Saturday 7 March 2015

The big picture, hopes, goals and dreams.. - a trial run


This is a garden bed, I mean that literally, it was a bed, and old single bed (white steel framed). We collected this from someone who was throwing it out, and I kept it for a few weeks, not knowing what I actually wanted an old bed frame for, just knowing that I did not want to see more landfill, more waste created because someone had no need for something anymore. So I collected this single bed frame and stored it, I was thinking at the time that I might pull apart all the metal and use it for various projects around the place, as supports, whatever (really just trying to justify my hoardings :) )

My wife came up with the idea, she suggested that we try to use it as some form of garden framing, maybe to make a frost-free dome over veggies, or protect them from the animals around it. After playing with this idea, testing it all out and experimenting a lot, she adapted her original idea and decided to put the bed together as a bed, fill in the bottom of it using hessian and heighten the edges using old scrap wood we had around the place, then fill with dirt.

Great idea! It worked, we covered it with some old wire to protect the seedlings we were growing, and this is what happened :) (see picture)

This worked so well, that the seedlings took over really fast and we had to transplant, now the garden bed is a strawberry bed, which she loves even more :)

In the above picture you can see that there are also nasturtium growing with the strawberries, this is companion planting, it seems to be working nicely. It was meant to stop aphids from eating the strawberry plants, and BAM aphids gone :) Happy times for everyone involved (except the aphids.. sorry aphids, not today)

However, at this point you might be asking yourself about the title for this page, strawberries and recycled garden beds really don't have much to do with "hopes and dreams", unless you dream about those things. Well, in this case they as a 'trial' for what we want to dream about, confused? I would hope so!!

This house and land that we have (the 5 acres) is not my dream place, it is no where near close to it. This place is a trial run for our life. I know it sounds like an expensive trial, but there is a purpose to it all.
The one thing that most people say is that they burnt out, they took on more than they could handle at one time and everything died in a ball of fire and fairy glitter. So, we got 5 acres that we could manage alone, and we are trying out little things that we are learning. things about animal husbandry, plant welfare, aquaponics, hydroponics - WHY IT'S GREASED LIGHTENING! .. sorry.. just seamed to be going that way.

So, this place (my home) is full of odd things (not just the people and animals in it!), we have different things all over the place, things that are working, things that are failing, but things all the same. The idea is for us to grow with our knowledge and be able to get to the new place and implement things so much faster, make things work from day one. So, what is this "new place"? ..

Wait, before THAT, what about this place? Why build up 5 acres of awesomeness and then leave? Well, the idea is to rebuild this land, rebuild it in the way that it will be as natural and as native as we can, while still making it a self contained little paradise away from people and things (if that is what you want). This place will be built so that you can lock the front gate, and not have to see people, if zombies come you can hide here, if the pesky North Koreans come and want to steal the ducks from the dam, you can fend them off from here. One of the other large projects that is coming together is a root cellar, or a self-contained underground pantry :)

I intend to sell this place to a like minded person in a few years, someone who will appreciate what I have created, someone who wants to move into a place that is ready, plants with fruit on them, dams with water in them, alternate power sources, root cellars, the works :) Nothing to do but to sit on the back porch in the rocking chair, playing your three stringed banjo and chewing on some jerky... sounds nice eh? :) I know that it is not for everyone, that is why I think that I will sell this place myself, to a targeted audience, not the mainstream. 

Well, I must get back to actually living the life that I am talking about :) things to be done, this morning I am moving an old van, gutting it and making it into a new chicken house, I will update you tomorrow or whenever with some pictures and information and hopefully it all works (yes, I have scotch on stand-by!), and I will tell you more about my dream land, about where I want to be and what size, shape, color the place will be, later :)

For now, enjoy your day where ever you are (I know here it looks like a great day weather-wise), be happy :)

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