Recycling

I love to recycle things-now.  When I was young, I thought you had to have new things.  I thought things had to look really good, and reusing things for another reason other than what they were designed for-was not an option then.  Recycling then ---was plastic bottle, glass and stuff like that.

 But today, with a small farm-I recycle a lot of stuff.  I no longer need to have things look just so...perfection like that, I do think it is prideful.  It does not mean you have to be sloppy, but to waste things that could be used elsewhere, is wrong.  It is not being a good steward.
So here are some of our recyclable things around the farm!

Her is one of 2 gates to one of my gardens that is made out of trimmed branches from bushes that actually grow right beside the garden!  Each year I have to trim the bushes, and can reuse the branches for things like this, or we will use them to be kindling for fires.

Below is the other gate.

I have a close line that begins right out my back door, with that end on the house and the other end on the garage.  Both ends have rollers, so the close line --I can pull it (rolling) to hand the clothes.  

this photo is really grainy, but it shows the other roller...

and yes, that if twine that is used on the farm!  My other line broke (regular close line) and I need to go to a special store to get a replacement one long enough! 

This is currently a gate to another garden.  It use to be the side of a crib.

Here is the gate, to the chicken yard.  The bottom is an old crib bed  spring.  The top is lattice board.  (yes a double gate) we sometimes keep the lattice board one open and keep the crib spring closed.  The black 'belt' holding the gate closed, is an old large dog collar. (hinges are on the other side) 

this shelf, is a wire shelf that use to  be in our house.  It fits in a corner, we used it for a number of years, then spray painted it and used it at our oldest sons wedding--it works now in the garden to allow the peas to grow up on! It is about 4 feet tall and has 3 of the shelves like you see here---

well that is it for now!  

Gardens---Vegetable gardens!

Gardening!  I love gardening!
We moved in here one day  before Thanksgiving in 1997.  We have been working on this place now for 16 years!  Wow!  I can not believe it has been that long!
My vegetable garden has been in a number of places since we moved in here, the original places have all yielded growing vegetables for a pasture.  SO I finally decided to make my vegetable garden a permanent place.  That would mean -garden boxes.  Below are a few of the first larger boxes.

We began with 4 of them.  They are 12 feet long and 4 feet wide.  We have 5 smaller ones in another place, which we started first.  I will show photos of those later.  These 4 boxes were began about 4 years ago.  Each year we need to add dirt.  The grass around them became a issue with keeping it mowed.  Although the boxes are wide enough for a push mower to get between them ---I did not want to continue to mow there.  The plan with the boxes is to as we age-build them taller (notice the vertical boards in the corners that we can continue to add boards around them)  that way as we get older, and can not bend as much, they will be taller for us!  The wide spaces between them, would even accommodate a wheel chair if needed.

We finally added the other 2 boxes, and put ground cover down with saw dust on top of the ground cover between the boxes.  That would mean that I only had to mow around the whole square of veg boxes, not between them! 

As the saw dust breaks down over the years, it will turn into soil and I can put it in the boxes. 

and here are the boxes today!  The saw dust between them are turning into dirt nicely.  This fall I will be adding it to the boxes and replacing it with new sawdust.  I also added saw dust around the exterior of all the boxes then we fenced it in with a small gauge fence to prevent the rabbits from getting into the garden! So we have 6 boxes here, but we have 4 that are closer to the house- and the 5 original ones which are smaller.

this is 3 of the older boxes.  they are 8 foot by about 3 foot wide.  You can see the onions and garlic here.  This is last years harvest.

this is the garden this year-you can see bush beans in the corner, and peas that will grow up on a wire shelf that I have placed in the garden for  plants to grow up on.  The chives are in bloom, there is also some garlic, and the white flowering plant on the left is cilantro. 

here is the same garden boxes -just a different view.  I have pea gravel around them, and a wooden fence to one side.  The rest of the fence is a chicken wire fence  (to keep those chicken rototillers out!)

This is the homemade gate for this garden, out of trimmed pieces of bushes that grow by the garden!  It means I can redo it yearly if needed!

This is the final 4 boxes.  They are the newest boxes. This is last years garden.  

Another view of the newer boxes (last years garden) 

Her they are this year...

volunteer tomatoes are coming up well !  (all heirloom tomatoes)

We will add 3 more small boxes at the end by where you see the wooden fence.  And then add the remaining wooden fence which will go to the corner of the house.  (we will add small wire fence on that to keep chickens, cats and bunnies out!)

here is another view, showing the other 2 boxes.  There is room in here for our table and chairs.  Ground cover down under that too, with sawdust, some day when we can afford it, we will put a stone patio down under the table and chairs.

and finally, here is the opening to this final garden on the other side of it, (You can see I have started some stone work at the door area) The 'gate' is a side to a crib.  I like to recycle things!