Posted on 11 Comments

How to Plant Like a Pro

How to plant like a pro and maximize your harvest with proper plant spacing

Want to know the trick to maximizing planting space like a pro? Just Say No To Rows and learn how to plant your garden. Yep, I said it. Put the hoe down, the tiller away, and stop with the traditional rows. It is the number one mistake home gardeners make! Why? Because it is labor intensive and more importantly, a waste of useful space that you could be growing food or flowers.  Plant spacing is key to maximizing your harvest.

How to plant like a pro and maximize your harvest with proper plant spacing

There are a number of techniques out there to plant your veggies and flowers in a non-row method. The biggy you will always hear about is ‘Square Foot Gardening’. I have actually checked the book out of the library and read the whole thing. Personally, I think it was a great guide on spacing plants, but I don’t subscribe to his method of soil creation. Peat is just ick to use most of the time. Not to say I haven’t used it from time to time, but I prefer not to do major applications with peat. ANYWHO, I’ll get off my peat soapbox and continue on to the important stuff. How to plant your garden in a meaningful and efficient use of space. This technique works with raised beds or in ground plots!

How to Calculate Plant Spacing

First thing to do is look at the back of your seed packet. You can read in detail about what you are looking for in my other post Seed Packet 101. Find the information about plant spacing. Ignore the row spacing. I saw you looking at the row spacing! Stop that right now :)

Have you found your number? It could range anywhere from 3″-24″ (3-60 cm) or more! You are going to take that number and divide it in half and place it like spokes on a wheel around your plant. So an eggplant that needs 24 inches would get planted with 12 inches on all sides. I tend to visualize a circle around the plant. Then just lay those circles out in a grid form. Yes, it is that easy!

Planting distances based on plant space from seed packet

BUT Wait! There’s More! (Infomercial voice)

There are a couple of things you need to think about before you start planting away. How to weed and how to harvest. Weeds are a fact of gardening life; if you use the above planting method they will be much lighter than traditional rows, but occasionally you are going to need to reach down and pull one out. So guess what that means? Your 6ft X 6ft (2m X 2m) bed? Yeah… You are barely going to be able to reach in the middle. (And yes, I might just have one of those). This is the reason you often see raised beds in 3ft increments. That is the usual distance a human can easily reach from one side. Let us pretend that you ended up with zero weeds, again, you will need to think about being able to reach and harvest your glorious tomatoes and plots of thick spinach. No one likes that smell of rotting squash in the middle of the patch. Yuck! (sometimes I have been known to get lazy on the harvesting)

Perhaps you have a traditional row garden plot. NO WORRIES! You can still use the same space. Divide the area into three foot sections and leave 2-3 ft (1m) pathways between the planting sections. Bonus points if you throw mulch on the pathways to keep yourself from having to weed and hoe the compacted garden paths. BTW, if you noticed I mentioned not tilling at the beginning. Once you have your happy soil you won’t need to be digging these beds and pathways up all the time. I get into more detail on establishing your soil and beds in other posts.

Grid It Out

Let us assume we have a prepared planting soil/space and we know how much space our plants need. The easiest process is to start plunking those puppies in a nice straight grid. Of course this is assuming you have vegetable or flower starts ready to go. Frankly, I plant a lot of veggies and flowers straight from seed into the ground. It gets a little trickier here to get good germination and clear spacing. Frankly, I am willing to waste a bit of seed, especially when it comes to tiny ones like carrots or cabbage. I am just too lazy to carefully plant out 2-3 seeds in each grid space. So I make mini-rows spaced correctly from each other and lightly spread seed down them. Then I just go back and thin the rows by cutting off the un-needed seedlings when they get 2-3 inches high. So why are we planting like this? We can get so many more vegetables in a smaller space. Let us use an example because we love the maths:

We have a 3 ft by 6ft bed (1m X 2m). We want to plant beets (I am the only one in my house but I freaking LOOOOOVVVVEEE beets) The package says row spacing 12 inches and plant spacing 3 inches.

