fuzzi's "Gardens and Chickens...and Goats? Oh My!" Journal and More Thread

[fuzzi]

Thank you. I've wanted rain barrels for years.

I'm interested to see how quickly they fill up, should know more tomorrow evening.

 

[fuzzi]

Today I got the hardware cloth placed over the hoop coop, secured with a few zip-ties. They will hold it in place until I can devote the time to finish attaching it.

And I made a stop at the local nursery!

The flowers are a variety of bidens, the herbs are oregano, and the other 4 pack is collards.

 

[Baymule]

Sounds like a great day, and flowers too!

 

[fuzzi]

Waddayathink?

Two barrels filled, pond filled, so overflow backed up!

I have a 25' hose that I can stretch out farther from the house. I even have a soaker hose I could add to disperse the rainwater even farther away.

 

[fuzzi]

Today we have a new record!!!

Seven !

 

[fuzzi]

Rainwater calculator...

I want to figure out how much I can collect with 1" of rain.

Roof area is roughly square footage of the house = 1000
Only have gutter on back, so half = 500
Only using one downspout, so half = 250

250 sq ft x 1" rainfall x .62 = 155 gallons of water.

That's with a 1" rainfall, we got 1.5".

With 1.5" add half again or 77.5 gallons = 232.5 gallons!

No wonder my two 55 gallon rainbarrels overflowed. I would need all four I own attached to one downspout just to catch 25% of a 1.5" rainfall.

Wow.

 

[Baymule]

A water catchment off my roof would overflow quickly. I get such torrential rains. It would be nice to have in a drought, but the rest of the time it would be in overflow mode. LOL

 

[fuzzi]

A water catchment off my roof would overflow quickly. I get such torrential rains. It would be nice to have in a drought, but the rest of the time it would be in overflow mode. LOL

We get about 48" of rain annually, on average, but still have drought in the summer. I'm planning on using the rain collected on the gardens as needed.

 

[fuzzi]

Worked on the hoop coop Tuesday after work, attaching the hardware cloth to the cattle panel hoop. It's tedious but necessary to keep snakes from accessing eggs and chicks.

About halfway done.

Wednesday after work I turned the soil again in a couple of my raised beds, removing any weedy clumps I'd missed on the first turn.

Clumps were appreciated.

Note how Zacchaeus is not eating, but just watching. Good boy!

I then planted a second crop of peas and carrots, and a first sowing of green and wax beans.

I need to add more organic material to this bed, but the beans will grow fine without it. I'll add compost once the beans are done.

Peas and carrots before I added a cattle panel trellis.

Last year I created a flower bed where I had used a piece of carpeting to smother weeds. My iris weren't blooming so I moved them into the new bed. I weeded it on Wednesday and discovered a bud!

And three monardas came back, too! I added plant markers until they get bigger.

Rain expected today, so I guess I will be doing sorting or paperwork this evening.