Month: May 2018

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The Urban Permaculture Plan

Urban Permaculture design

After a much needed break from DIY, blogging, and basically lots of work we are finally back and ready to hit the ground running.  I won’t go into all the details of why we were so spotty at posting new content in the last year but suffice to say that some major renovations (52 windows ya’ll!), getting the yard basically tamed (bush hogged), and working/raising kids it was just time for a break.  I can’t (always) speak for Adam, but I know that I was just kinda burnt out and trying to get quality posts together in the evenings just wasn’t happening, especially when there are chicken coops to build and plants to get in the ground.

However, now that we took some time off and had a lovely European vacation (Which you can see on our Instagram @craftthyme) and got a few posts up I finally felt ready to jump back into it.  We have made a holistic urban permaculture plan for the whole yard and started clearing land like we were god-damn pioneers and not urbanites.  Let this be a lesson on when not to neglect a yard for years…

SO much brush! Before and after clearing with even more clearing to go.
Just so much brush, even in the after shot!

I’ve always had a pretty good running obsession for organic gardening.  Not that I will snub all chemicals because I.Cant.Even. when it comes to poison ivy.  But I have always figured if I could use less chemicals then that would be good.  No chemicals would be even better!  Adam has been feeding that obsession of mine with a series of permaculture books, a surprise registration to this years Organic Grower’s Conference (squeeeee!), and unending patience as I listen and talk about podcast after podcast from Sow Edible Permaculture.  I/we want to take my gardening to the next level and design a whole yard system that works to create easy food, with no chemicals, for the whole family.

Plus we got chickens!  Who wouldn’t want to write about those lovely ladies?!  You may recall the great bear, fox, and god knows what else attack on the previous flock when we moved into this house.  We have held off raising another flock until we could create a secure environment like we had at our industrial style house and it took quite a bit of time to build the taj ma-coop.

SO many chicken butts! Chickens were integral to our permaculture design
Chicken butts! We now have a few chickens (according to Adam) and a lot of chickens (according to Brianna)

So how does this turn into an urban permaculture plan? (How to create one is a topic for another post)  Well, the long winded intro above was really to illustrate that while we have not been blogging, we have been reading, learning Sketchup, and drawing.  And drawing.  And drawing.  I also took an online intro to permaculture (Adam listened to a lot of the videos).

And even as we started clearing brush, we began more drawing…  We actually ended up moving the coop location from an earlier plan. It was going to be tucked away behind the garage so we could get a clear view out of the back windows and utilize a difficult space. But once we started removing brush we realized it was waaaay too damp for chicken respiratory systems, but potentially perfect for elderberries, blueberries, hazel nuts, or mushroom logs. So my guess is that as we start working from the plan things will have to change further.

Urban Permaculture Plan Overview

Urban Permaculture design

Currently, we are working on the back corner area behind the garage.  It was the original planned location of the chicken coop but now is going to have elderberries, hazelnuts, and other semi-shade plants.  The chicken coop ended up just a little further down the property line in a drier area.  It is also on the northern side of our property but far enough away from the house that the sun hits the front area.  We accidentally planned a large sun-scoop (because sometimes I plan before I get through all my books, classes, and terminology) that has a chicken coop in the center.  It is kinda nice to finally be in a gardening place where you just know how sun and plants interact enough that you can design something and then have your plan validated by experts.  I’ve always wanted to have this little clearing edged into a mini-urban forest.  The only change is that a central forest lounge area is going to be a chicken coop instead.  This will allow the ladies wind protection, shade from the worst of the heat, but also, some good sunlight in the winter months to keep them warm.

We have cleared back the neglected brush and created a small retaining wall to hold nanking cherries, honey berries, and strawberries
Here we are taking back the forest and making a path to the chicken coop that includes honey berries and nanking cherries.