Standard Row Planting: 72 beets (3 rows of 24 beets)  Why beets?  Because I freaking love beets!  This (affiliate links to follow) Rainbow Blend from Sow True Seed is my absolute favorite.  Do yourself a favor and order them today!  You can plant them throughout the summer.  Plus beet greens!  Anyway enough about beets…
Grid Planting: 288 beets (plant 12 across and 24 down. Isn’t that number beet-uiful?!)

planting-grid
Straight grid versus offset planting. Both are superior to row planting to get the most in a small space.

The thing about numbers is they don’t usually lie. I used to say numbers never lie and then I worked in Business Intelligence and saw how people massage numbers… But for gardening 288 beets sounds a lot better than 72, well, if you like beets. Additional bonus from planting in this grid method? Whenever the vegetables get bigger their leaves shade the soil cutting off many weeds and maintaining soil quality from erosion. Less weeds = less weeding!

I learned a technique to completely maximize this planting structure. I have used it before but gotten lazy in the last bit and pretty much default to the grid. I often have too many vegetables to use and end up giving loads away so I no longer plant in an offset method. This technique is part of a full biointensive method of planting that is a lot more complicated and involves things like root depth etc. I’m not going there, it is hella fun to plan out and do, but it takes a lot of calculation and work. BUT this small portion is easy to adopt: instead of gridding off your plants you can use those circles to offset each plant squeezing just a few more inches into each bed. Additionally you can tuck in plantings to really cram those plants in there. That means if you have plants that need a lot of space like tomatoes, you can tuck in basil along the edges of the plantings. Personally I love to shove a few flowers, especially marigolds, in any extra room I have. It just makes the vegetable patches that much more attractive.

So what have we learned today? STOP the rows and plant your vegetables in a efficient layout.

Math is on your side and you can get so many more plants in a small place than you can with traditional row crops. Take a grid or offset method to get lots of veggies, but make sure that you remember to leave room for weeding and harvest.

Posted on 8 Comments

See Holi, India is Amazing

Our trip to Holi in India: Painted in Colors

The following is a real account of how our visit to see Holi in India went. It is a story format and makes a pretty fantastic tale. If you want tips and travel advice about seeing Holi or traveling to India let me know in the comments and I will get back to you or write up the information.

One year ago we visited India. I never wrote about our trip to India to see Holi because I wasn’t really writing anything personal about my life at the time and that is the kind of trip you need to digest over time. I’ve always wanted to go to the Holi Festival. Holi is basically the original color run. I mentioned my desire to go and how cool Holi was one lazy evening to my partner in crime. Plane tickets were bought, hotels in New Delhi, Vrindivan, and Jaipur were booked and away we went on a crazy adventure. You’ll note there was a lack of transport between locations… More on that in a bit.

Do I suggest making a trip to a foreign country of completely different values to see a festival of dubious nature? I most certainly do, IF you have the right temperament. We went on our own, without a tour, and without a super set plan. The culture shock alone keeps any trip like this from being a relaxing vacation. You are signing up for adventure. Adventure, as often left out of the books, involves a whole lot of fear, uncertainty, boundary pushing, and I imagine haggling for transport on your quest. Going to see Holi was all of the above, but completely worth it.

Our trip to Holi in India: Agra Street Scene

If you are thinking about visiting India, especially to see Holi, then do your research. We may not have planned every aspect but it still involved a whole lot of immunizations, visa purchases, and study of customs. Remember, Holi is a religious festival first and foremost. I was not about to go trounce upon another countries customs. At best it makes you seem like a turd of a tourist at worst it can get you arrested or killed in other countries.

So It Begins

You are looking at a 14-16 hour flight from the East Coast of the USA. Nothing like waking up from poor airline sleep to see your plane directly above Kabul, Afghanistan. But in reality it is after you leave the airplane that you realize there is no going back. Especially if you land in New Delhi. Customs is confusing, their hand print scanners are the things of nightmares, and the moment you walk out of the airport you are assaulted by the smell of wet, burnt firecrackers (pollution), people trying to hawk taxis and other items. Research pre-paid fares and make sure to find a stand that guarantees the amount to your destination and gives you a receipt. Otherwise you can get taken for a lot more money when you reach your destination. Basically always set a firm price before getting on any transportation. Oh and if you are like us make sure to do all of this at midnight India time. Cause there is nothing more exciting than being in an unfamiliar location in the dark.

