Growing Dome Furnishings - Part 2

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With the weather turning nasty once again, it was time to work "indoors". So we went right back to our Growing Dome, where daytime temperatures hover from 25 to over 30 degrees C.

Now that our working benches have been installed on the circumference of the dome, it was time to address the hydroponic beds. Two weeks ago we decided to completely change the configuration originally based on our prototype. So this week it was time to implement the new concept.

Goodbye prototype...

Hello new tables.

The result are tall tables: 5 feet in height and ten feet in length. These can support two hydroponic beds one of which is 2 inches above the other.

These are tall but everything is within reach and will be more so once we work on our flooring. The height is also need to ensure we use gravity as much as possible so we do not need multiple pumps for water management.

In the end we decided to build 4 such tables, allowing for 8 beds. Below the tables we still have the option of implementing "Dutch buckets", although we prefer to first get a steady-state system up and running.

Our final set-up.

This configuration now allows us to fit a couple of small trees for the dome (we are currently thinking Figs), as well as an arbor for climbing vines.

Now we need to work on the water management system. This will prove more difficult than the original prototype but we have some good ideas on how we might want to do this. The problem is we cannot do much right now since our tank is somewhat depleted of water, and our pipes running to the well are frozen.

We did have some respite from the bitter cold and snow this week, and in the few days of relatively reasonable temperatures, we also had a chance to continue our pruning. With the difficult Kiwis completed, it was time to turn our attention to a couple of Mulberry trees.

We discovered we had quite a few Mulberry trees growing wildly on the farm last June. These two trees were in the middle of an area we had decided to clear. Since they fruited rather well last year, we decided to spare them.

Two Mulberry trees ready for pruning.

Both of these are different varietals. One produced white berries, the other black; both are not indigenous to the area.

When these trees fruited in late June, we found that the berries were rather small and most were on the top portion of the crown of each tree. We decided to attempt to prune them with the objective of getting more and larger berries.

Although we found very little information on pruning Mulberry trees for fruit production, we decided to apply the same techniques as those used for other fruit trees such as Apple. Basically, clearing dead and diseased branches as well as suckers, and minimizing cross over to provide as much sunshine into the canopy.

Since these trees seemed to have never been pruned, it was quite an effort. The branching of these trees was a serious mess.

The hardest part is deciding where to start.

The Mulberry wood is similar to Apple, hard and heavy, so our pole pruning saw was essential to the operation.

Pruning a Mulberry tree,

In the end, we believe we have done as best we could. Now we await Spring (hopefully it will soon arrive) to see the impact of our work.

We had enough reasonable weather to also attack our old Pippin Apple trees. Last year, we cut them down dramatically just hoping they would survive....and they did.

This year, we did see some disease (particularly on one tree), which seems to have been caused by the vines which had grown on the trees before we arrived at the farm. The damage is quite noticeable on one tree where the bark has been peeling off in large sections.

Bark peeling away from a major branch on one of the Pippin Apple trees.

Oddly enough the most diseased tree was the only one to produce any Apples last fall (a total of 3!). They were too high to pick and by the time they fell they had rotten away so we could not finally identify the Pippin variety.

All of the trees showed significant sucker activity and a lot of new growth.

New shoots on one of the Pippin Apple trees.

Since the trees still seemed healthy, we decided to once again be aggressive (perhaps less than last year). Wherever possible we cut down some of the diseased limbs. We also removed a lot of suckers and new shoots, hoping to direct the tree growth to have a much more open canopy.

Another year of aggressive pruning for the Pippin Apple trees.

We're not sure how well these trees will perform for us in the long run. Either way, we know we have the potential to use healthy suckers to eventually propagate the variety should we need or want to.

We will close this week with one final task. Looking forward to Spring (yes we know it will eventually arrive), we managed to find a source of free manure...."black gold" to us.

The manure offered to us by a good friend was free primarily because it is horse manure. There are many stables in the area looking to dispose of this "waste". Horse manure is apparently not as popular as cattle or sheep manure when it comes to fertilizers. One of the reasons is the digestive track of the horse which is not as efficient as those of other herbivores. It turns out that horse manure can contain a lot of seeds based upon the pasture on which they graze, and of course these seeds can lead to weeds in our crops. The bedding, primarily wood chips, can also take up a lot of nitrogen as it decomposes which is not exactly great for plant growth.

Either way, given the amount of natural fertilizer we are starting to need, we certainly could not turn it down.

Loading up our free manure.

I never thought we'd be happy to "get a lot of shit". So I close this week by thanking our friends and of course the original producer.

Thank you!