Author: Magic City Gardening

10 Tips For Landscape Design In Dry Areas

10 Tips For Landscape Design In Dry Areas

There is no denying that any landscape design will be constrained by the location it is being created in and more specifically, what the climate is in that area. For example, the types of plants, shrubs, and grasses that will thrive in cold, damp climates is going to be somewhat different than those that can be planted in those climates that tend to be dry and hot.

Given that we are based in Western Australia, we would suggest that the latter of those two climates is going to more applicable given that for much of the year evaporation exceeds rainfall, and we have areas that see no rain for 6 months at a time. Your plans will also change drastically depending on personal preferences such as the plants you want, whether you want a pool installed or a large open area, limestone flooring or composite decking installation etc.

Of course, not every region of WA is as dry as that but in general most landscape designs need to be on the side of there being a lack of moisture and lots of heat, making sure you implement fire services protection to fight a possible fire. This then brings us to consider what kinds of landscape design would suit the drier conditions that we experience.To give you some idea as to what can be achieved, here are 10 landscape design tips that are best suited to dry areas.

  1. If you live in a dry, hot area then it makes sense that you consider plants that are well known for being grown in those kinds of conditions. Research areas where there is a lot of sunshine and little rain and see what garden services and landscapers are planting there.
  2. Plant your flora and fauna when they are small. Larger or older pants tend to have roots systems which are shallow making them more prone to suffering from heat and a lack of moisture.

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7 Landscaping Design Ideas For Gardens Without Lawns

There is often a misconception that landscaping design invariably includes a lawn or larger areas of grass, but that is simply not the case. There are numerous reasons why a landscape design might not include grass areas, with the simplest of them being that the garden that is being designed does not have a lawn.

Whether the lack of a lawn is a result of the homeowner choosing not to have one, or the garden in question cannot have one due to soil or other horticultural problems that prevent it, will vary from garden to garden. The good news is that the lack of lawn does not prevent an awesome landscape design from being created, and if you read further you will see we have outlined no fewer than seven landscaping design ideas for such a lawn-free garden.

Stones/Paving: The scope for using stone and/or paving within a landscape design is almost limitless given the number of options available. This applies not just to the types of stone and paving that can be utilised, but also to how they are incorporated into the landscaping design. Examples include the simplistic such as an unassuming paved patio or a more decorative option which is to use stones of multiple sizes, colours, and shapes to create walkways throughout the garden.

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10 Reasons Hiring Professional Carpet Cleaners Is The Best Option

10 Reasons Hiring Professional Carpet Cleaners Is The Best Option

When it comes to carpet cleaning and couch cleaning you have options which are to do it yourself or to hire professional couch cleaners or a carpet cleaning company to do it for you. Whether the carpets in question are in your home or your office, the choice is the same, although a caveat is that your business might employ general cleaners, however, they are unlikely to be expert carpet cleaners.

So, why would you choose to pay a carpet cleaning company to clean your carpets instead of cleaning them yourself? Well, here are ten reasons why you should do so and why it is the best option for homes and offices.

Reason To Hire Professional Carpet Cleaners #1 – Their Knowledge And Experience

No surprise that this is the #1 reason simply because, as with anything that you need to be done within your home or office, it is always best to go to the experts. Their knowledge and experience will help ensure that the work gets done properly and to the highest standards.

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10 Characteristics To Look For When Buying Quality Kitchen Cabinets

It is hard to disagree with those who believe that the main influence on the quality of kitchen renovations is the kitchen cabinets. Given that there are so many variables in materials, and the means of constructing kitchen cabinets, such as production lines or cabinet makers, it is true to say that in kitchens everywhere the quality of the cabinets is going to vary.

This brings us to the question “What determines the quality of kitchen cabinets?”, and the importance of the answer to that question is that it is what every homeowner should be looking for when they wish to have high-quality cabinets installed in their kitchen. So, without further ado, let us examine the ten characteristics to look for when you wish to buy quality kitchen cabinets.

Quality Kitchen Cabinet Characteristic #1 – Made By Cabinet Makers

Whether it is furniture, clothes, or, in this case, kitchen cabinets, we all know that anything which is created by hand will invariably be made to a higher standard and offer a greater level of quality than products made on a production line.