If you are like us you will get in a car accident within you first hour, finally make it to an unbelievably posh hotel, and then have to face the fact you can’t open your mouth in the shower. Get 3-4 hours of sleep and then figure out how the hell you are going to get to Agra on your way to Vrindivan.

The Metro

Oh holy hell, I don’t even think I can describe the metro in morning rush hour in New Delhi. You would need to be there to experience it and that would be one suggestion I say skip if possible. My husband is a big guy. A Big. Red Bearded. Intimidating guy. That afforded us an additional 3 inches of room. If you do manage to brave that insanity then pick a place to meet if you get separated. We foolishly did not and I got ripped away from him by the physical push of the crowd. Panic ensued but some kind Indians physically pulled me from the train and threw me into his arms. Oh yeah, that actually happened and it is an experience i could have done without.

There is a huge long portion of the story where we meet one of the only other tourists we find on the trip. I nice Swede who had been there for a few weeks, taught us to haggle, and got us to a bus to Agra. Not a state bus just a bus. The kind you see in pictures with everyone and livestock piled inside, random stops in the middle of the highway, and no idea of where you are actually headed. It is hence forth the period where we were think “Well, shit, we have made a major mistake”. Luckily for both of us we are of the never give up temperament. Plus once you are stuck in a bus moving further and further away from the only airport that can get you home you kind of have to continue.

Our trip to Holi in India: India Traffic
Note the look of fear and the mopeds hurtling towards us…

But in general people around the world are still people. We found some that were nice, pointed out where to get off, where to get tuk tuks (Also known as three wheeled mopeds of death), and how to navigate the city. Just remember that nice comes at a price in India. The whole economy works on kickbacks and friends Recommendations are based on this process so you can ask for a recommendation of taxi and a person will give you one, but it is likely their cousin or friend’s taxi service, not necessarily the best/cheapest one around.

Our trip to Holi in India: Red Fort, Agra
The Red Fort. Ah-mazing! Yes, that is all hand cut red sandstone.

We saw the Taj Mahal from a distance. Don’t ever go with luggage as there is no good place to store it and they won’t let you take it in. Plus you have to fight a gauntlet of vendors and slums to get to any of the gates. The Red Fort was amazing but on the whole Agra was one of the poorest and dirtiest locations we saw. We managed to snag a taxi to Vrindivan find our surprisingly wonderful hotel and basically collapse. Holi was the next day, we had barely slept, and frankly the all day adrenaline charge we had had was more than enough to have us pass out.

Our trip to Holi in India: Red Fort Courtyard in Agra
Because the Red Fort also has white marble buildings inside.

See Holi, It Really Is That Wonderful

We made it. It was the start of Holi, we were in Krishna’s birth village, and it was the start of the festival. Despite our general misgivings we decided to walk the 1 mile to the village. We both wore outfits that we didn’t mind getting stained various colors. I also made sure to have a 3/4 sleeve loose blouse and full length skirt on. We planned on making our way to the main temple and I wanted to make sure to follow the general dress and customs.Our trip to Holi in India: Holi powders and cows

Walking was the BEST PLAN Ever! As we got closer to the town a tuk tuk comes veering off the road. Apprehensively we stood our ground, but to our surprise and delight a number of men jumped out, give us gigantic bear hugs, wiped colored powder all over our foreheads, and jovially yelled “HAPPY HOLI” the whole time. This was the process that was to continue for the next two hours of our lives, EXCEPT it also included thousands of pictures. We had managed to find the authentic Holi experience, which meant we were some of the only tourists there. My husband’s height and beard made us of immediate interest from a distance, my blonde hair just drew everyone. For the first time ever I finally understood why celebrities lose it. There is something exhausting about only being able to make it three feet before someone grabs you and takes a picture. But we kept smiling because everyone seemed so delighted to wish us a happy Holi.

