The New Homestead Garden UPDATED 2-25-2024!

The series of posts on a new/old tiller, a $100 greenhouse, and a new garden on a new homestead

HOMESTEAD

Bjarni

12/30/20236 min read

I'm doing a garden this year. (Okay not big news, most of us do put in gardens!) Now back home in the SW, I could grow almost anything in the desert. Here in South Carolina? Well....We have something here called WATER. And we have a LOT of water. We live in the Midlands, so we don't get as much as the coast. If you call an average of 52.5 inches (133 centimeters). And this past years was a wet year, We got almost 6 feet! (182cm). So I need to learn how to grown in a sub tropical rain forest. A 9 month growing season. AND more bugs than I've ever seen!

So. To Start this journey, we're going to share our experiences, the equipment we've bought and some of the things we'll do a review on.

So to start with, I'll talk about our tiller. I did not want a front tine tiller. A rear tine one is OH MY GODS expensive. The average here in our part of South Carolina between $600 and $2000.00! Front tine starts at $500 and hits damn near $1000.00!

So a new one is out of the question, And a used one, while a better price, you can be buying someone else’s problems. So my wife and I were searching Craigslist and Market place. and we find a rear tine tiller for $50.00. Ad said it ran last year. Take the chance and head out into the back woods of SC. The engine is not locked up, but spins VERY freely. The Transmission is free and forward and reverse engage and the tines feel tight on their axle. Take it home and take the engine apart and the intake lobe on the cam is worn flat. Go to our local Harbor Freight and pick up a brand new 6.5 hp for $99.99 and went ahead and bought the 2 year extended warranty. (Normal price is 129.99 but the Insiders club makes some good deals. ) 10 minutes to unbolt the old engine and bolt the new on in. Fresh gear oil in the drive and transmission and including tax oil gas and extended warranty, we have a basically brand new tiller for under $200.00. The paint on the tiller may not be as bright and shiny as the new engine. But it will last many years of gardening with good maintenance.

In addition to food for the table, we’re going to grow a lot of medicinal herbs. Both to replace what we use during the year, and to sell live plants. To do so we need a green house. Since I spent some extra on the tiller. The greenhouse I wanted to build will need to be on the back burner. But to get herbs off to a good start and have plenty to sell we need to get going real soon. The one I want to eventually build is about a 10x10 wood frame greenhouse made from repurposed windows inserted in a wood frame. But time and money make us do things. So over the next few weeks Chris and I will review our new greenhouse.

It’s a Vevor Walk-in Tunnel Greenhouse, 15 x 7 x 7 ft The reviews were mixed, but the price was right. Vevor has it for $97, We got ours from Ebay for $99.00. Main reason for Ebay? I could use my Pay Pal Pay in 4! See if something is wrong parts are missing, I can send it back and not have to wait for ALL my money. Just part! We have one of the little 6x3x6 greenhouses. We bought it at Aldi’s about 4 years ago, It has survived 3 hurricanes 4 floods and a move. And its still in fair shape. We’ll see how this one does. Stay tuned for updates once we receive it!

Updates 2-22-2024

It's been a hot minute on the garden. Since the last posting on it, we've put the used/new tiller to use and crunched up a 50x30 foot space.

We had left over fencing from doing the yard last year so that went into fencing the garden are. Can yo all believe this? Tractor Supply had T-posts 2 bucks less a post than Lowes? WTH? That saved us $20 bucks

On the homestead you use what ever you have to get the job done, If you don't have a come along , nor any of the proper or professional fence stretching tools. A 2001 Jeep XJ Cherokee 2 ratchet straps and an extra fence post do wonders!

We wanted to do square foot gardening, and we did. it a fashion. Square foot gardening is a fantastic way to grow a lot of food in a smaller area and is easier to work. Now if you follow the book Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew,

And it is a fantastic resource he tells you the only way to go is enclosed raised beds. The issue we have with that is the cost. With local prices, and with new materials we would have spent about $100 bucks on each bed. Up-cycled? about $50. For the size of our garden, we would have been looking at $1200 for new stuff and $400-600 for used. So we took a trick from when we lived in Alaska. An Inuit friend of mine, and another that has a TV show, showed us Square Foot mound gardening. We tilled and re-tilled the soil added fertilizer (touchy subject, but we are using what we have.) and compost. Then raked the beds into 4 foot by 6 foot mounds. One buddy, a local deputy, say's our garden looks like a graveyard! Mel, in his book calls for 1 square foot permanent grids to guide you with the planting. We tried string. Did okay-ish. Looked 1x2's and lath to make grids. Expensive.

Then my lovely wife says. "Just use a tile!" And instant square foot parcels!

We did use Mel's recommendation of amount to plant in each square. A broken mop handle rescued from the trash made a perfect tool to plant onions and garlic. As of today 2-22-24 we have carrots, beets onions garlic and potatoes in the ground.

And while were here, a little product review. First the Green house. We have the start of the review here.

We've had some storms come through and it has held up well. On warm days we've opened up the windows and half the door to keep it from getting to hot. So far? It's doing the job we want for a reasonable price. Check it out here

The next item we tried out for the greenhouse is heaters.We did have a couple of 150 watt heat lamps, and the only ones I could find locally were clear. Talking with our neighbor, he said you can sure tell where your greenhouse is. It lights up your entire yard!. That made us reconsider our lighting. We tried the LUCKY HERP 150W Ceramic Heat Emitter from Amazon

We have two of them on either side of our seed trays. Inside the green house it was 42 degrees, and over the seed trays it was 60. Not as warm as I'd like. But not freezing. And the tops of the reflectors were just warm to the touch not hot like from the heat lamps. This shows that the heat is coming from the front of the emitters. So far, they earn a 5 out of 5.

That's it for today. Stay tuned for more updates on the SHTF garden here at Gerðs Hearth South Carolina location!