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10 Points To Consider Before Adding Artificial Grass To Your Landscaping

10 Points To Consider Before Adding Artificial Grass To Your Landscaping

When landscapers are asked to create a new landscape design for a homeowner’s garden, one feature that often gets asked about is artificial grass. Artificial grass continues to be popular, and increasingly so, primarily due to the advances in the technology used to create it, which means modern artificial grass is the closest it has ever been to looking and feeling like the real thing.

Of course, it is not the real thing, and according to Principal Landscapes, there are several factors that homeowners must consider before opting for artificial grass. It is also the case that some have chosen it based on myths and misconceptions and been surprised or even disappointed that it was not how they expected it to be.

That is not a criticism of artificial grass, as it is an excellent option for many landscaped gardens, both domestic and commercial. However, if you are considering it for your landscape design, then it is important that you do so armed with all the facts on artificial grass and that you have considered the pros and cons. What follows should help you achieve those aims.

#1- It Is Low Maintenance NOT “No Maintenance”: One of the biggest myths that surrounds artificial grass is that it is maintenance-free. It is not. Yes, it requires less maintenance than real grass, but you still need to clear it of debris and rake it occasionally to keep its appearance.

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Kitchen Trends That Won’t Go Out of Fashion

Kitchen Trends That Won’t Go Out of Fashion

One of the hardest parts about kitchen renovations is the fear that whatever design you decide will ultimately go out of fashion. You would have just spent a lot of your hard-earned money on the new space, and the last thing you want is for it to look dated within only a few years.

However, you may be able to avoid that issue if you go with timeless features and designs that don’t age. These below could be some of them.

Earthy and Wellness Designs

In recent years, kitchens that promote social get-togethers and feature light colours, greenery, and natural materials have been in hot demand. They are the epitome of lightness, brightness, and space without taking on a defining design that could go out of style in the near future.

These kitchen styles also generally feature one paint colour and gain their style through the use of accessories. As a result, they are a timeless kitchen design that would make any homeowner smile.

Two-Tone Cabinetry

Storage is an important factor when creating a new kitchen. As a result, many people install wall to ceiling cabinetry that caters to their needs. Once you paint that cabinetry, it’s easy to find yourself with challenges on how to break up the colours. By asking your cabinet makers to install two-tone cabinetry, the colours are easily broken up.

This involves adding an island bar or counter of a different complementary colour. Having two colour tones is undoubtedly a trend that never seems to go out of fashion.

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Four Reasons to Install Eco-Friendly Plumbing

Eco-Friendly Plumbing

Eco-friendly plumbing is becoming increasingly popular across the world. As technology advances, our ability to save water in our homes and workplaces is improving rapidly. And, with the state of the world’s water resources as they are, it’s crucial to conserve water wherever possible.

With this in mind, we decided to look closer at eco-friendly plumbing, its benefits, and a few reasons you should consider installing it. In the rest of this article, we’ve outlined these reasons in more detail. They include:

  1. It Will Help You Save Water

For starters, eco-friendly plumbing is one of the best ways to save water. Since the world’s water stocks are as low as they’ve been for millennia, this is absolutely essential.

There are numerous ways that your plumber can implement eco-friendly plumbing to help you save water, including:

  • Water will flow slower, so you will use less water on showers and general washing-up activities.
  • Things like toilets will use significantly less water.
  • Appliances like dishwashers and washing machines will be more efficient.

As you can imagine, these are far from the only benefits. We’d recommend speaking with your local plumbers for more information.

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Five Reasons to Include an Outdoor Dining Area in Your Landscape Design Plan

Outdoor Cooking

Without praising them too much, outdoor dining areas are great. We believe that every homeowner should weigh up the pros and cons of including one in their landscape design plan, especially if you have a lot of space and live in a good climate.

As you can imagine, there are a lot of benefits associated with building an outdoor dining area. We’ve trawled the internet and drawn on our years of industry experience to bring you the following list of five reasons to include an outdoor dining area in your backyard.

  1. They Are Great for Entertaining

Outdoor dining areas are great for entertaining friends and family. This is especially true if you’re lucky enough to live in a part of Australia with a warm, dry climate that isn’t too hot.

Including things like a BBQ, fancy lighting and an outdoor dining suite as part of your outdoor dining area will only make it more functional. Really, who would say no to sitting under the stars with a cold drink on a warm summer’s evening?

  1. They Are Attractive and Require Little Maintenance

If you lead a busy life, then the chances are that you don’t want to design a backyard which requires a lot of maintenance and upkeep. Fortunately, outdoor dining areas paired with a few plants in garden pots are simple and require very little looking after, other than a quick sweep or wash down from time to time.

