these days, I will do a story on composting. But for now I will just touch base with how you can use pallets to create a three bin compost system. In the picture below you can see how a handful of pallets can be used to manage your compost pile. The idea is that you fill up the first bin, then when it gets full, you move it into the next bin, and ultimately the last. This allows you to contain the compost, and each time you move it to the next bin you stir it up and your finished compost is in the last bin. Ultimately my compost pile way outgrew this system so it is no longer in use.
If you know me, you know that I am a form follows function kind of guy. I build something for the job it needs to do. But sometimes, the function is aesthetic. The picture below shows a trellis, no let’s call it a garden sculpture that I made out of pallets.
In this case, I needed a structure to support the growth of my clematis. This was going to be a high visibility structure, so it needed to look like something other than a pallet. So I got creative.
If you look around my place, you cannot help but see things that used to be other things. I use them all over the place. I like to think that every time I reuse a pallet, or a window, or a whatever, that is one less thing to go into the landfill. It is also money I don’t have to spend, and I like that.
I hope you enjoy my ideas, and I hope they inspire you to do something with pallets. But, stay away from my pallet source, I have some more ideas for this spring.
PEACE!
KT
Day 19
Every year I add something new to my garden. It might be a new fence, a greenhouse, or even a new garden. I don’t dedicate a lot of budget to the garden so normally it is made of something that had previously been something else.
This year my new addition is a cold frame.
What exactly is a cold frame? Basically, it is a structure that is normally placed on the ground and is built in such a way as to capture the heat from the sun to extend the growing season.
This year I was fortunate enough to not have snow on the ground in early April and it gave me a chance to clean up the garden and start thinking about growing outdoors. Now I have lived in Wisconsin for 7 years, which is plenty long enough to know that there is still ice under the soil and there will probably be snow on top of it again.
So what a cold frame does is give us a chance to get some of those cold weather plants started just a little bit earlier than normal. After my lettuce, radishes and onions get started in here, I will probably move it to another part of the garden to give some of the warmer weather crops a couple of extra growing weeks as well. It is a way of fighting off those nights that just flirt below freezing with just enough captured heat to make the difference. It causes the soil to heat up quicker too, and the roots like that.
So now, let’s go back to my cold frame. A couple of years ago a friend at work was remodeling a house and he had a bunch of old windows that needed a new home. Naturally Pete thought of me and I became the new owner of 8 old windows. I brought them home and added them to my pile of stuff waiting for a reason to be used. With my love of gardening and a bunch of old windows, I knew it was just a matter of time before they got re-purposed.
I put these out about a week or so ago. I used recycled 2 x 12 boards from an old deck to build the frame and placed them around a part of my garden where I had scattered some lettuce and radish seeds, a few onions and I can’t remember if there is anything else. I put the windows on top, just laid them there, nothing fancy. When the rains were forecast for this week, I decided it would be easier to let mother nature do the watering, so I took them off and leaned them against the frame from the outside. And it rained and watered my seeds. Just the way it is supposed to be.
Now today, I saw the forecast and it is calling for 2-4″ of snow. It was the last thing we needed, but it had to be expected. That is where my cold frame comes in. I went out there today to put the windows back up on my cold frame so the snow doesn’t fall and chill the ground. When I went out there, do you want to guess what I saw?
That is right, the radishes were poking there noses through the soil. It probably wouldn’t have hurt those radishes to get a little snow on their noses, but just think about how happy they are going to be when they are tucked in all cozy like into their cold frame instead of lying there in the snow. It will probably buy them 5 or 10 degrees and when the snow is gone I will be 4 or 5 days ahead.
Sounds like a plan, let’s see if it works. I’ll tell you more about how I use reused materials around my garden another day, maybe tomorrow.
Enjoy your gardening folks, and don’t be afraid to take something old and make it something new in your garden.
PEACE!
KT
Day 18
Today, I want to see some color so I am going to share some pictures of flowers from my garden. I hope you enjoy.
So your asparagus patch is over crowded. You can take that little patch of overcrowded asparagus and convert it into a very large patch of asparagus by digging up and separating that root ball.
If your asparagus isn’t above ground yet, it is your last chance to transplant. Asparagus needs space to get the nutrients necessary to produce the large sprigs we love to eat. If you plant from seed, or your asparagus is given the chance to produce seeds, it will eventually get over crowded.
This clump was dug up last winter after it had gone dormant. You can see the yellow asparagus and an assortment of green weeds. Your asparagus should be dormant when you are trying to transplant it. Dig it up and remove all the debris. This is a hands on job and it is easier if you get the root ball as clean as possible.
