Methods to My Madness

Being a political animal in the center of the District of Calamity (sic), I was bemused by Democrat presidential candidate Mike Bloomberg’s put down of farmers.

As that callous quip grew into a full borne controversy, critics pointed out how scientific and refined is modern agribusiness.  It is much more refined than the crude characterization of subsistence farming.

At the same time, I have been educating myself about urban gardening techniques. I have quickly learned that there are a variety of gardening method: container gardening; permaculture; hydroculture, aquataculture, aeroculture et ali.   These techniques range from being quite thrifty to rather pricey.

Before one begins, it helps to discern what are one’s objectives.  I am not looking to get a photoshoot for Better Homes and Gardens.  I have a small space, so I am not going to dig up all of my “postage stamp” of a back yard. In fact, I want to keep some grass. I do not plan to feed the world with my yield, but in most cases supplement my cuisine and have some strategic ornamentals.   

Two other factors which dictate my druthers is that once the planting occurs, I hope to contain my daily drudgery to fifteen minutes a day. In addition, I need to start my gardening on a shoe-string budget.

I have pretty much discerned that it would be best for me to do container gardening. But even that choice has various permutations.  I already have a sill planter which acted as a pepper pot.  I have a planter with mint (aside from the mint which grows wild in the front yard).  I have a container that has been growing stunted hops for five years, but perhaps it will do better now.  The two Seedsheet containers (from Sharktank)  did not produce much, but the planters could be useful.

While I do have southern exposure sunlight, much of that space is taken by sidewalk. With some reordering, I believe that I could have a green wall, accomplished by a converted door shoe organizer that would be great for herbs.  

When a neighbor was renovating to flip the townhouse, I acquired a wrought iron security door, which I recognized would make for a good planter table, raised with some cinder blocks.  Since that is heavy duty, I should be able to do some global buckets (wicked planters) and bucket planters on the eastern light end of the property. 

The northern exposure side has hosted the compost pile and an improvised table for holding small planters.

My sitting area is the western exposure.  Presuming that there is sufficient sunlight, that may be where hop trellises are situated. I am also toying with the notion of growing microgreens with a bag method. 

If I were able to get my hands on a wood pallet, I would consider trying to convert it into a standing planter. The idea is intriguing but I am hesitant at how to get my hands on one, and my lack of handyman acumen at converting it.  It’s wonderful to conceptually knowing how to do it, but having the tools and the skill set is another matter. 

To better educate myself, I will attend a day long urban gardening seminar. The some of the topics seem interesting, but I bet that I’ll have to blend in wearing tie dye and “Imagining whirl peas” mindset.  At least it will provide an opportunity to exchange ideas and gauge if I am being overly ambitious with the methods of my madness.

Growing Aspirations

I live in a small townhome in practically the center of the District of Calamity (sic).  Since my quarters are so “intimate”, I have sought to utilize my urban back yard as an extension of my living room. When the weather is warm, I tend to spend my evenings sitting outside.

In the past, I have made some tentative steps to garden.  For years, I have maintained a small, in ground compost pile. Due to the presence of vermin, the only foodstuff which I compost are coffee and tea grounds.  Lately, I have started to supplement the compost with eggshells. I can see the contrast between the good soil in the compost area and the clay on much of the rest of the yard.

For the past couple of years, I have cultivated a few plants.  The pepper pot was pretty successful. I also managed to keep some herb plants alive, albeit without transplanting them out of the starter containers.

This spring, I am inspired to create more of an urban garden. Buoyed by the tantalizing taste of really fresh produce and considering the space limitations of a packed refrigerator, I hope to have some crops which supplement our groceries.  

I want to eat more salad.  Aside from liking the crunch of fresh vegetables, I know that it is healthier for me to have more fresh greens. My beloved likes bag salads mainly comprised of Iceberg lettuce or and baby carrots, both of which I find bland and have a short shelf life.  

 As an adult, I discovered that I liked spinach, as long as it was fresh (NEVER in a can or frozen) and that it worked as a mixed salad. But when we bought bagged baby spinach, it persistently got buried in the produce drawer and went bad. Personally, I like arugula, but that is something which others would pick out of a salad.  I also enjoy sprouts, but that does not suit my other half. Thus, I see growing some greens as an opportunity to get more of what I like with less of a chance of storage spoilage.

I also have nurtured an interest in cooking, which has a nexus with gardening.  I like to pickle but bristle at the grocery store price of Kirby cukes. I also had some price shock with dill. Buy growing them in a garden, it will be tasting fresh, presumably thrifty AND giving a sense of accomplishment.   While I am not a huge tomato enthusiast, fresh ‘maters in a salad or a sandwich might please my palate.