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5 Reasons Why You Should Use Glass Pool Fencing

Glass Pool Fencing

Pool fencing is one of the most popular choices when it comes to building a new pool fence in Australia. Glass pool fences come in two main styles – frameless and semi-frameless – and they can be adapted and modified to meet the needs of your home.

People choose to install glass pool fences for a lot of different reasons. Some people like the idea of their pool fencing being made from a material like glass, some people find it aesthetically appealing and some people simply feel that it slots nicely into their overall landscape design whether it be DIY or completed by professional landscapers, you find from Landscapers Network.

With this in mind, here’s 5 reasons why you should consider using glass pool fencing:

  1. Glass Looks Great!

There’s no denying that glass fences look amazing when they’re used in the right setting. Clear, clean panels of secured by shiny stainless steel fittings – a fence made out of these materials has the potential to transform any pool area. Many people decide to use glass for their pool fences simply because they think it looks better than the other options.

  1. Glass Is Easy To Maintain

Maintenance is an important thing to consider when it comes to pool fences. If you let your fence become run down and worn, then it might not meet the relevant safety standards any more. This could lead to large fines and other penalties if you get caught. Glass is very easy to maintain, and needs nothing more than a quick clean from time to time.

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How to Create a Peaceful Paradise Outdoors

Landscaping

When you work in a hectic environment all day every day, it’s important to come home and unwind somewhere that represents the complete opposite. That’s why when you begin your landscaping plans, you need to incorporate as many relaxation-promoting components as possible.

When you want the most peaceful paradise on offer, you will find that landscaping experts can be of assistance, but you can also do many things yourself. Here are a few ways to gain that serenity you require in your backyard.

Outdoor Furniture

Believe it or not, your choice of outdoor furniture can either offer or ruin the peace you were hoping to achieve. When you begin making landscaping plans, think about what you wanted the focal point of the area to be. Did you want a dining area out there? Did it need to be centre stage? Or, are you after relaxing furniture that enables you to sit or lie back, relax, and catch a few ZZZs on the weekend? Before you go ahead and buy furniture, consider what you would use it for.

Privacy
Depending on where you live in Australia, you may find you get plenty of privacy with no neighbours, or everyone appears to be peering in your yard. During your landscaping plans, you need to factor in how to combat nosy neighbours or add a sense of seclusion from others. Consider the use of wood panelling or trellis, hedges, tall potted plants, divider walls, and partitions.

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Choosing The Right Stone Cladding Material For Your Home

Stone Cladding

Stone cladding is a very versatile building material that can be used for a wide range of applications. It is tough, durable and weather resistant, which makes it perfect for both indoor and outdoor applications in trying Australian conditions.

However, according to Stone Cladding Perth it can be difficult to choose the right type of stone cladding for your needs. Cladding comes in a huge range of colours, textures and styles, and you might find it pretty hard to choose a style that suits your home.

With this in mind, I’ve put together a short list of the things that you should think about when you’re trying to find the right stone cladding for your home. These include:

Texture

There are many different styles of stone cladding with different textures. Some claddings offer a rough, rustic look, while others are smooth and uniform. When you’re choosing the right cladding for your home you need to think about a few things, including:

  • The style of the rest of your house.
  • What sort of texture appeals to you.
  • What sort of look you’re going for.

Thinking about things like this should help you narrow down your choices according to the texture that you want.

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Environmentally Friendly Landscaping – Garden Design

Garden Design

Designing an environmentally friendly garden can be a fun and rewarding process. Unfortunately, most landscape design is only concerned with making sure that you get the best-looking garden or yard possible, rather than making sure that your garden is environmentally friendly.

However, there are a lot of things that you can do to transform your backyard, and make your garden more environmentally friendly and sustainable without compromising on style and looks. Some of these are very simple, while others will require more long-term effort. Consider the following:

Reduce your synthetic fertiliser use:

Synthetic fertilisers are extremely bad for the environment, especially when used in excess. Although there are a lot of alternatives out there, many people continue to use nasty, chemical-based fertilisers.

When designing your garden, the first thing that you should do is make sure that you have good soil. Add mulch and organic matter is necessary – things like grass clippings and animal manure are always good for your soil. If you can source it, you can also add some sort of mineral fertiliser. If you have poor soil, then consider planting things that are adapted to this, as they will cope better without synthetic fertilisers.

