Tuesday, May 6, 2014

Raised Beds ( take 2 )


Some of you may remember our raised beds from last year. We used discarded pallets, broke them down to individual slats and rebuilt them into raised beds. Overall they worked wonderfully , but the major flaw was that they we a lot of work. It took us nearly two weeks ( on days off and after work ) to assemble 5 beds. This years effort took only about 2 hours to assemble and yielded over 80 square feet of growing area. 

As always we start with pallets.
12 in all, all cut in half.


Using wood screws we begin to piece them together.





It's a surprisingly fast process.


We lined the bottom with tree trimmings that 
would have been heading for the compost otherwise.

add 4 bales of straw 


Break up and spread the straw

Add a layer of compost

Spread to near the edges and make sure it is 6-8 inches deep.



Water thoroughly


Plan and Plant.

The medium of straw and compost has maintained an ideal temperature for growing. Our sprouts are coming up strong and fast. Some seeds ahead of their expected germination. As always we let you know how it progresses. 

Now enjoy this silly video of us ( and the dog helping ) build these beds. 













Saturday, May 3, 2014

We are back !

After far too long of a hiatus The Littlest Farm is back in action ! We have moved to a new home and have new additions to our family and are looking forward to expanding and sharing our favorite activities with everyone again.

To begin I would like to introduce our new best friend...


Dusty !!!

He is a six month old German Boxer and Alaskan Husky Mix ( best guess ) also maybe a little Dingo a splash of Jack Rabbit and just a tiny bit Anteater... but who knows. 

There is now also chickens coming home to roost !



Along with the chickens come exciting projects like building a coop out of pallets a chicken tractor out of PVC and general cuteness.

We have really missed creating and sharing our activities but now with our beautiful new home, faithful companion Dusty, 3 ( not as faithful ) cats and flock of 6 chicks things are bound to interesting. 

Stay tuned !