The Backyard Project

My journey through creating an aquaponics system for gardening raising chickens, goats and bees to be 100% self suffient.

[selahsustainableliving]

Just an update

It's been awhile. I've been real busy getting everything to work and come together. And of course something comes up and dampens the plans. Anyways, the aquaponics System is almost complete and the green house is erected for it. Just got finish a couple of plumbing issues and I'll be done. I also built an auto waterer (photo to come) for my chickens and I built a feeder for the chickens as well. I'll post a more thorough blog next time with more pics.

[selahsustainableliving]

Possibly Switching Blog Sites

https://selahsustainableliving.wordpress.com

[selahsustainableliving]

Alrighty. So blog number 2. This is actually pretty enjoyable. Posting updates on the progression of my Journey to Sustainable Self Sufficient Living. So I posted a pic of my seedlings that I've started in egg shells. It's only been a week and I am surprised at the amount of seedlings sprouting up. The first to sprout were the radishes then the fenugreek. Shortly after those two plants I started noticing little sprouts from all my green leafy vegetables. Baby greens, romaine, spinach, and kale. Around the same time the greens were sprouting I spotted two types of carrots and Chamomile sprouting. This is so exciting I can't wait until they're more mature so I can transfer them to my grow beds. (Any suggestions on when a good time to make the transfers, let me know) And to top off an eventful week of sprouting, my new flock of hens (3 gals) laid 8 or 9 eggs in 10 days for us. Not bad for having some pretty cold days and nights. Also, if you have any suggestions on how to get them to lay more let me know and if your local (Mesa, AZ) and your looking to thin your flock of laying hens let me know. I'll take em' off your hands. One more tid bit of exciting news for our humble Sustainable mini Homestead we will be welcoming a new member to our urban farm this friday, A pregnant Nigerian Dwarf goat expecting to kid in 6-8 weeks. She'll make a great companion for my buck. Anyways, that's it for now. Always looking to take in any unwanted livestock or farming/gardening supplies and equipment just let me know. Happy Farming.

[selahsustainableliving]

Beginnings

Hello!!! Now about this blog. I've been interested in aquaponics and sustainable living concepts for some time now. I recently got fed up with some things happening in my personal life and what's going on in America today. So I made up my mind and decided to just do it. My friend Quinn Simmons at Provident Living in Colorado was my ultimate push. Just reading his updates on Facebook from his farm, motivated me. (He doesn't know this yet. Haha!) Now you know bud thanks for the inspiration. Look Him up on Facebook at Provident Living. Now on to my Sustainable Self-Sufficient project. This is a first for me, so everything I'll be posting in this blog will be documenting my progression and the things I am learning from reading and trial. So feel free to give me some pointers as well. For those of who who asked. I learned about the seedling raising in egg shells from a Pinterest photo or a Facebook post I don't remember exactly. But the point of this method of seed starting, the info that I have gathered was to get a good start on your seedlings before planting them in your green house or grow beds. I thought I'd give it a try. So, the cool thing is I had pretty much everything I needed right in my home except the organic seeds and compost (picked those up at Whole Foods). My family and I go through a lot of eggs so it was easy to save 30 cracked egg shells. Now when my shells were collected I gathered my compost and seeds counted out how many shells to use for each plant. I had 15 different seeds to plant so I used two shells per type of plant. Then I wrote on each shell the type if seed to be planted. After organizing my shell seedling starters I filled each shell half way, put the seeds in and top it off with more compost, added water and now waiting. You see it was fairly simple, very inexpensive and resourceful. (Instead of buying the one time starter cups at home depot or lowes). So, if this is something of interest to you or you just wanna see what happens or you wanna help, please follow this blog. I will be sharing updates on my chickens my goats and my garden. Also I'll be adding bees to the mix. Stay tuned I appreciate it.