Monday, March 16, 2009

Busy, busy, busy!

Here's both of our SunOvens. One is roasting a whole chicken, then other is baking some yams for snack-time.

Here are some of the plants that have moved FROM the HH house in the front rows, the back rows are plants that are supposed to go TO the HH house to fill the spaces of the plants we dug up. Why the swap? The front row plants are all edibles, the back row plants are not.

We're making room for 6 raised beds that are 3' x 8'. There will be a seventh bed that will be about 2' x 12'. Here's the first of the 6 that are going in. T is digging the ditches to make space for the second one. Thank you T for working so hard. (He had sore leg muscles the next days from digging so much!)
Here's another angle
In order to make room for the 6 large beds, we decided to move the Kumquat tree after much thought. We hope it will survive the transplant as it is getting warmer already. Dig, dig, dig and dig some more... whew!
Yes! We did it!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Looks like your garden is coming together - we also have the raised boxes in our garden.

Question for you on the solar ovens - I've been thinking of getting one. Does it have to be a real sunny day? I'm in the San Fernando Valley so our weather is similar -- would they have worked last week with the partly cloudy weather or is a week like this week best. Just wondering?

Sandra

AJK said...

Hi Sandra,

San Fernando is just a skip away from us! Hi neighbor! It helps to have a good sunny day for the sun ovens to maintain a good temp. Ours average about 250F. The chicken didn't cook all the way by the time the sun was too low, so we finished it in the regular oven. But we think it helps to save some of that natural gas if we get a head start with the solar oven first. During summer, the temps can go as high as 375F empty. It's all about the angling and staying on course with the sun's trajectory. Either you have to keep checking on it every 30 min or build yourself an automatic lazy-susan type thing that will follow the sun for you. I'd do it but I'm no engineer. I know there's a solar oven that is a hybrid. It has the ability to use electricty to maintain the temps if the clouds cover up the sun a while, or it can go solo on the sun. Don't quote me, but I think it can keep 400F. Which is great for breads and frying. I'd love to try it.

Anonymous said...

Hi right back at you neighbor -- thanks for the info. Sounds like at least on real hot days it would work well.

I do like the idea of the lazy susan though - you ought to patent it and find some one to build it for you :)

Take care and thanks for following my blog too.