To potentially save you a big headache sometime, you may want to consider making the tank fittings all the same material. The pvc expands at a different rate from the brass and you run the risk of splitting something. Lots of people get away with it but I drained a 3000 gallon tank making that mistake.
In reply to bearmtnmartin (Forum Supporter) :
That's what they sold me when I asked them to put a package together for me.
Good to know though. Thanks.
I've found the plastic ball valves seize up after a while. Is there a way to stop that?
Good question. They do get quite sticky. I sell an internally lubricated valve that does not do that but it doesn't come large enough for your purpose. I have never looked that closely but Southern sells both red and blue handle valves and I want to say one is more expensive than the other so perhaps one is better than the other. I think they are both made by Spears.
Weather is awful today so we went grocery shopping, then spent some time in the woodshop getting a few things ready for the market on Saturday.
After dinner I worked on the kayak. Bottom stringers going on, I'm almost out of lumber and screws
Morris, the basement cat is supervising.
We're having a spring storm and it's ugly outside.
I built a fire in the wood stove and made a few pens.
Got a market coming up this weekend, hopefully they will sell.
Today I learned that the water from my well, after the filters but before the reverse osmosis system is too saline for my plants.
That would be why the plants in my greenhouse have been suffering lately. The water line has thawed out and that's what feeds the greenhouse.
Tomorrow's project will be switching the feed from filtered water to r/o water.
Bugger.
This means I can't irrigate the garden from the well, which was going to be a backup for the dugout pond.
The filtered water has a tds of 200,000ppm. Plants like less than 500ppm.
The r/o water is 25ppm
I did some research and this is normal for deep wells in my area.
I tested my dugout water. 250ppm.
That's a relief. My main irrigation source is ok.
If I need to bring in water, the local reservoir is only a couple miles away and a key is cheap.
Yay, farming is fun...
Busy day.
Got my water system sorted out.
Planted spinach, lettuce and marigolds in the grow house, they should be ready to go out in a couple weeks.
Serviced my 48" rough cut mower and got it set up to work with my tractor's quick hitch.
Moved the chickens to their new coop.
They're getting big fast.
Moved an old auger that came with the property to its new spot where it will be used to hang our farm sign.
Drove to the next town over to pick up a sweet little Rockwell 6" jointer for $50. Works great too.
Took pictures of some buildings for the insurance company, dealt with some gopher traps and figured how much discharge hose I'm going to need to pump water into my irrigation tank.
After dinner I have to go see my neighbor, he wants to sell me some tools.
This looks like too much fun.
ShawnG said:
After dinner I have to go see my neighbor, he wants to sell me some tools.
yeah, that's a good reason to visit!
Lol.
I ended up buying tools.
Three bolt bins for the shop and a big pile of Ryobi cordless tools. His batteries are shot but mine are working good. Now I have a set of cordless tools I can use for farm stuff and I won't cry if they get dropped in a puddle.
Busy again today.
Went to see our accountant again for some clarification on getting our business running.
Stopped at the irrigation shop to buy discharge line for my pump. Now I can pump water from the dugout to the tank.
Bought the electrical supplies to power the pump sub-panel from the grow house. 150' of 10/4 cable set me back $600+
Stopped at the seed supplier and picked up my seed potatoes and onion sets.
Bought a walk behind garden seeder while I was there. This opens a furrow, drops a seed at a predetermined spacing and depth, then closes the furrow after. Beats doing it by hand.
Picked up my new rototiller. This should work much better.
Got home and met with my neighbor who rents 30 acres from me to sort out our arrangement for this year.
Got a call from the city water people about our water line. Now that the mess with the previous owner is done. It turns out that I need to pay $400 per year for the connection, even if I don't use it.
If I don't pay the maintenance fee, they have to come dig it up and cap it. If I want it put back, it's about $20k to put it back in.
If I use city water, it will be another $1600 per year minimum.
Looks like they've got me. A city water line adds a lot of value to the property, plus if my well has problems in the dead of winter, I'm going to have do dig through a few feet of snow to find it, then try to fix the problem at -30c. If I have the water hookup, it's a phone call and a couple days to make it work again. Then I can fix the well in the summer.
$400 yearly it is. -sigh-
More work tomorrow.
New tiller works great.
Spent yesterday tilling the garden.
Moved the manure pile and tilled the potato and onion patch.
And added a flower garden so we can sell cut flowers as well.
Today I planted two beds of onions, one red and one yellow. The white stuff is floating row cover to keep the bugs out.
Big market coming up next weekend so I glued up some pen blanks as well.
Service advisor at the dealership called me and said I had to buy two tires, not just one, because there was too much size difference between the new tire and the old one. 6/32 difference he said.
I asked how 3/16" difference would make a problem.
He replied "it's hard on the differential"
I asked him to explain, exactly why it would be hard on the diff.
His answer was "the tires will turn at different speeds so the gears won't mesh properly".
Long, long pause from me.
