55/30 – November 12, 2023

It has been a great week. We have done a bit of work on some of the new wicking beds we will be installing, and I am so excited to say that I have obtained a 30 gallon steel drum for producing biochar (55/30 retort). My tomatoes are producing a lot of green cherry tomatoes, but none have begun ripening or changing color. I also have some kind of cucumber/melon/pumpkin-looking vine that is producing a lot of fruit, but I can’t say we know for sure what it will be yet. I also got a truckload of pallets this week, which was so awesome, so thank you to the gals that made that happen for me.

Melon? Pumpkin? All I know is I planted cucumbers, and that is not a cucumber!
The new wicking beds are being setup as a border around an in-bed garden and they will be my wife’s garden (Desert Fairy). When complete, the garden will have two 8 x 4 x 2 ft wicking beds on two of the sides of the in-ground bed, a 4 x 4 wicking bed made of half of an IBC will make the space at the end of the two raised beds, and then one border is along the wall of the house and the other is our patio, where we will maintain access to the garden bed, for humans and not Pablo dogs. (low quality picture)

I watched a really great webinar about wicking beds this week and I have totally redesigned the 8 x 4 x 2 beds that we are working on for DF’s garden. We spent quite a lot of time leveling the ground and then placing bricks from around our yard under the bed to give it stability. I think the bricks will work as a thermal regulator, at least in the summer. An in-ground bed would remain cooler, but the bricks in contact with the covered earth should keep the base cooler in the summer, I would think. I’m not sure how the bricks would affect freezing temperatures. My gut feeling is that the bed would freeze sooner than if it was on the ground, or especially dug into the ground. This is not a huge concern here, however.

My aunt is going to come and help me make sure we have properly leveled the ground before we start adding media. We tried using a string level, but we found it very difficult and just ended up using a small brick with a bubble level to level one small section at a time. With my 4-foot level, it appears to be quite even, but we will see when my aunt comes to help.
For the biochar, I am thrilled to finally begin constructing my “tin man” retort (also called a 55/30) which I have seen many examples of, but I finally found a video that does a great job of explaining everything. For those who do not know what biochar is, I will get some basic information in my biochar section, as well as links to the best information I can find. The whole project is being documented by photo at this time, and I definitely want to start making some videos as well. I’m just not there yet.

We had some random little plants coming up in my wife’s in-ground bed, but I must have left the “fence,” which is made of pallets, open, because our dog Pablo got in and dug a half dozen holes, killing most of the little plants; however, a few are left. We have so much to do, so I should have good material for the blog next week.

I also want to mention my front yard. I have scattered the seeds from numerous packets of mostly native wildflowers over the last few months. I started with the monsoon rains, but none of the seeds seemed to germinate. I threw a couple more packets about a week ago, and now there are a lot of small plants coming up, so I am hoping to get some nice flowers going on out there.
And by the way, I go by the name Nichollas. With this blog, I intend to document the developments at our “Casa Chollita”, mainly in the garden, but also as an urban homestead as a whole.