Here is part of my garden this past year...
Posted on 07/24/2009 3:37:21 AM PDT by nw_arizona_granny
Weekly Roundup - Living On Nothing Edition Category: Roundups | Comments(15)
Did you hear about the guy that lives on nothing? No seriously, he lives on zero dollars a day. Meet Daniel Suelo, who lives in a cave outside Moab, Utah. Suelo has no mortgage, no car payment, no debt of any kind. He also has no home, no car, no television, and absolutely no “creature comforts.” But he does have a lot of creatures, as in the mice and bugs that scurry about the cave floor he’s called home for the last three years.
To us, Suelo probably sounds a little extreme. Actually, he probably sounds very extreme. After all, I suspect most of you reading this are doing so under the protection of some sort of man-made shelter, and with some amount of money on your person, and probably a few needs for money, too. And who doesn’t need money unless they have completely unplugged from the grid? Still, it’s an amusing story about a guy who rejects all forms of consumerism as we know it.
The Frugal Roundup
How to Brew Your Own Beer and Maybe Save Some Money. A fantastic introduction to home brewing, something I’ve never done myself, but always been interested in trying. (@Generation X Finance)
Contentment: A Great Financial Principle. If I had to name one required emotion for living a frugal lifestyle it would be contentment. Once you are content with your belongings and your lot in life you can ignore forces attempting to separate you from your money. (@Personal Finance by the Book)
Use Energy Star Appliances to Save On Utility Costs. I enjoyed this post because it included actual numbers, and actual total savings, from someone who upgraded to new, energy star appliances. (@The Digerati Life)
Over-Saving for Retirement? Is it possible to “over-save” for retirement? Yes, I think so. At some point I like the idea of putting some money aside in taxable investments outside of retirement funds, to be accessed prior to traditional retirement age. (@The Simple Dollar)
40 Things to Teach My Kids Before They Leave Home. A great list of both practical and philosophical lessons to teach your kids before they reach the age where they know everything. I think that now happens around 13 years-old. (@My Supercharged Life)
Index Fund Investing Overview. If you are looking for a place to invest with high diversification and relatively low fees (for broader index funds with low turnover), index funds are a great place to start. (@Money Smart Life)
5 Reasons To Line Dry Your Laundry. My wife and I may soon be installing a clothesline in our backyard. In many neighborhoods they are frowned upon - one of the reasons I don’t like living in a neighborhood. I digress. One of our neighbors recently put up a clothesline, and we might just follow his lead. (@Simple Mom)
A Few Others I Enjoyed
* 4 Quick Tips for Getting Out of a Rut * Young and Cash Rich * Embracing Simple Style * First Trading Experience With OptionsHouse * The Exponential Power of Delayed Consumption * How Much Emergency Fund is Enough? * 50 Questions that Will Free Your Mind * Save Money On Car Insurance
Neo, I post the thread every Friday morning we have many interests going on the thread and FReepers from novice to Master Gardeners participating. Stop by and chat.
Amazing, isn’t it? I can’t begin to tell you the ‘trash picked’ useful items that grace my home, LOL!
The rest of the main furniture pieces are antiques that have been in my family for generations. I’m continually amazed that furniture stores stay in business, but I’ve heard that some people buy whole rooms of new furniture, FINANCED, every few years! Eeeeek!
Being trapped in a furniture store is my idea of ‘Hell,’ LOL!
“Such blatant waste just to appease Big Brother.”
Makes me absolutely heartsick... :(
It’s disgusting.
But the stores could do better themselves.
When something is close to its expiration date or produce is not quite perfect, they need to mark it down. WAY down; not just the token amount that I’ve seen them do.
Some stores do do that but the markdowns aren’t really enough to get people to buy something that they may have to cut almost half out of.
But if they sell it, they’re selling it and not losing money and not wasting food.
Here is part of my garden this past year...
Looks great.
I understand root crops, but why not beans? They grow bushy like peppers and tomatoes.
We mulched our leaves last fall and added a layer of that to the garden. I have some compost to add, but the best if the fertilizer I get from a friend’s farm.
I’ll spread a layer of everything over the garden and mr.s mm will be rototilling it in well.
We have great soil in our area, but adding nutrients never hurts.
>>>“10 items or less” ... You’ll never see me there. <<<
LOL, Sometimes I do, like last week I picked up the only 6 hams that they had displayed on sale for .99 / pound.
Brought them home, sliced as many 3/4” ham steaks as I could (don’t have that big of a bandsaw, so I cut around bone after slabbing it with a knife) and freeze them then what is left is the bone with some meat which I freeze for soups. So, one $8 ham yielded 7 steaks, 2 pkgs diced (for omelets)and a really meaty soup bone. Those steaks get split 3 ways and are a very nice portion.
