Double rain barrel capacity and pests in the compost pile

The Florida Bee Farm has about 8 watering zones and each takes a good amount of water.  Up until now, our 275 gallon rain barrel system would run dry after only a couple runs. Plus the water recovery intake (the system that takes the rain from the gutters into the barrels) would lose water during heavy rain because it was undersized.  Not a problem on one of those days where it rains all day but quick heavy downpours would lose a high percentage of water.

New rainbarrel container (left) and new water intake system (top)

So this week the rain barrel system was revamped and water capacity increased to over 500 gallons.  Friends of our son were moving and had a giant bait tank container ... around 250 gallons I believe, that they needed to get rid of.  So it didn't cost us a penny.  All it needed was a coat of dark paint to keep algae from forming inside the tank.   This should supply enough water for most of the Bee Farm's needs.  While modifying the plumbing to accommodate the large tank I decided to completely redo the water intake system so it would branch out and feed into two tanks instead of one to accommodate heavy rainstorms. All the tanks are linked so this will be much more efficient. 

freshly planted seeds

It was graduation week for a lot of the little seedlings in the nursery and a new class of future seedlings was added to the greenhouse.  It's fun to keep adding plants to the Bee Farm and experiment with different seeds.  I get some of our seeds from the Safety Harbor library which has a free seed program.

In other news, don't wander too close to the compost pile. (click play below)

pests in the compost pile

Papayas, Okra and getting ready for fall gardening

It's been a busy week getting ready for fall gardening.  First thing that needed to be done though was to transplant the papayas that my neighbor grew over to the bee farm.  There were many more papayas than anticipated though.  My nephew has been helping all week and we spent several days getting a few yards of topsoil and then transplanting the papayas into pots that we had available.  We had to prioritize this since all the rain of the last month loosened the roots of some of the papayas and laid them down.  If we didn't move them asap they would not survive.

Nephew Joey in charge of transporting the papayas to the Bee Farm

This whole papaya idea is not yet completely formed.  I really don't know where I'm going with these and what we'll do with 80,000 pounds of papayas come harvest season.  But it should look pretty cool and very tropical.

The Okra is going to town and we'll be frying up some Okra tonight.  I didn't realize how pretty the flowers were on the Okra plant.  Beautiful.

Okra with flower

It's been tough trying to source horse manure for the compost pile.  Some of my sources were flooded out during the rains and others are just not reliable sources.  Eventually it will happen and hopefully sooner than later so it can compost and be ready for the fall gardens.

Seeds were ordered for the fall garden include tomatoes, carrots, peppers, moringa, onions, pumpkins, zuccini, beans, Florida kale, lettuce and a couple others I can't remember.  This year I cross referenced a document the state of Florida puts out showing recommended planting dates for plants as well as recommended subspecies of plants that do well in Florida's climate.  That should make a difference.

The solar powered rain barrel irrigation system was also completely redone.  All the wiring was pulled out and a new switch was installed.  There was a problem with a screwball switch I originally installed that caused the pump to work irregularly.  The new wiring solved the problem and it's pumping water perfectly now.  The other significant modification made was we dug a trench and installed pvc pipe from the city freshwater supply to a junction in the rainbarrel system and added a checkvalve and manual valve to feed the irrigation system when the rainbarrels run dry.  I discovered that problem the hard way during a spell of draught in  the spring where I had to spend a few hours manually watering everything when the rainbarrels were empty. 

The next step in the irrigation system is to install timers and to finish adding other sections of soaker hose / sprinkler heads.  Not a big priority now but it will be needed soon enough.  The key is to make gardening as automated as possible giving you the time to attend to details like weeding and chasing varmits from the plants.  And most important, my afternoon Siesta.

A few more gardening lessons learned the hard way

The mini greenhouses we made seemed to be working so well and produced many healthy looking little cucumber plants.  The cukes were beautiful and I was just getting ready to permanently remove the tops from the mini greenhouses.  But I waited a day too late.  They ended up getting baked and wilting which was a big disappointment.  A few may survive but this was another one of those lessons the hard way.   But something was learned at least.

The other big disappointment was these low pressure soaker hoses that I spent so much time installing.  Once mulch goes on top of them, they stop working and clog up with the dust from the mulch.  A complete waste of time and money.  Fortunately these (Mr. Drip / Mr. Soaker Hose) were bought from Amazon and I'll be able to get a refund.  It will just be a real pain to pull them out of the dirt and put them in a box to return. 

It's virtually impossible to find others using them.  One person said hers stopped working which made me suspicious and had me monitoring the hoses closely until I determined they were complete junk.  Now it's back to the drawing board to come up with a hands free irrigation system to keep our plants watered.