Small Farm Design

We love the idea of a small farm, but have accepted it is not in our near future. We have fun dreaming about it and I try to still provide life-lessons that are learned on a farm without the farm to my young boys. That’s part of the reason I would want a farm. It’s for the life-lessons. But those life lessons need to be learned right now at the age they are at. The boys tell us how they’d love to raise chickens, goats, cows, and horses. So, we have told them that we will help them get a farm to have when they are older and our grandkids can grow up on one. By the time we save the money to do it, they will be grown.

Mr. JCrew is the best, because when the kids and I start dreaming, he starts planning on how to make it happen. But sometimes I have to tell him it is okay to dream and we don’t have to make it a reality. But he wanted to pursue it and told me to start looking for land. And I actually already knew of a pretty good space. It was a lot I would see every day on my way to taking the boys to school. It was 7 acres and flat. But they wanted too much money for it (in my opinion).

I actually liked the land so much, that I started planning it. I knew the dream of a farm was not going to pan out, but I really like to design, so I was going to put a couple design options out there and write a post about it and tell all of my local friends that if they were interested, it was available and I’d help design it for you! But as soon as I was about to post about it, the land sold! Seriously, that day. I was shocked. They got their asking price. And I was eager to start seeing the progress. But no progress has been made. I assume they are designing right now or getting permits.

I am going to share with you my thoughts on the space that I designed, just as something to help my friends that are thinking of building.

The first things I always am doing is gathering ideas. I use Pinterest and Houzz to save pictures of things I like. Even if I don’t like the entire picture, if there is a small element I like, I save the picture and write down the piece that I like about it. I then have those saved pictures to reflect on and draw from when designing.

Sometimes it may not even be an object in the picture that I like, but the “view” or atmosphere it creates.

That’s how I started with the land. I knew what view I wanted to create as you pulled into the driveway. I actually gathered this view from a childhood friend’s farm entrance. With where this lot of land was, all the other houses could be seen from the road. I didn’t want the house to be seen unless you actually came further onto the property. And that it really didn’t open up until you were right in front of the house. Almost like the forest just opened up into a field.

Now, all my design work is in this fancy program called, “PowerPoint.” HA! I used it when I created the landscape plan for my current house.

I didn’t want the driveway to be straight. I always liked the driveways that wind around. So, I made the driveway go straight, but once the forest opened up, the driveway curved in front of the house and then around to the garage.

Going back to the start of the property and the driveway, I took note to give space for a mail delivery person to be able to pull off the road to deliver mail. This also gives space for a visitor to pull over. I was undecided on a gate at the beginning of the driveway, but if there was a gate, this gave enough space for someone to wait for the gate to open. And I made the mouth of the driveway wider at the road entrance. I take note and notice bad ideas others do and try not to repeat them. There is a house across the street from this lot that has all these concrete/brick pillars right at the road and a narrow driveway entrance. That means someone has to come to an almost complete stop before they turn into the driveway. And good luck to the UPS man or moving truck having to make a wide turn on a busy road to get in the driveway. Didn’t want to create that hazard.

I also wanted the house to be as far from the road as possible. That is always my goal. The space in front of the house could be ornamental or it could be used for the farm. I designed pastures in my plan.

There is a science to farm space planning, and I don’t have it mastered or know it all, but I had fun researching. I didn’t get it perfect nor is it really correct, but it was a start.  Fence planning was interesting. I made sure that the pastures had gates between each other but also to the common area. And I made sure the house was fenced off from the future animals. But I didn’t want a square fence around the house.

And I also made a fenced in backyard so we could have a traditional back yard. Trying to mix urban and country. It could then appeal to all.

The orange blob on the design is a pole barn. Nothing fancy, but shelter for the animals and supplies.

I made a parking pad before the barn for visitors. This is mainly in case whoever owned the land wanted to hire workers, it was for them. Or, it was for those that had horse trailers to park. Giving options.



The green rectangle on the plan was the garden shed. When I was designing all of this, it took me just a couple days, but it was right when an episode of Fixer Upper aired and it was the episode with her garden. It was the dream garden! So when you see this plan, think of her garden and know that was what I was modeling.

Towards the top of the garden is a blue rectangle. This rectangle is the chicken run and the yellow box next to it is the chicken coup.

The fence line around the garden would also have a chicken run around it like Joanna had. But the Blue rectangle gave the chickens more space. 

The garden beds would be raised rectangle in shape.

I used the same shape as our current house, because I was planning on building the same exact thing. But I decided to plant trees to create privacy from the neighbors. Lots of trees at the street line and trees around the driveway and parking pad.

In the driveway near the house, I kept it wide like we currently have. I love the space and would want to keep it. However, I added a painted basketball court. I think the boys would really love it. I was torn on putting the court right outside the driveway or on the parking pad by the barn, but I thought it would get more use right outside the garage.