One other objective which I think could be accomplished by gardening is having some cover. I have longed to get a bicycle for short city trips, but there is no place to put it.  My shed is quite packed and there is no room in the abode.  The last time I locked a covered bike in the yard, some thief hacked the chain off when stealing the wheels (and he had time to enjoy a cigarette and a cheap can of beer).   Now that my satellite dish pole is redundant, I realized that it would make for a sturdy bicycle rack, but it would have to be obscured from street view.  

When some handy guys helped with some home improvements, one of the guys heard that I homebrewed so he wondered if I would want some hop rhizomes.  Since hops grow like gangbusters and they need a trellis for support, this might be a way to honor my homebrewing interest, do some fun gardening and provide camouflage during the growing season.

Even though I am interested in doing some gardening, I don’t want the pursuit to fully occupy all my free time. While the image of a city center rooftop garden, ala Green Card, might seem romantic, that is not my passion.  My neighbor is a fanatical gardener, but she seems to concentrate on flora and her yard is cluttered with pots (of the garden variety).

After planting, I hope to limit maintenance to fifteen minutes a day.  

Metanoia

Even though putting architectural dreams to paper is intriguing, the reality it is a long aways off for us.  But that doesn't mean that the exercise of "Containing Yourself" is for naught. For me, it is being thrifty, thoughtful and unconventional in re-utilizing things in a way that furthers one's life.

Keeping such notions in mind, when I look at buildings, many times I think about the construction methods or the utility of a layout.  When I see architectural plans for residential housing, I contrast it to the anticipated lifestyle and think about how I would modify it.

These Containing Yourself thoughts are not relegated to the future, but also the here and now.  I have been know to collect some "Future Clutters", odds and ends that I believe will be useful for some future project.

For instance, when we switched out a dying refrigerator, I felt compelled to save the crisper drawers, the glass shelves and the plastic door shelves.  The glass shelf can be overlayed on the stove to temporarily expend counter space in what we affectionately call our current "One Butt Kitchen" with limited counter space. The Crisper Bin will serve well as a container when using the immersion Sous Vide cooker.  And I am toying with incorporating the door shelves as part of a vertical garden.

When the neighbor sought to flip the adjacent townhome, he replaced the security door. Initially, I thought that the glass on that door would be a good replacement for our broken pane, but it didn't quite fit. But I realized that if it were raised by some cinder blocks, it would make for a sturdy table for container gardening, especially with Earth Boxes (or Global Buckets).

My metanoia is to consciously incorporate the lessons of Containing Yourself of  thriftiness, ingenuity, and unconventionality to improve my life today, without being overwrought or too clever by half.

Mastering Goldilocks

My Initial Inklings was to have habitat wings which were mostly left unmodified, save a window or door reinforcement.   A friend eager to offer feedback on the Cargotecture design likened the design to be barracks-like.  That may be the military mind's eye at work, but it does track to have common space separated from the sleeping space and to entice occupants not to cave up in a bedroom.

While I like that design concept in general, it runs into a glitch in the Master Bedroom and the adjoining suite.  My inclination was a linear approach which has a Master Suite with an enjoining en suite Master Bathroom and a Walk In Closet, although I vaccilated on the order of the adjunct spaces to the Master Bedroom.  This layout plan seems great, save one small detail-- the width of the room.

If only one cargo container used used for a Master Suite, it means that the rooms could only be 7.2 ft wide  By the time that insulation is added, that would probably make the room only 7" wide.  Sure, thats wide enough to accomodate a Queen sized bed, but only comfortably placed in one direection  and it would necessitate narrow sides for access.

A facile solution would likely be to fuse two containers together to get more width on a wing.  But there are a few snags with such a simple plan.  Obviously, it calls for using another container which doubles costs.  Then it needs to be welded together.  It would create a 14' wide room, which is luxurious but will be prone to be filled.  My gut tells me that this would be too big. The other rooms in the design would either be enlarged or significantly alter the layout.

The Master Bedroom design suggests a Goldilocks dilemma.  I don't want something too big or too small but just right.  I think if part of the wall of the Master Bedroom that is adjacent to the Great Room covered Breezeway was bumped out to 10', this would give navigation space to get around the Queen bed and an ability to place the bed horizontal or perpendicular to the flow of the room.  I suppose that with the cut out, there would have be be some reinforcement of a load bearing wall.

Keeping to the Initial Inklings, I anticipated that the enclosed breezeway would end 4 ft. before the wings, which would create a slight porch.  If part of the Master Bedroom was punched out to 10 ft., there would be an wide alcove in the front of the Master Bedrooom.  Some designers use that as a sitting area near a window to give the illusion of space.  Perhaps a built in or dresser could go there too. But it might be prudent to put the walk in closet in that alcove instead.  The only downside to this would be a lack of sunshine from a front window. The natural light could be compensated by a side window.