Since there weren’t any other ‘real’ bargains, that was all I bought there.
>>>Being trapped in a furniture store is my idea of ‘Hell,’ LOL!<<<
LOL, particularly with a passel of sales people, all with sales quotas to meet...
I don’t like to cut long furrows in the ground cover, because it lasts for years. I put down a 10’ wide one 6 years ago and it is still good, then I put down two 15’ ones two years ago. I rotate the crops so that the same thing is not planted in the same hole for 3 years. Broccoli loves it and as you can see, tomatoes, peppers and swiss chard too.
Only problem is that you can’t get much organic matter under it once it is laid. This forces me to use chemical fertilizer sprinkled on the cover where it dissolves and trickles through the mesh. (it is a woven poly) But it works great. Looks like the oldest strip will be good for a couple more years, then I will take it up and work in lots of compost/manure.
Our garden is not huge but I actually raked up the broken down and rotted straw and picked up the landscape fabric.
For the garden, the strips are about 2 feet wide and 10 feet long so they’re manageable for picking up and putting down every year. Being able to roto-till in the fertilizer helps keep the crops from depleting the soil but I do rotate the crops anyway.
In 2009 I bought a huge load of mulch and laid about half the roll of landscape fabric around the foundation of our house and covered it with the mulch and it made maintenance around the house SOOOO much easier. And it looks MUCH better without the weeds all over the place. I’ll have to get a small load this year and top dress it just to have it look nicer.
We have a sandy loam, so we have advantages and disadvantages - seldom too wet to work, but dries quickly. I put a heavy layer of compost & manure on half of it every year. Then I plant spring oats in the fall and let it winter-kill (about 8”) and till it in the following spring.
I am able to get quite a bit of horse manure for the hauling. (one of the few advantages of the race-tracks and casinos around here) Then I add my chicken manure, leaves and grass clippings to compost for about 10 weeks or more before I spread it.
I have tried straw mulch quite a few times over the years, but it always seems to get blown away. Seems just when you need it in the rows, the wind moves it away... LOL
Yeah, I noticed that about the straw as well, but once it gets a little more matted down and walked on, and the plants get bigger, it tends to stay in place better.
I like to put it over the landscape fabric for two reasons. One is that I think it protects the landscape fabric from too much deterioration from the sun and the elements.
The other is that it just plain looks better.
Impressive. Is there a brand name? The weeds always get away from me when I travel on a two week vacation in July. This would go far in dealing with that issue.
I am not a master of anything, but a jack of many trades. I have been gardening for most of 40 years in addition to farming some and raising a few head of cows and chickens, hunting my fair share of deer, and fishing like a fool. Fishing is really my hobby and I do it with a passion in my farm pond, in Alaska every two years (this usually nets 100-150 lbs of salmon, halibut, and Ling Cod), and a couple of times in the Caribbean. As a country boy, I have learned how to survive, live well, and I can dang sure skin a buck.
Thank you, I will check them out.
I use oat straw on top of my landscape fabric also there are pictures of it in my garden pics on my homepage. I have not had a problem with it being blown away!
I’m using Lumite ground cover from http://www.griffins.com
It is on page 138 of their catalog. Got it from them as I was buying other greenhouse supplies from them and they deliver here. (would suggest finding local source as shipping would be very expensive)
I started with a 10 X 100’ roll and then when I liked it so well, I decided to get the 15’ 6” X 300’- I put down two 100’ runs of it and figured I would use the last one to replace the 10’, but it just keeps going on and on, year after year. I originally thought it would last 3, maybe 4 years, but the original is now 6 and looks like there are a couple more years at least left.
You do need to use an abundance of ground staples to hold it down, and put some in the middle too otherwise it will try to balloon with wind and then pull the ground staples. Once I did that, I have had absolutely no problems with it.
To plant, I took a piece of 2” pvc pipe and cut it at about a 30 degree angle, making a sharp point. I use mallet and punch hole and remove plug all at the same time.
First round of seeds planted!
Tomatoes, peppers, broccoli, celery, tobacco, cabbage are all started.
I decided to try a suggestion I got from one of the growers on a High Tunnels mailgroup I subscribe to - that when using cell packs in a 10 X 20 solid tray, to leave one cell empty for easy bottom watering and monitoring. I rolled a piece of paper and fitted it in one cell, then filled the others. Worked great - reduces disease problems from top watering and you can pour the water in and see the level. Will be making that a standard practice.
As I got out my seeds, I paused and looked at my old Seedmaster Vibrating Hand Seeder... That always looked like a neat idea, but every time I tried to use it, the static electricity made the tiny seeds cling all in the wrong places, and made seeding hard. Decided to try something - took a dryer fabric softener/static reducer sheet and wiped the seeder and the area where I was going to be seeding. It worked! Seeds started behaving like they should! Another standard practice for the future, LOL...