The two pastures in the front of the house is not the only place the animals would be restricted to. If you look, you can see that the garden is fenced off, the house is fenced off and the driveway is fenced off, so the animals would actually have free reign of the entire space. But I do know that just like vegetable gardening, you want to rotate the animals periodically. Those pastures could be untouched and when the animals eat everything outside the pasture, they could be brought into the pasture where there was fresh vegetation and it would give time to the other pastures to recover and grow new vegetation.

During this design I also looked up chicken coup designs and goat barns. There are some really cool designs out there.

I honestly really like creating spaces and giving thought to it. This was something fun to do. Thanks for letting me share it with you!

Drip Irrigation

I fully acknowledge I am a plant lady. It’s the first idea Mr. JCrew comes up with for a gift for me. I won’t turn down a plant. You can never have too many. I love to care for plants and talk to them.

I especially love plants in pots. Containers give height to a garden and softens the structure of a porch. 

But with containers, means more attention. Because they don’t have the ground for their roots to spread in search of water, they have to be watered more often than plants in the ground.

My collection of potted plants outside kept growing. I loved the look of a mass of different sized pots. Watering became a chore. I’d refill several watering cans. 

In the window box outside of Mr. Pfitzer’s room, I left a watering can in his bathroom to use. We just took out one of the screens to access the pots. Watering through the screen did not work. 

But it was when I came home from giving birth to Mr. Pfitzer at the hospital that I knew I needed to do something to help water my plants. My short time away, the plants in the windowbox had died. I looked into getting a “Plant Sitter” but it did not work. 

The water was not leaving the reservoir and my plants were dry.

 

I then tried the plant sitter on a larger scale and bought apple juice in glass bottles (instead of buying empty glass bottles). Once we drank the apple juice, I’d fill the glass bottle with water and put a tube in it. The tubing was not long enough, but it also was just too slow.

I even tried braiding scrap fabric and stuck it in the dirt for the water to travel up and into the dirt. This also did not work.

I finally researched drip irrigation. One of my friends from church had explained how her husband hooked up a system to water her plants in her window box. It sounded so cool!

I started saving things to my Amazon Wish List. I started the planning/design process and calculating the cost of all that I would need.

I then looked at HomeDepot and saw that they carried a lot of what I needed. I bought my tubing and sprinkler heads from them.

I used many types of sprinkler heads. I had many different size pots that would be on the same system. My larger pots had two sprinkler heads in them, and the water would need to be on longer in order for them to receive enough water. But a smaller pot would be on the same amount of time as the larger one, but I could use a lower-flow sprinkler head to make sure it was not over-watered. 

The smaller pots use a drip sprinkler head. 

The larger pots use a fan sprinkler head. There are many types of fan heads.

There is one main line that runs from the faucet. But off the large tube, a smaller tube is connected that runs to the pot.

I use elbow connectors to get my large tubing to take corners.

I use T-shape connectors to split tubing to go two different directions. When the big tubing coming from the faucet reaches the ground, I have some of it go to the front porch and some of it go to the back porch.

I buried my tubing in flowerbeds. 

I tried to make it minimal what tubing was showing, but it's not bad. I have gotten use to it and don't notice the tubing.

I checked the connections of tubing and sprayed it with the flex seal stuff to seal any little holes.

The large tubing connects to the faucet using a fancy adapter.

I tried to get fancy and use a timer on my faucets, but I just couldn’t get those to work right. I’d love for it to run itself!

Right now, all I have to do is go outside; turn on two faucets; sit on the porch for ten minutes; then turn the water faucets off.

Watering is done!

Now, there is one change I wish could be made to the sprinkler heads. I wish they would rotate while spraying. They currently are stationary. The water then goes in the same spot. I’m not certain but I think water is wasted this way. I turn on my faucet for ten minutes, but within 3 minutes, I am already seeing a flood of water leaving the bottom of my pots. Once that little area where the tiny spot of water goes down, there is extra water just going right through the pot instead of reaching the spaces in between.

At first, I only had two sprinkler heads for the large pots. But like I mentioned, they don’t rotate, so some plants were not getting water. About once a week, I would take the hose out and give the pots a good watering. The drip irrigation was a time saver for in between the hose watering. I really wanted to make the drip irrigation work for me fully, so I bought more sprinkler heads and designated one sprinkler per plant. You can change the flow on the heads, so that helped. 

In my large pots out back, there are three plants per pot.

In my large pots up front, I have five plants per pot.

I was nervous to put too many heads on the line because it would impact the flow. Having one head per plant, the flow did not matter as much. But I am happy to report, adding more sprinklers, the impact to the flow was minimal.

