Tag: garden

Things that help us to remember

It is hard to believe that it has been almost 29 years since my grandfather died.  Fritz and I were buddies.  He was that special adult in my life that had a significant influence on me, and has always held a special place in my heart.  And, for as long as I can remember, he had one of these tractors out in the yard.  I don’t remember him ever actually touching it, but for some reason it is firmly tied to my memory of him.

Johnson Sprinkler Tractor
I have been waiting 29 years to get one of these.

There weren’t many toys at my grandparent’s house.  A couple of old toy tractors, mini bikes, riding lawn mowers, real tractors, and guns were the things we had to entertain ourselves.  Oh, and of course the millions of things that you find on a farm in West Texas.  But, for whatever reason I just loved that tractor sprinkler.

Tractor sprinkler mechanisms
This picture shows most of the mechanism that makes this thing work.

The engineering behind this is quite brilliant.  Technically I think it is referred to as a walking sprinkler. The intended function is to move forward as it waters the lawn/garden.  It is designed to follow the hose, with the front tire being designed to fit over the hose.  The water hose is connected to the tractor and turned on.  The water flows out through the swing arms and forces an inclined plane to rotate.  That is interconnected with a gear that us turned by the rotation of the inclined plane.  Attached to the gear are two arms, each extending to a swinging metal tooth.  The tooth is designed such that as it moves forward in the rotation the tooth pushes another gear, which is the tractor’s tire causing it to turn and propel the tractor forward.  As the tooth swings back, it freely flops over the teeth of the wheel gear and repeats the cycle again for the next rotation.  You can create a path with the hose and it will follow that path until it bumps into something, dragging the hose behind it as it goes. I watched it do this for hours as a kid.

When Fritz died in the late summer of 1986, that tractor became a part of my memory of him, and I always wanted one ever since.  They still manufacture versions of the tractor sprinkler, but they aren’t that old fashioned sturdy kind.  They aren’t Fritz’s tractor. I had seen a few of the vintage ones over the years, but they were either too expensive or I just didn’t have the ability to get them at the time.  But this spring I was at a construction material reclamation business looking for doors (that is another blog story for someday in the future), when I saw it.

This one was cast iron, just the way it should be.  It was used, but not abused, and it still worked.  I haven’t run any water through it yet, but the swing arms turn and all the mechanisms follow suit accordingly.  And after all of these years, I finally have my tractor sprinkler.

Garden with lawn ornaments
This is the spring ’15 layout of Brayden Garden

I have given it a place in Brayden Garden.  Brayden Garden is a memorial garden that I built after the death of my nephew.  He was 5 years old and he died of the flu and meningitis within hours of first showing symptoms.  It has become a place of grounding for me.  I always find myself reflecting on the fragility of life when I am working that garden.

Cherub in garden
This cherub was donated the day after a neighbor learned of Brayden’s death.

The artifacts in the garden are growing in number.  The first thing that went in was a cherub statuette that was given to me after my neighbor heard the story.  I watched her heart break right in front of my eyes when I told her about Brayden.  The next day, she brought me the cherub while I was out working on the garden.

Tractors and Tonka truck in garden
The Tonka was Brayden’s

The next thing added to the garden was Brayden’s Tonka Truck.  This truck was bought by my brother the day Brayden was born and it sat in the hospital room with a bouquet of flowers.  The next time I saw that truck with a bunch of flowers in it was at his funeral.  My brother James and his wife Melissa gave us the truck when they found out we had created the memorial garden and wanted some toy of his to go into the garden.  Every year I plant flowers in it and it sits out in the garden.

Other things have been added to Brayden Garden over the few years it has been, but none with the significance of those two.  Anyway, when I got this tractor, it was a bit of a memorial to Fritz, so it was obvious that it needed to be added to the garden.

Now I can guarantee you, that there is going to be a time when I put that tractor to work doing what it is supposed to do, but in the mean time it gets to sit there in Brayden Garden.  And there, it will serve as one of those things  that bring me back to another time and place, gives me access to memories that I otherwise might forget while at the same time helping me to stay grounded in the present.

PEACE!

KT

Day 23

Categories: garden Love

Tags: , ,

Pallets in my garden

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.

