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Folks looking at relocating to Wyoming, always ask about putting in a little garden. Growing anything but sagebrush, is tough too do, and matter of fact, sagebrush being the largest Eco system is the hardest thing to grow.
I thought, posting this thread and updating it regularly on what we are doing for prep, planting, what in particular and how, might give folks an idea of what we do and what they can look forward to. I know that Sunsprit has a very elaborate setup and can give some valuable ideas and information. Even the folks planting their little 10 x 10 gardens can give valuable information.
Personally, this year I will finally plant after two years of prep work. Its been a long time coming but I think it will pay off in the long run. I'm not looking at starting my own farmers market, but if things go as planned, I might set up a table at our new farmers market. Our little town of 750 people, seliciteed and got a 1 million dollar grant to build a farmers market.
Well - I dug a surface well. I traded some worthless stuff in order to borrow a track how. I dug down and hit water at 17 feet (gravel) and hit bedrock at 21 ft. I dug the hole 15 ft long. In it, I laid a 14 ft piece of 18 inch culvert that I welded screen over both ends. I cut a hole in it and put in a 6 inch PVC pipe to run to the surface and allow me to run a pickup tube. I dropped in a pickup line, connected a pump that I bought at a yard sale for $10 and turned it on. I filled a 275 gallon tank in 4 hours and never lowered the water level. The culvert is laying horizontal and acts as a reservoir.
Greenhouse / Hydrophonic shack. - I laid a foundation and put in 8 ft of pea gravel. From the well I run a 100 ft coil of 4 inch piping. It actually uses 2 tanks I got from Holly Sugar. You've seen the whit plastic square tanks, surrounded by a cage. 275 gallons. One is a reservoir with a float mechanism connected to the surface well so that it always stays full. The second tank holds 200 head of Talapia to provide important nutrients (crap). The circ system provides water to my growing beds that stays at a xonstand 63 degrees. The greenhouse is 18 ft by 24 ft and I offset it 17° so that I get maximum Southern exposure. The entire top and side are glass (actually a glass like material specifically made for green houses). The growing beds are volcanic rock and the setup is actually designed so that I can grow from seed to produce, but, in everything I have read hydrophonic produce has little or nontaste, so, I am going to use it as a greenhouse and grow from seed to plants that are about 8-10 inches tall and then replant outside in a garden.
Garden - I live on 3 acres so a garden is however big I feel like I can handle. We run a team of horses and travel with them. As such, we have to feed. I live right at the base of the Big Horn Mountains and if we harness up and head up on the mountain into National Forest, we have to pack along Certified hay. Last year, to rotate some hay and be able to stack some fresh hay, we went ahead and fed the certified stuff we had in stock. I took my 4 wheeler and snow blade and plowed the corral, down to dirt. We fed the certified hay for 90 days and during that time I kept plowing and stock piling manure. That manure is set aside to put in the garden.
Plants - Today, I sat down and went through Heirlooms catalog and ordered over $300. of heoirloom seeds.
So, its been 2 years in the making and finally, this year will be the test run. As we progress through this season, I will update this thread and provide pictures. By the way, so far I have less than $1,000. tied up in this project. I am enthused about how his is going to turn out. I think I have done my homework and have carefully planned everything out.
Hopefully, you folks will post about your gardens and where you are located. Obviously, planting in Laramie is going to be much different than growing in Wheatland. But maybe we can provide great information to folks relocating and possibly provide new ideas to each other..
EH, I look forward to your results with the hydroponic set-up this year, especially with that 63F temp for starting seedlings.
With all that greenhouse glass area, will you have a controllable air temperature for the plants?
What will you be feeding the tilapia so that you get a predicatable nutrient input to the irrigation water?
Will you be using a sprinkler or tape/drip system in the outside garden? Drip tape systems deliver water efficiently to the roots, but the small nozzles/weep holes require fine filters so they don't clog up. What size particles do you anticipate the fish crap will be?
RE horse manure for amending the soil: typically, this is too high in salts for a vegetable garden and not balanced for your purposes. I'd suggest that you: (1) get the outside garden soil tested so you know what amendments it needs for your vegetables, and (2) use a cow/horse manure mix around 90% cow/10% horse which is about as "hot" a mix as the guys near me compost for their all-purpose garden manure. Testing a batch of the manure mix will guide you to how much to use in any area. With your wide variety of vegetables and a sizable garden patch to work with, my bet is that you'll want to create "zones" of different soil blends to optomize production of the garden.
PS: congrats on getting so much garden facilities for so little money. The cover alone on our 24' x 36', a double layer of 6-mil greenhouse UV stabilized plastic was over $1,000.
I know a young man who did well with hydroponic gardening in the southeast part of the state. Was lucky enough to be in his circle of acquaintances to get tomatoes from him.
Otherwise, I truly admire the tenacity of successful gardeners in this state. My own attempts provided unripe, puny snacks for the wildlife.
Sunsprit, divide the two. The hydrophonic setup vrs outside garden. The two are separate.
