Building a passive solar greenhouse

The chard outside in the garden is frozen and wilted. I hear it will perk right back up, but as of the moment, it's lookin' pretty sad.

What would be better this time of year than a nice, passive-solar greenhouse out in the garden. Here is a great link from the Bradford Research and Extension Center, University of Missouri, showing plans and instructions and design concepts for a very straightforward passive solar greenhouse.

An illustration with the basic concepts [click picture for a better view]:



The solar gain off of those water barrels is amazing.

So, for the serious geeks out there, here is the page with the construction details and materials list.

Enjoy dreams of season extension in the garden,

Bp

Wild Kingdom in our back yard: Katydid about to get eaten by Miranda

I have a thing with Carnivorous plants. They're just too cool.

Last Mother's Day I sent The Wife to the local Orchid show with some money and said "get something that makes you happy." It was her first Mother's Day after all. She came home with the most amazing plant -- a Nepenthes Miranda Asiatic cobra plant. It's gorgeous.

I must plug Sarracenia Northwest here. They are a local Portland Oregon plant nursery that specializes in carnivorous plants. I'm happy they had a display at the Orchid show so the wife could run into this impressive plant. If you ever had an itch to get a carnivorous plant, click that link and see just how much variety and information they provide.

So -- on to the video.

Today when I came home for lunch I saw a bright green leaf on one of the pitchers. Then I saw it move. I got closer and saw that it was a Katydid. I've never seen one in our area so Miranda did quite a job of luring him in from who-knows-where. Amateur video to follow.



And the video in which I find out my flip camera software has no "rotate left" option in its edit options. Sorry 'bout that, but I'm posting it anyway.



Enjoy beautiful plants eating bugs,

Bp


[photograph via Petflytrap]

My Housemate is better than Yours: The Rose Wall

T. is rocking the garden this year.

Check out this noise -- a beautifully executed rose wall behind the bee hive on the South side of the house. Seems he set it up right, and chose the right varieties to make it happen. Just amazing.

What can I say, my Housemate is better than yours. Sorry, but it's true.






Enjoy friends who help make your life immeasurably better,

Bp

Nuking a blog: The 17 Gardens of the Outer Nethers

I really loved the name of that blog. It was Doc Ock's kid who walked around our property when he was 8 years old, and afterward announced that he had counted 17 whole gardens in our yard. I started to correct him and say "those are beds, like parts of gardens" but then stopped myself. "Yep, you are exactly right, there are 17 gardens here!"

Anyway, in the Summer of 2007, I was a young and impetuous blogger and thought that I would need a separate blog as an occasional place to post the tons and tons of garden photos I was planning to take. As it turns out, I needed to finish school, and work, and take care of the house, as WELL AS blog. So that blog is no longer needed. I'll post all the garden related posts here instead.

Below, pictures of the front yard, the front gate, and one of T's amazing bouquets -- all from The 17 Gardens of the Outer Nethers blog, 2007.





Enjoy realizing that even more of your interests can be accommodated by a single, personal blog,

Bp

Photo essay: creating a "Mushroom Tree"

As I mentioned last month, we are going to attempt to grow wild mushrooms in our back yard. I ordered 300 plugs of Chicken of the Woods spawn from Fungi Perfecti.

The first picture is of the bag of plug spawn.


The second is the back of the bag, showing a healthy bunch of plugs.


The third is looking into the bag, seeing a nice, healthy cottony network of mycelium around all the plugs. The instructions were to let the box and spawn sit for up to a month before using so the mycelium could recover from the shipping. When it looked this way, I decided it was ready to go.


The next picture shows a 5/16" drillbit and a few holes in the "diamond" pattern suggested in the 10-page booklet supplied by Fungi Perfecti. The bit was around 4 1/2" long, and I was shooting for a distance of 3-4" between holes -- so used it as a rough measure.


Next is 4 plugs set in the holes, and only the top one pounded in. I used a finish hammer for this, as I couldn't find our rubber mallet.

Next is a typical "field" of plugs. My impression is that you want fields like this, as opposed to thin runs in the wood. The plug spawn grows out from the spot where it was introduced until it reaches the next one growing out from another location. When the mycelium reach each other, they bind up and support each other's growth -- so wide fields of plugs are better than thin paths.


The last picture is the incipient Mushroom Tree itself. I did a nice wide collar of plugs about 4' off the ground all around the trunk (out of reach of chickens, who I think would go after the young mushrooms), then a nice wide stripe all the way up the front to a collar around the top. When it blooms (anywhere from 6-12 months from now), it's going to look totally cool.

Chicken of the Woods (Laetiporus sulphureus) mushrooms are not only edible, but really bright and beautiful -- check out these links for good pictures: Wikipedia, American Mushrooms.com, and some doozies from the New Jersey Mycological Association.

Enjoy creating edible art in your garden,

Bp

Beekeeping Class in Portland, April 5 at Livingscape Nursery!

It's almost Bee Time -- most of the bee orders will be filled this time next month.

Anyone interested in beekeeping in or near Portland should consider This Class with local urban beekeeper and organic gardening educator extordinaire Glen Andresen. The classes will be held from 10 - 2 at the very cool Livingscape Nursery,3926 N. Vancouver Avenue(between Shaver and Fremont)503.248.0104.

For gear and information and bees, know about Ruhl Bee Supply -- a long-time staple N.W. business. The people are educated and helpful, and they'll have whatever you need to get set up.

I'm thinking that after the backyard chicken craze, Portland's next urban self sufficiency/food production movement is going to be bees. That couldn't make me happier.

I found out about this class from the lovely and talented Naomi at Concentrates agriculture supply, where we buy all our soil amendments, chicken food, and other knickknacks that we need (that come in 50 lb increments). Thanks Naomi.

