Welcome Spring
by Nancy Carter, Senior Editor
By the time you get this newsletter, spring will probably already have sprung and April will soon be on its way with the April showers. Now is a great time to buy or build a rain barrel so you can take advantage of those April showers and use the rainwater in your gardens! It's estimated that nearly 40% of household water usage in the summer is for lawn and garden watering, so using a rain barrel may save the average homeowner up to 1,300 gallons of water during peak summer months!
And while you're building things, you might as well make a chicken tractor! Not sure what a chicken tractor is or why you would want one? Just keep reading to find out. And then we wrap up this issue with some tips from Catherine Love on preparing your garden for planting. I know you all are getting excited already.
Get out there and enjoy God's creation!
Blessings, Nancy Carter
Senior Editor of HomesteadBlogger
How to Build Your Own Rain Barrel
Provided by: The Center for Watershed Protection
Supplies:
- One 55-gallon drum
- One 5' section vinyl garden hose (3/4" OD x 5/8" ID)
- One 4" diameter atrium grate (basket used in garden ponds and pool skimmers)
- One 1/2" PVC male adapter
- One 3/4" x 1/2" PVC male adapter
- One 5' section of drain hose, drain line, or sump pump line (1-1/4")
- One 1-1/4" female barbed fitting and one 1-1/4" male threaded coupling
- One vinyl gutter elbow
- Drill (or a hole saw)
- Router, jig saw or coping saw
- Measuring tape
Optional Supplies:
- Waterproof sealant (silicone caulk, PVC glue)
- Teflon tape
- Fiberglass window screen material or mosquito netting
- Cinder blocks or wooden crate
STEP 1: Cut Holes in Barrel
- Cut lower drain hole. Measure about 1 inch above the bottom of the barrel where the barrel side begins to rise toward the top. Using a ¾" bit (or hole saw), drill a hole through the barrel.
- Cut upper drain hole. Mark the upper drain hole according to where you want the overflow to be located in relationship to the lower drain. Use a 1-5/8" hole saw to cut out the overflow hole.
- Cut top hole for atrium grate (filter). Using the atrium grate as a template for size, mark a circle at the center of the top of the drum (locating the rainwater inlet in the center of the barrel lets you pivot the barrel without moving the downspout). Drill a 1/2" hole inside the marked circle. Use a router, jigsaw or coping saw to cut until the hole is large enough to accommodate the atrium grate, which filters out large debris. Don't make the hole too big--you want the flange of the atrium grate to fit securely on the top of the barrel without falling in.
- Cut notch to hold hose. Using a 1/2" bit or hole saw, cut out a notch at the top of the barrel rim (aligned so that it is above the lower drain hole). The notch should be large enough so that the end of the hose with the adapter will firmly snap into place.
STEP 2: Set Up Barrel and Modify Downspout
- Set up barrel. Since water will only flow from the garden hose when the hose is below the barrel, place the barrel on high ground or up on cinder blocks or a sturdy wooden crate underneath your downspout.
- Modify your downspout. Cut your existing downspout using a saw so that the end can be placed over the top of your rain barrel. Use a 3" vinyl downspout elbow to connect the two downspout pieces (or use a downspout adapter and a piece of corrugated plastic pipe). Trim the end of the downspout if necessary.
STEP 3: Assemble Parts
- Attach garden hose to lower drain hole. Screw in the 1/2" PVC male adapter to the lower drain hole. The hard PVC threads cut matching grooves into the soft plastic of the barrel. Unscrew the 1/2" PVC male adapter from the hole. Wrap threads tightly with teflon tape (optional). Coat the threads of the coupler with waterproof sealant (optional). Screw the coated adapter back into the hole and let it sit and dry for 24 hours (optional). Attach 5' foot garden hose to the PVC male adapter. Attach the 3/4" x 1/2" PVC male adapter to the other end of the hose (this can be readily adapted to fit a standard garden hose).
- Attach drain hose to upper drain hole. Put the 1-1/4" male threaded coupling inside the barrel with the threads through the hole. From the outside, screw the 1-1/4" female barbed fitting onto the threaded coupling. Use silicone on the threads (optional). Attach 5' section of drain hose to upper fitting.
- Place atrium grate and screen in top hole. Using PVC glue, secure a piece of fine mesh window screen inside or outside of the atrium grate to filter out debris and control mosquitoes (optional). Place the atrium grate into the hole (basket down).
- Position the downspout. Position the end of your downspout so it drains onto the atrium grate on the rain barrel.
Reprinted with permission of the Center for Watershed Protection.
For step-by-step pictures, please see the Center for Watershed Protection's online brochure.
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Chicken Tractors
by Nancy Carter
Have you heard people talking about chicken tractors and wondered what they were talking about? I know they sound really funny. When a friend first told me about hers, I was pretty sure she had gone off the deep end--first she was getting all of the animals to take care of, butchering her own animals, and then she was even into alternative housing for her animals. Yep, sounded like a fruitcake to me. And now ... she's brainwashed me and we're raising chickens, butchering them, and building our own chicken tractors.