Our trip to Holi in India: Vrindivan Colors
This is 1 of 10,000 selfies we were part of during the celebration

At one point I had, had a little more than I could take so we started cutting down some of the side streets. The crowds were less thick and we could watch the main happenings on the main street from a less involved distance. It was an amazing site to behold. Shouts of laughter as kids and adults chase each other around with colors while streams of brightly colored powder and liquid dye filled the air. Processions of orange robed Hindu Monks cut through all the chaos, reminding everyone that while this was a celebration it was also a religious festival.

tuk-tuk-holi-india
Oh yeah, you get pelted by moving vehicles too!

As we stood watching we noticed a bit of chaos behind us at a gate. Seeing as we hadn’t died yet we, as in Adam, decided we should go check that out. As headed down the alley Adam screams simply “MONKEY!”. Yep a large, over waist high, temple monkey decides to jump down next to Adam. Because, you know, we hadn’t already seen pigs, cows, dogs, camels, and horses. Of course all I can think is that we weren’t in time to take the recommended rabies vaccine before our trip and their direction was to stay away from local animals… Yeah, that can’t happen in India. The animals are as thick as the people and you will be up close to all types of livestock and apparently monkeys. Since no one was bit by the monkey we continued to the chaos which was a number of people attempting to enter a temple. At that very moment they open the gate to let a number of people in and out. So what do we do? Well of course we just push ahead and enter the temple.

 

Our trip to Holi in India: Temple Monkey
This is a small temple monkey. Some of them were almost chest high.
Our trip to Holi in India: Cows Everywhere
So many cows…

It was an oasis in the middle of chaos. Everyone is hushed, you can hear chants and music across the courtyard. We had to remove our shoes (much to Adam’s worry as his have gotten stolen in the most unusual circumstances), but the cool marble of the temple walkways felt amazing in the warm sun. Light filtered through colorful nets and garlands containing thousands of marigolds and bells. A cool breeze blew as we entered the temple proper. The hush, sprinkled with the beautiful marble carvings, and spring decorations everywhere gave it the most surreal feel. The temple security made everyone back away from us so that we have a few moments of peace from the picture taking bonanza. We actually met one of the only other American’s on our trip. He was Krishna monk who helped us sneak out the back of the temple. As he showed us around he explained his life’s goal was to serve and help. That he could reach a state of grace through such acts. Hearing such conviction in such a setting will always stay with me and remind me that for every awful thing we see there are good things as well.

Our trip to Holi in India: Painted in Colors

Our trip to Holi in India: Krishna temple
All those decorations are live flowers.

The Holi experience as a whole was amazing, we slipped around the back of the village making our way back to the hotel. We had only one rough experience where some young mean got a bit rough and handsy with me. Let’s just say I threw some elbows and my husband picked me up and carried me from the crowd. They actually ended up apologizing, but I would be wary to travel Holi as a single woman, alone. We never did make it to the main city temple, but I think that was good. Our trip led us to the back streets where we got to meet some of the residents. When we finally made it back to the hotel we had to spend close to 45 minutes removing as much color as we could. It still left my skin splotched and my hair a lovely shade of purple and hot pink. We snagged an evening massage and passed out with the knowledge we would have to figure out how to get halfway across the country to Jaipur in the morning.

To be continued when arrive in Jaipur…

Our trip to Holi in India: Temple Decorations with Marigolds
Personal favorite: Marigold garlands everywhere.
Posted on 122 Comments

How to Make a Chicken Dust Bath

Why you should make a chicken dust bath for your flock

So would you like to know how to make a chicken dust bath? Or even why you should provide a chicken dust bath? While, we aren’t chicken newbies anymore we still have a lot to learn about chickens. One of the things we completely missed the boat on was that chickens need to bathe. But they need to do so in dirt! I saw a picture on Pinterest of chickens laying in tires full of dirt. It was kind of an ah-ha moment as I have often observed our chickens digging holes in the run, flinging wood chips all over their selves, and then laying in the sun. Honestly, I just kind of thought my chickens were weird (and a bit lazy) and didn’t realize chickens take dust baths until I started researching it.

