Later That Day

Two of the foundation beams of the greenhouse have evolved over the course of the day. 

Give or take 1/4" here and there, the two "mirror image" side beams have been assembled, The combined length is approximately 145" with 137" from the 4x4 beams, joined sort of in the middle and the pressure treated (which will be on the bottom) has a 4" overlap at each end which will help with the assembly of the rectangular frame when the end pieces are complete.

It was a learning day for young Karen, how to use the drill to drive the salvaged 3" screws into place safely, how to keep the job site tidy and how to combat various ants that wished to be in her pants. It was a good group effort, but as it was a hot day, the enthusiasm completely disappeared at the end of the work session to be replaced with a good old fashioned relaxation session with a beer or three.

The above two will be fully stained and then other sessions, probably Monday and Tuesday, will involve the creation of the end beams and perhaps on Wednesday, the base will be complete and we can start building a greenhouse.

...and so it begins

Another Saturday and today some of the slow but necessary bits of the construction preparation begin. Staining. We have one large dropcloth and the base 4x4 pieces for the sides shown (two 72" and two 65" lengths) will add up to 137" which when added to the end widths of 4" will add up to a total length of 145" or 12' 1" and the end pieces in turn will be created from an 80" and 31" piece, for a total width of 111" or 9' 3" (calculated for the cumulative sizes of the two 34" windows and the 30" door and associated uprights) and those will undergo the same process.

Below those will be pressure treated 1x6 to partially join them (with minimum overlap of 12") and they will provide the initial join, so I've painted one face of each so the stain will be the sandwich filling. I was thinking about putting a plastic sheet in between as well, but stopped worrying about rot, the assembly will actually be mounted on 1.75" high 8x16 concrete pavers at 3' intervals, and regardless, I cannot do much about weather and insects, because it is Canada...

I will stain it more.

The stain I am using, a cheap mistint from the Dulux store, is Wood Pride 9690A Oil based Acylic Stain and was quite a deal at $5 for almost a gallon, it will provide some protection for a while I hope.

Time will tell.

Mind boggling Saturday.

In the last week or so, when free wood appears on marketplace it is usually gone before you even get a chance to ask. The other extreme being that you ask, and ask, and ask and never receive a reply, this is the conundrum of marketplace.

An advert came up for free wood, so I asked, and amazingly the guy replied, and we arranged a meeting for Saturday morning at 11.30am and even though we were a little tired from our Friday adventure, we set off with hope, I thought that we could get a dozen or so 2x4 for framing the greenhouse, perhaps more. 

We arrived and found the chap, Linden, and it was obvious that he, and his family had build a very impressive duplex, it was about 35 minutes away in the Florence Lake area, up around where Costco is if that means anything to anyone. The guy was enthusiastic about unloading his wood, and started moving it from an upper area. It was very obvious that we would be leaving with a lot more wood than we expected.

This may not look like a lot of wood, but altogether, on the first run, we picked up around 35 pieces of 2x4 all of which were between 6' and 8' and mostly straight and in good, yet dusty condition, at the time of writing an 8' piece would be about four bucks from Home Depot. As we were loading the first batch he said to Karen that we could come back as many times as we wanted, so we decided, as it was about a one and a quarter hour round trip, that we would go back for another load.

So there it is, around 70 or more pieces. We thanked Linden for his generosity and he equally thanked us, he explained he needed to clear out all of his construction materials in the final phase and was just happy to see it go. You can also see all of the 4x4 posts at the back that we bought on Friday and this new pile of 2x4 will be more than enough to fully frame up the greenhouse, complete the roof truss frames, probably provide all the materials required for growing tables or boxes as well.

The pair of us ended the day tired with all the lifting, but it was truly an amazing day and we went off to the hotel for a well deserved pint.

The plan evolves and is modified...

In the last few days we have been out having adventures, the first one on Friday when a marketplace contact let me know that he had some 4x4 frames that he could let me have for fifty bucks. It was quite local and we expected to, as usual, put the materials on top of the car, however, we rapidly realised that the frames were a lot bigger (and heavier) than expected. It was time to "phone a friend" and ask for a favour, luckily Keith was five minutes away and turned up, by coincidence, with an empty truck, mainly as he had only just disposed of a hot water tank. 

Two of the frames were 6'8" x 5'9" and there were cross beams, and in addition, more of the 4x4 in the form of a rough and ready table and a small ladder frame. I worked out the there was about 120' altogether, probably more. It was a struggle to load it all up and the chap included several pieces of OSB as well, I am sure we will make use of that.

One of the frames has already been disassambled, along with a smaller ladder frame and the table which has yielded a small supply of screws (another bonus). We placed the remaining large frame in place to gauge our intended sizing. It was apparent that a 10' width would be a little too big, so we arranged some of the loose 4x4 pieces and came up with an 8'2" x 12'2" template which seems a perfect size for the space we have.