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How to Take Care of Your Pool Cleaner

Automatic Pool Cleaner

If you have a pool, you may have one of those amazing automatic pool cleaners to help take care of it, but how do you care for the cleaner? Without it, you’ll find your work load doubled, so it’s a good idea to keep it well-maintained just like any other piece of machinery to ensure it doesn’t break down.

While cleaners may differ in their maintenance needs depending on the type and model, here are some general tips to help you look after your pool cleaner

  • If the cleaner has its own filter bag or basket, make sure it is emptied out frequently.
  • If your cleaner is supposed to climb walls and it doesn’t, or if it falls off, you will need to set the AD valve in the skimmer box to the next highest number so the suction is stronger.
  • If it starts and stops all the time, it may be due to a leak in the hose. Take the hose out of the water and feel all along it, listening for air being sucked through a hole. Check it for blockages too.
  • You can also turn the cleaner off and check the diaphragm for tears or for blockage as this will sometimes cause the device to start and stop.

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What Should I Consider When Designing my New Yard?

Designing my New Yard

When it comes to designing a new yard, many people choose to use experienced landscape designers. However, a lot of people also decide to design their yard themselves, either because they can’t afford to use a landscaper, or because they simply like doing things themselves.

Designing your own yard can be a fun and rewarding process. However, it can also be difficult. There are a lot of things to consider when coming up with a master plan for your new yard, including:

How you are going to use your space:

The first, and possibly most important consideration is how you are going to use the space that you have. Are you going to dedicate most of your yard to garden space, or do you want to include a large entertainment area? Thinking about this will help you get an idea of the basic layout of your new yard, and can help simplify the design process with a landscaping expert.

Who is going to use your yard?

Another important consideration is the people who are going to be the main users of your yard. For example, if you have pets or kids, your end design is going to be a lot different than it would be if you didn’t. Make sure that you also consider any people who are likely to visit you or use your yard, such as grandchildren or other relatives. Although in this case they won’t be the main focus of your design, they should be considered. For example, if you have grandkids who visit regularly, you could install a swing set or other play equipment.

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5 Tips for Choosing a Turf Farm to Buy Lawn From

Turf Farm

Buying a new roll on lawn has never been easier when designing your yard. Some people buy from wholesalers or other gardening shops, while others decide to buy directly from a turf farm. Turf farms are probably the best option if there is one near you, as they can deliver high quality, fresh-cut roll on lawn at an extremely affordable price.

Landscaping Sydney advise that If you are lucky enough to live near a few different turf farms – which you probably will if you live in a big city – you will need to choose the best one to buy your grass from. Choosing a turf farm can be difficult, but it starts with choosing one who has a good reputation and who can deliver a high quality product on time and at an affordable price.

Our top five tips for choosing a turf farm to buy lawn from include:

  1. Compare prices:

The first thing to do is to compare the prices of turf from different farms. Some farms will be aiming for a more upper class market, which means that they might charge more for the same product. Others will deliver poor quality products, but probably won’t charge a whole lot. Decide on your budget, and then shop around a bit to decide who offers the best prices for the types of grass you need.

  1. Pay attention to their reputation:

A turf farm with a lot of experience and a decent reputation should always be your first stop when it comes to buying roll-on grass. A lot of turf farms try and sell off their second-grade products to direct buyers, so make sure that you read past customers reviews to see if they have tried to do this before.

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Using Native Plants to Create a Sustainable Garden

Sustainable Garden

When it comes to developing a sustainable garden, many people choose to leave everything in the hands of their favourite landscape architects. However, it can be extremely fun and rewarding to do things yourself, especially if you have a tight budget and a bit of time on your hands.

If your aim is to create a sustainable garden which can be enjoyed by you, your family, and all of the area’s wildlife, then there are a few things that you should think about. One of the best ways to make your garden sustainable – with Australia’s tough conditions – is to use native plants.

Why should you plant natives in your garden?

To begin with, native plants look great, are usually easy to grow, and don’t require a whole lot of attention. Historically, people have chosen not to use natives as garden plants, instead opting for species from places like Europe or the Americas.

Unfortunately, the climate in these places is usually a lot cooler and wetter than in Australia, which means that these plants are not suited to our climate. This means that they need a lot more water to thrive, and often need a lot of synthetic fertilizers and other chemicals. Natives do not, as explained below.