The plan as it stands is to clear out all the undergrowth, attack the english ivy/poison ivy/honeysuckle, and then replant the under story with a variety of perennial edibles.  Currently, we are eyeballing the removal of some spindly wild cherries and replacement with a couple of pawpaws in the back and nice dwarf plum or persimmon in the front.  Smaller berry bushes and canes, edible ferns, and wintergreen are also part of the foresty feel.  When it is all said and done I think we will add loads of mulch and top with pretty pine straw mulch to speed up the forest vibe.  It will take awhile for the canopy to evolve to fully shade the area.  We had a lot of trees removed in the last year.  My hope is between that and me removing all the invasive vines the grand oak at the end and the locusts, hickories, wild cherries and pears will fill in.  These are great for feeding the wildlife and pollinating the small espalier orchard planned along the side.

Young pawpaw seedlings
And while I say planning, what I mean is I have pawpaws in pots!

Light is probably the hardest part of the entire urban permaculture plan.  We are urban and urban = neighbors trees and buildings blocking the light.  To get enough light to fuel fruit production I really only have a singular location.  I can slot in trees on the other side of the house in a few places but mostly this section is it.  We are slightly down slope from the ridge and the neighbors across the street have some large trees that cut down on available sunlight.  Additionally, I am kinda just attached to the weeping cherry in the front and the 100+ year old cherry on the other side.  So I just have to carefully plan the sun loving crops up front and the shade tolerant items elsewhere. On that note the espalier fruit trees are in front of a wicked new composting fence we just wrapped.  It will also make a nice break between us and the renters next door.

We already added tons of raised beds along the driveways and in front of the cherry tree.  You might note there is this large square thing in the yard.  It is this ridiculously large concrete pad that housed a gazebo and large hot tub.  The gazebo was gone when we moved in and the hot tub had a large crack in it.  We ended up finding someone to take it for parts but we were left with a giant pad…  On that note we saved all the serviceable old windows when we got them replaced last fall in the hopes of building a greenhouse.  We opted to save those and look at making a semi-passive solar greenhouse in that place instead. With the removal of some trees this now looks like a decent place to build a greenhouse.  Maybe not perfection but with the existing structures it is one of the better places.  More over it will act as a wind break for the chicken coop when we do finally get it installed.

The front section will eventually house a number of smaller herbs, flowers, and perennial veggies.  It already has a beautiful Japanese Maple we managed to salvage after being covered with other trees for years.  We also planted two more ornamental trees, a weeping gingko, and a japonicum maple because as much as we love edible plants we also love beautiful plants.  Around these we are going to cut in some new sidewalks to repair the broken ones with pavers.  Adam has already prepped the site for the bricks and I started adding perennials from a local grower, Kenny’s Perrenials.

On the other side we started on the tiered garden beds last year and still plan to finish those.  They won’t get a ton of light due the the trees across the street, but I think the top two tiers could be a great place for blue berries and maybe an asparagus bed.  We moved a play area/patio section over here so that if we ever fully fix the pond and create a waterfall we will be able to enjoy them.  It also keeps us from having negotiate with the neighbors on removing a bunch of white pines.  At the top point of my lot I’ll probably leave that scrub for the next few years, but I can probably manage to fit in a couple more fruit trees or some chestnut hybrids along the road.  It will save the kiddos stepping on the chestnut burrs and allows me to expand what our yard has to offer. Plus I just happen to love chestnuts.

The slope by the garage is kinda useless as-is, but I think that we can quickly get some use out of it by letting squash and pumpkins trail down the hill and planting Jerusalem artichokes at the bottom.  I dug a tiny swale midway down and planted corn below the squash layer.  Long term we could put in more raised tiered beds, but it really only gets great sun at the top.  So maybe frame out a top bed and then plant trailing items that take up a ton of garden space.

The Urban Permaculture Plan as a Whole

We have some issues with the water drainage; in that everything slopes to the back which still leaves the front beds without adequate rainfall at times. While permaculture, in a perfect world, works without a lot of human intervention and irrigation this urban lot may just have to have some rain barrels up front to supplement from time to time.  We are not willing to sacrifice aesthetics and create a berm in the lawn to keep all the water on the lot.  We’re hoping to make the urban permaculture plan as good looking as possible while still being as permaculture as possible.  It might be snubbed by permaculture enthusiasts, but I hope to make something beautiful that might serve as a potential show piece to other people who are interested in dabbling in the urban homesteading/permaculture concepts.  For example, I hope to make a solar powered waterfall for the kids.  It will serve little purpose other than being my garden folly and to attract wildlife!

