{"id":27,"date":"2011-04-29T14:25:00","date_gmt":"2011-04-29T21:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.seattlehomestead.com\/?p=27"},"modified":"2020-10-12T16:48:19","modified_gmt":"2020-10-12T23:48:19","slug":"seattle-homestead-goals-for-year-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kanejamison.com\/seattle-homestead-goals-for-year-one\/","title":{"rendered":"Seattle Homestead Goals for Year 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

We have a huge list of things we’d like to accomplish here at the homestead, but to keep things in perspective I’m creating a list of project goals for 2011. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Take Care of Zone Zero<\/strong> – I’m going to have more information on the permaculture concept of zones soon, but for now a quick link to zones on wikipedia<\/a> will do.\u00a0 We just moved into our home in April and taking care of zone zero (the house and everything inside of it) is a big priority for us.\u00a0 Because we spent the first 14 days painting just about every wall in the house, we still have a lot of work to do in terms of household repairs, cleaning, organizing, and decorating our living space.\u00a0 Luckily, after finishing all of the interior painting, Kristina plans to set me loose upon the garden while she takes care of much of the organizing and decorating, enabling me to catch up with my garden daydreams from the past 4 months. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Raised Beds & Garden<\/strong> – My long term plans for the entire yard include a border of decorative concrete raised beds about 24 to 36 inches in height.\u00a0 But, that’s a lot of work, and a ton of soil.\u00a0 This year’s priority for raised beds involves removing sod \/ lawn from a large square area on the East side of the house (probably about 300 to 400 square feet initially), and building up that bed to at least 12 inches in height. My plan, in order to use as much free resources as possible for this temporary raised bed, is to dig out 12 inch wide strips of grass from the bed area, and lay them down on the edge of the bed to build a 12 inch high sod wall around the bed.<\/p>\n

The remainder of the project will involve heavy composting of grass clippings, twigs and branches from the yard, some food scraps and rabbit poop donations from friends nearby, and whatever other free materials I can find in the area.\u00a0 I’ll likely end up bringing in a few yards of ready-to-go compost & top soil to cover over all of the composted items, as well as some mulch on top of that.\u00a0 After the bed is built up, hopefully by the end of May, we should be able to plant seeds & seedlings that were started in early May.\u00a0 You can see the plans for the raised bed in the photo below.\u00a0 The red\/orange area is where the beds will go.\u00a0 The yellow is the fenceline of the property.\u00a0 Click for larger photo.<\/p>\n

\"Raised<\/a><\/p>\n

Build a Chicken Tractor and Raise Hens<\/strong> – We went back and forth on whether to keep chickens for a few months.\u00a0 In the end, we’ve decided to get some chicks in the next couple weeks for a couple reasons. (1) Chickens are very productive, and we’d love to have the eggs not only for our own use, but to sell and barter and gift as well.\u00a0 Another chicken yield that I look forward to is plenty of manure, which will be needed for soil building in the next couple of years. (2) I have a ton of free salvaged lumber on hand, and big wheels from a broken lawn mower, and extra hinges, etc.\u00a0 Basically all I need to purchase for the tractor I plan to build (more on that later) is 3 pressure treated board for the base, and 1\/4″ metal hardware cloth (since chicken wire ironically is not suitable for protecting chickens). (3) We’re excited just to have them.\u00a0 Not much to be said here, they’re great creatures to have around an urban homestead.<\/p>\n

Here’s a photo from the Country Living Expo of a chicken tractor that was being raffled off.\u00a0 The chicken tractor will be 4 ft wide by 10 ft long, 8 feet tall at the peak of the roof, and will have 40 square feet of grass space and 12 square feet of coop space, plus vertical space as well.\u00a0 I think that the tractor will be able to comfortably accommodate 4 hens, and a maximum of 6 hens based upon the square footage limitations that I’m comfortable with.<\/p>\n

\"chicken
\nPlant Fruit<\/strong> – While my budget doesn’t currently allow me to go on a $600 shopping spree at Raintree Nursery<\/a> like I’d like to, I still want to get some basic fruit trees, bushes, and vines started.\u00a0 Specifically I’d like to have a couple dwarf apple trees, a few blueberry bushes, some grape and kiwi vines, and possibly some more exotic species. We already have unidentified cane berries of some sort<\/del> blackberries growing on one side of the property, so I’m holding off on those at the moment.\u00a0 Some of these I still might try to get planted during spring, but there will also be an opportunity to plant some items in the fall after we’ve settled in.<\/p>\n