Hi all!

Thanks for the kind words Mike! I love the idea of miniroots.com. I am almost a 30 year veteran of IT, networks and telecom as well as a Navy Vet. I have spent more time that I want to inside dark cold datacenter rooms. I needed a change.

A few years ago my wife and I decided to move from our home in the closer suburbs of Washington DC to a much large piece of land in the ex-burbs of washington DC. We found a place that was set up for a miniroots like heaven. I am blessed with the following set up. We have a 48×72 foot fenced in garden with a 4×8 foot raised bed inside the fenced in area – fencing is important as it keeps the deer away. We were lucky that the previous owners put in a green house 8×12 foot with concrete floor, drainage electricity and water all built in to it. We also have a 4×8 foot raised bed between the house and the green house and have used it for our tomatoes and some herbs.

Here you can see the setup – the Garden is fenced in area behind the trampoline:

We then added chickens and after some fits and starts on how to best manage them we built a 25×50 foot enclosed run with a coop in the center of it. In our learning curve we had a 4 foot fence then a 6 foot fence then a 6 foot covered fence. They kept getting out – and my 12 year old Labrador retriever kept killing them – until we put a net over the top of it. I am not sure what I was more surprised with the chickens getting out or the fact that my old dog can still hunt. Any way – I am happy to say my 7 hens and 2 roosters are safely in their run all day and have not gotten out in quite some time. We grow mostly food for our consumption, I really want to show my children how to create their own food and how much work it takes. So far it seems to be working.

Here is our Chicken run. I found 1/2in PVC and 1/2in rebar driven into the ground makes a strong and affordable netting support for the roof:

In the green house this fall we planted some lettuce, peas and green beans:

Getting our first Green bean since planting them in early October!

So as you can see I am blessed and we are setting up a small mini-roots cropping area not too far outside of Washington DC and looking forward to helping, sharing and mostly eating the great food grown locally with my new miniroots family!