In the afternoon we sat with Keith in the back yard and had a few beers and caught up with the latest Sooke gossip, some very interesting stuff, well not as impressive as our greenhouse project, which suddenly had a door, some windows and a good solid base.    

That was Friday, what happened on Saturday was quite amazing.

The start of a new Project...

The start of August and we decided that instead of buying a greenhouse (approximate cost $2000 or more for a decent one) we should, like we did in Gibsons back in 2015, build one. Therefore we are in the planning phase and have a goal to spend $500 on a solid wooden structure, using recycled materials from the four corners of the island.

The first batch of materials were bought yesterday, the primary item being a door, because as with the previous built greenhouse, we started with a door and built outwards from it. The door was listed on marketplace for $30 and we noticed that the seller, Wolfgang, had many wooden sash type windows and he said he would make a deal.

The door, plus a dozen wooden windows, were $100 cash, which worked out about $6 a window. There are eight 24" x 34", two 23" x 28" and another two which the chap gave us after the deal was done which are 18" x 39" so quite a mix of sizes.

Oh, and we asked if he had a door knob. Which he donated to the project.

We have started a spreadsheet (of course) and the above materials represent about 28% of the vertical surfaces of our intended 10' x 12' greenhouse, which means, of course, we need to buy more stuff, probably from the same chap, plus some structural lumber.

Will keep you posted on the progress.

Monday, end of a work week...

This is a different week, only one workday as we are off on our travels tomorrow, a vacation from the vacation, so we decided to empty the left side of the compost heap today, which was quite easy as it was ten easy wheelbarrows full, another yard of soil/humus for the new shrub bed near the hedge.

That is almost the end of the process for the compost heap cycle, the left side is excavated except for a couple of inches of humus as a starter layer, the right side has about eight inches of transition zone that will be incrementally shovelled to the other side each time we have a foot of fresh weeds, clippings and kitchen scraps, the starter layer, new materials and transition layers will then be the engine of the process all over again, all we have to do is feed it and wait a few years.

The new bed is ready, new soil for the influx of the shrubs and plants in September. The photo looks basically the same as the previous blog except there are ten more wheelbarrows dumped on the top, another cubic yard moved and no compost left, which means that the wheelbarrow has now been parked back in the shed for the season, no more mulch or soil to move this year.

Time for a short vacation! 

The new bed, morning shade, afternoon sun.

Today, five more wheelbarrows full of soil from "the other side" and a few rocks to define an extension to an existing path, a fork in the road that will be a project for another year. The new bed is destined to hold some of the shrubs and plants that we will buy in September during our yearly pilgrimage to Russell Nursery up near Sidney.

That represents 24 wheelbarrows full of soil, about two and a half cubic yards moved at the end of our "working week" of Monday to Friday half-hour sessions in the garden. The right hand side has been heavily weeded during the week by the good lady, yet there are still more weeds to be removed, to be relocated to the compost heap and I estimate five more wheelbarrows of soil will finish off the job, but that will all have to wait until Monday, because we now deserve our weekend.

The left hand side of the compost heap has amazing fully composted humus, rich in nutrients, after finishing off this bed I will need to remove the rest of it, probably to a temporary heap on a tarp and then onto another new bed which has not been imagined yet, if we define where it will be, then we will cut out the middleman (tarp) and move it right to the job site. I will post a photo of the left side of the compost heap completely empty before we start filling it up again with weeds and kitchen waste.

The sun is shining, life is good, make the most of it.

Compost heap, Step Two

Today I took the last of the soil from the right side, it was another five full barrows, bringing the total on the new garden bed so far to nineteen. Once I was satisfied that I was at ground level, I started dragging the upper loose material, using a rake, from the left side. It was hard work on a hot day, there was a lot to go in the empty space and from time to time I would compact the compost down by stomping on it and wet the right side down with a hose, to keep dust down, but also to help with the composting process.

Apparently it is good to urinate on a compost heap to add nitrogen and other goodness, I tend not to do that though, you know, neighbours and all that.

We now have the right side filled up, new material will go on top of that until I have excavated the left side down to the ground level, then any new stuff will go to the bottom of that side. In the process of digging the left side, some of the upper material will be retained and moved to the top of the right side on a temporary basis, this is because that material is partially decomposed, not quite ready as soil for our beds, so I will drag it back into the left side at the end.

If you want a technical explanation, a three-stage composting system is essentially a biological conveyor belt driven by time and microbes. At the top layer, fresh organic inputs like kitchen scraps, weeds and yard clippings are introduced; this raw material is highly energetic, recognizable, and rapidly consumed by initial bacteria. As these materials break down and sink, they enter the middle layer—often called active or semi-mature compost—where the intense heat of initial decomposition has subsided, leaving behind a fibrous, dark transition zone where fungi and actinomycetes slowly break down tougher fibers. Finally, at the very bottom layer, the process reaches completion, resulting in finished humus: a rich, stable, and dark, crumbly soil-like material that is completely unrecognizable from its original forms and fully ready to nourish the garden.