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End of Summer

End of Summer

Been pretty much 6 months since my last update and a lot has happened in that time. The reason it’s taken so long for me to write is two fold…1) I was worried that writing about the saga with the city might somehow jeopardize our ability to continue operation. 2) I’ve been lazy. Can’t do anything about the laziness now except change and start writing. As far as the ongoing saga with the city; it’s such a joke that I’m not actually worried about them catching up with us. I now figure I’m simply going to write what the situation is and deal with it from there and they can do what they’re going to do.

We’re now caught in a static situation with the city. At our last meeting they told us that two officials would decide if we could be classified as a “truck farm.” If you google truck farm you’ll notice that it is exactly what we are. Truck farms are allowed in residential areas (R-1), while urban farms are not. Interestingly, though the term truck farm is used in the city ordinance it’s never actually defined. The two officials have to decide if we are a truck farm but they are not required to actually define the term, they can simply say whether we are one or not. Our last meeting was about 4-5 months ago and we submitted a revised letter of intent and were supposed to wait to hear from the city in regards to our classification. Still no word. It’s a good thing we decided to just go ahead and continue with operations instead of waiting for the city to 100% back us because timeliness doesn’t seem to be their strong point. For some perspective, the city just mailed Kat a notice saying they didn’t receive her tax return…from 2011. Took them over 3 years to get that done which is rare seeing as they were asking for money, in general they’ve been more on top of anything that requires people writing a check.

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Dark Days of Winter

Dark Days of Winter

These last few weeks have been the kind of weeks that really test a young farmer’s mettle. For starters, the weather has been terrible recently. It’s my first winter in Birmingham but by all accounts it’s been unusually cold and snowy. It’s obvious why the cold can be tough to deal with; especially when you’re doing laborious work outside. We hit the point a few weeks ago where a lot of monotonous work had to be done…this isn’t the fun, innovative, and “green” work that is easy to get into. This is just hours of pulling up dormant poison oak in the cold, windy weather. Just me and Kat; nobody to validate our work, or even to see it. Not that there’s much to see, we pulled for hours and sometimes it’s hard to tell we had any effect at all. We didn’t think the snow would be much of a problem for us. It’s cold anyway and we don’t have much in the ground so we figured the snow could only hurt us if it shut the roads down. At least it’s pretty right? Wrong. Our hoop house wasn’t meant to handle the snow and we found it broken today. I guess it must have accumulated on the roof and brought it down. I’m kind of surprised it didn’t happen during the last snow storm but I guess our time finally ran out. Surprisingly only 3 PVC pipes broke (two of which were schedule 80, not 40) but that was enough to bring the structure down. All things considered it’s not that big a deal: our seedlings can still sit in the standing structure, it’s <$500 to fix it, etc. If we had crashed our car or something that would have been financially much worse, but for morale losing the hoop house wasn’t good.

Anyway, I don’t want to sound all down. We have an important meeting next week which will hopefully finally decide whether we can stay and farm this land. If all goes well, we should be set from most every angle next week. Just putting my head down and trying to stay strong until then

Winter is Coming

Winter is Coming

It’s now mid-November and it’s starting to get legitimately cold. We had our first hard freeze a few nights ago and it’s expected to dip to 33 and 26 the following two nights. Our fall CSA has been going well and we are happy to have expanded to 7 shares for this season. It’s hard to gauge how well of a job we’re doing because there aren’t too many other CSA programs around that we are aware of. Our clients seem to be happy with the quantity and quality they’re receiving so I guess for now that’s all that matters.

Personally I’ve been happy with the quality of product we’ve been delivering. I can’t honestly say that all of our turnip greens tasted like this but we harvested one bunch that we had for ourselves that was absolutely divine. I seriously could have ate that everyday; same with a small head of broccoli we were able to save for ourselves. In general, the quantity was a tougher task for us this year as this was the first year on this land and there were some quirks we are still figuring out. For example, we lost almost all our initial planting of kale due to what I can only assume was a nutrient deficiency in the soil. I wish I had taken a picture; all the kale in the middle of the beds died, and only the 3-4 plants on the ends would survive. No idea why that would be the case. I think we’ll probably play it a bit safer in terms of what we know will grow on this land and I think that will help up our production for next year.

