Building a raised bed

It occurred to me today while helping a customer at the hardware store that not everyone knows how to build a raised bed... much less no how to plan what to put in it. So, starting today +The Littlest Farm  will be putting more effort into sharing the basics to help people get started growing.

This is a pretty solid tutorial. 

Never forget that the internet is a never ending source of plans. My personal favorite is Popular Mechanics. Their raised bed plans are unrivaled. 

Happy Growing! 

March Update

I've decided to do a monthly update in addition to our regular posts. It's almost impossible to tell you everything that we have going on here... but I'm going to try anyway.

First, some very exciting news. Our potato experiment appears to be working !

There is also a number of sprouts coming out of the side of the cage as we hoped. It's very exciting. It took 16 days from planting our potato cuts to seeing growth breaking through to bask in the sun. We are very proud of our tiny tubers. 

Generally all around the garden we are seeing a lot of progress. Little green folks popping up all over the place. 

Look at all our little green friends !

We also picked and ate our first radish. 

The peas are starting to grab their trellis. 

Strawberries are doing great in their gutter.

This poppy should be in full bloom any minute now. 

And just for fun here is a list of everything we are growing.

1. Radish
2. Red Stalked Celery
3. Purple Broccoli
4. Carrot
5. Parsnip
6. Rainbow Chard
7. Chioggia Beets
8. Golden Beets
9. Sugar Snaps
10. Shell Peas
11. Basil
12. Chive
13. Tulsy Basil
14. Chamomile
15. Oregano
16. Cat Nip
17. Mint
18. Butter Lettuce
19. Spinach
20. Oak Heart Lettuce
21. Arugula
22. Bok Choy
23. Daikon
24. Russet Potato
25. Butter Potato
26. Red Potato
27. Red Cabbage

It's been a fun,exciting and challenging month at The Littlest Farm with so much more to come in April.

Getting Our Herbs and Flowers Started

It's a lovely day here in the East Bay. We hit around 70 degrees in the hills and with the sun beating down on us we were highly motivated to get some seeds going.

The focus was on herbs and flowers today. Somewhere between 150-200 of them as a matter of fact. We aren't growing 200 different herbs and flowers we are starting that many seeds in hope of a 50% success rate.

Our bag of boxes

You remember how to make seed start boxes right ? 

Fill 'em with dirt

Water & Wait 

* A couple notes that apply to our ever increasing effort to reuse as much as possible. 

The boxes are made from grocery bags and the plant identifiers are made from a cut up milk jug. 

Spring is coming

With spring just around the corner ( some of us closer to the corner than others ) some preparations need to be made. For us, the chief among them is getting our sees started. In a previous post we talked about the mini-greenhouses that we germinate in and briefly mentioned the origami boxes we make for each future plant to start in. Here is how to make those boxes.

We start by cutting up a paper bag into 7 x 7 inch squares ( giving us about 10 squares per bag ). 

Then the folding begins. 

Fold the square twice into a triangle.

Unfold your creased triangle

and turn the corners in.

Fold into thirds lengthwise

Crease and again unfold.

Fold in the corners

Fold up the two sides of the 1/3 fold and 

tuck in the ends.

Tuck in the other end.

There you go !

A 1 3/4 square box perfect for starting seeds indoor or outdoor.

The Littlest Greenhouse

I ( very conveniently ) work at a hardware store. This gives me easy access to recycled materials like pallets ( for making planter boxes etc. ) and also affords me the ability to make odd things out of odds and ends. Today I made tiny little greenhouses with +Brian Assef out of clear plastic buckets. It took us about 15 minutes to make two & now Brian and his girlfriend have somewhere to start seeds safe from their cats and frost.

This is the bucket with proposed venting holes marked.

 Brian drilling the holes.

Taking a break in a shopping cart.

The finished product.

As I said before, it only took about 15 minutes and was made entirely from recycled materials. Voila, the littlest greenhouse. 

*Update

Only 10 days after planting +Brian Assef is seeing results from his micro greenhouse.

We will be giving more updates later from Brian's really little & tiny farm. 

Until then here is a video of Brian working hard...

 

In the beginning there was dirt & seeds.

Welcome to The Littlest Farm blog. We are Meghan and Lucas, urban farmers in the making.

Working with a roughly 45 square foot growing area ( plus some other creative solutions ) we hope to be celebrating a bountiful harvest at this time next year.

Our initial growing area

We also have plans for a 63 square foot chicken run, a rabbit, some bees ( we hope ) and a separate garden for growing both medicinal and culinary herbs. 

Proposed chicken run

The flower and herb garden

As you can see we have a lot of work ahead of us but it should be fun and eventually very delicious. Be sure to join us on Google+ for lots of pictures and bonus projects.