Grow a Sustainable Diet: Planning and Growing to Feed Ourselves and the Earth by Cindy Conner
Authors: Cindy Conner
Tags: Technology & Engineering, Gardening, Organic, Techniques, Agriculture, Sustainable Agriculture
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want to extend an arm on the outside of the shed to hang the scale from. I’ll have to make sure it’s not somewhere that will hit me inthe head when I walk by. The scale will need a spot inside the shed, also. A shelf to put my notepad on when I’m weighing things would be handy. I have a large galvanized tub that I’ll probably hang on the outside of the shed. If the eaves extend out some, they will provide some protection from the weather for whatever I hang on the outside.
One reason we haven’t built this shed yet (besides being busy with life in general) is because I hadn’t refined what I wanted. If your garden supplies and tools are stored in multiple places like mine, chalk it up to still refining your plan. I didn’t want to put up a plywood structure, so that took some thought. The siding will be 1″ × 6″ boards. The old chicken house and goat shed on our property have oak board siding. I could get oak fence boards from a local sawmill to do the job, but we’ll be getting the lumber from daughter Betsy and her husband, Chris. They have a portable sawmill and can cut whatever size boards we want. The type of wood will be what’s available. Their machine is a Wood-Mizer. If you were interested in buying lumber from a sawmill such as theirs, you could contact the Wood-Mizer company to find owners in your area. Even if they bought the sawmill for their own use, folks like this would be happy to sell some lumber to help pay for their mill. There are other brands of sawmills and I’m sure you could contact the owners in the same manner.
Water Storage
Wherever you have a roof is an opportunity to collect water. The easiest way to collect water is to put buckets or an animal water trough at the drip line of your building. You could also put gutters on the building and direct the water to one central place, either right at the building or a distance away. If rains are few and far between, one barrel of water won’t go far, but it’s handy to have to dip your watercan in for watering things in your cold frame. (Add watercan to the list for the shed contents.) For more storage space you need many barrels or a large holding tank. You can buy them new at farm supply stores or find them advertised used. Make sure whatever you get for storing water has not held anything toxic to your garden.
Outdoor Washing Station
I might not have had a garden shed, but I’ve had an outdoor washing station since I began selling vegetables in 1992. If you are cleaning vegetables for the markets, you will want to wash them somewhere other than in your kitchen. Washing your produce in your garden keeps the water and the soil there. Make a way to collect the water so you can return the wash water to the garden. Whatever soil washes off the produce also makes its way back to the garden in the process.
The equipment that lasted me for more than the ten years that I sold vegetables was an old bathtub set on cement blocks. I could fit a five-gallon bucket under the drain hole to catch the water, switching it out with another when it filled. I made a frame of 2 × 4s covered with half-inch hardware cloth (also known as rat wire) that fit the top of the tub and was used to drain produce on. Every few years I had to replace the wooden frame, but reused the same wire each time.
Beside that set-up I had built a bench out of scrap wood. It was at the right height to put the buckets of water on that I swished the lettuce in, before putting the lettuce on the wash table to be sprayed with the hose. There are drinking water safe hoses available. Make sure you use them for water that will be used with produce destined for someone’s dinner table. That washing station was located in a spot that received morning shade, which is the time that I would be washing produce. If it was in the sun, I would have needed to have a roof.
I had some large plastic trays like the ones the bread companies use when delivering bread. I could pick tomatoes
One reason we haven’t built this shed yet (besides being busy with life in general) is because I hadn’t refined what I wanted. If your garden supplies and tools are stored in multiple places like mine, chalk it up to still refining your plan. I didn’t want to put up a plywood structure, so that took some thought. The siding will be 1″ × 6″ boards. The old chicken house and goat shed on our property have oak board siding. I could get oak fence boards from a local sawmill to do the job, but we’ll be getting the lumber from daughter Betsy and her husband, Chris. They have a portable sawmill and can cut whatever size boards we want. The type of wood will be what’s available. Their machine is a Wood-Mizer. If you were interested in buying lumber from a sawmill such as theirs, you could contact the Wood-Mizer company to find owners in your area. Even if they bought the sawmill for their own use, folks like this would be happy to sell some lumber to help pay for their mill. There are other brands of sawmills and I’m sure you could contact the owners in the same manner.
Water Storage
Wherever you have a roof is an opportunity to collect water. The easiest way to collect water is to put buckets or an animal water trough at the drip line of your building. You could also put gutters on the building and direct the water to one central place, either right at the building or a distance away. If rains are few and far between, one barrel of water won’t go far, but it’s handy to have to dip your watercan in for watering things in your cold frame. (Add watercan to the list for the shed contents.) For more storage space you need many barrels or a large holding tank. You can buy them new at farm supply stores or find them advertised used. Make sure whatever you get for storing water has not held anything toxic to your garden.
Outdoor Washing Station
I might not have had a garden shed, but I’ve had an outdoor washing station since I began selling vegetables in 1992. If you are cleaning vegetables for the markets, you will want to wash them somewhere other than in your kitchen. Washing your produce in your garden keeps the water and the soil there. Make a way to collect the water so you can return the wash water to the garden. Whatever soil washes off the produce also makes its way back to the garden in the process.
The equipment that lasted me for more than the ten years that I sold vegetables was an old bathtub set on cement blocks. I could fit a five-gallon bucket under the drain hole to catch the water, switching it out with another when it filled. I made a frame of 2 × 4s covered with half-inch hardware cloth (also known as rat wire) that fit the top of the tub and was used to drain produce on. Every few years I had to replace the wooden frame, but reused the same wire each time.
Beside that set-up I had built a bench out of scrap wood. It was at the right height to put the buckets of water on that I swished the lettuce in, before putting the lettuce on the wash table to be sprayed with the hose. There are drinking water safe hoses available. Make sure you use them for water that will be used with produce destined for someone’s dinner table. That washing station was located in a spot that received morning shade, which is the time that I would be washing produce. If it was in the sun, I would have needed to have a roof.
I had some large plastic trays like the ones the bread companies use when delivering bread. I could pick tomatoes
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