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Spring 2015

Spring 2015

As usual I’m way behind on updating things. I could never recap everything that’s happened but I’ll try and get some info up so people know what we’re up to if they’re interested. Kat and I visited Hawaii in early March this year where we were fortunate enough to get engaged! Upon returning to Birmingham we were immediately swamped with work. I imagine there’s a time in every small business where it seems like everyone calls at once and that’s how it went for us. We had several private gardens to put in along with a couple of positive public projects.

The two public projects have led us in a more educational direction. The SPROUTS garden (which already looks better than the picture but I haven’t uploaded the pics yet) is part of a summer program at Tarrant Middle School where some of the curriculum involves getting kids out in the garden and educating them about where and how their food is produced.

The other is the Rosedale Youth garden right outside Homewood. We are working with a Christian group that is doing charity work in the area, part of which is providing a safe/constructive place for youth to hang out on some days of the week after school. The facility they use for this includes a very nice stone garden which we’ve recently helped them prepare for summer/fall. For each of these projects we’ve been hired on a “Maintenance/Education Contract” which involves us coming in and teaching the kids for a few hours a month. While this wasn’t our original intention when starting the business we think this is an important idea worth pursuing and we’ll give it a shot for a few months.

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Spring’s coming, I hope…

Spring's coming

Happy to have bits of good news after such a negative post last time. The meeting we had went well and we are now fully confident in our legal status regarding our ability to stay and open a garden on the plot. With a little work we might even be able to sell a lot of our produce onsite. Unfortunately the Community Gardens area was shut down due to insurance complications.

It’s too bad; I think a lot of community members feel we had something to do with this. If they thought it through a step or two they could see that that would make no sense. It doesn’t help us to not have the community garden there. It means less foot traffic and people coming through to see our garden project. We can’t use the community plot which means it’s not even extra space we could use. There were also some concerns about us using community funds/resources to promote our business. I wish…the cost of the greenhouse and electricity was 100% covered by us, and it wasn’t cheap.

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Homemade Tomato Sauce

Homemade Tomato Sauce
  • 1 ½ Tbsp olive oil
  • 1 large onion diced
  • 3 carrots diced
  • 3 garlic cloves minced
  • 6-7 pounds tomatoes chopped
  • 1 bouillon cube
  • ½ -1 cup water
  • 1 tsp oregano, fresh or dried
  • 2 tsp basil, fresh or dried
  • 2 tsp thyme, fresh or dried
  • ¼ cup milk (optional)


Saute onion and carrots in a large sauce pan over medium heat until the onions are translucent. Add tomatoes, minced garlic, bouillon cube, ½ cup water and stir. Let simmer for 30 minutes then add the Italian herbs. If the mixture becomes thicker than desired add the rest of the water. Stir and let simmer another 20 minutes. If you want creamy tomato sauce add ¼ cup milk and let simmer 10 more minutes. Enjoy this sauce with various recipes.

Moving Forward

Moving Forward

It’s an exciting time for the business as we’re slowly expanding and beginning to have a more significant impact around Birmingham. For this post I want to just focus on the two biggest projects we’ve got going on right now.

  • Our main client, Stewart Perry, is getting rid of their old garden space and moving the garden to a new spot on campus. Fortunately for us they asked us to work with them on the design process and we’ve been able to give some input. This is really cool to me because it’s really a sign of endorsement from Stewart Perry. The total cost of this garden has got to be at least $10,000+ and it’s cool that they trust us enough to let us design garden for them, especially since they’re so keen on having things look good. Anyway, when SP decides to do something they do it quickly. They’ve already started the new area and I’ll keep people updated with how it goes but for now here’s some pics.

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New Year

Urban Farm

I was back home in Hawaii for the past 10 days and didn’t have a chance to update this blog as to the status of the greenhouse and Ruffner Valley Urban Farm in general. First and foremost we’ve officially s The good news is the greenhouse is done! It’s certainly a step down from professional grade but it has proven sturdy and effective thus far. We’ve started some of our seedlings inside and currently they are coming up without any problems. I’ve attached pictures of the greenhouse as well as the seedlings we’ve started.

The whole property is about to go through some pretty major renovations. We hired an electrician to come in and get power back up in the small building by Plot C. We plan on building a small walk-in cooler to store our produce so it will last longer before market. It was a matter of debate whether a walk-in cooler would be worth the expense when just starting out. There are a lot of costs associated with the cooler beyond just materials; we had to purchase a heavy duty A/C unit (18,000 BTU) and we also have to pay for the power to run it. However, we’ve heard from numerous sources that the initial investment is worth it. If you don’t have a cooler most of your produce has to be harvested the day before market. This means you will spend all Friday (assuming market is on Saturday) harvesting and probably won’t even get all the produce you have available. On top of that you have to spend time packaging for market which likely means working late into the night Friday and then getting up early for market on Saturday. With this in mind we think building a cooler would be a valuable experience from both a financial and learning perspective.