Another issue with the plan is that most of the nitrogen creation by the chickens is going to be at the back of the lot.  Since we have a small lot (1/3 of an acre) I’m okay with the extra work it will take to move the site made fertilizer (aka composted poop) upwards in the garden.  I’m already moving the rabbit poop downwards ;).  Since we are going to have to move the poop we plan on two different composting areas one behind the chicken coop for cold compost where we add to it slowly.  By the eventual greenhouse we plan on a three bin system that will run hot compost in the fall/winter to try and use the compost as a method to warm the thermal mass of the concrete.

Finally this entire plan is NOT a year in the making.  Here is what we hope to accomplish on major projects.  It leaves out small things like rain barrels, drip irrigation etc.

Year 1

  1. Chicken Coop (Done)
  2. Composting Fence (Done)
  3. Terracing behind the garage (Mushroom Log area/ In-Progress)
  4. Finishing the tiered beds
  5. Small solar pump for the pond
  6. Front Sidewalks (In progress)
  7. Perennial Plantings
    1. Pawpaws
    2. Apples
    3. Pears
    4. Peaches
    5. Plum
    6. Mulberries
    7. Persimmons
    8. Elderberries, hazelnuts, etc

Year 2

  1. Green House
  2. Solar Powered Waterfall/ Stream
  3. Perennial Plantings
    1. Chestnuts
    2. Asparagus
    3. Smaller herbs, veggies, etc
  4. Bee Hives

Year 3

  1. Shade Patio
    1. Cob Pizza oven
    2. Permeable patio
  2. New back deck/Kitchen remodel
  3. Solar Panels?
  4. Hopefully start reaping the rewards and finish projects from year 1 & 2 that didn’t actually get complete

Year 4 & 5 TBD but probably some major indoor kitchen renovations if we haven’t gotten to all of that in year 3!

So we start with a plan and we modify it as we go.  Can’t wait to see how it turns out and we are really hoping you follow along. We use our Instagram and Facebook Stories to show the day to day urban-farm work.  We hope you will follow our progress on the urban permaculture plan and learn to create your own permaculture oasis.

Planning an urban permaculture oasis. Follow along to learn how you can make your own plan and watch ours in action.

 

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Egg Laying and Chicken Tracking Spreadsheet How To

Dashboard for free egg production and chicken tracker

Edit: We now have a 2024 Version Available!

Do you have chickens? Do you like spreadsheets? Then I have the Egg Laying Spreadsheet for you! No really, joking pitch aside, I have created this free chicken tracker and egg production spreadsheet for you in 2018 and now use this post to show you how to fill it out. We have updated it over the years and it tracks all your poultry, not just chickens. However, the guide below will still get you started. If you need the newest version see the link at the very top of the page!

Who is this chicken tracker and egg laying spreadsheet for?

Both the home hobbyist, the small farmer, and geek extraordinaire.

Truth time: I made this egg production spreadsheet for myself because I am a geek and wanted to know if my chickens ever broke even, cost-wise, when I sell their excess eggs (Spoiler: I’d keep the chickens anyway). I love tracking all types of things, but I just cannot do it on paper. I like using Google Sheets because they are free and easily accessible from my phone.  Right now I am offering the poultry tracker and egg production spreadsheet only as a Google Sheet. However, if you desperately need this Egg Laying Spreadsheet in an excel format let me know in the comments. If there is enough interest I’ll convert it for you.

We have had a number of enhancements over the year thanks to people like you!  Please keep giving us your feedback about what else you might want to see.

Here is what the Egg Laying Spreadsheet contains:

  • At a glance chart (auto fills)
  • Summary statistics, example: average eggs per hen, eggs per month (autofills)
  • Poultry Log
  • Egg Log
  • Expense Tracking (optional)
  • Income Tracking (optional)

Best Part! You enter you expenses, income, and eggs in each sheet and the statistics and charts automatically update! Booyah!

