Jackson Bradley

R Cohen wrote:

Jackson Bradley wrote:If you will have 12" tall beds and you say it will be 3 planks tall, then the boards you are proposing must be 1x4. Where I live, I can get 2x for about the same price as 1x. If you use 2x6, the bed will only be 2 boards high.

Where I live, a 2x6x8 is $6. For a 4'x4'x12" bed, you'd need 4 of them.

What wood type are you using that a 2"x6"x8' is $6?  For me, that sounds close to the price of the generic SPF (spruce/pine/fir) wood I mentioned above.  This is part of why I was trying to figure out if using "SPF" (unnamed spruce/pine/fir) wood would work okay, or if I need to actually use wood labeled as pine.  Where I am, a 1"x4"x8' is about $9, and a 2"x4"x8' is about $20 for actual knotty pine wood.  That's why I was going for the 1x4's. (especially considering its small size, and that I may not stay in this apartment for that many more years anyway).

If I were to use the "SPF" wood, I could definitely use 2x4's, as those are $4 each.  I'm just not sure what that would entail for gardening or if it's recommended.

Thank you so much for the information!

It is from the local bog box store. If you use untreated, you could paint it before building to extend the life. Treated would last longer but you'll have to decide if you want that wood contacting the soil you are growing plants in. I do not think there would be much of a difference between spruce/pine/fir or #2 pine but others may be able to chime in on their experience.

How long the wood lasts would be very specific to your environment. How wet, humid, termites, etc.

I think the ideal material, if the goal is longevity, would be concrete blocks or bricks. With the concrete blocks, you could fill some of the cells with bag mix concrete and rebar driven into the ground.

If you will have 12" tall beds and you say it will be 3 planks tall, then the boards you are proposing must be 1x4. Where I live, I can get 2x for about the same price as 1x. If you use 2x6, the bed will only be 2 boards high.

Where I live, a 2x6x8 is $6. For a 4'x4'x12" bed, you'd need 4 of them. I do not use any type of liners in mine and the soil stays in just fine. If you use untreated wood, you may want to paint the boards before assembly so they last a little longer.

Either way, you will essentially have 2 or 3 stacked box frames. You must have a way to secure each individual box frame to the others to keep them in line vertically. That is where the corner posts come in. They could be a piece of 2x6 as well or 4x4 or even a round piece of wood. The corner posts keep all of the boxes aligned vertically.

I like to have mine like your figure A, horizontal boards overlap and attached to each other and also have the vertical corner board as in figure b with a couple of fasteners.

Tereza Okava wrote: the rabbits aren't thrilled with it, even wilted a day or two, so I don't feed it.

Thanks for sharing your info about the chickens. I would really like to have them but a detailed post like this makes it clear I don't have the space, and also it entails a significant amount of work, much more than a few rabbits.

edited to add-- i see you're in zone 8a. something that grows faster than the grass seems tricky, but i wonder if you might like to try sorgum. i don't think i've heard of an animal that doesn't like it, it is generally pretty hardy and drought tolerant, and if i'm feeding it for leaves, i can cut-and-come-again to get a second round out of it. you could conceivably cut part and leave part for grains for your animals.

I have the regular and bocking 14 and there is a preference for the 14. It also makes larger leaves than the regular. All around wonderful plant. I have been selecting breeders part on size and part on them going for the things we have around here to feed them! I am sort of surprised that it varies from one to the other somewhat.

I do grow some sunflowers but they get absolutely covered with leaf footed stink bugs. To the point where you can hardly see the plant sometimes.

I will look into the sorgum, thank you.

Have you ever considered quail? I really like them. They don't take up much space, easy to care for and I prefer the eggs over chicken eggs.

Are you planting anything specifically in response to current events?

I suppose this is part of the reason we are doing what we are doing no matter the political environment. War, inflation, energy costs driving up the cost of everything else and this does seem to be ongoing no matter who is in what office. The direction I planned to take things in spring was developed over winter but the current events are confirming that it is a good direction.

