Update: Around the garden and yard (tip!), pickling, and looking for ideas

© 2011 Joshua Stark

Well, it looks as if my latest attempt to keep the ducks out of the raised bed (give 'em one bed, and fence the other with five-foot bamboo trellis) is proving successful, but I wonder if it's only because they are getting older and care less about thwarting me.  Whatever the reason, I'm getting a late batch of corn, beans and possibly okra - I'm especially excited about the beans.  I wish I had pictures for you all, but our camera was stolen from our car a couple of weeks back (along with my fly rod)...

The potato patch (described here) isn't working as I'd hoped - I only see one potato trying to grow, and it doesn't look like it can work its leaves through the bamboo sun-shade I'm using.  However, I'm still hopeful, and the plants I put in on top are still coming up, too.  They aren't looking too healthy, but this is a learning process, and next time I plan to layer some good soil from the worm bin in-between layers of straw.

My lawn experiment is also coming along nicely.  When I built our little duck pond last year, I inadvertently killed the majority of our lawn.  You see, I used the dirt from the pond to in-fill the lower sections of the yard, but I didn't really believe that the dirt below the topsoil was sterile.  Boy, was I wrong on that one.

Gratefully, the ducks have been fertilizing that dirt for the past year.  However, our very hard rains this year turned much of it into durn-near cement (if you put the emphasis on the first "e" in cement, you will pronounce that properly), and I, having no intention of renting a roto-tiller just to find out where my sprinkler lines are, started looking for a short-cut.  This time, to my surprise, I found one:

First, I mowed down the straw used by the ducks.  Then, I soaked the yard really good.  Next, I spread grass seed (by hand, of course - if I'm not renting a rototiller, I'm sure as heck not buying a seeder!), then covered them in a layer of mulched straw, and watered that down.  Every day for the first few days I sprayed the patch, and now, two weeks later, my test patch looks nice and green! A couple of days back, when I saw that the grass had established, I raked up the larger straw, and I'll be danged if it doesn't look like we have grass on our lawn. 

Of course, the ducks couldn't leave it alone, and there are a couple of holes (especially right where the sprinkler pops up), but those can be fixed with extra seed or a patch of sod.  Overall, I'm tickled pink at how well this worked. 

I also finally got around to dealing with my ketchup walnuts.  Instead of the nine days soaking in vinegar, I actually soaked them for over two weeks, and I must say that the vinegar became even darker than I'd remembered.  I wasn't too worried, though, since vinegar just gets better with age, and nothing was going to start growing in that acidic and tannic concoction.

Yesterday, I drained out the vinegar into a stock pot, put in some ingredients (drat! I forgot the horseradish), and about 30 minutes later, I canned four pints of green walnut ketchup. 

I then crushed the walnut chunks (I had a lot), added four apples and a cup of raisins, then some surgar and spices, and made up four pints of chutney, with a little left over for last night's dinner.

Both recipes can be found at my "Green Walnuts & You" page.  I added allspice and cinnamon to the chutney, and it is something special.  If you've ever had store-bought chutney, homemade blows it away - so long as you use good vinegar.  It is smoother, much less sharp, yet still vinegary in a good way.  I could have added some more heat in the form of more cayenne, but then my wife wouldn't have liked it nearly as much.  For dinner last night, the chutney and some yogurt made wonderful fillips for a split pea soup. 

What's coming together, and what needs to be done...

In the backyard, that is.

Well, here's a pic. of the pond that has been taking an inordinate amount of my time - plus the raised beds and other projects either in the works, or on the list:

First, the raised beds are all built, except for the potato bed, which is only half-built (it's the pile of straw on the left edge of the picture).  The pond edge is done, too, except for some rock-filling.  The back fence has been cleared of ivy, and I've planted the sierra currant and put some other flowers back there with it.  The boysenberries (on the trellis next to the grass bin) just need watering, and though you can't see them, the pomegranate is bright with big flowers, reminiscent of a flamenco dancer's dress.