Egg Laying Spreadsheet Dashboard

My day job is in Business Intelligence so I know people need a variety of ways to digest data. For visual learners the Egg Laying spreadsheet starts with some at-a-glance charts. First you can see how your monthly profit is going and how your running year-to-date profit is headed.  Trust me, the fake data you see below is nothing like my actual profit…  Which is well below zero this year.

My favorite part are the egg spreadsheets. Even if you have no interest in profit and loss you can see your total eggs, egg size, and color all compared!

Dashboard for free egg production and chicken tracker

Poultry Summary Statistics

Need more numbers?  Average eggs per hen? Year-to-date profit on your chickens, quail, ducks?  Then the Summary Statistics page in the Egg Laying Spreadsheet is all for you.  All items automatically populate from the items you enter in the next few sheets and is far expanded beyond the view you see below.

egg size and color tracker for checking the production of your backyard flock

Poultry Log

This is the main portion of the spreadsheet. It started as a place to keep information about all of our new chicks but has evolved to meet a variety of your needs. The whole spreadsheet links from knowing when your chicks start laying, if they died or were sold, and other notes. The key fields that need to be filled in correctly for the Egg Laying Spreadsheet to work:

  • Laying Date
  • Death/Sale date if applicable
  • Type of Animal

Those three items will automatically calculate if you have a laying chicken, duck, or quail hen.  It will stop counting if you have sold or the hen passed away.  Don’t worry you can track your roosters, they just won’t count in your hen totals.

Log of chickens for entering and tracking details of a small flock

Egg Log

This is the fun spreadsheet! I simply pull this sheet up on my phone when I collect eggs and put in the numbers. It is pretty simple, just put how many eggs of each type and color in the appropriate slots. The totals will auto-calculate for you and update the summaries and charts as you go. I have left what exactly goes in sizes and colors up to you.  I tend to put cream eggs with white and tan eggs with brown, etc. but that decision is up to the individual chicken owner. The newest charts include species and egg size tracking. Pro-tip: you can put in total eggs in the EZ total column (not shown), and skip color and sizes but you will lose your size, color, and species charts.

egg tracker for color and size from hens

Expense & Income Tracker

For those chicken owners that want to get a little more into the numbers the expense and income sheets exist. I have some suggested categories for chicken owners, but in reality you can put whatever you want. I am hoping to add more statistics and charts based on the categories in the future. Some examples I am considering: Cost of each egg per amount of feed, Average Carton Price, etc.

If you are a hobbyist and just want to look at how many eggs you have, you can skip these pages or fill out the bare minimum:

  • Date
  • Amount

expense tracking spreadsheet for chicken owners

Categories that must be filled out are marked with an asterisk *.  Filling those columns in is all that is required to use the Chicken Egg Tracking Spreadsheet. I really want feedback from you about what else you might want this spreadsheet to do. Please let me know in the comments and if you found it useful then please share this on social media. 

I spent a lot of time creating something I thought might be of value to you, chicken owners, and would like to have your feedback. Please let me know in the comments what other items you might want to see in the spreadsheet. I’ll see about future enhancements for later this year!

Free chicken tracker and egg laying spreadsheet

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How to Make a Wooden Composting Fence

Wooden composting fence with espalier fruit trees

Ever heard of a composting fence?  If you want to know how to make a composting fence you can click the link below for our first design of a wire mesh composting fence or scroll right on past this intro for our tutorial on making a wooden composting fence.

I discovered the concept of a composting fence a few years back and Adam so kindly surprised me with the construction of a wire mesh composting fence at the previous house.  We could only find a quick reference in an article to what a composting fence’s purpose was and had to figure out how to build it on our own. The wire composting fence was cool, it worked, and we made some awesome instructions and a detailed tutorial on how to build your own composting fence (linked for your convenience).

