Big Universe, Small World... ©2013-2020

I had a plant holder that I have not used in a long while. I actually have two of them. I had placed them in the recycling long ago. The recycle men kept taking it out of the recycling and leaving it on top of the mailbox. After three times of this, I brought them back to the garage and porch and there they have sat for well over a year.  Today, I had an idea. This project happened in between the pallet wall project .   This is one of the baskets.   I suspended with two nails from a board on one of the pallets of the wall. It is actually between the red tip and buttercrunch lettuces.  I cut a coconut fiber thing to fit the basket.   Romaine lettuce was transplanted within the basket.   :)

We made a garden wall from reclaimed pallets about two seasons ago. All winter, I have been looking at these pallets and thinking about things to do with them...So, here is what some of the wall space has become...  This is where I started. I did not use this specific pallet for the first set of planting. Although, it is the same idea.   Weed control fabric was doubled and tacked in the space to hold the plants and still allow for proper drainage. The excess was trimmed back some.   Buttercrunch was transplanted into the space and dirt was placed around to fill the space.   This is another shot of the buttercrunch area.   This is a second space of red tipped lettuce. 

I am prepping for Spring. One of the pallet boxes that my husband brought home for me to use in the garden was turned upside down to make a garden table in the garden. I plan to make it a raised bed, only I will not have to bend down to work the food grown in it. I lined it with two layers of weedcover. This will allow the soil within it to be contained while water can be contained through. An after thought is to put a worm bin beneath it, as the nutrients can then be caught in the bin and the soil can be reused, while maybe making a worm food supply for the chickens. But, that is a thought for later. The finishing part of the project is to measure off a board to contain each side and pile in some dead leaves and used chicken fodder to break down with some soil for placing seeds in for this Spring.  

 Bones were added to deep pot and veggies added as well. The pot here contained chard, kale, onions, garlic, bay, oregano, peppers, apples, mushrooms, some other stuff, and bones. :)  After 48 hours on the stove, the liquid was strained and separated from the leftover veggie and bone parts. This was fed to the chickens...recycle, reuse!!  The broth or stock was poured into pint jars.  Each jar was filled - four in all.  Three were placed in the pressure canner. One was refrigerator. These are the three pressure cans of stock or bone broth.

I installed a mailbox onto the fence of the garden to keep the garden tools handy. :)

My younger son found a rotary saw blade that had been discarded and brought it home to make a knife. It is process in the making, and is not a finished product yet, but he is making some progress.  I did not get a picture of the saw blade before he started.    This is where the knife piece he started with came from. You can see how the pieces fit together.    Here he has shaped it out a bit.    And, here it is more knife shaped. It is sharp. He plans to make the handle from recycled wood pieces.

This summer a tree fell and took out a large section of the chicken yard fencing and part of the coop itself. We built back a fence to get the chickens back into the coop as soon as possible, but knew the fencing would be temporary. I came up with this idea that it would be good to have sections of fence that would be permanently affixed to the fence posts, but each independent of each other. If something is to fall or damage a section, it can be easily repaired or replaced. I used most of the wood we had laying around that I had left over from other varying projects. I spent like $50 total I think in the end with the wood I had to buy to finish off the project. Each section is framed together and then I recycled netting and fencing we already had to cover each frame. Each frame is then screwed permanently to the post and then the pieces have scrap wood or extra fencing between the frame pieces to close the gaps. It sounds more complicated a process than it actually was. As usual, som...

My hubby and younger child helped me to finish the recycled pallet wall this past week!  view from the back.  gated entrance. lock on gate! :)   I did (and am still) going around the base on the inside of the garden to apply spare netting and left over caging material to piecemeal a way to keep the chickens (and other smaller animals) out between the cracks in the pallets.  This is the view from inside the gate. Please excuse the mess of some of the beds and raised tables. Some of these are being prepped for the spring.  This is the view from the top looking down!

I actually think that the crops growing in the bales are producing better and having a better grow rate than the

The strawbales are coming along. I have to say I think this might

Awhile back a tree fell across the chicken coop. No chickens were

The hubby picked up the straw bales I requested. They were conditioned and prepped for