We are excited to be setting up our 3rd annual Straw Bale Garden. We have been very excited with how it works for the past two years and are doing it again. This video is a quick demonstration of setting up the garden. This is based off of Joel Karsten's book on Straw Bale Gardens. I am also a certified Straw Bale Garden Instructor, you can visit my profile on the Straw Bale Garden website HERE. In Part 1 I will be setting up the cardboard as an underlayment that serves as a weed block and ten the bales. Part 2 will show setting up the rest of the cardboard, spreading out the straw and getting the bales all ready for the growing season. Enjoy!

In our last blog titled, Worm Hotel Vermicomposting... Composting with Worms I gave several reasons why a gardener would want to have a vermicomposter. The bucket style, or as I call, the 'Worm Hotel' is perfect for the typical backyard gardener that is wanting to create worm castings and make compost tea for their garden.

In this video we take it a whole other level by converting a 55 gallon barrel into a worm trough. I decided this was a better route for a few reasons, 1) this year we plan to really develop our farm. We live on an acre and are only using a small portion of it so far. We could really use a lot more worm compost tea and casting. 2) as we scale up and build out our farm we will begin doing a lot more tours, demonstrations, and classes. With those events happening we will be able to sell worm castings, Worm Hotels,  and compost tea kits.

​To learn more about the power of vermicomposting read this blog.

We have always loved the look of stacked firewood on the front porch especially since moving from AZ where you never needed firewood, however it can be difficult to move, I also do not like that wood is sitting directly on our wood deck knowing that it can harbor moisture which is an enemy to wood, dirt, and pests. So we needed something different!

This firewood cart design came loosely from an article on Pinterest that was for indoors. I saved that article because I plan on building it someday for inside. When I make it for inside I will mimic this one I built for consistency based on some of the modifications I made. I built this cart much more shorter (2') and wider (4') than the inside version so that if we have it on the edge of our porch facing the street we can still see over it if we are sitting on our rocking chair or bench. When I build it for inside it will be a 2' square & 6' tall.

It was simple to make, took about an hour or so to complete although that was interrupted by a plum sized hail storm as you can see in the picture and had to wait a day to chemically age the zinc coating on the wheels. The drawings and finished pictures are below, and the instructions are at the bottom.

The aging process for zinc or galvanized metal is simple, I brush on toilet bowl cleaner and let it sit for a day or more. While it is setting I sprinkle salt on it and the keep it moist with vinegar. These chemicals quickly take the shine off and will begin to rust in parts. I was too impatient to wait for the rust and figured since this is an outdoor piece rust will happen over time. I have done wheels like these before for our coffee table that is a converted old trunk and the caster rusted up perfect. It took 2-3 days. NOTE: Do not get the chemicals (cleaner, salt, or vinegar) in the bearings!

Refer to drawings and pictures above. If you have any questions leave them in the comments section below.

1. Prepare the caster wheels to age and remove 'new' look (see above), you can/should also add (4) of the Inside Corner Braces to the mix since they can/will be seen (I forgot to do those prior)
2. Cut 4"x4" x 8' post in half, creating (2) 48" pieces, these are the side rails
3. Cut 2"x4" x 8' into (3) sections 11" each (I wanted overall depth to be 18", I may recommend 16" if you plan on using shorter firewood. As a result three pieces need to be cut for the crossmembers. Their length is based on the overall depth (my case 18") minus 7" (4"x4" is 3.5" x 2 sides) equal 11")
4. Treat the wood with a sealer, paint, or leave normal to allow natural aging
5. Measure in 4" from the ends of the 4"x4" posts on the inside and scribe a line and then mark the center of the 48" post with a line as well, place the (3) 11" crossmembers on those lines and then mark, and drill 1/16" pilot holes for the Inside Corner Braces and then attach using the (72) #8 x 1" screws
6. Locate, mark, drill 1/8"pilot holes for the 3/4" steel pipe floor flange, and then attach the flange to the ends of 4"x4" posts on the top side using the #14 x 1-1/2" Wood Screws
7. Thread the 3/4" x 24" steel black pipe nipple into the floor flange and then thread on the caps
8. Flip the cart over onto the 24" nipples and then place the casters in the position that you want on the bottom of the 4"x4" posts and then mark and drill 1/8" pilot holes, use the 16 #14 x 1-1/2" Sheet Metal Screws to attach the casters (save the casters for last so that the project isn't rolling around on you while you are trying to work on it)
9. Flip over and load up with fire wood
10. Sit back and admire your stinkin' awesome work, your a MAN... or WOMAN and if not then show this to someone and they will believe you are!!!