Fast forward to now: Larger house, looootttttssss of yard waste: As in I have never seen so many sticks, I don’t even understand how the sticks keep appearing level of yard waste… Along side those sticks we have renters as neighbors. The current renters are nice, but they brought some um… interesting… items along with them. I’m not sure who moves an old pile of wood covered in a blue tarp and a large cable antenna hooked to nothing, but they did. I will admit I didn’t really want to see the stuff cause (I’m snotty like that and will pretend I don’t have hardware cloth scraps hanging out in the backyard at the moment). True story, the last renters were arrested in our front yard so I have other reasons than just aesthetics in wanting a bit of a border between the houses. The solution? Wooden Composting Fence 2.0 to the rescue.

Wooden composting fence with espalier fruit trees

Now to the meat for those of you that skipped the introduction:

How to Make a Wooden Composting Fence

There is one important piece you must understand about a composting fence before we continue:

It is meant to SLOWLY compost yard waste. Very dry, mostly carbon material. NOT your food scraps, wet items, etc.

Why? The items in the composting fence break down only at the ground level and never get hot like a nitrogen/carbon balanced compost pile. That being said, it is absolutely great for slowly feeding plantings around the base of the fence. It also takes care of a lot of things you might not put in your compost pile. Larger sticks, roots, lots of leaves, weeds, are all great to throw in there and those tend to take forever in the pile.

Tools and Supplies for a Composting Fence

Let’s just state this right up front: We use copper treated lumber. We have done a lot of research about the dangers and positives of using treated lumber. Not all treated lumber is created the same so we suggest reading the beginning of this article to decide if you want to use treated lumber. For untreated lumber applications I suggest finishing your fence waaaay higher off the ground so none of the boards come close to ground contact, coating your wood in some fashion, using locust or cedar wood, or using our previous design that utilized much less wood and more metal.  Otherwise be ready to replace your wood every few years.

Composting Fence Supplies

The supply list (may contain affiliate links) and directions cover how to make one panel of a wooden composting fence that is 5′ and 7′ wide. The pictured panels range from 5 to 6′ tall and 7′ wide. We built on a sloped lot and stepped them down accordingly over time. We have 7 panels shown in our photos. Why? Because that length covered the neighbors property and allows us to give a good wide spacing to espalier 4 apple trees, 2 peach trees, and 1 plum tree.

  • 2-bags Quikrete: (May not be ncessary to concrete each post if you have hard clay soil and/or you are attaching many posts. If you plan to espalier fruit trees you will need to be able to attach wire and the weight of the trees over time which is why we opted to concrete our posts in.
  • 2-4X6 posts (trust us, you do not want to pay for larger sizes
  • 4-2X4 boards
  • 22 – 8′ Dog Ear Fence Pickets I would suggest buying 2-3 extra in case you break or mis-cut one.
  • 24-3″ screws
  • 130-1.5″ screws
  • Water (Mix with Concrete)

Tools to Build Your Composting Fence

Step One: Post Assembly For Those Blessed with Upper Arm Strength

The first step is to get the posts assembled and in the ground. You are going to need upper arm strength all around, and if you don’t have it (I don’t) then there is equipment you can rent to dig post holes. I will also mention an alternative for post construction for those of us with T-Rex arms.

1. Dig a whole 2-3 feet down. Post holes are best dug wider at the bottom than the top. This keeps the concrete solid in freeze/thaw conditions. You can read more about elegant post holes here. Frankly, we just try to dig them down and level.
2. Assemble your massive post. Here is where I would diverge from the usual directions:

  • Adam, being the manly man, takes the 4X6 post and attaches the 2X4 boards to either side to make a massive with the 3″ screws (4 per board at least)  The final assembled ‘tree trunk’ like post is close to 8″ in width which allows space for pretty large sized yard waste. He could just pick up this giant honking post and position it in the hole.
  • I can barely move the 4×6. If I was doing this by myself (note: I wouldn’t), I would HAVE to place a 4 X 6 post in the dirt and concrete it in. Once it was set I would then add the 2X4’s to either side above the ground level.  So keep in mind how heavy the post gets!

Posts for composting fence

Step Two: Leveling and Setting The Tree Trunk Post

I’m not going to go into details about how to set and level a post because there are a ton of tutorials that already teach this technique better than us.  We pretty much follow this Quikrete tutorial (Written tutorial link here):

Couple things that make this job a bit easier are post levels because it makes getting both levels front to back a snap.  Trust me it is worth the extra money for the ease of leveling.  We also use 2-3 cinder blocks to hold the post in place while it sets.  We had them on hand and found it easier than using boards to hold them because you can make minor adjustments by nudging the blocks slightly.

