July 18th, 2008 by Marc Opperman

Last year I started to organize a yard composting group based on the idea of providing sustainable organic nutrients to my gardening efforts, and reducing waste. While I have an established composting “system” in my yard, and a few others worked on their own methods, the organization efforts fell through due to external stuff.

Well, this time, I want to move on to something that would benefit from group experience. Not sure if everyone I’m emailing is interested in this, but I want to build a chicken coop and raise chickens in my back yard. The benefits are immense… fresh eggs, fertilizer, reduced pests (fireants and fleas among them!), etc.. And while raising chickens is not that hard, there are some aspects of it that would benefit from group sharing of experience – building a coop, dealing with predators (I know raccoons will be an issue for me!), getting chicks past their first 60 days among them.

And all of this stems from the greater issues of economy, ecology and health. Jenna and I are making many small steps to improve our quality of living smartly – reducing plastic usage, building up a garden for vegetables, water filtration. Raising chickens seems like a logical piece of the puzzle.

I’ve sent this to homeowners I know, ones who are interested in sustainability in one way or another. I made a possibly faulty assumption that renters would have a harder time with keeping chickens. However, this limited email list is not to exclude them or anybody else if you want to bring them on board. And I’m not interested in being nothing more than an emailing list. I want us to work on projects, share experiences in personal ways. And I completely understand if you can’t commit to something like this. I’m looking for a show of hands right now.

I researched a few books on the subject if you’re interested, compiled as a small Amazon wish list (it was an easy way to aggregate the stuff). Personally, I’ll search the library or Half Price first.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/KK3O939SYLZ0

Later, I may start a ‘blog related to these things. Likely, it will be here:
http://web.mac.com/mopperman/Marcs_Site/Garden_Almanac/Garden_Almanac.html
or updated on this LJ.

July 13th, 2008 by Marc Opperman

This time of year, when its hot, rainwater is scarce, and the A/C runs almost constantly, there’s a water source I focus on and wonder how to capture. The condensation from our A/C unit drips at a rate that certainly meets or exceeds 1 gallon/hour. There’s easily enough to continuously (while the A/C’s running) water a small raised garden bed.

The water is cool, and the quality should (in theory) be similar to distilled water.

The problems with capturing it are mostly related to where it emerges from the house… near the bottom of the foundation. Also, there’s zero water pressure. It is gravity fed in a steady drip.

Right now I have a galvanized oil-changing pan beneath the drip (about all that will fit) as a means of figuring out the rough rate of flow.

Ideas for making this useful include:
- A small system to pump any catchment to a larger holding tank (rain barrel, perhaps). Issues might include preventing backflow, avoiding loss of overflow, powering it (solar would be nice), and preventing evaporation.
- Extending the gravity-fed method using PVC or copper pipe to the lower elevation in the back yard and letting the drip passively water some small area. Issues with this include preventing clogs or backflow, preventing ants or algae from invading, and maintaining flow.
- Build a small concrete basin that runs into a concrete channel that heads toward the back yard. It would be, in effect, like a small spring. No idea if the flow rate would overcome evaporation.

water

July 8th, 2008 by Marc Opperman

I finished a significant chunk of landscaping this past weekend and I’m really happy with it. It has come a long way in the back yard in a few short years (with most of the major work finished since late ’06), though it has all more or less stuck to a plan I sketched out in ’07. As always there are photos on my flickr site.

July 3rd, 2008 by Marc Opperman

I want to build a little trellis.

In one light, that sounds horribly pedestrian to me. But I think the effect I intend will be really cool. I have some passion vines that are going wild but in the wrong spot. They’re climbing all over several other plants.

I want a little trellis that looks a little like a small house. Plenty of wire for vines to climb, and perhaps some copper pipe plumbing to make it drip water… connected to the sprinkler. Given the insane growth of the passion vine it would probably cover a trellis completely by this time next summer. And the blooms ought to make it smell pretty nice.