Me: "I'll take my chances with replacing just one tire".
He also tried to sell my wife a transmission flush.
I may have a chat with them when I pick up the truck.
As a born and raised Saskatchewan-er, I have concerns about all your stuff freezing...it's only the end of April. We could still get a foot of snow.
In reply to Streetwiseguy :
Noted.
Onions sets are OK to go in 4-6 weeks before the last frost or "as soon as the ground can be worked" as they say. They like cool soil.
I've held back half of my sets to go in later for fall onions as well.
Peas, spinach, lettuce, turnips and radishes should be able to go in soon as well.
Most stuff is going to have to wait until May long weekend at least.
get rid of "-ial" and differential becomes different. that might be too much for Mr Two Tire Upsell to grok.
Busy again today.
Yes, I'm about a week or two early with my onion planting, according to USask. Going to cross my fingers.
Raked some of the straw mulch off of the garlic beds to let them warm up. Had to stop part way through because the wind came up and made it pointless to fork straw into a wheelbarrow.
My neighbor who runs the co-op showed up to drop off some chicken feed. He brought his skid-steer pallet forks which work on my tractor so we put them to use unloading my water tank.
Put it in place on the pad I raked and leveled yesterday. Got it pretty close to level too.
Got my pump out and filled the tank. 2200 gallons took about half an hour.
Then we went to town to get the mail and sign the service contract with the water people.
During the drive there, Two-tires phoned me to tell me that my extended warranty covered the blown tire but if I had changed my mind, I could still buy the second tire. I declined and asked him to just replace the one tire under warranty.
Almost forgot. The co-op also delivered my fence posts yesterday. This is what $1500 worth of fence posts looks like:
This is the last of the planned, large expenses. Everything is here now, all I need to do is build.
Feeling like we're finally making progress.
Planted some Atlantic Giant pumpkin seeds today. Going to try for a huge pumpkin just for fun. Maybe get some folks out to the farm to buy pumpkins in the fall.
Finished the electrical and water hookup for the irrigation. Everything works great!
Started laying out irrigation lines. Need to bury the parts where the tractor will be crossing them.
And I joined the volunteer fire department today.
For practice, we washed a grain conveyor. Lol.
I wonder if those Atlantic giant pumpkin seeds are sourced from the Windsor Nova Scotia area. They grow them big enough to put people in them and call it a boat race.
In reply to 1SlowVW :
I know they were developed by a guy from the East coast in the 1970s.
I expect to have a picture of a pumpkin car sometime this fall, based on the technology shown below.
Planted my potatoes today. Russet, Caribe, Yukon Gold, Warba and Chieftain. The last three varieties were just small amounts from a sample pack to see how they do.
Had a couple rows of space in the last bed so I put in a row of spinach and a row of radishes to fill the space.
Drip irrigation is in and some row cover to give the seedlings a chance to get big before bugs and varmints start nibbling on them.
Turned some more pens too.
Found a tick on me after working in the garden.
Little buggers are out already.
Our surplus roosters will be put to work up at the house to try and keep the tick population under control.
Planted a 100' bed of rhubarb transplants today. Installed drip lune and mulched.
Went to get the mail and came back by a different route that brings me home from the other side of the property. Looking in one of my fields, I see some junk in the grass I hadn't seen before.
Looks like the foundation for an old pump shed.
Then I tripped over something and found some abandoned fencing supplies in a pile. Two nearly full rolls of wire and a couple part rolls of short mesh fence.
I dug the first one out and put it in a wheelbarrow, nearly having a heart attack in the process.
A roll of wire like that is a couple hundred bucks now. I can't trust it to hold up in a high tensile fence but I can put it to other uses. Going to need trellis for the garden.
I got my tractor and used the loader to carry the rest.
Then I discovered that my poly greenhouse had hit 45c today and most of the plants were toast.
I had moved the stuff out there that was not doing well because of the water issues before, they weren't recovering so I made space in the grow house.
I took the plastic off of the sides of the dome greenhouse and composted the dead plants. I'm going to put insect netting on the dome frame and use it to harden off transplants before they go in the garden
Oh well, just an opportunity to do better next time.
Then I planted a 50' row of snap peas and a 50' row of romaine lettuce.
The row cover will stay on until the peas are big enough to need a trellis, the lettuce can stay under until harvest.
Not sure if this would work for you, we put one of these Bluetooth thermometers in our greenhouse to keep tabs on things:
But I'm not sure if the range would be effective on your property.
In reply to eastpark :
My grow house is climate controlled using a Mysa thermostat and an Inkbird temperature controller.
I have a remote thermometer the poly in greenhouse.
The poly greenhouse was also a trial to see if one would work for us.
The temperature swings here seem too extreme for something that isn't automated.
It goes from 4c at night to 45c in the day and it's just too much to manage manually.
Also, by the time it's warm enough for things to handle night time temps in an unheated greenhouse, it's also warm enough in the day for them to just be outside.
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