The time has come to start the homestead garden. The lay of the land determined the shape, we determined the size. The garden will be 150′ x 30′ with a 20′ x 30′ attached chicken run. A composting station will be attached as well. It will surely be an interesting spring and summer.
This is my first year with a no-till/lazy. If you’re using cardboard you need about 80x more than you think you need. I haven’t done any raised beds but I have a woodchip pile I’ve been turning for almost three years so I have decent soil to build up with; I just don’t see the benefit.
If you can get your bucket over the fence, you can just dump into a cart/wheelbarrow, I didn’t leave a gate for my tractor but I can’t imagine wanting to drive through there once the soil is good and you aren’t going to want to till a bunch of woodchips into the soil so I don’t think you’ll ever take the tractor back in there.
My coop is a 7×7 plastic garden shed on a Northern Tool trailer frame. I can move it around with the mower (I can push it by myself as well but it’s heavy). It’s ridiculously easy to move/clean. If you’re going to have water nearby, moving it may not be an issue. I’m sure you know about Anne’s journey with this here in Tennessee; she has plenty of great videos.
We’ve got raised beds in our greenhouse (roughly 18×25)…galvanized metal. Have used them for 5-6 years. Some beds are now failing (rusting through at the bottom) May get another year out of them but are now considering using the painted versions. Have to investigate the painted versions more, but definitely a heavier gauge of steel is needed for the galvanized versions. Also need to investigate painted versions…what type of paint and how applied.
1. Sketchup is awesome. I use it regularly for projects for my woodshop class (and personal things at home)
2. We have to have our boys out to ‘babysit’ the chickens when we let them roam. Partly to protect them from hawks. Mostly to protect our blueberries & raspberries from them- they’ll fly *just* enough to get at those tasty treats!