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Building the Hoop House

Building the Hoop House

The next step in this process is to build a hoop house to start our seedlings in. Building the hoop house involves two major steps.

  1. Clearing the area.
  2. Actually building the hoop house.

Clearing the area wasn’t too difficult but it was very time and work intensive. We had to knock down an old dugout using nothing but a sledgehammer. The wall came down pretty easily but that’s only half the work, moving all the bricks out by hand was probably more physically stressful than the actual hammer swinging. After all the blocks were cleared out of the way we had to get a few posts and stumps out of the ground. Fortunately we were able to use our truck to pull everything out. We didn’t get it on the first time through but after a lot of hacking with a pickaxe and pulling with the truck we were able to get everything we needed out of the way.

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Crunch Time

Crunch Time

It’s been almost a month since the last post and things have been going well for the most part. My love-hate relationship with the general public continues. I will say that the community meeting went extraordinarily well and that we got a unanimous decision from them to endorse our presence in the community and a zoning exception to allow us to sell our produce onsite.

Why that land is zoned as residential is still beyond me; I don’t make the laws though, I just follow them. At the very least the site is physically starting to look like a productive site; I’ve attached pictures of what it looks like from the roof of the leased building. It’s amazing how much better it looks from above. Throughout that whole digging process it was hard to tell if anything was getting it done. It looked organized but it was nothing compared to what it looked like from above.

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Winter is Here

Winter is Here

I wanted to address two things in this post: what we actually do in the winter, and secondly I just wanted to write about bok choy.

The number one question we’ve been getting asked recently is, “What do you guys do in the winter?” Admittedly, last year we didn’t have as much to do in the winter and a lot of it was spent simply planning how to improve this year. Now that we’ve got a small plot of our own though, things have changed. It’s also worth pointing out that Alabama doesn’t have a terribly long winter which means there’s less time available than people may think; for example we’ve already started planting Spring 2015 seedlings despite the fact that it’s only early January! We should be able to have that stuff in the ground by early March and from there we’re hoping to get a quick harvest before moving onto the summer stuff which we will begin seeding in a few weeks. So while most people think of winter as ranging 3-4 months, our slow time is really only 1-2.

We’ve also been doing a lot of catching up from the summer. There’s been a lot we’ve been meaning to do which we’ve finally got around to. We cleaned and repainted both the downstairs and upstairs of the building we’re using, we’ve moved the grow lights to our own buildings and constructed several tables to hold seedlings, we’ve almost finished tilling the rest of the plot (we’ve now got 90%+ in bed form), we cleaned up the greenhouse and added more usable tables, built several flower beds along the farm perimeter, fertilized most beds, etc. Also, QuickBooks takes a lot longer than you might think when you’re not particularly savvy with computers. All in all we’ve had much more work to do this year than last year which is definitely a good thing. We’re prepping for the upcoming year and I’m optimistic about our aim to double production. Last year we were able to greatly increase production at Stewart Perry (our main client) from year 1-year 2 which I think mostly had to do with just getting to know the growing space a little better. We certainly know our land a little better this time around and I’m confident we’ll get more out of it this year.

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Broiled Eggplant Sandwich with Caramelized Onions and Goat Cheese

Broiled Eggplant Sandwich with Caramelized Onions and Goat Cheese
  • 1-2 small eggplant
  • 1-2 Tbsp olive oil
  • garlic powder
  • salt
  • pepper
  • 1 sweet onion
  • 1 Tbsp olive oil
  • goat cheese
  • humus
  • lettuce
  • sliced tomato
  • tomato sauce
  • pita bread (just about any type of bread will work)

Cut the eggplant into slices. Drizzle with 1-2Tbsp olive oil or until the eggplant is coated (this may require more than 2 Tbsp). Lay the eggplant on a baking sheet. I like to cover my baking sheet in foil so the clean up is easier. Sprinkle each slice with garlic powder, salt, and pepper. Broil in the oven at 400 degrees F until browned. This usually takes about 10 minutes. Once the eggplant is browned take it out of the oven flip the slices and repeat.

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