Semi-Urban Homesteader...Meet Working Homemaker!

We looooove to get posts from people who are out there doing, working, creating things related to sustainability, environment, and recycling. Here is a post from guest-blogger Stephanie "Working Homemaker" Duckett, my colleague, friend, and fellow ladies' garden club member!

I am challenged with (among other things) a small garden space. This winter to alleviate my discontent, I passed the time thinking of how to make my summer garden more glorious. I came across the All New Square Foot Garden book by Mel Bartholomew touting a revolutionary way to get more out of your garden with not only less space (ME!) but less time, less money, less work (me, me me!).

You see, I’m a working mom, so my regular home-making activities of laundry, feeding, bathing, cleaning, reading, cuddling, kissing, have to fit into narrow hours of the day like a Cirque de Soleil contortionist (which incidentally is also how we five fit into our tiny house). Where does one find time or space to garden?! Beats me.

But, on Tuesday, I got lucky. Nephew John had a “fever” on Monday when I picked him up from school and they wouldn’t let me bring him in on Tuesday morning, EVEN THOUGH HE WAS FINE. So instead, I had a whole sunny day to garden, with help.

We started by digging out all the old dirt from our raised beds and transplanting it to future beds. Then we added the very specific soil mixture of 1/3 compost (bought, since my composting days began mere months ago) 1/3 peat moss and 1/3 vermiculite. What’s vermiculite you say? Well it’s sorta like those white pebble things you find in store bought plant soils (which is called perlite). Except its gold and very hard to find. Home Depot didn’t have it in store. Yes, yes, I know the evils of corporate mega marts, but let me brag on the HD for just a minute. When I went to find the elusive vermiculite in store, a kind attendant told me they didn't carry it in store, but I could buy it online. But he said don’t bother doing that, because I could get it at Corvallis Hydroponic in larger bags for cheaper. And I’ll be dammed, he was right. $20 for 4 cubic feet (compare this to another place up the street that sells theirs for 2qt at $12.99 and you know you’ve found a deal.).

John and I mixed it all together and (fingers crossed) I now have weed free, highly efficient garden beds.

Now Mel really wants you to do square grids on your garden. And, now that I’ve bought into the soil, I see no reason to stop there. To save money, John and I stopped by the Benton Habitat for Humanity ReStore and bought 8 foot blinds for $5 instead of expensive wood. This was the best idea ever. They’re lightweight, cheap and you can staple them to your boxes with a staple gun and they trim up with a plain ‘ol pair of scissors. And, should I choose to do a SFG next year, I have hundreds more in my shed now (anyone need blinds?)

The overall effect is cute, and adds such a level of organization that I wish I could square foot everything. I don’t yet know how my garden will grow, but I’m very excited to find out.

Total cost:

Peat Moss: $44

Compost: $30

Vermiculite: $80

Blinds: $5

$160

Sustainable Sunday: Benton Habitat for Humanity ReStore

I LOVE BUILDING SUPPLIES!!!

You may have read the glowing article about the ReBuilding Center up in Portland...well, here in Corvallis we have another amazing place that does the same thing - the Benton Habitat for Humanity ReStore.

Located at 1327 NW 9th Street here in Corvallis, this rambling maze of a warehouse and home furnishings store provides people in the Willamette Valley low-cost reclaimed building supplies. I frequent their back rooms and outdoor lot scanning for doors, lumber, chicken wire, plant pots, and other items I can use or reuse in my projects. Recently I went in to pick up the stakes I used to put up my pea playground. I also bought the screens that I used for my start shelf and drying rack.

The staff at the ReStore are friendly, fun, and helpful. Many of the people I have met there are volunteers who come in to help out. Monies made at the ReStore are also recycled - they go toward Habitat For Humanity projects in the area. It's great to see materials AND money staying local.

I really enjoy places like this. Even if you are not here in the Willamette Valley I encourage you to see if there are any places that sell reclaimed building supplies in your area. It is a great way to keep things out of the landfill, do projects on a budget, and give back through your purchases.

Playground for Peas

It has not taken long for the pea starts to shoot up (no pun intended) and start to tip over. I was not expecting to put them into the ground so soon, but I was worried that they would not continue to grow up if I did not move at least the tallest. So...I went out today and got the requisite materials for building a pea trellis.

