My biggest Challenge yet~~~

[Oldman]

Starting at the end of this month I will begin to convert my yard into an organically grown garden. It will have a water garden/ two level pond with a bog, some ground covers, wild grasses, native plants, wild flowers, and fruit trees. There are areas here that never receive any direct sunlight. Other areas that receive several hours of direct sunlight. The hedge on one side will be made up from a "trash tree" that grows here. Over the past two years I have been experimenting with this tree seedlings and now have one section that is 10 foot long that very well might work into a no maintenance hedge that is green and full 365 days a year. I've also have collected these past two years some other "wild" items that look very promising. My thought line here is not to re-create the wheel, but to utilize what works here naturally.

To give you an idea of what "ground zero" looks like the picture below shows what I'm starting out with. Where I live everyone here grabs a can of XXX or is using chemical fertilizers. This project will show that a beautiful yard, not some dry looking Xeriscape with burned out mulch between the plants can be had without the use of these types of items, and doing so utilizing minimal watering. That a healthy yard with a full living Micro-Society can be established and manicured/ maintained within Nature's natural ways.

I will be creating a journal to document what I'm doing. It will include all aspects of this project. I'm very excited about this. I have spent several years going over this, first in my mind, later on paper. Several years of walking the "wild" areas keeping track of what looks good and does well here. I feel I have matured enough organically that this project will be very successful.



07-13-04 Well the watering system is in at last. What a mess that was.

We could not put the wells in where we wanted because we could not get past the roots when trying to snake a pipe to garage. So we ended up putting down 6 new well in the backyard and then locating the system in the back of the house.

Next I had to run a 110 line to the system. The problem with that was I sided this house last year and the rule is no wires or anything showing on the side of the house. So I snaked the wiring under the siding then into the botton track of the soffit all the way around the back of the house to a point where in the old soffit I could run the line through the original vent and into the attic. However there are some items I just could not hide. So I will fence it off. Those in the picture below.

Next I removed the metering point from the auto feeder and in its place I put a cock-valve. This allows me to adjust how much fertilizer will be injected into the system when it is running. Of course I will have to run the fish extract through it late at night or my neighbors will kill me LOL!

[Fuzzybear]

Olds, you are truly an old hippie I think!  I applaud you going organic...my last raised garden was totally organic - it is no fun squishing tomato worms by hand as you well know!  Once I hung up the seed feeders for the little birdies though, my bug population went way down!  I couldn't use pesticides you see, Stella (my trouble doggie) like to eat my plants!

Here's a story that you could copy and paste for the Pet Gallery if you want...

It seems that Stella also has a fancy for hot peppers (the red ones)  I noticed some "fertilizer" in the back yard that was all red and it about scared the "fertilizer" outta me LOL! I thought for sure one of my dogs had eaten something that was tearing their insides out...so, kept an eye out and found out who was dropping the red "fertilizer" (Stella) and then decided to keep an eye out for any out of the normal issues she may have (LOL again - normal? out of the normal?) anyway, one day I happen to be looking out into my garden and noticing how nice things were going when in she walked, grabbed a pepper and ripped it off the vine and began to chow down - sure enough, it came out all red the next morning! I'm telling you, she has stolen my heart more than once with her little escapades!


"A mans got to know his limitations"
Glendora, CA - USA!

[Oldman]

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Olds, you are truly an old hippie <hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Well I was at woodstock what can I say.... That was a lifetime ago. Come a long way since those days.

How this all came about is a few of my neighbors say it cannot be done here with out chemicals.  Ok put your money where your mouth is. Step up to the pump. Olds going to eat your lunch...

In a year there will be some very red face folks at that meeting.
Olds