Why Do You Need a Chicken Dust Bath

As with everything in life, I had to over research the hows and whys of chicken dust bathing. But hey, Dear Reader, this works out for you. Chickens naturally take dirt and dig loose holes in dry soil. These soil divots are then used to fling the dry dirt all over their bodies. If you watch they will roll, flap their wings, dig, and fling dirt everywhere. Our coop is built on a concrete pad, so while there are lots of wood chips we do not have a lot of soil. I think many chicken owners who build runs with the deep litter method are in the same boat with chickens kicking up a lot of wood chips on a regular basis.How to make a chicken dust bath for your flock

But the dirt is key. A dust bath supplies chickens with a way to clean excess oil from their feathers and remove pests like mites from their feathers and skin. The chicken dust bath consists of them kicking up dirt, rolling, and flapping their wings in an attempt to coat dust all the way down throughout their feathers. The dirt soaks up oil (Picture one of those lovely mud masks ladies wear on their faces) and the grit knocks pests loose. Additionally, dust bathing is a social activity with hens. They do the activity together, often preening and napping as a flock afterward.

How to Make Chicken Dust Bath

Great! You now know why you need a dust bath but what does that look like? Well I can tell you from painful practice that if you do not provide one, the chickens will supply one for themselves. Ours are constantly digging up their run, toppling water, and generally making a huge mess! As a stop gap we are making a small dust bath out of a galvanized tub. Once we are finished with the chicken coop extension we bought an even larger tub so that multiple chickens can use it together. It is quite simple to make one you just need two items:

A Box & Dirt!

But you can make better and more attractive dust baths with a few more options. We found some attractive galvanized containers and worked to make a dust mix. All items we purchased ourselves but the links below may be affiliate in nature.Why you should make a chicken dust bath for your flock

Chicken Dust Bath Supplies

Galvanized Tub
Organic Garden Soil
Sand
Diatomaceous Earth (FOOD GRADE ONLY)
For a 5.5 gallon tub I add about 4-5 inches of depth in material. It is almost a 50/50 mix of sand and soil with a cup full of diatomaceous earth. Research shows that many people substitute sand or soil with wood ash. Also the use of diatomaceous earth can be conversational. Often used as an organic pesticide, the product is made of mining deposits of small fossilized sea creatures. It is microscopically sharp and causes insects to die by slicing them up. To humans and chickens it feels like soft talc powder. It can even be eaten (though I am not exactly sold on this idea) and is safe for kids and pets.

Some people worry that it can cause respiratory distress in chickens. I personally weighed the benefits of pest control and decided to add a bit to the bath. I live in a city limits and have to keep the ladies in a run most of the time. Closed up chickens are more likely to contract mites and pests. I try to give my girls lots of space and keep a clean coop to minimize this but I opted for a little additional aid in their bath. If you go with the diatomaceous earth feel free to tell me how we are supposed to be pronouncing it!

edit: Thank you kind readers.  I can now pronounce diatomaceous in the finest of company.

I went ahead and ordered the big bag with the thought that the cost was so much cheaper per pound and I could use this to combat slugs and the godforsaken sugar ants. Let us not get off topic about the ants! Unless I decide I really do want to start eating it or making tons of facial scrub products (yep it is good for that too) I probably have enough for years of dust baths! So the investment will be minimal.

Our New Dust Bath and Future Plans

Why you should make a chicken dust bath for your flock

The new dust bath was a hit with the ladies. Well after they decided the galvanized tub did not signal their impending chicken doom! The pros of putting it in a container is that I can make sure their is a nice clean mix that doesn’t fill the run with mud. Additionally I think it is attractive. The con is that it takes the social aspect of dust bathing away from the chickens as it only fits one or two chickens at a time. Our plan is to add this 15 gallon tub in the extension. We already purchased this bigger version and will add it to the coop when we have the space.

In the future (like next house/farm future) I would love to have free range chickens with fancy dust bathing areas like the versions you see on Pinterest. However, making one in a container is so easy I can’t believe we didn’t do it sooner. Of course it would have helped to know they existed :), but now that I know how useful and healthy a chicken dust bath is for my flock I plan to keep them well supplied.

How to make a chicken dust bath for your flock

Posted on 5 Comments

Orange or Red Front Door?

How to paint an orange front door.

