Posts Tagged: frames
Sorry Ladies!
Back in February, I wrote a blog that was a bit of a love letter to our three hens. Today we planted our tomatoes, so the love story has, sadly, come to a screeching halt.
This year’s tomatoes went into one of two raised beds, which have sat fallow for two years. I have always had to create a “dome of protection” with bird netting over the raised beds, as they abut a large open space where coveys of hungry quail lurk. And now we have to worry about our hens raiding the garden boxes, too.
Bird netting is hateful stuff. It catches on everything — branches, leaves, earrings, eyelashes. We wanted to make our lives easier, when it comes to bird netting, by building semi-permanent frames onto which we could wrap netting. I found a thorough online description for building PVC frames, and the construction began.
Our two raised beds are 4 feet by 10 feet. We started out making one rectangular frame to fit over the top of the beds. This was unwieldy to build, and would be too heavy and wobbly to move out of the way for harvesting and such. My husband decided to construct two frames, 4 feet by 5 feet each, and they went together much more easily. The beauty of two frames is they’re light. I can raise one half of the cover to harvest, add mulch or pull weeds. Knowing how tall indeterminate tomatoes can become, we plan to make two more frames that will stand taller. For now, the 3-foot height is fine.
Our hens are a bit miffed. They saw us put in the tomato seedlings this morning, and rushed over to gobble up those sweet new leaves. After much shooing and distracting with fresh, wormy piles of compost thrown their way, my husband and I were able to cover our new plants with our new frames. I’ll keep you posted on how well they work.
In February, our three hens were welcome to forage in the fallow raised beds. photos by Kathy Thomas-Rico
The newly planted bed, with new bird-netting frames, is no longer as welcoming to the hens and local quail.
Picture It
Gardeners are always finding new ways to spice up the garden. After visiting the San Francisco Garden Show, held in San Mateo, I saw a lot of new ideas about how to reuse materials in the garden. Succulents seemed to play a big part of the reuse. At the Sunset venue, I saw this great table made from a recycled wooden pallet. It had this trough in the middle of the table that was planted with succulents. Très chic! Of course there is the ever-popular Succulent Gardens booth with their colorful varieties of succulents. If you visit this booth, you have to sharpen your elbows and dive in. Many of the people are fanatics about getting just the right succulent for their home. Among the other booths, I saw the use of succulents in grapevine wreaths, but what caught my eye was this cute 6”x6” redwood frame of succulents. I am sure many of you have seen the walls of succulents, and if you haven’t, they are something to behold. But this small frame really appealed to me, so I thought I would purchase the kit and try it making it at home. I purchased mine from Succulent Gardens http://sgplants.com/ . They have several sizes of frames to choose from. The kit came in the mail with the frame, consisting of recycled old growth redwood, a landscape fabric mesh, and a concrete board backing. Other items in the kit were the cactus/succulent mix, and of course, the succulents. On their website, they have a video of how to plant the frame with the soil and succulents. It’s worth a look.
I worked on my frame yesterday afternoon. I sat at the kitchen table and separated out the succulents by type. I then cleaned off the old leaves from each of the succulents. I then put the soil into the frame and packed it in. Once that was finished, I carefully placed the succulents onto the face of the frame. I also incorporated a few succulents I had at home just to make it more interesting. Since none of the succulents have roots at this point, I could arrange and rearrange the plants to my liking. What is going to be hard is the long wait until the succulents’ root-that will take about 6-12 weeks. After that, I can water the frame and hang it up. I will keep you posted on the frames progress.
Empty frame. (photos by Jennifer Baumbach)
Loose succulents before cleaning.
One cleaned succulent.
The finished picture frame of succulents.