It is important to get as much of the soil off the roots as you can. It holds the roots together, so it is best to take a hose to it and get as much of the soil out of the root ball as you can.
When you get it cleaned up, it is going to look something like this. This particular root ball is a result of planting from seeds placed too closely together. There are dozens of crowns in this root ball.
The key is to learn to identify each crown so you can isolate it from the others and pull it apart from the ball. It really is as simple as that, but it can be a challenge. You can identify the individual crowns by following a root to the place where it ends, and look to see that there are other roots coming from other directions and ending in the same spot. This point is your crown. Be careful with that part, it contains the stuff that will turn into next year’s spears.
After you pull them apart, you will have a group of root clusters, each of which will become it’s own asparagus plant when transplanted. You will need to dig a trench about 5 or 6 inches deep, and wide enough to place the crowns in with the roots out flat. At the bottom of the trench put the richest soil you can find, you will be feeding these plants for a long time. Place the roots in the trench, and cover it with about 3 inches of soil. As the season goes on, you will add more fertile compost or soil until it reaches level ground.
When you will be able to harvest depends upon how old your crowns are, and how much they like where you plant them. Usually you can count on not getting a harvest the first year unless you are planting really nice crowns. You can harvest the asparagus spears when they are about the size of a pencil or larger. If they are smaller than that you should leave them to supply nutrients for next year.
The first year they will be thin and spindly, in subsequent years they will get more and more stout. Your biggest job for the first year will be to keep the weeds out of the garden so they don’t compete with the asparagus. Top dress with good compost to keep the weeds down and the nutrients up.
After it is established, you can use the space between the asparagus for some other crops if you leave enough room between asparagus plants. In this picture I have cilantro that works nicely because later in the spring and summer it benefits from the shade provided by the asparagus. Also, it is really easy to pull up cilantro and clean our the patch when it is done. I have heard of people planting strawberries and even tomatoes between the asparagus rows.
I don’t like to use insecticides or herbicides in my garden if it can be avoided. That means I have to go through and pick of the asparagus beetles most mornings. Later in the season, the damselflies and wasps come through and take care of a lot of the bugs that will infect your garden.
I also go through and pull off the springs that start forming seeds, because the seeds of asparagus become small asparagus plants that act like weeds because they compete with the older plants for space.
Once you have them established, take care of your plants, by feeding them and clearing out the debris. The will then feed you and your family and make your pee smell of asparagus for 30 to 50 years.
Peace!
KT
Day 16
When you are a parent, the most important thing is the well-being of your children. Each child is different, each relationship is different.
A year from now, Tina and I will be approaching the empty nest stage in life. The junior year in high school is a high impact year. It is that stage when you are able to present yourself to the world to see by your own actions. Tests become more important than they ever should be, and the stresses of deciding what you are going to do when you move away from home come to the forefront.
It can be a beautiful time as you watch your children really starting to bloom into who they will be as adults, and it can be a frustrating time when you see them making decisions different than what you would have made for them. But the ability to influence their future switches into one in which they are largely in control. The decisions they make will take them into the next stage in life. Nothing more, nothing less.
It is a good time to step back and take a look at the past, then step aside and let them spread the wings you have helped them to earn. So today, I am reflecting on my youngest son’s life, where he has been and where he is going. I am drawn back to what I consider the best photograph I have ever taken.
I took this picture years ago when we were on vacation somewhere in the center of Australia. I was talking to my son, explaining about the sun going down and encouraging him to focus on it as it slipped over the horizon. This photo marks that moment just as it slips away and it captures the first time my son ever really watched a sunset. It captures a magical moment when I was able to give him a new view of the world.
These days I am more likely to get rolled eyes than focused attention when I try to show him a different perspective on the world. But that is the nature of the world. We each grow up and take control of our journey and our parents have to step back, have faith that they have done the best they can and hope that we come out the other side in tact.
It is a wonderful life waiting for you out there. To have an interesting life, you have to do interesting things. Rise to your potential, you are a wonderful man, a great person, the funniest person I have ever met and you have a great future in front of yourself. Make the most of it by challenging yourself to be your best.
Peace!
Dad
KT
Day 15
The last couple of years spring came so late and winter lasted so long I didn’t really have a chance to prepare the garden. This year the lack of snow and the relatively mild temperatures have given me the chance to do some early season prep work. Let’s talk about raspberries.
The type of raspberries I am used to working with are everbearing. This type gives you two crops a year if properly pruned. Each year the plant puts up new shoots that will flower and fruit late in the summer. These are the primocaines.
They will produce fruit from late summer until the weather gets cold enough to make them go dormant. This is a heavy crop of fruit, with large berries. When winter comes, any berries that are still on the bush will remain until spring, unless birds or deer decide to eat them.