The pond still needs a water feature (to appear on its left side in the pic).  The raised beds, boysenberry and pomegranate need their irrigation dug (the black pipe coming out of the pond).  The workshop in the background needs to be cleaned out (the remains of my huge mistake of storing walnuts in there last Winter), and the lawn needs to be seeded.  Last, I need to add plants to my raised beds.  Any suggestions?

Finishing raised beds, and planting

© 2010 Joshua Stark

The backyard is looking less like it was hit by a bomb, and more like a garden-in-waiting.  Here it is, with the latest raised bed (about $25 in materials).  Note the new pond liner, too.

I should explain the strange-looking structures in the back, I suppose.  On the left is my 'cleanin' tub', for cleaning fish and game, but that isn't it's permanent location.  The tower of crates to the right in the background is my worm-bin, high enough for the ducks not to raid it, and with a rock on it to keep other animals out.

Speaking of the worm-bin, we looked in it today, and although it had become home to a crowd of ants (which I will hopefully take care of by just moving stuff around a bit more), it had also shown good worm activity.  I'm hoping my two tiny contributions of worms (100 worms, total, give or take) will start to reap benefits, as they reproduce.  In researching worms, (those of you who know me don't blink at that statement), I found out that their eggs hatch in 21 days.  Hopefully, they've been laying a lot of eggs.

The bed on the right in the back has been planted with corn, cucumbers, gourds, radishes, bok choy, and lettuce.  I'm hoping to plant the next bed with onions, tomatoes, peppers, basil, and other friendlies.

The big front bed, just behind the pond, will get some nice perennial flowers, along with some herbs and a few other plants (not sure yet).  The pond edges will get some waterplants, mostly horsetails and tules and sedges - things that the ducks won't eat.  We hope.

Immediately to the left of the pond will be a higher water feature, where I hope to keep duckweed to supplement the ducks.  I had an interesting encounter trying to get duckweed at a local nursery... they accidentally gave me water fern, and neither of us were smart enough to know the difference.  But, the ducks sure did.  Water fern is as invasive as duckweed, but ducks don't like to eat it, so I don't want it. 

We also found a surprise under our giant redwood tree when we came home one day:

Yes, that's a graphic description of a half-eaten striper on our lawn.  Judging from the bite marks, I agree with my brother-in-law's suggestion that it was dropped by an osprey.  Pretty cool!  And gross, too, I suppose.  Also, it probably would have just barely been legal, (18 inches), so it was a good-sized fish.

Duck claws + cheap plastic = you guessed it

© 2010 Joshua Stark

Just when I saw it all come together, one little hole somewhere changed my plans.

Now, I'm looking for a good, solid liner for the pond.  I'm still holding out for a soft liner, but if we must, we'll buy a hard one.  I've been told to cement it in, and we are considering this option.

Any suggestions?

Unfortunately, I don't have pictures because I left my camera at my sister's house.  Tomorrow, I hope to fill bring pics.

Also, if any of you have built ponds, tell me how to make the edges/waterfall look nice - as in, tell me how to hide the soft plastic.

A budding photographer, and an update on the pond

© 2010 Joshua Stark


A great picture of our new pond, partly installed.  The great part of this photo isn't the picture, it's who took it... my three-year old daughter!

I'm only a little bummed that she takes better pictures than I.

I laid down the double-over plastic liner after fitting in some shelves.  As you can see, the ducks are happy I put in shelves, as they sit up on it and preen.

We are very excited with this, especially considering exactly what it replaces:

I still need to add a hard plastic piece to the bottom of the new pond, so I can use my sump pump to drain it, and I also need to surround it with rocks and purty stuff, and adjust the water line out so that it will water our raised beds.  However, it is coming along nicely.

Update on this update:  The cheapie pond liner I bought lasted about 8 hours with duck claws.  Currently looking for a better liner.  If you have suggestions, please let me know.

Ponding?

As you might have seen from my last post, my ducks do some serious dirt-movin' in the yard. Now, with a few inches of rain predicted over the next couple of days, I'm just hoping they didn't do anything to our foundation (kidding).

