Old Wooden Barrel Update

I found this old barrel down by the beach ,in many pieces, in a pile of rubble..I'm thinking the barrel is over 50 yrs old....it may have been on the beach for 20 yrs..it was in rough shape when I got it..some of the stades were broken ..some were warped.. it was even shot at with a shotgun.Because it was an old antique and very hard to come by I decided to repair it and display it in my vegetable garden.

In the first post I put the barrel together and discovered I had a narrow stade left out ..which meant I had to make new heads or resize the old one.. neither of which I wanted to do ..so I took the barrel apart repaired the stade and heads and put the barrel together again as pictured below. In my next post I'll make the steel hoops and finish the barrel.Thanks for viewing....

wood working with hand tools

I made a small  killick(stone anchor used by fishermen years ago) to display in the garden.

Growing Veggies in Kelp

Kelp has many uses in the nl kitchen garden. In fact pictured below is a raised bed made of all kelp/sea weed. As you can see these cabbages are growing vigorously in the kelp. I'm adding to this bed a few buckets at a time for next years growing

garden pics

Cabbage Rolls

                 Some nice cabbage leaves I gathered from the garden for my wife to make her cabbage rolls...And they were delicious....               

                                      

Old Barrel Project

This is my latest garden project. I'm  restoring an old barrel I got last summer. As you can see, it was in many pieces. I have to do repairs to the heads and several of the staves. I also have to find some steel hoops which won't be easy. I'll be updating my progress, stay tuned.  

 

Rustic Garden Bench

Here's one of my  alder wood garden benches...I decided to use cedar stain on it because I didn't like the look of the bare wood.I also made the small planter a couple years ago.....I made it to go in my kitchen  garden but my wife liked it so much she wanted it on the front lawn..but I still.have a small one in the garden will post pictures later on...

Germinating parsnip seeds

I'm happy to say my parsnip seeds are sprouting!So my experiment about growing my own parsnip seeds was a success.Probably next year I might try some carrot seed....

Strawberries

I planted these strawberry plants about three weeks ago. I got them from a friend and I'm excited about starting my own strawberry patch.

I prepared the ground by adding compost, wood ash, and fertilizer. 

Here they are snug in their beds.

I took this picture today. I'm pleased with the way the plants look nice and green. They all survived the transplanting. Also, I added some kelp compost to give them an extra boost before the frost.

 

Garden Update

First turnip of the season from the garden. It weighed in at 4 lbs. I'm quite pleased with that.