Just thought I would pass those along in hopes that they help someone.
Anyone else have any solutions they use and are willing to share?
Growing from seeds so gratifying
GROWING CONCERNS: Follow these tips and seeds should grow to seedlings just in time for planting in the garden
By DENISE HODGINS, Special to QMI Agency
Last Updated: February 12, 2011 12:00am
In my experience, if the seed packet recommends sowing four to six weeks before the last frost date, it’s better to pick the four- rather than the six-week date. (To calculate the sowing date, count back from your region’s last frost date; for us here in southern Ontario, that’s the third weekend of May.)
Don’t plant too deep: Avoid planting seeds deeper then they are wide. A seed that is planted too deep will use up all its stored energy before it reaches the surface of the soil.
Offer a light snack: Provide a mild dose of fertilizer (I use half strength) when the second set of leaves appear to help your seedling along.
Show them the light: To prevent seedlings from getting long and spindly keep them as close to a light source as possible.
Plastic bags: Seeds require even moisture to germinate. Create a small greenhouse to help maintain the soil moisture by placing a plastic bag over the seed pot. The plastic prevents drying, so further watering is often unnecessary until after the seeds germinate. Water the soil before sowing seeds so they aren’t washed out of the pot or driven too deeply into the soil.
Fans: Diseases such as “damping-off” like humidity, too. Proper air circulation is very important, keeping things moist but not too moist is important. Letting a fan blow gently over the seedlings will do the trick.
Heating mats: Seeds will respond to warmth, telling them it is time to wake up. Your house temperature might be fine but you will be surprised what a difference a few degrees makes in the speed of your seed germination.
Cardboard tubes: Instead of going to the garden supply store to buy biodegradable starting pots for seedlings, just use the cardboard tubes from paper towels and toilet paper. Use scissors to cut each toilet paper tube into two pots, or each paper towel tube into four. Fill a tray with the cut cylinders packed against each other so they won’t tip when you water the seedlings. This will also prevent them from drying out too quickly. Now fill each pot with seed-starting mix, gently pack it down, and sow your seeds. When it is time to plant the seedlings in the garden, make sure to cut the side of the roll and make sure the cardboard is completely buried.
Paper towel: Start seeds between pieces of damp paper towel. Keep the towel moist until the seeds sprout, then plant them in containers filled with potting mix.
Vegetables: Leaf crops such as spinach, lettuce, chard, cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, tomatoes, plus the others can be started indoors in late February and March.
Cucumbers, squash, pumpkins plus the other warm weather vegetables can be started indoors in late March and April or planted directly in the ground after the threat of frost has passed.
Seeds: Annual and vegetable seed packets can be put in the refrigerator for a couple of days before being seeded. This helps to break the dormancy period.
Treat them right: Check the packet again, and, if instructed, aid germination by soaking, pre-chilling or scarifying (abrading the outer shells with sandpaper or slitting with a sharp knife) the seeds.
Keep it clean: If reusing, sterilize the seed trays and pots with a weak bleach solution and always use sterile soil. If using your own soil instead of a commercial mix, spread it in a shallow pan and set in a 180 C (350 F) oven for 30 minutes to sterilize it.
Just grow what you need: Starting your own seeds is an inexpensive way to create your own plants, but only if you need them. So, if you want only two tomato plants, don’t plant an entire pack (unless you have a friend to share them with).
Lighting: The hardest element to provide indoors is light. It’s possible to start seeds in a room or on a window sill that receives a full day (at least eight hours) of bright light. Most gardeners will need to supplement their seedling lighting with special plant or grow lights that simulate the full spectrum of the sun. Even then, the lights will need to be left on for 12 - 15 hours per day, for your seedlings to grow as strong and healthy as they would in sunlight.
Labelling: Be sure to label each container with the plant name and date sown. Popsicle sticks are perfect for indoor containers. Commercially available plastic or metal labels from nurseries are better for the outdoors.
Starting seeds can be a lot of work but the satisfaction that comes from the finished product to this gardener is well worth it. Remember for any seed starting supplies or if you have any questions please contact your local independent garden centre.
Denise Hodgins holds an Ontario diploma in horticulture. Growing Concerns is produced by Van Horik’s Greenhouses and Heritage Country Gardens. Send your gardening questions to Home, c/o The London Free Press, P.O. Box 2280, 369 York St., London, Ont., N6A 4G1, fax 519-667-4528 or e-mail john.ryan@sunmedia.ca and we’ll try to respond in future columns.
http://www.lfpress.com/homes/gardening/2011/02/10/17224366.html
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