Brian's Projects

Hello all. I've started working on ~1.5 acres of land this weekend that we plan to develop into a sustainable garden area. We hope to use this area to raise emus, chickens, ducks and bees as well as produce enough fruit/veg to help supply a 7-day a week farmer's market.

This weekend I stacked all the tumbleweeds and mowed a majority of the area.

The Hub Garden

Hi Brian, looking forward to seeing more!

huh. emu's. interesting. make a blogspot so i can read about it

It looks like the perfect time to terraform with some swales and or hugelkulture beds. A little extra planning at the beginning will save you LOTS of time redoing things later. Do you have a plan drawn up showing the connections between elements? Oh how I would do things differently, if I was starting with a bare field. I envy your flat spaces! Good luck and keep us updated.

Cliff,

The planning portion is where I am now. I am very overwhelmed at this point so I am trying to break everything into steps.

Quick background about this land and how I get to use it. I will be moving to the land this coming weekend and will be able to work on it after work and on the weekends. The land belongs to a couple who volunteer with us for The Giving Tree Project;they are letting us stay there in exchange for helping with the land.

-3 acre lot
-Front 1.5 acres has house and rose/flower garden in the front (We plan to do some better companion planting up here) The ducks are currently in the front as well
-Back 1.5 acres for my use to do as I please mostly (listed below are a few caveats)
-30' easement from back road
-There is a small dirt bike track they want to keep that takes up quite a bit of area (I have to find out how solid they are on this before I get everything planned out)
-They want a lavender field towards the back road for bee forage (They also want to make products from the lavender)
-They want a nice neat portion of the garden with raised beds and pretty walkways

Things I need to do:
-To scale diagram of land
-Slope/Contour identification for swaling (Bakersfield avgs 7" of rain a year and this land doesn't seem to slope much from eyeballing it)
-Making the connections between elements as you stated Cliff
-Continue cleanup

I will most certainly keep this updated as I will need some help for sure, especially during this planning stage.

As for now, I need coffee.

Thank you all for your interest and advice!

Regards,
Brian

Made some more clean-up progress this weekend in addition to moving out to the land.

Not much of an update but want to keep this ball rolling!


After 2 by bakopermie, on Flickr

Hi Brian,
You say 'they': are you working on your own design, but integrating a client's requirements?
Emus. Eek! Being a bit negative here, but have you seen those claws? From what I know, they are pretty full-on birds and need intensive management.

"They" are the owner's of the land.

I have free reign for the most part but yes there are things that need to be included.

Emus are the only thing they have wanted that I'm not sure about. Also, this is definitely a long term project and the emus won't be coming anytime soon if at all.

Right now my focus is on earthworks > plants > bees > chickens.

Thanks for taking interest, all questions/advice welcome!

Brian

Bill sneaked out like a ninja early 1 morning this weekend and burned all the tumbleweed piles I made. Hooray!

We also opened the beehive for its 1st inspection and to add a frame.

Here is a bee hard at work on a lavender flower.


Close-up by bakopermie, on Flickr

Made a trommel this weekend to help me get the bermuda grass out of the flower/garden beds.

Craftsmanship is around a 5 on this lol but it works


Action by bakopermie, on Flickr

Haven't posted in awhile but I have some new pics up and have a bit of a garden going.

Things done since last post.
-Finished filling 2nd hive box for bees and got a reward for our effort. Next steps, add honey supers.


Our honey 2 by bakopermie, on Flickr

-Planted
-a few 3 Sister's Guilds
-perennial flowers such as lavender, borage and lupine
-beans, sunflowers and watermelon
-raised bed with a variety of peppers, okra and squash/zuchinni
-raised bed with a variety of tomatoes, basil and cucumbers
-more general clean-up of the area
-blueberries
-Accumulating of cardboard and other materials for mass sheet mulching

Still very much overwhelmed but inspired by having a garden growing. Trying to put up the good fight against weeds/grass.

I'm not sure I mentioned this, but this is the first garden I have ever planted.

There are many pictures on my Flickr and I will be posting more this evening or in the morning.

Thanks for looking.

My Flickr

Brian

Had trouble with my Flickr account for a couple weeks.

Uploaded pics of some of the progress made.

Garden Progress