We are excited to be setting up our Straw Bale Garden this year. Unfortunately it is about a month or two later then we were hoping to have it ready. I had some big health issues for the first couple of months this year with a huge bout of pneumonia as well as a few other things including dealing with vertigo for about 6-8 weeks. This put all the house and farm projects back a couple of months. We have been playing catch up ever since.

You can see in the gallery below all of the steps that took place starting from where we left off in a previous post about creating a lot of mulch from last year's Straw Bale Garden, you can read about that and watch the video HERE.  Also,  you can hover over the pictures for captions.

The steps are simple:

1. Clear all grass and weeds from the area. I weed eat first and then burn what is remaining with a landscaping torch.
2. Layout 2-3 layers of cardboard to prevent weeds.
3. Layout the straw bales and put down a bunch of straw over the cardboard and place stakes around the bales.
4. Being prepping and conditioning the bales for planting, this usually takes around 2 weeks.

I also wanted to let you know in case you missed it on one of our previous videos, I am a certified Straw Bale Garden Instructor, you can visit my listing page on the Straw Bale Garden website HERE. If you have any questions on how to create a Straw Bale Garden, the conditioning process, or better yet, invite me out to consult with you on how and where to put it then contact me here are through the official SBG website.

​Stay posted for updates on the garden and the rest of the farm.

​Part of the original design for our RabbiDome was to create a garden area around the outside of the dome. We built it 30' long to be about 40-45 sq ft. This video demonstrates how we built this garden bed by excavating down about 10", layering several layers of cardboard, then backfilling it with rich garden soil and finally topping it with straw to reduce weeds and keep soil moist. 

We decided to go with Malabar Spinach as an edible so we can eat it & provide a lot of vegetation for the rabbits and more importantly it is a fast growing vine that will provide a lot of shade. We will also be adding other shrubs and flowers to the garden area in time as we decide on a balance between elegant and edible plants which is an Agriscaping philosophy. 

www.agriscaping.com

Visit our Facebook page to see more about our philosophy, principles and stories.

​We decided to convert our rabbitry that was all cages to a colony style. We chose a geodesic dome built out of conduit pipe (EMT pipe) due to its light weight, it is inexpensive, and not to mention pretty cool design that was invented by Buckminster Fuller. The size is 16'-4" diameter providing 190 sq ft of space as well as the option of going vertical if needed at 9'-6"high in the middle. It is located under some trees for shade and the parts exposed to the sun will have planters that will grow vines and other edibles on the outside for food production as well as shade. It will be covered with 1/2"x1/2" hardware cloth to keep out snakes and other predators and the top 10' will covered with a tarp to keep a large portion of it out of the rain.

Building a geodesic dome is very simple as long as you use a dome calculator although it is slightly technical. We went with a 16.2' diameter dome to make as minimal waste as possible with 10' conduit pipes. We also chose the 5/8 dome which means it is slightly more than a circle cut in half so that the side walls have more vertical edge to them to allow adults to walk around without hitting their heads.

We decided to convert our rabbitry that was all cages to a colony style. We chose a geodesic dome built out of conduit pipe (EMT pipe) due to its light weight, it is inexpensive, and not to mention pretty cool design that was invented by Buckminster Fuller. The size is 16'-4" diameter providing 190 sq ft of space as well as the option of going vertical if needed at 9'-6"high in the middle. It is located under some trees for shade and the parts exposed to the sun will have planters that will grow vines and other edibles on the outside for food production as well as shade. It will be covered with 1/2"x1/2" hardware cloth to keep out snakes and other predators and the top 10' will covered with a tarp to keep a large portion of it out of the rain.

Building a geodesic dome is very simple as long as you use a dome calculator although it is slightly technical. We went with a 16.2' diameter dome to make as minimal waste as possible with 10' conduit pipes. We also chose the 5/8 dome which means it is slightly more than a circle cut in half so that the side walls have more vertical edge to them to allow adults to walk around without hitting their heads.

This is the calculator we used to build a 3V 5/8 geodesic dome.

If you want all the math and total amounts of pipes and cut lengths they are available HERE on an Evernote.

When we decided to begin our self-reliance and self-sustaining focus we also believed we could make it look good also. As you will see in the coming years the MFF will be an elegant edible place with a high priority place on the elegant part. This is a small taste in that direction.

Here is a DIY Project to build a citronella tiki torch out of a wine bottle and a few dollars worth of hardware. They work awesome, look great, up cycled bottles, and very cheap. 

Here is the link to everything you need. The only correction I found was to use 3/4" split rings and not 1" split rings. The larger set slides right off the neck of the wine bottle. 
http://lifehacker.com/5827992/turn-a-...