In anxious anticipation of the 2011 growing season, we began by growing lettuce in our west facing window while there was still snow on the ground. Planted in an organic spinach container with holes poked in the bottom for drainage and using the lid as a drip tray we were harvesting our first crop within 3 weeks. After the ground thawed and warmed up a bit, the entire contents were planted outside and are still growing months later. We will DEFINITELY be doing this again next winter!
In early March, we started thinking about starting our other seeds under a grow light and heat mat in the basement. All of the containers that we used for planting were recycled or upcycled. Having never tried using newspaper cups for plants sensitive to transplanting shock (ie. squash, cucumbers, etc.), I decided it was time to try it out. Additionally, we had been saving toilet paper rolls to use for the same purpose. They all worked like a charm!
The new snowfall brought on some unanticipated problems with the greenhouse. We forgot to brush off the roof of the greenhouse after the first few inches of snow and the backside of the roof caved in. When the first Chinook of the winter came, we replaced the roof panels and figured out a fix to help us through the winter. Two dense foam panels on each side of the roof were held in place with bungee cargo nets. I never said it was aesthetic, but it worked for the entire rest of the winter!
The lengthy fall and delayed snow of 2010 was much appreciated. We accomplished way more than we imagined in 10 months of owning this property. Since our main goals of the summer/fall were cutting the concrete and opening up more garden space for 2011, I say we accomplished our goals. The snow was more than welcomed November 18th, 2010 and a beautiful blanket to an unsightly mess of a backyard.
The long winter gave us tons of time to think about our plans on what to do with the concrete!
I called Tim at work on October 29th to ask him if he minded if I started ripping apart the deck. "Sure, go for it." Not knowing how motivated I was to get rid of the expansive grey deck with rotting stairs, I got to work right away.
First, I started by turned off the breaker to the electrical work and began removing the non functioning lights.
Next came the lattice bottom border and railings, then I started prying up boards. This is when Tim came home and was dumbfounded that I had gotten this far.
The next morning, a beautiful fall day, we got to work ripping up all the boards. Tim was using the pry bar while I pounded back the nails and sawed some of the pieces in smaller chunks for easy transport.
By the end of the day, nearly all of the pieces were removed and relocated to the alley for easy pick up. We saved some of the larger beams and better pieces for future (yet to be determined) projects. Within 1 week of posting "Free lumber" on Kijiji, all of the wood was gone and avoided the landfill!
We knew from early on in our homeownership that we wanted to remove a large part of the concrete in the backyard. Throughout the summer, we were making plans on what to do with the expanse of concrete. We got a few quotes to remove the concrete and they all came in over $1000. The money nor the desire to have the concrete going to the landfill were wishes of ours. Considering the great luck we had with buying, selling, and giving away things on Kijiji, we thought we would try posting "Concrete free for the taking." Besides some very lewd responses to the ad ("How dare you ask someone to rip up concrete for free" etc.), no one was interested. This lack of response, spurred our interest trying to break up the slab with a sledgehammer to make "urbanite" for others to use. The pieces did not come apart easily. The small area that Tim broke up below took 1.5 hours...
We decided to rent a concrete saw (instead of breaking our backs) to cut the slab into more easily moved blocks. Here Pam and Tim are ready to start at 8am sharp on October 23, 2010:
Pam and I did the majority of the cutting which lasted 8 hours with only a few breaks for coffee, lunch, and refueling.
Here is the finished product:
Tim and I pulled out the larger pieces to the alley for people to take. Little did we know that would be a futile effort... more on that in a much later post.
Events like this bring out dedicated friends to help--thanks Pam!
As the fall of 2010 was starting to come in nice and slowly, we still had lots of tomatoes that needed to ripen before the frost came. Here is the story of how we helped them ripen:
Tim holding a tomato plant he ripped up.
We hung them upside down in our basement to stress the plants into ripening their tomatoes.
Some of the tomatoes that fell off during their uprooting were put in a box, layered with newspaper and a small apple to help their ripening. It worked! We were eating ripened tomatoes from our garden well into December. In fact, we froze many of them whole and still make sauce from them when the mood strikes.
Here is the garden aftermath:
All of the foliage was laid back down on the garden and later covered with leaves rescued from the leaf drop off area in our community. This act assures that nutrients are not all being removed from the garden and are composted into the soil during the winter.
We learned of permaculture for the first time from our friend, Teresa. Frankly, I am surprised that we did not learn about it sooner when we were living in Oregon for three years. The moment that we learned the basics of permaculture it just seemed to make sense and fit our goals perfectly. Organically growing your own food, designing your landscape so it needs minimum human input, and caring for the environment all at the same time resonated deeply with us.
