Sustainable Home Farming                         Specs for your Home Farming Projects                                                                                         Seedling table, Compost unit, Potting                                                                                         bench, Compost sifter and Flats Margaret Lloyd 650-776-1003                                                                                                          Spring 2006 ________________________________________________________________________ Seedling table -roughly 15 sqft of table surface -roughly 1.5" spacing for the table top slats -waist height or lower (consider the room you need to water your flats with a watering can) -some way to protect it from critters:  Attach 4 vertical posts on the corners of the table top to support either bird netting or 1/2"hardware cloth. Obviously, there needs to be access into the area.  Access can be made from the front or from the sides.  If it is from the sides, I like having access into it on both ends. -I attach the two ends to wooden stakes that I simple lift up and down. I secure the bird netting simply with finishing nails that I hook it around. A more permanent alternative would be to use up to 1” hardware cloth. -During the winter, I transform it into a makeshift greenhouse.  I place a double-pane glass piece on the roof. If it gets really cold, I then wrap floating row cover (a cotton cloth) around the entire area. Compost unit --3'w x 9'l x3'h (basically 3 units that are 3x3x3) -8 corner posts (4x4's?) -in between the compartments, there would be sliding wooden slats, perhaps 6" slats. This is so that one can insert them as they build the compost, but also remove them to turn the compost into the adjacent compartment. -slats would also compose the front access to the compartments. -around all the rest (the sides and back end) I would like to put 1/2" hardware cloth (for ventilation and light) -I'm not sure that we will need to protect this from critters so I would rather not assume that to begin with, however, it would be nice to have in mind an easy way to put a hardware cloth cover on it (on a hinge of sorts) So just for the back of your mind. Potting Bench (a simple working table) -waist height -10-15 sq ft rectangle -perhaps a hook or two off the sides to hang things -a shelf under the table and close to the ground to store wooden flats Compost Sifter -it sits on a wheel barrow and is used to sift compost (by hand) -two wooden sides that allow it to rest on the wheelbarrow (so they extend beyond the middle section where the hardware cloth is) -hardware cloth is stretched between the 2 wooden sides and used to sift. The way that I've done it in the past is to sandwich the hardware cloth between 2 1x2's on each side. -There is also a piece that runs perpendicular to the side pieces that secures the top and bottom of the hardware cloth -For example, the total length of the 2 parallel wooden sides could be 4' and the section of hardware cloth would be 2' long by 1.5'wide. This would sit in the middle and 1' of the wooden side would overhang at both ends. Does that make any sense?! Flats -various sizes, the crucial factor being the depth 3” deep and 6”deep.  You will need more 3” deep flats than 6”deep flats - 4 x 8 x 3 - 8 x 8 x 3 - 8 x 8 x 6 -the bottom of the flats are wooden slats to allow for drainage (~1/8”)