Currently, raising chickens, quail and meat rabbits and hunting deer provides 70%+ of our meat and 100% of our eggs. However, besides the deer, feed comes into the equation. I have been foraging almost daily for the meat rabbits. Berry canes, pine cones, grasses, clover and "weeds". I can see a path to providing everything they need from foraging and growing. I divided a good portion of my bocking 14 comfrey and have around 100 plants currently. I am really focusing on dividing more in the coming month. The regular comfrey just does it's thing and over a couple of years is turning into some nice patches. The bamboo is also picking up speed and that helps for the occasional chew treat for them and I use as much as I can get for stakes, etc.

The chickens and quail are more of a challenge. I do not free range for a few reasons. I do tractor the broilers. The main reason is that the deep bedding is my #1 material for amending and mixing into new raised beds along with aging the bedding and mixing potting soil for starts. I bag grass clippings and put the entirety in with the chickens. Part of the comfrey is going to them as well. I think the vitamin A is why I am seeing some beautiful yolks now. Nice before but really outstanding now. I have been considering tractoring some hens after the broilers are out of the tractors and see how that impacts the feed amount. I am hesitant because I am using 100% of the deep bedding for gardening.

Have you made any changes in what you usually grow

We have our annual vegetables narrowed down to what grows well here and what our family likes. We tried a bunch of different things initially, including different varieties.

Are you new to gardening and have questions about what you're doing?

I have about 3 acres of cleared land. I mow and bag some to go to the chickens. I seed clover in the areas that I tractor the broilers. Once the grass starts growing, it overtakes the clover. I am experimenting to find something that'll grow faster than the grass that I can cut and feed to the rabbits and chickens, along with the grass or instead of. This is done by hand everyday. I am experimenting with sunchokes. I think I can only cut them down 1x a year though. Comfrey is ongoing and if I leave some of the plant, the leaves smother the grass after a year of letting the leaves fall where they are. Any other ideas to try?

Samantha Lewis wrote:our pick up is every two weeks.   It is great to be able to buy organic food in bulk and at reasonable prices!

I did not know it was as frequent as two weeks in some areas. That is nice! We are 1x a month where I am currently. It take some getting used to and also appropriate storage areas for the food stuffs depending on frequency.

We started having dinner parties after we complete a new book. They usually occur for the evening meal on Sat or Sun and may be grouped together if we go through more than one book before we get to having the dinner party.

We get the input from the kids on what they want to eat as it relates to the book(s). They will also dress up sometimes.

The most recent was the "Old Yeller" dinner party. Some are easier than others to put together.

Our Azure Standard drop moved from 50 minutes away to less than 10 due to increased interest in our area and that is huge for us. It is a production for the 8 of us to get somewhere together and we like to do it all together.

thomas rubino wrote:Hi All;
I am currently working on building Peter Berg's newly designed Shorty core.
It requires 3 large-size slabs that are not commercially available, apx,  14"x 18" x 2.5", a 14" x 14" x 2.5", and a 14" x 3" x 2.5".

Thomas, I am assuming that since you bought QTY-2 50# bags, the required amount needed to cast those 3 pieces is over QTY-1 50# bag. Is that accurate?

Thank you.

My mamma does will cover and uncover the kits with the pulled fur as needed based on temperature. I let them do their thing.

John F Dean wrote:Hi Tereza,

You approach a good point.   God knows I have an ample amount of grey hairs, but every once in a while I think about the way I have always done things …or how I was told to do things 60 years ago…and I make a post asking for advice.  Very often I learn a new way (for me) of doing the task.
It would seem that no matter what the job in, there are legit alternative approaches out there.

That attribute would be part of what I define as humility. From what I have seen, ai does not and maybe can not have the attribute of humility. I suppose if it did, we'd have to call it something else.