Offgridburbia

Trellises

A project that’s been on the list for a while is creating a shade structure for our water tank on the south east side of the cabin. The tree canopy and tank roof protect it in the morning and midday but by from 2-6 pm the afternoon sun bakes the western side of the tank. Several years ago I planted a Carolina Cherry Laurel on western side of the tank that blocks some of the light but it still needs some supplementary shading.

I put in three ashe juniper posts around the outside of the tank foundation on the western side and stretched welded wire fencing between them. My air potato bulbils sprouted a couple of months ago and seem to have taken to the trellis quite well. I don’t have enough experience with air potatoes to know if the vines will expand out.

In other trellis developments, a neighbor needed some helping transporting 16 foot long cattle panels to create some arched trellises on her property so I picked up hers and bought a few extra panels for myself.

I used three cattle panels to create a 12 foot long archway on the south side of the cabin. A continuous cleat board fastened to the exterior cabin wall locks the upper end of the panels in place while zip ties secure the bottom ends to t-posts. I planted pole lima beans(butter beans) a few weeks ago and they’ve really taken off.

Humanure Compost Bin Build

Another project that’s been on the list is rebuilding/replacing our compost bins. We use a Jenkins style humanure thermophilic composting system. Even though our compost piles will get into the 140° F range that should kill the majority of pathogens and parasites within days if not hours (once we’ve stopped adding material) I like to let a pile rest for at least a year. Our existing setup consists of two 64 cubic foot(4 foot wide X 4 foot deep X 4 foot tall) bins. With our two adult household we fill up a bin in 11-12 months.

To provide a little space buffer to better age our humanure and provide more durability (the existing bins are wood framed and lined with corrugated roofing panels) I built a set of 80 cubic foot (4 foot wide x 5 foot deep x 4 foot tall bins) using concrete blocks. The blocks are bolted together like the quail garden foundation. I put dutch doors on the front. Each door is secured by a pair of barrel bolts.

The lids and sides are fitted with hardware cloth to keep vermin out and the lids are fitted with gas struts to provide easy human access. Pretty fancy.

Cabin Food Forest

Since the beginning of the year I’ve planted several peach and plum trees, some bunching bamboo, a lot of asparagus and the aforementioned air potatos. All told there are over twenty food producing trees/large shrubs in the area around the cabin including Pineapple Guava, Loquat, Barbados Cherry, Fig, Olive, Peach, Plum, Orange and several native Texas persimmon trees. There are also a several blackberry, elderberry, grape, bamboo and asparagus plants. Support/Insectory plants include Texas Mountain Laurel, Texas Kidneywood, Evergreen Sumac and Turk’s Cap. I feel like the food forest around cabin is complete for now and I just have to wait for it to mature for year or so to determine the next steps.

Future Projects

Meanwhile, I’m the process of clearing out the south east corner of the our property to install a large garden. I’ll also back fill the excavation I made for the swimming pond with logs and earth to create subsurface hugel mound on which I’ll plant more fruit trees, ideally some paw paws and other trees that prefer moist environments and partial shade. For those of you looking forward to seeing the swimming pond build or perchance swimming in it one day, sorry, I feel like the location I excavated would be problematic. However, I am planning to put a water feature in the garden if that is any consolation.

Jean will be visiting the UK for a month in the fall so I might take the opportunity to perform the fairly major cabin renovation of extending the loft to create an additional office/bedroom/crafting space area. It should be fun.