AZ ranch

[civilian]

How did you line the logs to keep the dirt in? Looks like some would come out the holes. Are those cedar logs? Jon

 

[BoFuller]

How did you line the logs to keep the dirt in? Looks like some would come out the holes. Are those cedar logs? Jon

Fresh cut juniper trees, stacked on each other with timberlock screws and fence posts. When filling it up, I put smaller branches (3-5 inches in diameter) in any cracks to hold the dirt in.

 

[civilian]

Thanks, didnt see the smaller branches ( I wasn't there during the filling.) Looks like a good way to not have to buy boards. Jon

 

[MAX-24-Dean]

Good use of the Juniper, a great rot resistant wood for soil contact. Use it here for fence posts.

 

[EddieWalker]

I'm sure that the sun is a lot different there then it is here. When we started doing the garden thing, we did everything wrong and we're slowly undoing our mistakes. Raised beds solved all the soil issues, but now we're going to build them out of cinder blocks. Probably the biggest mistake that I made was removing all of the trees. It turns out that the garden does better with shade in the afternoon. We've planted trees to create shade, and the bigger they get, the more shade the garden gets, the better the plants do.

 

[MAX-24-Dean]

I'm sure that the sun is a lot different there then it is here. When we started doing the garden thing, we did everything wrong and we're slowly undoing our mistakes. Raised beds solved all the soil issues, but now we're going to build them out of cinder blocks. Probably the biggest mistake that I made was removing all of the trees. It turns out that the garden does better with shade in the afternoon. We've planted trees to create shade, and the bigger they get, the more shade the garden gets, the better the plants do.

Found the same to be true here at the 45 parallel in Washington state. We have two garden areas, one that gets shade in the late afternoon from the trees and one area that has no shade. The shaded area always produces better.
The only crops we do in the full sun are squash, potatoes, zukes, corn, sunflowers (only to atract polinators) tomatoes and peppers. works good that way here but every region probably has different conditions.

 

[BoFuller]

 

[BoFuller]

Installed gutter today. For now the water will run down the downspout and away from the green house. In the Spring I’ll block the hole to the downspout and drill a hole near the end so the water goes into that holding tank.

 

[BoFuller]

 

[BoFuller]

I’m very happy with the Walipini so far. Temps at night have been in the mid twenties and it is staying about 45 inside at night, with no heat source.
Daytime temps have been in the upper forties and it gets up to 100 inside.
I have kale about 4-5 inches tall; beets about the same; romaine is about an inch high; and I’m still waiting for my carrots to break through. The tomatoes are doing great. I expect to be doing some harvesting by the beginning of Feb.