Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Setting up a temporary garden

I was getting the garden bug and we hadn't decided where to put the permanent garden yet, so we bought these tubs for $2.00 each that farmers in the area receive salt licks in . They are the perfect size for container growing. We made a mix of the native sand with compost , filled the tubs and had instant portable gardens. The fig trees Richard grafted from an old fig tree where we were renting are on the far right. My vegetables are on the left rows: corn, tomatoes,squash, bell peppers and asparagus from seed. Normally we can start planting the middle of march, I was definitely late this year.
For the fence we just put up t-bars and used the left over fencing from the office fence . Then we put up tie wire above that to discourage deer from jumping in. Because the area was so small the deer never tried to jump, its because there are to many levels and obstacles for them to see the depth of field.
In the background we had a 1500 gallon water tank in which we bought water from our neighbor.
We ran 500 ft of hose from their house and filled up the tank. Because it was such a wet spring, we only had to fill it up about once a month. We used the water for the kitchen, shower and garden watering.
We used a submersible pump to deliver the water. As a side note we would put the hose through the top lid and if we did not remove the hose after we were done watering, all the water would siphon out after the pump was turned off. It was quite a shock to think we had 3/4s of a tank left when all the water had drained out!

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