Solar dehydrator
Solar dehydrator built from salvaged shower doors, salvaged windows and pallets.

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.

Solar Dehydrator
This view shows the solar dehydrator at work

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.

Plants in greenhouse
The same structures that allow for dehydrating vegetables can be adapted to hold trays of seedlings.

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.

Greenhouse shell before plastic sheeting
Before adding the plastic sheeting, you can see the simple structure made from pallet wood. the floor is also a large pallet.

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.

Indoor view of greenhouse
Here you can see how the pallets were used for the sides and internal shelving. The only structural elements not made of pallets are the ceiling joists which are made from re-purposed PVC pipe.

 

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.

Pallets used to make 3 bin compost pile
The pallets were used to create a three bin compost pile.

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.

Pallet wood built lattice
Behind the lattice work you can see the original pallet that serves as the frame.

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.

Clematis on pallet trellis
Clematis enjoying the sun and shade provided by this recycled pallet.

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

 

 

 

 

 

Categories: garden Work

Tags: , , ,

The New Addition to my Garden is a Cold Frame

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.

Recycled material cold frame
My cold frame is made of recycled windows and deck boards.

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.

Greenhouse covered in snow
A couple of years ago my greenhouse full of tomatoes was buried in 16 inches of snow on May 2.

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

Day 1: A cleansing Breath

Birdhouse

You know, sometimes people just suck.  I don’t mean everyone sucks.  I just mean that sometimes you have just had enough of people.  Right now I am like that.

I hesitate to tell you how disappointed I am in the people who have seized control in the US and beyond.  To me, greed, power lust and selfishness are the least desirable human characteristics.

But, I periodically find myself wrapped up in the games that are being played.  And don’t get me wrong, it is important to be informed and look forward to anticipate where things are headed.  But sometimes I get carried away and sometimes I get caught up in it all.  When this happens it begins to slowly suck the joy out of my life.

I let this happen every once in a while, and then I have to find a way to dig myself out so that I can have some peace of mind.  This is a recent post I made to Facebook:

“I think the solution for me is that every time I find myself fixated on the evils of unchecked power, that I need to pour that energy instead into artistic creation. I want to take up painting, return to writing, and improve my photography and music. I will smile more often if I do.” (3/21/2015 08:14)

So that is what  brings me here.  Today is the last day of Spring Break 2015, and I took my camera out  to try to start the “improve my photography” part.  And while I was out taking pictures and anticipating a snowstorm, I came to a conclusion.  I decided that I could use a blog as a way to take care of a couple of these things at the same time.

So, this is my first movement toward pouring my energy into artistic creation.  I am going to post something every day.

Birdhouse
Looking for light, I came upon my birdhouse

This birdhouse was one of the things I photographed.  I was drawn to it by its texture, but then as I was focusing on the opening I “saw the light”.

Blurred light seen through the entry to the birdhouse.
Looking at the entry into the birdhouse
View of the crack in the roof of the birdhouse
Looking inside the birdhouse
Visible trees through hole in birdhouse roof.
Looking through the birdhouse.

This set of photographs was inspired by Peter Galante, “Learn to see the light”.

So that is enough for today.  I will post again tomorrow.

Categories: Pondering

Tags: , ,

A little something I am doing for myself.

Indoor Garden

Hi, and if anybody reads this, welcome to my blog.

Let me be brutally honest.  I am not a blogger.  I have for my whole life tried to blog, or write a diary, or in some way get into the daily routine of writing about whatever comes to my head.  I have never, ever been in the least bit successful.  If I ever get a second post up, I have done good.

But, I am going to try this once more.  I think that if I ever got to the point where I wrote on a daily basis, that at the very least I could have a great time with it.  Maybe if instead of thinking of writing a post everyday I could supplement them with video blog entries.

We’ll give this a push out the door and see where it heads.  The journey of a thousand miles starts with the first step.  So here goes.  But first, to try to give this a chance, I am going to give myself a challenge.  I challenge myself to post at least one thing a day for the next 50 days.

I had tried this some time ago, and it didn’t work out so well.  So when I came in today I had to update my WordPress, widgets, apps and database.   Now, I am ready to launch.

Categories: Pondering

Tags: , ,