Chicken tractors come in different shapes and sizes.
Their main benefits are that they:
- keep the chickens on fresh grass or soil
- lower food costs
- protect the chickens from predators, family pets, and the road
- fertilize the soil
- control where the chicken poop is
- eliminate needing to clean the coop
- make the eggs easy to find
Getting started with chicken tractors is easy. Chicken Tractors by Andy Lee is practically considered required reading. He spends a lot of time explaining the benefits of chicken tractors and how to use them for maximum productivity. Joel Salatin's book Pastured Poultry Profits then goes even more in depth for people interested in raising pastured poultry. After reading those two books and Storey's Guide to Raising Chickens, we looked at all different pictures of chicken tractors online before we designed ours.
The most basic design is a PVC or wood rectangle frame with a lid that allows easy access but keeps predators at bay. We spent about $75 and built our first one out of PVC. It was very easy to move daily and a good size for what we were doing, but stepping in and out of it to take care of things was a bit difficult. We started out with both our meat birds and our laying hens in there together, but then moved the hens to a separate PVC A-frame chicken tractor. Before building your own you might want to visit the City Chicken's Chicken Tractor Gallery to see a wide variety of pictures people have submitted of their original designs.
Looking for more of a hen house style? Countryside had a great article in its September/October 2005 issue called "Free Range Your Birds in This Chicken Tractor." It had a complete plan and design for a hen house style chicken tractor complete with roost, laying boxes, easy access doors, and great space for the chickens on grass. They estimated the building cost to be $270. You can order their back issue online if you want to get those plans. Their back issues are $4 each, and it would be well worth the money if you are considering building a hen house chicken tractor.
Whether you are just wanting a few laying hens for your backyard or you want to raise meat birds for your family or to sell, chicken tractors provide a wonderful opportunity for you to keep the birds on fresh soil each day, fertilize your grass or garden, and to keep them safe from any predators. Chicken tractors may be kind of a "new thing," but as Martha would say, "It's a very good thing!"
Nancy Carter is the Senior Editor of HomesteadBlogger and a contributing writer for The Old Schoolhouse Magazine. She and her husband are homeschooling and learning all about country life with their three sons on their small farm in Kentucky. Learn more about their journey at Nancy's Unlikely Homesteader blog!
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Preparing the Garden for Planting
by Catherine Love
Spring is just about here, and it's time to prepare the garden for planting. Time to clean up, clear away, and add compost and other amendments to the soil.
Exactly what you need to do to prepare your garden depends on what kind of garden and soil you have. If this is a new garden, you may want to do a soil test to determine what amendments your soil needs for healthy plants. They are inexpensive and easily found at garden centers. It is also a great science project for the homeschool family.
If you have a raised bed garden, you will probably only need to pull out any dead or diseased plant material and the few weeds that may have found their way into the beds. Next, add a layer of compost, stir, smooth out the soil, and you're ready to plant again.
For the traditional, tilled garden, decide what you need to add to the soil--compost, peat moss, etc. Also, decide if you are going to pull out the dead things or just till them back into the soil. After you've spread on the amendments and tilled the soil, get out the rake and hoe and start making your planting rows. When we had this type of garden, we marked off our planting rows, which were 3-4 feet wide, with stakes and string. After the rows were marked, we raked the loose, tilled soil from the pathways into the planting beds. Then, we added a layer of cardboard topped with mulch to the pathways. The stakes and string gave us a definite planting area, which kept the kids for the most part out of the beds! Raking the soil from the pathways into the beds helped raise the beds up just a bit for good drainage. The mulched cardboard pathways helped by deterring weeds and preventing muddy pathways and boots. One note if you live in an area with fire ants--they do tend to want to build nests under the cardboard, so be watchful for that. Once you have your beds raked smooth, you are ready to plant those seeds and seedlings.
For either of the above types of garden, you can always use the Lasagna Garden method--lay down sections of wet newspaper on top of the soil (weeds and all), then layer on several inches of compost, peat moss, etc., on top and plant away. Not tilling or weeding required at all!
Container gardens are the simplest to prepare. Clean out any old soil, scrub the pots with a light bleach water solution, and allow them to air dry. Then, fill with your choice of planting medium and you're ready to garden.
Spring is in the air, so let's prepare our gardens and Get Growing!
Catherine Love, lives and gardens in Texas with her husband Carl, and 3 daughters, Sarah, Hannah, and Cana. Read about their garden and homestead adventures here.
We hope you've enjoyed this issue of The Homestead e-Newsletter. We'd love to hear what you think about it. Did you try the recipes, craft suggestions, or any of the other tips? We want to hear about it! And we also want to hear your suggestions for future newsletters. Is there a topic you'd like to see covered that we haven't yet? Would you like to contribute a column? Just let me know! You can email me at SeniorEditor@HomesteadBlogger.com. Or just stop by The Front Porch and say "Hello" when you're visiting us at HomesteadBlogger!
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