Any time that there was a speaker giving a talk for low or no cost regarding permaculture, we went to listen. Rob from Verge Permaculture and Adrian from Big Sky Permaculture spoke often about breaking our dependance on industrial food systems, earth repair, building community, and supporting local economy. Every time we heard Rob and Adrain talk, we learned something new. One night in spring of 2010, at a talk by Adrian, he talked about the importance of planting cover crops and mulching your garden to retain moisture and nutrients in the soil. With this new knowledge, we planted a cover crop of field peas in the spring after the snow had melted.
As the cover crop grows, you should "chop and drop" the plant to release the nitrogen into the soil and provide biomass to the soil. We planted so many peas that were coming up all over the garden, that we had to chop quite frequently and some peas got a bit out of hand. From the tangled mass of peas that were growing up through the strawberry netting, we harvested lots of beautiful purple flowers, tendrils and peas which made an impressive salad for parties.
This year, we noticed a fair number of dandelions in the garden which indicates compacted soil. Knowing this, we planted daikon radish seeds for a cover crop this year instead of the peas. Sadly, the daikon greens are not nearly as tasty as the peas were though!
Being on a very tight budget forced us to be creative and thrifty with what was already on our property. One of the first repurposing endeavors we undertook was using the boards that were ripped up from our flat deck to build raised beds where spruce roots would have made gardening challenging.
From the fencing that was around the garden to keep out the dogs who previously occupied this lot, we made tomato cages.
The planter boxes near our back entrance were falling apart (especially on the bottom) and were a sad shade of grey. Everything about this place seemed to be grey: interior walls, garage cabinets, ALL of the concrete, and deck. To add a splash of colour to the backyard after repairing the boxes with leftover laminate flooring and lining the inside with a plastic mattress cover, I painted them lime green.
The largest repurposing project is yet to be discussed....stay tuned!
When the warmer temperatures of spring came in 2010, we realized the huge heat sink that we had in the concrete and wanted to utilize some of that energy in a greenhouse. Before some of our summer visitors came up from Oregon, we purchased an 8'x10' greenhouse from Golden Acres for about $500 that came in several boxes, with hopes that our friends would help us put it together.
It took us far longer than we thought it would to put it together. Of the 4 adults working on the projects, all with University educations and 3 with advanced degrees, it took us 4 days in the July sun to get it near completion. With a few more choice words and mistakes made, Tim and I finished the construction.
The next challenge was to figure out how to anchor the structure to the concrete. Our very handy neighbour, Tom, was happy to help with the project in exchange for homemade berry muffins. He custom made some brackets out of scrap metal that bent over the corners of the greenhouse and then used a hammer drill to drill holes in the concrete to insert expanding bolts. Bring on the tornados--that greenhouse is here to stay!
Our backyard is starting to feel more green all the time!
Our friends called us up late in the summer to tell us that they bought the same greenhouse and wondered if we would help them put it together. I thought it was a great joke and laughed.... but they were not kidding. With the promise of food and drinks all day, we came over with our tools, extra hardware from our project, and determination to take less than 4 days. After breakfast at Cora's, we got to work setting out the pieces in numerical order. While I read the directions, now knowing to look ahead a few pages for the places to add more bolts down in channels that would later be needed, the other 5 friends put up the pieces. In 4 hours (not days) the greenhouse was completed! Our services can be bought for good food and laughter.
One year after moving to Calgary from Eugene, Oregon, we determined that we were here to stay (despite the "challenging" growing climate). Knowing that we wanted to settle down in Calgary, we started looking for our first home to buy. There were a few basic criteria: 2+ bedrooms, garage, lots of storage space, close to Tim's job and ample room to garden. This home had everything we wanted but needed lots of fixing. We got the keys to our concrete jungle January 2010.
The backyard was basically all concrete and decking, save a small garden space. As soon as the first good Chinooks came in 2009, we got to work increasing our garden space. Here is what the backyard looked like when we bought the home:
The first project in spring 2010 was to remove the flat deck space. The wood that was removed was reused by us and friends, the rest was given away via Kijiji. Here is the before and after:
The next project was to figure out how to hang clothes outside to dry. We wanted lots of space to hang out at least 2 loads of laundry and for the system to have the capacity to hold heavy items like sleeping bags or comforters. My parents have had a 5 line retractable clothesline for over 20 years, yet I was unable to find such a product in Canada. We ordered a product similar to the previous link from the U.S and installed it between the house and garage.
In permaculture we talk a lot about needs and yields. Clothes drying in our yard is a prime example of this idea: clothes need heat and wind, and concrete yields lots of heat. Our clothes typically dry in 1 hour of being outside in summer. This is one way that we are working with the concrete instead of against it.