Enjoy grassroots means to sweetness,

Bp

[photo credit in linked article about Glen]

Random Chore Man (tm) imitates winter storm

The Wife has this title for me -- Random Chore Man (tm). I can't believe I haven't brought it up in the blog, because it is so prevalent in our home life.

Random Chore Man struck this morning, having decided that it was high time he trim down the plum tree in our parking strip. Of course it was going to be "just a light trim" -- but as the picture attests, it turned out to be a big 'ol effing deal.

When I tried to defend my seemingly random desire to attack this chore today, The Wife just smirked at me and patted me on the shoulder saying something dismissive like "you go get 'em honey, you sic 'em."

Since she won't listen, I'll explain to ya'll.

For one, I've been noticing how the tree is reaching up into the power lines. It is also taking more and more light away from our front yard every year. I also noticed how many vertical suckers it had developed, and I know that those are always removed by orchardists as they reduce fruit production. Even though this is an "ornamental" plum tree -- it does produce fruit, so I figured if I treated it more like a fruit tree it might be encouraged in this endeavor. Also, the tree has *just* started putting on its flower buds, so this is the last weekend where I could trim it this winter. Once the energy was flowing, and the flowers blooming, it would be bad for the tree.

In essence, I had my reasons dammit.

The Wife thinks the whole "fruit tree" element is hilarious, "It's an ORNAMENTAL plum hun," -- but supported me in my exertions regardless, because the tree really did need a strong pruning. She called a friend of hers from work and invited him over to behold Random Chore Man, of whom he had heard so much.

Look, those pillows in the front room were dusty and had cat hair on them, fluffing them in the dryer was entirely appropriate -- who else was going to do it. Sheesh -- always chappin' my arse around here...

Random Chore Man signing out.

Bp

A night at home, domestic bliss, twinge of regret

Had a great night last night, just being home. T. and The Wife and I sat around in the living room and talked garden plans, gate plans, espaliered-fruit-tree plans, cutting up concrete in the driveway plans, sharing excitement about the soon-to-be-coming grain mill (and subsequent fabulous breads), and hunching together around the computer messing around with our own and familys' names (of all things).

The name thing was a discovery out of the comments section of Shocho's blog, tons of entertainment just finding obscure names and seeing when they were popular and when they weren't. "Buddy" just isn't popular anymore, but it was in the 30's, for instance.

This house and little chunk of land provides what seems to be a lifetime's worth of projects. Getting as much food out of the land as possible, reducing our footprint as much as possible, making things pretty (we all concede to a vain side when it comes to the front of the house especially -- why we limit vegetable growing out there and stick to mostly flowers and now fruit trees). It is all good work, and begs to be pursued full-time. I admit to some regret around how much time I've spent not doing these things with T. and The Wife in pursuit of my degree.

School has started and it is amazing how little time I spend at home. Outside of actually being unconscious, I can't spend but 2 hours a day at home, morning and night, on most days. It's pretty crazy. The rainy grey season has finally fully arrived (instead of just teasing like it did much of the summer) and I guess it makes me a bit contemplative. I work not to live in a way that makes me hope for the future -- but I can honestly say I look forward to having more time to just tinker and fix and fuss over our cool little house.

Enjoy your domesticity,

Bp

What a slacker

So T. got some time off from Jasmine Pearl Tea Merchants, and what's he decide to do? Oh, PAINT THE GARAGE... you know, something light, productive.

Here he is painting under the eaves after he removed yards of steel grating and it's accompanying Wysteria vines. They're draped over the garden, around his feet, in his way, all over the place.


It's not a simple job, but he felt that if the roof looked so nice then the rest of it should get cleaned up too. My god.

Enjoy your spirit family,

Bp

17 Gardens of the Outer Nethers updated

Still getting the new garden photoblog set up, but here and here are some updates from today.

Enjoy,

Bp

Night off, a student's paradise

Getting toward the season where my non-student friends start rolling their eyes and making snarky comments about not being "so dam serious" about school -- finals are coming around. Hanging out with non-students this time of year can be taxing. It's like sports fans dealing with non-sport derision during the playoffs, or new parents getting asked out for beers by their non-parent friends who just don't get the fact that there is a toddler involved. Somehow, I think a lot of adults got all the way through school and never lost the attitude of "oh it's just school, who cares." No reasonable person would encourage their friends to blow off work deadlines when they have a performance review coming up -- but I still get this kind of flack from otherwise perfectly reasonable adults regarding my schoolwork.

To start off the finals season, I took a night off. I got off school, dropped my backpack on the living room floor and didn't think about it or academia again the whole night through. I didn't do my normal routine of a little cleaning and housework or bill paying , a snack, and probably a nap before leaving again in a few hours to go study til the wee hours of the morning with The Crew. Instead, I walked down the street and hung out with the neighbors as they were building a stone retaining wall, walked the garden a bit and talked to T. about the goings-on there, stared at flowers and bees in the yard for exceedingly long periods of time, shuffled uselessly around the house a bit, and hit the sack early. Actually got to lounge around and chat about nothing in particular with The Wife as well. At this point in the school year, that's a description of heaven for me.

I don't need to be casting over a nice hatch of Pale Morning Duns off a gravel bar on the lower Deschutes, or hunting spring Morels on the slopes of the Cascade range -- just hanging out around our wonderful house works for me. It's a sanctuary for us -- a colorful sanctuary full of books and good food, and beautiful art. A place where we can put up road-weary friends and keep the cats in a matter to which they are accustomed. A little urban oasis surrounded on all sides by flowers, trees and veggies. It pays back in spades the work we put into it.

Now that I mention it, some fly-fishing and knocking-about in the woods would be quite fantastic too. Note to self: get the hell out of dodge this summer as much as humanly possible before school starts up again.