Welcome to Bepa's Garden!
This blog is about organic gardening, healthy eating and healthy living.
Each month I will be posting Garden To-Do Lists, Tips & Techniques, Garden Project Plans, Photos from the Garden, Recipes and Book Reviews.
I hope you enjoy reading and I hope I can inspire others to start a backyard garden!
Happy Gardening!
~Rob~

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Friday, September 28, 2012

Greenhouse Plans Now Available!

Plans for the 6'-10" x 8'-0" hobby greenhouse are now available for purchase!

The plans come as a 33 page, 8-1/2" x 11" spiral bound booklet that contain:

- Full Materials List
- Full Cut Lists
- Step by Step assembly drawings
- Detail drawings for greenhouse and benches
- Templates to help cut angles
- Sources to purchase the greenhouse covering and vent opener

All the information you need to build a greenhouse for yourself!



This greenhouse design was developed out of the necessity for an inexpensive, sturdy, functional and aesthetically pleasing alternative to the aluminum and plastic panel greenhouses kits on the market today. It is easy to construct and the plans are broken down into simple steps with diagrams so that anyone can understand them and build a greenhouse for themselves.





I hope you enjoy building your greenhouse and I hope you get the pride and satisfaction of doing it yourself!

Happy Gardening!

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Greenhouse Plans


Greenhouse plans will be available soon!


I have had a lot of interest in the greenhouse that I built and wrote about in some of my posts so I have decided to offer plans for those who are interested on building one for themselves. This is a project that I have been working on for a while and now that the gardens are winding down and fall is settling in, I can finally get back to finishing. I hope to have the plans available soon!

 
The plans will consist of:
  • A full size set of drawings with all details to build the greenhouse, including the benches and optional roof vents (which I will be adding to my greenhouse this fall).
  • An 8-1/2" x 11" spiral bound instruction manual that will include step by step instructions with assembly drawings, materials list, templates, cut list, and resource to buy all the components like the (optional) automatic vent openers and plastic covering.
If you are interested in the greenhouse plans be sure to check back soon. I will post when they are available and you can also check the website where you can download the free cold frame plans.

Saturday, September 15, 2012

September Book Review



I just finished reading another great book called "The Heirloom Life Gardener" by Jere & Emilee Gettle. It's a book about a man's passion for saving  heirloom, open pollinated seeds which turned into a mission to preserve as many varieties of heirloom seeds as possible. The author, Jerre Gettle, is co-founder of The Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company where they sell over 1400 varieties of heirloom seeds. He also owns two other retail operations, The Petaluma Seed Bank in Petaluma California and Comstock, Ferre & Co. in Wethersfield, Connecticut.
In the book, Jere talks about how his passion for farming started at an early age, planting his first seeds at age 3. When he was 17 he started his first mail order seed company from his bedroom in Missouri, which quickly turned into a very successful business. He talks about his travels to Mexico, Thailand and other countries in search of new heirloom seeds to bring back to grow on his farm.

Jerre decided to start preserving heirloom seeds when he discovered that most of the seeds available today from big seed companies are either GMO (Genetically Modified) or Hybrid (which won't breed true and will revert back to one of it's parent types when saved). He began to realize that a lot of the old favorites were no longer available and set out to preserve as many as possible and to educate people about the importance of preserving seeds.

There is a food movement underway and more people than ever are starting to take back control over the quality of the food they put into their bodies by planting backyard gardens or buying locally from their organic farmers markets. Another step in that process is to grow heirloom varieties and save the seeds for next years garden. Heirloom varieties are open pollinated, non-GMO, non-hybrid and will grow true every time.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who is passionate about gardening, is interested in growing heirloom varieties and wants to learn more about saving seeds. This is definitely one that I will be adding to my library!