Finding My Inspiration

The building which persuaded me that Cargotecture could be pretty and practical home was
a so called modern farmhouse designed by Jon Meier and Backcountry Containers for a DIY show Containables.  The concept was to have two parallel 40 ft. HC containers connected by an enclosed breezeway.  I appreciated how the design used wings to have secluded space balanced by open gathering spaces in the great room and kitchen.

My initial Sketchy Plans extrapolated from the concept without seeing the schematic.    I had to guess at the dimensions and make logical deductions based on the brief video snippets of the design and the finished project. But after I tried my hand in CAD, I found the original plans which inspired me.

I was off on a couple of assumptions about "La Grange Getaway".  I did not think that there was any closet space, but all of the bedrooms had long but narrow closets.   There was also storage in the Master Bath.  The bedrooms were also bigger than I presumed.  The guest bedrooms were 14 1/2 ft. long, which especially made sense for the "bunk room" that housed the grandkids.  The Master Bedroom was 16 ft. 9", which was a couple of feet longer than I thought. The covered breezeway was just 15 ft. wide, when I thought that it was 20 ft.  There was also a 8' x 7' utility room that did not make the features reel.

While I was wrong that there was no storage space, the name "La Grange Getaway"  indicates that it was a weekend type retreat rather than a forever home.

I am grateful that Dwell.com published this Backcountry Container layout plan.  The design has been a great inspiration, but I have discerned ways that it would be customized to eventually become my dream home.

Sketchy Plans

Rather than to try my hand at drawing up a concept of my own Cargotecture  (and ending up with a pile of crumbled pieces of paper),  I sought to use some free CAD software.   

While I consider myself pretty computer adept, I struggled with the trial software to get it to rotate objects.  Still, I was able to draw up a concept of the home that I have in mind.  I would not want an architect to dutifuly build off of these sketchy plans, lest I mistakenly construct an 18 inch replica of Stonehenge ala  "This is Spinal Tap".  

"This Is Spinal Tap" (1982) Stonehenge concert scene

My inability to rotate objects meant that I could not accurately show the notion of having most of the kitchen go against the wall of the guest wing. Moreover, I could not insert closets, most notieably lacking a coat closet in the formal front.

I also did not place where I would want a pantry, laundry area and a WC/Powder Room/ (or possibly a Wet Room), nor did it include the storage areas at the rear of each wing. 

Initial Inklings

My concept is to use two parallel 45 ft. (or 40 ft. if necessary) containers connected by a covered 25 ft. (or 20 ft.) interor courtyard that would act as a great room and full kitchen.  There would be a 20 ft. by 45 ft (40 ft) cement foundation for the breezeway. One wing would effectively be a Master Suite, with a bedroom, en suite bathroom and a walk in closet.  The other wing would have a guest bedroom, a media room, a bathroom (maybe just a WC, or a wt room), a mud room (with a pantry and laundry area) and storag

Since the breezeway does not extend to the far end of the containers, it creates a patio.This is welcome to push living outward.  Conceivably, this be like a deck, pergola or a sunroom.

 By having the roof extended into the patio, this would create an indoor/outdoor covered area which would minimize heating and cooling. The roof above the outdoor patio may be usuable for attic storage.  The natural light could be provided by a clear roll up door.  The roof above the outdoor patio may be usuable for attic storage.  Prospectively, this would be 1180 sf of habitable space (or 1004 sf) with a 340 sf covered patio.

The downsides of expanding semi- conditioned space outward are twofold.  This approach kind of defeats the purpose of a Tiny House, necessitating cleaning and maintenance to yet another 340 sf of space.  The more important drawback is that the extended wings of the parallel container in an enclosed space would not provide adequate circulation for gas grilling or having a fire pit.

Another approach would be a deck.  This certainly would accomdate grilling and perhaps a fire element (though there might be flamability concerns).  Whether a deck is made of wood or composite, it will be worn by the weather and need maintenance and eventual replacement.  A fire element might not pass safety muster.

The third way is to create an extended patio.  To have low maintenance, I would anticipate extended the cement foundation outwards.  It might be possible to create a courtyard like effect with a gate.  As it is a large area, it could serve to be entertainment, grilling, brewing and have some light storage.  The cement foundation would require less maintenance.   I can eventaually envision a pergola, but would not be structurally necessary to be installed at the start.  In the meantime,  we could use pop up canopies and discern how best to proceed.