Hydrophonic end of it will only be used to produce starter plants. They will then be removed from that system and taken outside to a regular garden and replanted. Watering will be done with a hose, putting my thumb over the end to provide spray. haha. Not doing anything fancy out there yet.
Compost - I didn't explain as I should have. I got a dump truck of black soil from the dump. It's good and black, but not real rich. I collected the manure to put in with the black shirt and then mix it up.. I've spread the mix out about 10 inches deep in a large area, to kind of bleach it out all summer last year and all winter. I will scrape it all up into a pile and it will be the start of my compost pile. I will use it to add to the garden. My thought is to start a mix and then take a sample down to the local greenhouse and have tested. If I need to add more, I'll have it. If I need to lighten it up, I have mix for that. I simply pointed out that I have good manure that is relatively weed free. After a couple years of testing, I'll know how the mix should be for the compost pile. My idea is to have compost pile that will grow each year when we rotate certified hay. Onceni get it started, I'll add layers on the end. Layer of manure, dirt, manure, dirt, eetc. If things go right, the compost pile will be about 4 ft deep, 12 ft wide, and grow about 8-10 ft longer each year. Of course, if the garden does really well, and my health holds up good enough to play wack-a-mole on weeds, and I become a millionaire at the farmers market, the compost pile will have to grow exponenrionally. hahahaha
I have a friend down the road a piece, that we both run teams and travel often together. He runs a 4 up set of clydesdales. Years ago he started a compost pile that is about 8 ft deep,, 16 ft wide, and is now about 200 ft long. He goes out with his little Kabota and stirs the end 30 ft, each spring. He is the one that got me going on that compost pile. He hauls over enough compost to layer his garden about 4 inches deep and then he til's it 3 or 4 times in early spring. (has a really nice PTO tiller, 6 ft wide, on the back of his Kabota.) After tilling the takes samples down to the greenhouse and has it sampled. Based on the samples he might stir in some nitrogen or whatever is needed and till some more. He produces a fantastic garden every year but is not interested in the market. He produces what the wife is willing to can and then opens the gate to the neighbors to come in and pick what they want.
I'm not going to garden with the intent to get rich at the market, but rather to can for myself and any overflow will go to the market. I am really looking forward to the seeds I ordered. I got some strange things like Watermelon Tomatoes. hahaha. Gotta make it fun.
Wow! Serious garden! One of my friends has lots of land and grows a lot of stuff and did a full hydroponic system in her basement. Great stuff, but I personally don't have the room but the company called Great Ideas has a small not quite portable hydroponics system I could actually set up in my kitchen as long as I could figure out how to keep the cat away from the fish. Anyway we have a little yard and a little garden, but my wife who is from Japan grows quite a few different Japanese vegatables and they grow very well here. I know the japanese eggplant is one and another is japanese spinach. If you aren't a fan of Eggplant, like me, you might find you will like Japanese Eggplant. It taste very good, 100 times better than the American variety. It gives us enough to put away for the year and for our daughter to take some home with her as well. Last year we had wild pumpkin and got two large pumpkins on the vine Grew in my driveway though so I had to watch where I parked. We grow tomatoes, Bell Peppers, Habernaros, Jalapenos, Onions, Corn, Okra, green beans. The Raspberries have overtaken a whole part of the yard which is fine by us and strawberries are now coming in two to three times a year. Rubarb is a slow plant but not dead so we leave it and hopefully it will get better. We experiment to see what grows and what doesn't. Last year the corn grew, but we got no crop because of snow. The growing season is short and in this high plains area one thing I do know that grows well is Hay, Alfafa and Wheat. We're not big enough for those ourselves.
Jody_Wy, do tell about the Honey school, please? I have been considering buying one of those new Flow Hives from Australia and have been wanting to put in a hive as I have to go several miles to buy raw honey.
Wow! A lot of planning as you described. Thanks EH for the post. Looking forward to following your garden, as it grows.
Will follow closely and take notes. Best of luck in your Endeavor!
I have to admit here, I aquired the whole thing for consulting and trade. A friend and neighbor started the other whole thing. He had no clue about digging the well, foundation, building, etc... so I stepped in and helped out with about 90% of the construction, as I used to have a contractors license. long story short his wife wanted to move to town and they are going to rent their place out. To keep up with the hard and plow snow, I now have complete use of the greenhouse. I was there for the construction and understand the whole system so he'd rather have me on too of it. He bad boy idea about digging the well and soil samples to find water, or compaction samples, or construction in general so I consulted throughout the whole thing. Its too far for him to drive out here all of the time. He's disabled and if he was here all of the time, it would be OK. Bed still need a little help. But add the house is in town and its too much.
His place is only 2 blocks so easy for me to get there and take care of it. I like to trade labor, so I got things done for BIM for free. For instance, the track how. It was a big outfit. Came in on a semi, had a 30 ft reach and would handle a 36 inch bucket. I got 2 hours of use in trade for me taking a load of wood up into Montana. Took me 4 hours to deliver the wood (dodging scales and forestry insoectiins, and no cdl) but 4 hours round trip for a trackhoe big enough to dig a well.
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