Cheaper than a greenhouse

I want a greenhouse. I *really* want a greenhouse. Oh my goodness, I *really* want a full-sized, well-built, gorgeous greenhouse. But it is definitely not in the permaculture budget this year, nor can I find agreement with my wife for where we would place the thing.

So I did the next best thing. I turned the raised beds into mini-greenhouses with slitted row covers. We started them in January to warm the soil to help the cover crops grow and jumpstart spring planting.

We ordered both the roll of row cover itself and the supporting wires in bulk and to share some with a neighbor for her to experiment, too.

I think we’ll be using them in the winter months each year after we put away the floating row covers to help overwinter some crops. Our lettuce grew well all winter in the cold frames, but production slowed way down in December-January. Next winter I’ll see if we can use these to keep leaf production higher.

More reasons to put effort into extending the harvest season are listed in this excellent article on Chris Martenson’s site.

Manure, manure, and more manure

For the past several months, I’ve been getting almost weekly deliveries of free manure. Cow, goat, chicken, horse, even donkey.

In the late fall, I began a sheet mulching project to prep two new areas for blueberries. Once I had my manure sources lined up for delivery, well, they just kept on delivering.

So I let them. After the blueberry beds were full, I began using the incoming loads to build out new beds in the food forest, to be planted late spring.

Is it working? Wow, is it ever. I actually put the new blueberry plants into the ground recently and could not believe how many worms there were as I prepped the holes. Holy smokes! This will be an annual project from now on as we build up our soil.

Although we don’t have large animals ourselves (unless you count the security system), having friends with large animals is definitely a useful addition to the network.

Decorating with chard

What to do with extra chard? Decorate your house, of course.

My wife is so cool.

Solar chickens and a new flock

Added solar powered light for chickens to keep them laying throughout the darker months. We gave our two year old flock away recently and have 20 new layers coming out of the brooder now.

Sheet mulching project

We’re converting more chunks of our lawn into food production, specifically blueberries as my kids inhale them.

Doing runs over to friends’ places to grab manure from cows, goats, and chicken, usually with ample straw mixed in, as well as shredding all the leaves that are falling. Laying them on top of several inches of cardboard boxes and overturned sod should make for good planting beds for bare root blueberries in late winter.