So, pretty soon I will be building them a real pond, hopefully with enough gravel and river rocks around it to both lessen their desire to spit mud in the water, and also to keep down the type and severity of erosion seen below. It should be about 4 or 5 feet wide and 7 or 8 feet long, in a more aesthetically pleasing shape, and I hope to have a nice overflow section with some duck-resistant water plants (probably horsetail and tules). I won't buy a circulating pump, but will continue to suction out the pond every couple of days with the Pumps-A-Lot I wrote about a couple of months ago.

But, I would like to hear ideas for a duck-friendly pond that will also provide water for our garden, trees, and boysenberry. Let's hear 'em!

Fauna-induced Geomorphology of Contrived Riparian and Wetlands Habitats

© 2009 Joshua Stark

Or, what my ducks do when their kiddie pool overflows.

© 2009, Joshua Stark

This is a great device.
flx1247rg
This pump saved me at least a hundred bucks. Let me explain:

In my time raising three little ducks, I decided that they needed some sort of pool or pond to play in, and as luck would have it, a local Rite-Aid store had those hard-plastic blue kiddie pools on sale for $10. My idea was to occasionally pump out the duck water into our garden, thereby reaping at least some benefit from the terrible devastation the little bast... the little duckies had wrought on my cabbage patch. As I was to learn very quickly, my boss (who raises fowl) told me these valuable words: Ducks abhor clean water.

That is not true from the ducks' perspective, mind you. Ducks LOVE clean water. They take mouthfuls of dirt and mud, and joyfully spit them into the water. They also splash about and dive, and sleep, and poop, poop, poop in it. I quickly realized that I'd be needing to either buy something that would eat duck poop (about 200 catfish came to mind), or be replacing that water more frequently than I'd planned. I started looking for a big pump, something that could move water pretty quickly and about 40 feet to the garden, and with a filter that could handle that much debris without requiring cleaning every day. No luck, unless I was willing to sell an organ to cover costs.

Enter OSH. For those of you outside of the West Coast, Orchard Supply Hardware is a chain store ala the big box stores, but without the size, and with expertise unmatched outside the local hardware stores. I have almost never been disappointed with OSH or its folks, unlike some other places I could mention. They know their stuff. So I enjoy poking around the store whenever I get a chance, moving up and down aisles (oh! nice smoker... man, look at that pressure canner... I wish I could get that table saw...). I was looking at some pumps with trepidation, because the pond pumps I'd seen had given me sticker shock, but then I saw this box. I about squealed like a little girl. I took it home, plugged it in, and now, every morning or two, my garden gets flooded with what my brother-in-law calls the, "nutrient-rich water" of our duck pool. Over time, as I build my raised beds, I will incorporate this nifty little device into my plans. What a find!

Oh, I almost forgot. It was twenty bucks.

A Big New Year

© 2010 Joshua Stark

Kicking off 2010, our family has decided to make some pretty monumental changes to our behaviors and goals. On the garden front, this involves a makeover that will, hopefully, conserve water while putting us on track for a day's worth of food per week from our soil and ducks. Just think about it: Cutting 1/7th of your food bill & knowing exactly where your food came from and how it was handled.

We won't achieve this lofty goal, I'm sure, until midsummer, because we don't have a single thing in the ground (besides the trees and berry, of course), and this is due to a huge transformation of the garden area currently taking place. Among other things, we are moving to walled raised beds, and I am installing a permanent duck pond to replace the kiddie pool they currently use. The new pond, though larger, should improve our water conservation by its design, which I hope will allow only a quarter to a third of the water to be changed each day. In addition, we may add another, duck-prohibited water feature, where we would grow duckweed to supplement their feed, and possibly have a small waterfall.

Right now, the yard has gigantic, muddy spots, and looks lumpy and ravaged... well, here's a pic:


The reason I'm showing you is because this should be transformed into something pretty and in fairly short order, and I'd like to use it as blog fodder.

Happy New Year!