Vertical gardening is an excellent way to maximize space when you are growing things in a small backyard. We will be doing a number of projects that utilize this tactic. Peas are nearly always grown vertically (I only say nearly always because there MIGHT be someone out there doing it differently, but I don't know any other good way to grow them). So as soon as my peas were tall enough to start bowing downward I knew it was time to get them outside.


Building something for peas to climb on is really really really really really really really (you get the point) simple. If your garden is up against a chain link fence you don't even have to make something - just use that unless you are worried about animals (or your neighbor's children...or your neighbors for that matter) stealing your peas through the links. I took a trip to the Benton Habitat for Humanity ReStore downtown to get scrap lumber for my project ($1.25 baby). I chose 5 pieces so that I could keep the string tight over the 8 foot lengths of my raised bed.

I got my string at Michael's - an arts and crafts store in town. My friend Stephanie put a bug in my ear about using nylon string, but my gut wanted to go with cotton. I picked up some cotton yarn meant for crocheting dish towels. I made sure it was non-toxic. i picked red because I thought it would be pretty with the green peas climbing it! I rounded out my supplies with 2" screws left over from Jason's coffee table project.


I used the screws to attach the poles to the outside of the raised bed. If you do this be sure to use two screws per pole. If you use only one it will tip back and forth (and, as you will see at the end of this project, two screws does not ensure this issue either). Why did I not put them on the inside of the box? The answer it simple - it was way easier to do it this way.


While I was working on this I got a chance to check out the sheet mulch up close and personally. The straw has sprouted, so there are a number of weeds, but they are easy to pull. Under the cap of leaves there is rich, dark soil. I also found the bed teeming with insect life - ants, arachnids, lady bugs, and worms. Still not sure how this stuff is going to support plant life, but I am happy with it so far.


I wove the string in and out around the poles, wrapping it around each pole as I passed it. I did it at approximately 1" intervals, and alternated from which side of the poles the string wrapped each pass I took. The result is a ladder of tightly-wound string that goes from soil level up about 3 feet. You can see in the picture below that the posts on the North end started to tilt over with the tension of the string. I went in and added another screw to each after the string was put up to ensure that they don't tip over with the weight of the pea plants.

Other ways to set this up would be to use chicken wire, cheese cloth, mesh, or any other porous materials you like. I put any of my pea starts that were tall enough to reach the string into the bed after building the trellis. This week I will go out every day and check to make sure the peas are attaching to the string to climb. Once I had the materials lined up, the whole project from start to finish took me 3o minutes.

Start Shelf and Drying Rack

Happy weekend all!

With the sheet mulch out back doing its decomposing thing, I am turning my efforts to getting the starts ready to go in the ground. Despite the size of our duplex we are short on window space that works for getting plants going - not to mention that our window sills are already full of house plants, candles, and Jason's religious iconography.

One asset we do have is this wonderful set of sliding glass doors that face ESE. After a number of ideas around how to use the stationary side of these doors, I came up with an idea for a start shelf that could also be used in the summer as a drying rack.

Here are my very, very, very technical plans...


My plan was to create two 'ladders that were 2' wide that could be set up as a shelving unit, but when made with screws could be easily disassembled for travel or to use the 'ladders' as places for climbing plants. Because of the specific nature of the lumber, and the fact that we had just been up to Portland, we ended up getting the lumber at Home Depot (mild boo to us).


In my opinion the best part of all of this is that I designed the shelf, planned what lumber we needed, gave the plans to Jason, and he was able to get all the proper pieces and assemble it just as I had envisioned it. Yea me for learning how to communicate building projects! The start of the project left us with this frame that lacks the actual shelves. I was unsure what I wanted to do for the shelves, so I left them empty and looked at it in the dining room for about three weeks.

I finally began to feel edgy because I wanted to get my starts going. It is not at all usual for me to wait on a project for this long. Finally I decided to take a trip to the Benton Habitat for Humanity ReStore to gain some inspiration. In the back lot I found a shelf filled with window screens and decided that was what I would use.


What I like about it is that light can get through the screens, so there is less shade on the plants on the lower shelves. I also like that water will go through rather that sitting on a wooden plank and helping it to rot. I also realized that this would be the best way to use the shelf outdoors as a sun drying rack in the summer. What I don't like it is that the screens don't fit completely into the frame, so I lose some usable space. I am going to keep my eyes open in the future for screens that are larger.


I have been saving yogurt and other plastic containers to start my plants in. If you are in the Corvallis/Albany area and have any containers similar to ones pictured here please shoot me an email and I will come pick them up.

Tonight...I start putting seeds in soil!!!!