Hey folks! Glad you could come back and sit a spell. I always enjoy seeing you. I've been busy this last week with spring projects. Things are starting to bloom around the Urban Ranch. I planted tulip, daffodil, and crocus last fall and they certainly have not disappointed me. I'm not sure what the official name for these tulips are but I call them "Tulips of fire." They are absolutely the best tulips that I have ever had on the ranch.

The daffodils certainly were in competition with the tulips. I had a double row of about 60 or 70 of these guys. Their bloom cycle is winding down and I actually dead headed their little shriveled blooms today. They did put on quite the display for the neighborhood for a couple weeks. I want to interplant day lilies in this flower bed to keep the area alive as the daffodils die down in early summer.

Hey how did that picture get in there? Oh well that's just my grandson jamming on the mandolin. He doesn't know how to do much other than make noise now, but who knows maybe someday. He sure got the hang of holding and strumming the strings quick.

Here's one of those summer projects that I am working on. I finally got ambitious this week and got started. It's a 1200 gallon horse tank that I want to use as a gravity feed watering system for my raised garden beds. It seems that I'm gone a lot for a week or ten days at a time and to keep the garden alive I need to have a watering system in place.

The first thing that has to happen is of course the foundation to set the tank on. When digging in any urban ranch backyard one never knows what can be unearthed. Here you see a big chunk of concrete that apparently was used for something at one time or another and just buried in the backyard to get rid of it. Nice!!

There's another hazard when digging in the urban backyard. One must be careful to clearly determine what exactly has been found before chopping it out. Buried utilities run through yards without a whole lot of logic. One day while working on another project last year I chopped through what I thought was root and suddenly my cable TV didn't work any more. So now I'm very cautious about digging in the yard. Anyway this is clearly a tree root, and I got the axe and made short order of the pesky thing.

The next thing after the digging the trench is to pack the dirt as solid as possible. I use an 8-inch square tamper that weighs about 8 or 10 pounds.

Next comes what I call setting the anchor block. Every thing has to be straight and level off the anchor block. This is the most important block of the foundation.

The block has to be level both on the length of the block and on the width of the block. This first level of the foundation is the most time consuming of the entire project. If this level is not done right the whole project will turn out wrong. Especially since water will be in the tank and we all know that water will seek out a level surface.

There's the first four blocks of what I think will be three high. This process took about three hours with the root chopping and clearing the buried treasures that I found and about three aspirin. There was even a golf ball about a foot and a half down in the dirt. You got me how it got there. I don't even golf. It's a pretty good start for the first day.

I just rolled the tank up on the blocks to see how it was coming along. Only the front four blocks are finished. I still have to circle the entire rim of the tank with a block base. The center part will be filled with packed down dirt to support the tons of water in the tank.

Well that's about it for this week. Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful week. Oh wait one last thing.

I finished my PCV pipe and trash bag hot cap. It turned out pretty good. I know there are way more inexpensive ways to hot cap tomatoes, but when I get an idea in my head I just got to try it out. Of course there's always time to take a break and drink coffee and think about the next project for the living poor man's patio. Well it's not quite so living right now, but it will be.

See ya next time and leave a comment. I do love to hear about what you think.

Hey, I'm so glad to see you're back again. I made it back from my trek across Central America and if you really want to read about it, you can go to my personal blog.

It's time to grab a cup of coffee sit back and let me take you on a tour of the Urban Backyard Garden Bio-intensive Vertical Raised Bed Growing Experiment. These pictures were all last fall when the warm weather of November was wafting across the land, and life was good. It did abruptly end when the subzero weather of December hit. Ah but that's just a story to tell the Grandkids about some day.

So here's my Urban ranch. Over on the left you can see Old Syc the Sycamore tree. He's kind of the nuisance of the neighbor hood. He has big hand sized leaves that dribble off all fall and Winter. Because of the big leaves the slightest breeze will blow them all over the neighborhood which is good for me but everyone knows where they came from ‘cause old Syc is the only Sycamore tree for miles around. On the right with only one branch showing is Elmer the Elm Tree. He's always very nice and quiet and at the mention of frost he does a total leaf drop overnight. The Cedar Tree by the car goes by the name of CC short for Cecelia. She's been trying to take over the drive way for years and I've had to keep her in check with an annual shearing. Let's walk over to the left passed old Syc to the West side of the house. Watch your step now those leaves are a little slippery and lawn has some hidden holes.

There you can see the Iris are just about done for this year. There's a good look at my wonderful rabbit sieve chain link fence. I just can't believe that they can get through that fence without even breaking stride. On the left is my neighbor's bush that blooms positively magnificent in the spring. Way in the back you will notice the neighbor's wild Mulberry trees trying to climb over my fence and invade my yard. A branch lopping session every Spring keeps them in check. Mulberry trees grow just about where ever a bird poops in Nebraska. That's about it for here, so let's open the gate and walk around the corner and go into the back yard.

Here we have a view of the back sliding door steps. The left front we have what used to be a bird feeder pole but now only holds a rain gauge. A little farther down you will notice the patio which has become the staging area for all the projects in progress. On the right are the full sized Hostas. Way in the back by the fence is a bush of some sort that has the most glorious white little flowers with a wonderfull aroma in the spring. To the left of that is the beginning of the raised bed growing experiment area. On the right is a big 8-foot horse tank that will become a water feature someday. Oh yeah, and up the hill on the left by the fence is the composting area.

Here's a little closer look at the expansion of the raised beds. The one on the right will be entirely Yukon Gold potatoes this year. I love potatoes and eat them almost every day.

I enjoyed the warm November weather and getting the beds hammered together. This bed that I'm working on will be the tomatoes and cucumbers. I took a neighborhood poll and discovered that most everyone liked tomatoes and cucumbers. The support will be the vertical part of the growing experiment.

All right it's time to get everything squared up so the braces can be screwed on the support structure. One cordless screw driver (the best thing ever invented), a few screws, and 2-by-2s cut to dimension and by golly it ends up being a solid structure. Well, pretty solid. Would you believe a little bit solid? The next one I think I'll use 2-by-4s and maybe try to make it portable.

So here's the end product for this year. The bed over on the far left will contain the bell pepper plants and onions. Onions are one of my main ingredients in all that I cook. I think I see a lot of salsa on the horizon this fall. I can always find a community mission kitchen that loves to receive fresh vegetables when I can't give any more away and get tired of canning.

There you have it, the Urban Backyard Garden Bio-intensive Vertical Raised Bed Growing Experiment in the nut shell. It's definitely a work in progress and will get expanded again next year. I hope you all enjoyed your tour. See ya all next time, and be sure to leave a comment about what you think.