In the late 1960s, my grandfather, John Edward Edwards, or Jack to those that knew him, understood all of that, no need for google or AI, he knew stuff without the internet, how could that be possible?

It also helps to have worms and other insects in the compost heap, worms consume and pass the composted material through themselves as they bore through it, they tend to live at the lower levels of the heap, creating tunnels and aerating the pile, every time I walked away from the heap with those nineteen wheel barrows of soil, our local robins would swoop in to snatch a worm or two, which is why when we are digging in other areas of the garden, if we find a worm, it is abducted by "aliens" and moved through time and space to the new planet called the compost heap. 

The yearly cycle. Compost heap.

It is more like every two years that the compost heap gets really full and in the last couple of days we have been moving some of the excellent soil out of the bottom layer of the heap, it is being moved to the front yard where we are creating a new shrub bed for the planting phase in September.

The process is hard labour, basically moving material about, the exposed lower level, on the right, has very good soil and it is being transported to the new bed, when I hit solid ground and empty all the corners, the newish upper layers of the left hand side will be moved over to the right hand side, exposing the great soil underneath. In just two days, during our half-hour sessions, I have moved fourteen very full barrows of good soil from the right which I estimate to be one and a half cubic yards, that would be about twenty-four 50L bags.

The cost is zero, besides physical labour, and we have had many lots of good soil out of this compost heap since we built it back in March 2017. 

As they say Aardvark never killed anyone.

In the days to come I will continue the cycle, it means that the upper material on the left is moved to the lower of the excavated side, then if needed, I will remove the good soil from the bottom of the left hand side and we will start adding new compostable plants and peelings to that side first then both sides, in about two years time, we will have more good soil to use, the only problem being is, where will we use it?

Photos of the newly constructed bed will follow in the next week I expect.

Princess Auto

I have a buddy out in Nova Scotia, he notices that when something breaks or is needed, Canadian Tire often have it on sale that same weekend, in a similar fashion, after the wheel blew up a few days ago, I was browsing the vastness of the interwebs and noticed that Princess Auto had a 13 x 2-1/2 in. Solid Rubber Wheel Assembly with 32% off, usually $21.99 and on sale for $14.99 and it was a stars aligned moment as we were down in Victoria on a mini break, so a visit to the smelly place was required, a warehouse full of forever chemicals and foreign goods, to hopefully buy one, and we were not disappointed!

So, the old wheelbarrow is now back in business, all I needed to do was cut the spacers to the correct dimensions, apply lashings of grease to all the old bolts, add bigger washers to the bed connections (the bed is split in four places, this old "spare" wheelbarrow will live the rest of it's life on light duty) and I oiled the wood, which is in surprising condition for the age of a "lower shelf" unit.

In the next few days, three more yards of alder mulch will be delivered, moved and spread, which fundamentally gives us a break from gardening for the rest of the year.

Wheelbarrow, sort of...

The end of the month of April brought lots of weeding, as usual, and a delivery from Sooke Soils of some alder mulch, a dark, almost black mulch that we lay an inch or two on top of our weeded areas, it has been a fun week and of course, the old wheelbarrow was dusted down again, the tire was inflated and another year in the long life was to be started.

It was today that I was moving the last of the first lot of mulch about that I felt the inner tube go, I found that out afterwards, when it happened I just thought I had hit a bump. It was another issue in the life of a garden object, originally bought from Gibsons Building Supply, and I considered I would repair it again, so taking it apart I noticed that indeed, the inner tube was breached at the root of the valve, the tire and wheel seemed good except for the rusted out bearing, time to consider options.

Usually, taking my time and repairing things, while saving money, is the approved approach but at the moment, we are on a timetable with the mulching and need to finish phase one (more mulch arriving soon) so I replaced the old wheel with an "in stock" smaller diameter one which was sufficient but made the wheelbarrow a little more unstable and difficult to tip up over the larger rocks. In addition, overall the entire thing was in need of triage as the old bed of the barrow had previously split in four places, the handles needed attention and of course, now the tiny wheel, so perhaps it was time to replace the whole thing, although of course, logically I would keep the old one for a future repair or even if it is destined to be a planter.

The research online took no time, a new inner tube would be $20, a new wheel would be $30 which included an inner tube, no contest there, and then a whole new barrow, with two pneumatic tires would be $80 and after a little thought we had a trip to Home Hardware and a new sparkling one was bought and assembled over the period of an hour or so.

It is more of a garden cart type of wheelbarrow, more suited for bringing all the items to various job zones in the yard :

It is always a strange thing to move on from something so familiar, as I have said, the old 'true" single wheel barrow will not be discarded, I will bide my time and take it apart, maybe repair the split bed, oil the handles and brackets and keep my eye out for a full size replacement wheel or inner tube.

After all, storing useless stuff, that's what garden sheds are for.