I have always loved a good solid red front door.  I love the pop of color, my mother has a beautiful red door, and red front doors are even supposed to be good luck.  BUT, what happens when you have green tinted trim?  Well I can decidedly say that mauve is not the answer.  Whomever decided that a mauve front door surrounded by green-grey trim and dusty dark blue was a good combo should probably be transported back to the 80’s where they belong.

So fine, the mauve had to go (I hated it from day one) but what color to replace the front door?  I wanted it to pop but I didn’t want to be known as the Christmas house.  So a red front door had to be out.  So, what looks good with blue and green? An analogous color would blend and give the necessary contrast plus orange is my current favorite color.  Adam picked up lots of dark/muted orange swatches on his way home from work.  The rest of the house looks like the blue and green had been muted with grey.  We wanted a pop of color not a freaking eye sore.  So this is how we choose front door colors.  Actually, this is how we choose all colors.:

  1. Whoever did NOT pick them out does an initial sort.  We assume the first person only picked colors they thought might work for the color situation.
  2.  Walk to the place we plan on painting.
  3. Hold up swatches and go: No, No, Maybe, No, Oooohhhh  I like that one, No, Maybe etc.  I particularly like where we toss the No’s around with abandon.  This process should not take more than 3-5 minutes.  Just a gut choice of possible or no.
  4. Repeat step 3 with the maybe’s.
  5. Hold up the final 2 or three, possibly tape them in place (only if it is a major tie), step back and make a decision.
  6. Pick up all of those no’s or ask one of the kids to take them to the trash.

I’m pretty sure we have never spent more than 15 min choosing a paint color, and so far, have never been unhappy.  More time <> better color.

Orange Front Door Color Chosen!

Paint decided, drive to the closest hardware store and holy-mother-of-$20+ for a quart of the chosen color.  Oh hell no, I have to paint one side of one door…  We can’t use samples as they are only interior base and you really need the more elastic exterior paint for a front door; even a porch protected one like ours.  We end up consulting with the paint counter specialists.  They point us to a much cheaper brand.  You may have to put on an extra coat but the end result is just as durable and color rich.  They end up color matching our chosen swatch and away we go!

Time to Paint the Orange Door

The same person who chose the horrific mauve also hired the laziest painters in the world.  Our house was new construction and for some unknown reason the painted the door, in place, with the hardware on.  Drips, brush marks, and paint splattered hardware abound.  The only way to truly fix all those issues was to sand it away.  Frankly, I have a life so we opted to smooth out their mistakes by removing the door hardware, taking the door down, painting it on sawhorses, and using a smooth foam roller.  That way I could get a smooth even coat with a thickness to hide some of the worst brush strokes.  Oh and did I mention this is a wood door clad in metal. Yeah I have no idea what is going on with that either.  What I do know is how a wood door is made, so, I painted all the sections as if they were assembled and had a wood grain.

Deciding on a red front door versus orange front door.
Check out the mauve situation we had going on.

First Coat

ROOKIE mistake.  I have been painting a long time.  What should you never do? Paint in the direct sun. Especially a god-forsaken door.  Painting a door is already a race to try to get all the panels painted with vertical strokes and the top, middle, and bottom in horizontal center pieces. ALL with smooth brush strokes. I thought I could get away with it since it was on the cooler side.  Nope.  Big cup of nope.  If this happens to you then do what I did and just rolled on a THIN patchy first coat let it dry in the .5 seconds it will take and move your painting location.  I moved to the backyard in a nice shady spot to roll on a nice thick coat.  Seriously, move to the shade.  Joking aside, it allows for a nice wet edge.  That is great when you want to make sure all the roll marks match on the panels.

Rolling Away

As the mauve paint disappeared and the orange darken I was certain we had made the right choice.  A nice pop, toned to mesh well with the existing house colors.  We liked it so much we even made ‘Orange Front Doors’ for the chicken coop.  They have winter panels we have to make them warmer when it is cold.

How to paint an orange front door
Adam said we needed an action shot. Here is my attempt to make rolling paint interesting.

Even if you can not do a red door think about a fun door.  Orange, yellow, a deep emerald green; so many choices beyond a basic white front door.  THOUGH, white is going to be a vast improvement over mauve.  What colors do you have for your front door? I would love to hear in the comments or email me a picture!