Final tip:  If you plan on doing a whole long line of panels you will want to do the following.

  1. Dig a small post hole and set a temporary post in dirt only at the end of where you want one straight course of panels. (this could be the end of the fence, where it turns, etc)  You can even use a 2X4.
  2. Tie a string to the temporary post and bring it to the first post you plan to set.
  3. Attach it (we used a screw) around the post so that the string lightly lays along the face of the board on both ends.  This makes sure all your posts are facing the same angle and makes attaching the boards easy!
  4. Concrete your first post and continue down to your second post aligning it to the string as well.
  5. Once you have your Second post close to correct make sure to lay a board on top and make sure the height is level from post to post!

Step 3: Prepping Your Fence Face

If earlier you wondered why the fence pickets are 8′ but the fence panels are around 7′ well here is where you find out the mystery.  You have to cut the dog ear portion of each picket off first.  We used out miter saw to do 4-5 at a time.  After making a nice straight cut you will want to measure how long to make your boards. You have two options:

  • More than one panel: Measure from the end of the first post to the middle of the second post.  Measure in a few places.  If your post is truly straight and level the distance should be the same.  If not you can make micro adjustments on your cuts to get a nice straight line for the next panel.
  • One Panel: Measure edge to edge.  Again measure in a few places to make sure all the lengths are the same.

Cut your boards to the correct length. Each side will need the following:

  • 7- Full sized boards
  • 6- 2″ boards (3 full sized boards)

Total (20 boards! 10 for each side)

After that you will run three of the boards through a table saw to make 6- 2″ pieces. Note: try to find pickets with the least number of knots to run through the table saw.  Those tend to break or kick out.

We hate lumber waste!  We are using the extra 1.5″ to make garden stakes and markers and the extra foot or so to make native bee houses.

Step 4: Attaching the Fence Panels

The composting fence needs lots of light and air to flow through it so that the contents can dry and compact.  No one wants a wet-rotting mess for a fence.  In order to do so you will need space between each board.  There is an easy and hard way to get the space correct.  You can measure in between each board OR you can take some scrap wood and cut 2-3/4″ wide spacers.  Trust us, the spacers are easier!  Two people make this job sooooo much easier.

  1. Take one full sized board and line it up with the edge and top of your first post.  Your partner can do the same with the second post.  Check to see if the edges line up nicely (either at the edge or middle depending on your design)
  2. Use two 1.5″ screws to attached the board to post one
  3. Repeat on post two
  4. Yea!  Your first board is up.  Celebrate with a local brew!  (okay no, you have a bunch more to do)
  5. Take a two inch board and put a spacer underneath the first board to keep a nice 3/4″ space.
  6. Use a single screw to hook both ends
  7. Panic because the middle is sagging like crazy!

Alright don’t panic!  You will take and extra fence picket and attach it to the middle.  Measure down to the ground from the center and cut a picket.  Use two screws to attach it flat in the center of the first board.  Then use your spacer while a partner pushed the 2″ board into place and affix with a screw.

Repeat this process down the entire front of the fence, then continue these directions down the back

NOW: You can celebrate with a brew! And throw in some sticks!

Final Tips & Techniques

  • For more than one panel always measure your lengths front and back.  It can look level, be level, but a slight twist means a few boards might need a little extra or less cut off.
  • If you are stepping a fence down we found stepping down a full and 2″ board makes a nice attractive step down.
  • Don’t forget the boards at the top of the step down will be a lot longer than the ones below
  • When you are done don’t be afraid to add a small board along the bottom if the step down made the height off the ground look… wonky…

Now all you have to do is throw in all your leaves, sticks, and brush!  Our 7 panel composting fence will hold almost 150 cubic feet of yard waste!  Meaning we won’t need to have the city haul off  the brush and leaves our regular compost pile couldn’t handle anymore.