It is a time saver and I’m so glad I did it. I turn on the faucet, sit on the porch for a couple minutes, then turn the faucet off. So easy! 

When I saw my new sprinkler controller had an option to handle drip irrigation, it got me considering connecting my drip irrigation as a new zone to my sprinkler system and letting the controller handle it! That research is ongoing and I will let you know when I tackle it!

Items I used:

bubbler

drip

thin tubing (1/4")

thick tubing (1/2")

elbow

T-joint

Tube Cutter

End Closure 

Your sprinkler head comes with a coupler attached, so you do not need to purchase those separately.

Summer Flowers

I am having so much fun in the yard. I frequently read tips on how to plan your garden so that there was always something in bloom, but I didn’t focus on that tip when I designed and planted my yard. I had a good plan, but then things change because a plant is not happy where you put it and needs to be moved or dies. And there was a lot of that going on for the first two years of my gardening at the new house. But this third year has been rewarding. I am getting to see a new bloom every day!

When I pick plants, I pick them because I like the color or shape. I’m definitely drawn to blues and reds. And I love purples. But I throw in some whites and yellows so that I am balanced. Some flowers bloom quickly and some linger. And it is really confusing when the plant label tells you it blooms in the “summer.” What part of summer? Early? Middle? Late? Spring flowers are easy. Spring is short (here in Alabama). We jump right into Summer. I shared the flowers in the yard that boomed in Spring. What bloomed after that post I will categorize as “Early Summer” and I will share in this post.

Early Summer

Stella d’Oro blooms in late Spring/early summer. It is one of the first daylilies to bloom. It disappears in the Winter, so you don’t want it to be the only thing in the flowerbed, unless you’re okay with a bare flowerbed for Winter.

Frost Proof Gardenia has a strong smell. I wrongly assumed that they needed shade and I had some water issues with their location and lost 2 of the four, and I think their issues affected their blooms this year. The bushes weren’t covered in white flowers like they usually are. And they actually rebloomed this year in late summer. Mine are just messed up right now, because I don't see anyone else's gardenias blooming. Frost Proof Gardenias won't die in the Winter like other gardenias, but they like the sun, so plant them accordingly.

Butterfly Bushes bloom in Spring and Summer. I have a darker blue one that I love the color on and it blooms earlier than my pink ones.

Mid Summer

Nikko Blue Hydrangea is a plant I want to love. The first two years, they bloomed pink. I worked to amend the soil and this year, they were more blue! Yay! One out of the 3 stayed pink, so I still have to work on it. I used the acidifier, and even put nails in the ground! But then I found Black Kow Manure. I put it on late in the season, but it was so beneficial for the hydrangeas! I cut off their blooms and a lot of green leaves sprouted. It was the most growth I've seen on the hydrangeas! I plan to put the manure on them three times next year and also cover them for the entire Winter. They only bloom on old growth and the Winter can kill them and then we start all over from the ground and lose the progress from the year before.

I call it my special coneflower, because it was an expensive coneflower! I had six, but I messed with them and only four came back and then I transplanted them closer to the front door so they could be seen. They have been blooming non-stop.

Coneflower comes in many colors, and I have the one that is the “normal” or “common” one to find that is cheap.

I do have another type of coneflower called “Pow Wow – Berry.” It, too, was in a different spot and I loved it so it could be seen. It is a nice pop of color by the side porch.

Black-eyed Susans bring that yellow color in where you need it. They are a perennial that disappears in the Winter and spreads. I took some babies from the larger plants and spread them out so that I could cover more area. The bunnies love my baby plants and eat them each time I transplant them.

BabyMoon Café Daylily is a larger daylily that blooms later than the Stella. It was given to me by a neighbor when he got it off the clearance rack at Lowes. I had it where my special coneflower was, but because it got so tall and blocked the plants behind it from view, I needed to move it. I moved it out near the utility boxes to give the neighbors something pretty to look at. It has a beautiful bloom and performs nicely.

Did you know that Hostas bloom? I have several different varieties and they all have white flowers.

Late Summer

Limelight hydrangeas are my favorite hydrangea because of their ease to care for. I cut them back in the winter and don’t have to worry about protecting them if they start coming back and we are expecting a frost. They bloom heavily and the blooms last into Winter. I leave the blooms on until Christmas and then I cut them off.

Crepe Myrtles love heat. I had several at the old house, but chose to only have one at the new house. I train them into trees with the trimming, but once they are good, I stop trimming them and let them be. Each tree has a different shape. I liked the shape of this one and the pink color. It goes with the butterfly bushes near it. (I never took a picture of the Crepe Myrtle blooming this year.)

Summer is a hard time period to make your yard look good. There’s a struggle to keep things watered. Spring is gorgeous with all the new blooms, but you cant forget that there are some pretty awesome plants that can keep the color alive through the summer.

Good luck!