How to paint an orange front door.
I need to make a pretty vanity shot! We installed new hardware too.

 

Posted on 14 Comments

Building a Composting Fence

Finally an alternative to compost bin plans! Detailed instructions on how to make your own composting fence.

Do you have excessive yard waste in the form of tree branches, long grasses, leaves, annuals, and flowers past their prime?  We sure do!  With the veritable brush jungle behind our home, regular pruning of trees, a relentless landscaping habit, and the endless results of “being a good husband” – aka dead flowers – we’ve built quite the pile of yard waste in our back yard with no real plan of what to do with it.  After all, what do you do with a heap of dead, slow to decompose material? Composting fence!

Some time ago, Brianna came across the concept for a “composting fence”; a landscape architecture concept that would modernize your large, long-term compost pile.  With her birthday just around the corner, I thought that I would surprise her by taking a day off work and building it for her.

Plans for our composting fence.

As it turns out… this project isn’t really doable in a single day. But I get a pat on the back for effort, right? Keep reading to find out how to build your own!

Composting Fence Supplies

  • 60-in x 50-ft Silver Galvanized Steel Welded Wire
  • 4 – 4″ x 4″ x 96″ Treated Lumber
  • 1 – 2″ x 4″ x 96″ Treated Lumber
  • 1 – 2″ x 4″ x 120″ Treated Lumber
  • 12 – 5/4″ x 6″ x 120″ Treated Decking Lumber
  • 3 – 50-lb Fast Setting Concrete Mix
  • 2-1/2″ Exterior Wood Screws
  • Staple Gun & Staples
  • Metal Snips (In Some Cases)
  • Drill
  • Saw

Cut List

  • 2 – 4″ x 4″ x 66″
  • 2 – 4″ x 4″ x 78″
  • 2 – 2″ x 4″ x 48″
  • 2 – 2″ x 4″ x 60″
  • 2 – 5/4″ x 6″ x 120″
  • 4 – 5/4″ x 6″ x 102″
  • 4 – 5/4″ x 6″ x 62″
  • 4 – 5/4″ x 6″ x 84″

Brianna Here: I’m jumping in on Adam’s post because he has been busy building an under-deck storage area, planter boxes for a shade garden, and a chicken coop extension. Plus he didn’t actually get this done in a day sooo… I was there for a lot of the process. Here is reason #1 you can not do this in a day.

Step 1: Digging It?!

You are going to need to dig post holes. And then pour concrete. If you do not have post hole diggers see if there is someone you can borrow them from. We found a neighbor who let us borrow his for a long time. However, we keep doing projects like espalier of fruit trees and kiwi trellises so we just opted to buy one. Dig around 18″ deep, put in your post and level it. It is helpful if someone can hold it while another person pours in the fast dry concrete. Pour water in with the concrete and then wait. You are going to need these posts to be FULLY set before step 3.

Learn to make your own compost and bin detailed directions on making a compost fence.
We are leveling these posts after a few steps because we realized we needed concrete. Follow the directions and learn from our mistakes!

Step 2: Cutting

While you wait for the concrete to dry you can go ahead and make all of your cuts for the composting fence. You might be wondering what all this wood is for, however, you are going to use this wood to cover your stapled wire and make an attractive pergola-like top. We had plans to plant grapes at the bottom and use the top as an arbor. Additionally we hung some bird feeders above to attract more wildlife to the yard.

Step 3: Tug, pull, and curse

Unroll your welded wire and get it flat as possible. I personally worked on this while Adam cut lumber. He also added a 2X4 spacer to one side of the post. This gave closer to 6 inches of space between the wire for twigs and yard waste to be placed. When you begin unrolling the wire I suggest gloves as the ends of the rolls are sharp. I can not offer much advice other than rolling the wire face down and manually flattening as you go. It is a PITA, but the flatter you get it the easier the installation goes.

