Monthly Archives: June 2010

Installing a Rain Water Collection Tank

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I brought my 1,000 liters (264 gallons) water tank with me from the old place thinking I would set it up again to collect water for the kitchen garden from a roof top. Fortunately a nice big roof is available here with rain gutter:

The ground has a heavy slope which means that the water tank is standing on the ground about half a meter (1.6 ft) below the floor of the carport.

I found out that I had a bit of cleaning to do of the gutter which had been neglected by the previous renters. It simply won’t work with all that organic material stuck in the gutter:

I managed to unhook the gutter to ease access:

And found this – the gutter was absolutely stuffed:

But I don’t mind – it’s actually very good material for composting, and almost entirely decomposed. I’m wondering how long it’s been in there ;-) A couple of years maybe?:

Yummy! The worms in the compost pile are going to love it (along with the kitchen scraps, tomatoes, cucumbers, kitchen paper rolls and what not):

I gave the rain gutter a thorough hosing to clean it up as I don’t want too much crap in my water tank:

And now on to the clever part of this project: A water “thief” (I don’t know the English word for this baby ;-) ):

This is a device you insert somewhere in the rain water drain pipe which will divert the water flow away from the main pipe and into a tank or whatever.

And this is an illustration showing what’s on the inside:

Only when the small pipe on the right side is full of water it will start to pour over the edge on the inside and down into the main pipe. Until then most of the water goes into the small pipe, but of course a small part of it will fall into the opening in the middle, but I don’t think it will be anything significant.

This next picture is showing the piece inserted in the main pipe:

Because of the sloping ground the small diverting pipe needs to be 4 m (13 ft) which makes the whole thing look like something from a cartoon ;-) :

but hey – it works®!:

I’m ready for the rain.

Tomato Trellis Plans

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Tomato plants need some kind of support when they grow tall and develop fruits, to keep them from collapsing due to their own weight. At least the most popular kinds of tomatoes – you can probably get some types which don’t need this, but below you’ll find an example of such a tomato support trellis or cage.

This is a small tomato plant recently moved outdoors and placed in a self-watering tomato box. If it’s left on its own it will collapse down the sides of the box when it reaches a certain height:

Below is the final support trellis made from wire mesh, and again supported by a stick to keep the cage from falling over:

The metal cage is made from wire mesh with 7.5 x 12.5 cm (3 x 5 inches) holes and with a height of 90 cm (35 inches), which is the same I used for fencing of my vegetable garden from kids and cats. The cage is rolled from a piece of mesh that is 60 x 90 cm (24 x 35 inches), and that gives a diameter of 19 cm (7.5 inches). Small lengths of wire can be used for keeping the cage together, one in the middle and one at each each end:

My small production of 9 tomato trellis cages and willow sticks ready to go:

Fasten the wire mesh cages to the sticks using small lengths of metal wire:

A small detail to provide an even better support, in the picture below. I used old metal rings sticking out of the concrete wall to secure the wooden sticks. This will hold through almost any storm around here:

7 tomato trellis cages placed over the small plants. The wooden stick is hammered about 30 cm (12 inches) into the ground:

This is actually a long line of 19 plants. I even have some cucumbers secured this way too. Now I’m ready for some serious tomato and cucumber growth :-)

Chicken Coop Guide Review

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(Also known as the chickenDIYguides review.)

The product is put together by Mary Nelson with help from Jim Stanley. It consists of more than 300 pages of plans for building your own chicken coop, spread out into several ebooks included in the product. A large part of the material you’ll receive is bonus material including small ebooks and a link collection pointing to 26 YouTube videos. I paid $40 to gain access to the instant download area and I paid $10 in taxes. You can get the Chicken Coop Guide here.

7 individual ebooks are available dividing the collection of plans into 3 groups: Small, mid-size and large. What size of coop you need depends on whether you want normal hens or Bantam hens (small hens).

Small coop: 4 plans available for 4-5 hens (or 5-7 Bantams). Built mostly from 1×4″ or 2×4″ studs and 1/4″, 1/2″ or 3/4″ plywood.

Mid-size coop: 1 plan available for 10 hens (or 14 Bantams). Built mostly from 2×4″ studs and 1/2″ or 3/4″ plywood.

Large coop: 2 plans available for 16 hens (or 24 Bantams). Built mostly from 2×4″ studs and 3/4″ plywood.

If you’re new to raising chickens the bonuses that come with the product will help you become aware of 6 important things to consider before building your coop: How much space do you need for raising your chickens, how to protect against predators, how to protect against the weather, deciding what size of coop you need, how to raise chickens in a convenient way, and deciding what type of chicken you want.

The bonus link collection includes videos on for example how to provide drinking water throughout the winter using a 60 watt light bulb that is always on, or providing protection against snow using a shower curtain over your chicken coop.

A separate bonus ebook on building an incubator is available. It teaches that chicken egg incubation is optimal at 37-39 C (99-102 F) and 50-55% humidity, but for the last 3 days, 35 C (95 F) and 65 % humidity will be best. Details for securing this type of environment is described in the ebook. Yet another ebook in the bonus pack consists of explanations of chicken talk terms, like for instance Bantam – which are half-sized chickens for ornamental purposes; crop – part of the chickens digestive system; grit – bits of rock and sand that chickens eat that goes into the crop and helps with digestion; and wormer – medicine for treating worms.

What I LIKE about Chicken Coop Guide

  • Despite the fact that the product is split into several pieces the download page keeps it all together very well.
  • The design of each coop is neat – I like the way they look.
  • The building plans are easy to understand.
  • The level of plan detail is high, with dimensions on all pieces.
  • Example photos are available for some of the coops showing actual coops that were built.

What I DON’T Like about Chicken Coop Guide

  • One of the plans contains a vital table that is almost unreadable due to bad resolution. I’ll have to rewrite it myself to make it usable.
  • The graphics is rather coarse and takes some getting used to.
  • Everything is in inches rather than S.I. units. I’ll have to print out a plan and add the converted numbers myself manually.
  • As a first time chicken keeper I would like to have a plan for a simple chicken run, although it would be simple.
  • To make it easier for the reader the 6 bonus ebooks should be merged and edited into a single ebook.

Who should buy the Chicken Coop Guide

In my opinion you would need years, if not decades, of experience as a hobby woodworker to follow the building plans, due to the level of details of the coops, or at least access to help from someone with this kind of experience. You’ll need to cut and fit things together in angles which is not something you’ll easily do if you never touched a saw before. But then again – it’s details like this, that makes the coops in these plans so pretty darn easy on the eyes.

You can get the Chicken Coop Guide here.

Update 2010-12-06: I wrote a 65 page ebook about how I built my own chicken coop following the guide above. You can download my ebook for free here: Ebook: How I Built My Chicken Coop