First I want to thank everyone who has subscribed or is following me, I appreciate each and every one of you ❤️
Happy New Year!! Hope this year brings you a great harvest for anyone who is or has started their gardens for self sufficiency.
So over the last three days my husband and I have been expanding our growing area to get ready for this Springs plantings 🌻
We cleared out a new area to start building a Grow House. What is a Grow House? It will be a building to where I can start growing all of my seeds until they are ready to transplant into the raised garden beds. The whole building will be covered with clear panels so that they will get the Southern sun in order to grow and protect them from the harsh winds we can have here in Arizona. I will post picks once we start building it.
We cleared out an area to build our raised beds for our garden. Here we don't have good soil at all living in the desert, so we have to unfortunately buy our soil and amendments. I will be slowly (as we’re basically dirt poor lol) buy raised bed soil, mushroom compost, cow manure and perlite to fill our raised beds.
So to build our raised beds we didn't spend a penny for any of our materials. The materials we used were:
Used metal roofing
Recycled 2 x 4’s
Recycled 4 x 4’s
Recycled screws
Many people in our area is just giving this stuff away for free or is given to us by friends who know we're always looking for these used items. Some of the metal was also being reused from when I took down our horse shelter after I had to re-home them due to my health.
Why spend any money when you can just recycle them into something else useful, right? Isn't this what your supposed to do when you're a homesteader? I believe it is.
So we built 9 new raised beds (pick only shows six) by cutting the metal roofing in half and attaching them to 4 x 4 footings. We then took 2 x 4’s to make tops to help strengthen the planting boxes more sturdy and make them look nicer. Plus it also keeps you from accidently cutting yourself, believe me I have, on the metal while working in the garden.
We then filled them with the mountain of horse manure we have on our property to start with until we can buy the necessary soil and amendments we need.
The manure will decompose until springtime which will help our normal desert soil underneath in the future to become more enriched. And once we get the new amendments added, we can grow anything we want.
Our next project will be figuring out where to build our chicken coop. Then we'll start building it so by spring we can start raising chickens for eggs and food. I'm also planning out our Orchard and Berry growing areas to add fruits. We'll also be building fencing around the garden area to keep out our friendly little bunny friends who love to eat our garden. Plus we'll also be planning out our irrigation system, which my husband will do as he's the expert with that part, so that I won't be wasting hours hose watering everyday or as needed. Plus with irrigation we'll use way less water than with hose watering.
I'll keep posting updates as we continue with our expansions, our harvests, dehydrating/canning food and baking/cooking with everything we grow, and hope to inspire others to start growing their own food. The hard work pays off in the end!
Again I started three years ago just in few gardening pots. Two years ago we then built two greenhouses which was all from recycled materials to start growing more veggies. This is our third year and just the past three days we've already doubled our garden planting area. If we can do it on dirt poor pay, anyone can do it too. It just takes a little research, learning your areas climate/weather patterns and building it up one step at a time. Plus you know your food won't be full of pesticides or antibiotics that we currently eat now. Fresh grown food tastes like the Earth you grow it in instead of the ultra processed stuff we've been buying.
I'm enjoying going back to the old farm life ways. It's keeping me young even though I'm now in my late 50’s.
"And once we get the new amendments added, we can grow anything we want."
Just wondering-- will you need more amendments? I used to add lime and stuff to my garden but I've found it balances itself with manure, carbon (straw, leaves, etc), and time.
Last fall I attended a pasture walk with Greg Judy, and learned earthworms can go as deep as five feet, and bring lime back up to the surface in the process.
I don't know your environment. I've never lived in a desert. But I do believe the amendment companies have sold me some solutions for problems I didn't have.