The reason that you want to wait until your posts are FIRMLY set in the ground is that you are going to need to attach the wire and PULLLLLLLL. I picture a ships-master whipping the rowers yelling ‘Pullll Damn Ye’. Anyway, take your wire cloth and line it up near the middle of your 2X4 attached to your post. You want to cover enough wood so that you can get a firm staple, but remember in the end the post will be totally covered so don’t waste a lot of expensive metal by covering your posts. We pulled the metal and figured out the minimum needed to staple it to the next spacer-post then cut the metal. We had to work in sections as our ground was not flat. Also getting more than 6 feet of this stuff straight at one time is a nightmare. I believe if you had a nice level yard you could probably just pull it straight across and skip the cutting, but that was not in our cards.

Learn to make your own compost and bin detailed directions on making a compost fence.
Note the red level on the wire! It comes in handy.

Here is where the partner comes in really handy. One person can pull on the attached sheet of metal while the other checks to see if they are close to level. Then that same person can staple. Pulling the metal helps get it taunt and reduces the bowing. Note I say reduces! We were not very happy with the wavy look when you peered down the length of the fence at first. However, in the final product this didn’t matter. I’ll explain at the end!

So you will repeat this process 5 more times if you are making 3 sections. As you will need put the metal cloth on both sides of the posts to make a channel that can be filled with your yard waste materials. The hardest part of this was getting everything around the same height and keeping all the metal squares in nice straight verticals. Let’s just say there were some potty words spoken over this particular process. These words may or may not have been used to describe peoples prowess with a level and/or their strength when pulling metal.

Finally an alternative to compost bin plans! Detailed instructions on how to make your own composting fence.

Step 4: Adding your decorative ‘Skin’

At this point you are going to add the decorative finish and height to the arbor over the composting fence. Take your long boards and screw them to the front and backs of your posts. We wanted a variable height so the longer ? length went on the fronts and backs of the two middle posts and the ? lengths went on the ends. You are going to be placing the boards over the stapled metal so feel free to really drill those screws in tight. It will act as an additional layer to secure the metal to the post and hide the unsightly seams.

 

When your now taller posts are in place take your crossbeam of 10 feet in length and attach that to the front and back of each middle upright. Adam, cut each of the ends at an angle for a nice decorative finish. The middle crossbeams will have the angular cuts on both sides. These are the hardest to place as you want to make sure to have the same overhang on both sides. Just measure the difference to insure an equal overhang on both sides. The other two crossbeams will only have a decorative touch on one end. The flat side will be easy to install as the straight cut will go flush to the edge of the middle posts. We installed our outside arbor sections about a foot down from the one in the center. We chose this height as we thought it was the most visually attractive result.

Learn to make your own compost and bin detailed directions on making a compost fence.

Step 5: Additional Bracing

This step is optional but we added additional bracing between the crossbeams. We did this for two reasons, first to create a place for vines to grow, and secondly provide a place to add hooks to hang bird feeders. I felt like the additional bracing made the entire structure more sound as well. To create the bracing we simply cut some 4X4’s and slotted it in-between the middle of each section and screwed it in place. The cut piece of wood usually fit tight enough between the two boards that no one needed to hold it when screwing, but it might be handy to have a partner to hold when securing it.

The Final Product

Finally an alternative to compost bin plans! Detailed instructions on how to make your own composting fence.

Unlike a regular composting bin we are not expecting to pull compost out of the composting fence. The added yard waste is for creating a screen and should slowly feed the soil at the base. So far the various layers of sticks and leaves are miking for a really interesting and attractive backdrop. I can’t wait to see how it looks when I get green vines growing up the arbor!

So now is the time to discuss the bit of waviness to the metal. First, we are not usually looking down the fence line. When you look straight on the fence you do not see it. Secondly, as we added lots of wood it filled out the metal making everything much more taunt. I have been quite happy how everything has held up over the winter. To complete the look we created a bed in front of the fence and planted flowers, cranberries, raspberries, and two grapes. The bird feeders have been a huge hit. I have seen so many more cardinals, jays, and finches flitting about the yard. I am really hoping they will help control the insect population this year in the garden. As birthday presents go this composting fence has been wonderful! It has created a nice windscreen, arbor space, and place to deposit yard waste, all while covering the unattractive brush berm between us and the neighbors. I’d call this project a win for the garden in so many ways.

Learn to make your own compost and bin detailed directions on making a compost fence.