In the spring, it is best to prune the vines while they are still dormant. The picture below gives a clear indication of where to prune. The buds for this year can clearly be seen in the image below. They show up just below the end of the last fruiting branches from the fall.
When the weather warms, they will grow into the new growth that will house the spring harvest that normally comes in June and into July. These berries are usually smaller than the fall harvest. After the June harvest, these vines will die and should be trimmed out if possible. The canes that will continue to grow and those that are dead are clearly distinguishable when you know what you are looking for. In the picture below, you can see dormant (brown) and dead (grey) vines. Ideally the ones that are now grey would have been pruned in July, but if not then they should come out in spring.
To prune the dead vines, clip them close to the ground, and remove them from the patch so they don’t pass disease and pests to the next crop.
Cut the dead vines right at the base of the ground and remove the vines from the patch.
The increased air flow and sunlight from having properly pruned your berry patch will result in a delicious and healthy harvest.
I am 49 years old, and today I was adopted!
There is an advantage to hitting this stage in life. I still have both my living parents. My children are adults, or near enough to call it so. That comes with the joy of seeing that I haven’t managed to destroy them as I raised them. Actually, both of my boys are fantastic men with great hearts, incredible insight and compassion, and both with very promising futures ahead of them. My wife Tina and I did alright raising our boys, and that is the most important job I have had.
Along with the boys comes access to their friends. I get great joy out of spending time with young people. It is one of the things that makes teaching a career of my choice. I have gotten to meet some really great young people along the way.
One of the special ones is Mackenzie. She is an extremely talented musician and is a freshman in college this year. We hit it off right away when we met doing a show several years ago. She carries a smile that lights up any room she enters.
Kenzie is the first one that every adopted me, she calls me Uncle Kevin. I like that!
But I have never had a daughter. Until today when I was adopted. I didn’t see it coming, but when it happened it was subtle, almost silent, and so cool.
I answered her post, telling her how I store my kayak and canoe. Then it dawned on me. Katie had called me her “outdoorsy dad”.
Katie is another one of the special ones. I liked her the moment I met her. She works with my wife Tina and that is how I know her. They are frequently seen around town doing things for the community related to wellness. Katie also has one of those smiles that you can’t help but notice, but her smile comes with a little bit of mischief and tells the story of a person who just absolutely loves life and is going to get everything she possibly can out of that life.
Now maybe I am reading too much into this. Probably I am. Maybe I am just a sentimental old fart (I definitely am). But to me the use of the names Uncle and Dad when used in this way are terms of endearment. What was it that Sally Fields said… oh, never mind. The point is that I am touched, I am honored, and it fills me with joy to have been adopted in this way.
Thank you very much Katie, you made my day.
PEACE!
KT
I left out last names to protect these ladies from the glaring spotlight of the Internet because you know, my blog is so heavily read. But that’s what we do, we protect our family even when they don’t really need it.
Day 13
I really wanted to spend some time outside today, but it was just too chilly with the wind to spend much time outside. So, I ended up working in my garden. It had gotten a bit out of control, so I had to clean the place up.
This is how I operate. I get into the midst of things and clutter gathers in piles. Then, the time comes and it is time for me to clean everything up and get it back to a state of normalcy with a place for everything and everything in its place.
Along the way I found a way to add another light to my upper deck.
With this little rig, I could have 9 or 10 trays of seedlings. It is designed to allow the sun to shine directly onto all of the trays, and then that is supplemented by three sets of fluorescent grow lights.
This year I started my plants around March 15, some earlier than others. By now I am able to see which pots have failed to germinate, and which have more than one plant in them. So, today I had a chance to sit there and talk to my mother on the phone about nothing in particular and transplant plants from pots with more than one into pots that hadn’t germinated. It may not seem like much, but it is a chance for me to get a head start on spring and get my hands in the dirt.
It looks like spring, it smells like spring, and it gives me a jump on the gardening season. We can expect our last frost on May 15. By then most of these will be 8 weeks old, the perfect age for transplanting.
And as a bonus, my wife no longer has to walk by and be distressed by the amount of dirt I bring into the house in the spring.
Peace!
KT
Day 12
I was telling you about how I was going to find ways to get back involved with the arts, you know, something I am doing for me. Well today I began my return to the stage. I started rehearsal tonight for “Little Women”.
Thanks to Katie Shay, the director of the show for finding a little spot for me, and working with my crazy schedule to get me back on stage. I just met most of the cast tonight, but they have already been working together, and the cast has already got a nice culture working.
It is so good to be involved with a show again.
Watch this spot, I anticipate that I am going to have a lot to say about this group of talented people.
PEACE!
KT
Day 11