Homesteading

[joncutt87]

Glad to hear that the trip went well, and you got back safe. We pulled in from our trip to Orlando at about 10:30.

 

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[texasred777]

Deep, I've really enjoyed this thread, as I have mentioned before. I hope it keeps going. I hope you have an easier time of it in the future! You've really had a tough one this winter.

 

[Mad Machinist]

Here's something interesting for you: Rocket Stove Mass Heaters

 

[Molemann]

Good advice! I'm so overwhelmed by keeping the house warm at 10 degrees right now - but that is at this very moment.

I'm burning every darned thing that lays on the ground right now - the easy wood. Two chain saws, with one down at present - that's why I have two. I'm laying out my garden spots with CAD, and will be subscribing to Vegetable Garden Planner Vegetable Garden Planner Design Your Best Garden Ever - MOTHER EARTH NEWS for gardening vegetables, and from what I've read, it's well worth the $25 a year. That gives me companion plants, spacing, expected production, tips and tricks, and a good start at feeding myself.

I will survive, and I will thrive. My plan is a 5 year plan. This Spring and Summer, and then Fall, I'm growing (hopefully) enough to make the grocery store go away for the most part. And I plan a huge pile of wood for next Winter.

From a thin but rather out of shape dude a couple months ago, I'll be toting bigger logs next year.

And all those bad habits of laziness, inappropriate consumptions, and rather poor unhealthy life prior to this adventure - next year will be very different.

Did ya know that a finely tuned 140 sq ft, will feed a person all the vegetables he could eat for a year? That's possible! Thus the garden planning continues. What I lack most for that right now is the mulch, compost, and essentials I need for the gardens coming up around the first of March here. Those will have begun next week when the cold passes and I'm not so possessed by feeding the stove hourly.

Keep the faith, and the adventure will continue

Just remember, concentrate on building ur soil. Without good soil, you'll be without good veggies.
Compost...Compost...Compost!!!!!!

 

[BIGSCOTT]

Great advice Molemann, also remember covercrop...covercrop...covercrop. peanuts are great for the soil in summer, and cereal grains in the fall, alfalfa also.

 

[BIGSCOTT]

Mad Machinist lets hear more about those forklift batteries. I have looked into going solar, not even using a inverter, just keep it 12 volt dc, lights radio, dont care much for tv.

 

[DeepseekerADS]

New people here!!! Great! Bigscott & Molemann, you guys can help us all out! Let'r rip!

 

[Oregon Viking]

That's to damn cold!!
We have been averaging mid 60's here.....sorry.
But it was 39 last night!
Stay warm..

 

[DeepseekerADS]

That's to damn cold!!
We have been averaging mid 60's here.....sorry.
But it was 39 last night!
Stay warm..

Now, how can I "Like" that post my friend? I'm danred tired of cutting firewood. I expected to have beds built by now

 

[Mad Machinist]

Mad Machinist lets hear more about those forklift batteries. I have looked into going solar, not even using a inverter, just keep it 12 volt dc, lights radio, dont care much for tv.

I'll dig up the notes I have on them. Can't remember everything.

For most of it, you'll need an inverter unless your willing to live without refrigeration and a whole lot of other amenities. For the most part, it comes down to whether or not you wire the batteries in series or parallel.

Most will tell you that forklift batteries are not the answer because they cannot have cells "replaced" without specialized equipment or that your playing with lead so that demon comes up. Give me some MAPP gas and some solder and it is easy.

To tell you the truth, all you need is a little bit of intelligence (above the burnt out lightbulb stage), some common sense, and a little bit of mechanical ability and you have it made.

Like I said give me a little bit to review the notes and I will review what was done to our "hunting cabin".

 

[Mad Machinist]

I've been away for about a week, returned home to the stove yesterday afternoon. Now my son is back in Detroit safely, and my daughter had a date last night with a new fellow = I'm certainly interested in that!

As with all of us here in this thread - the weather keeps coming = sleet and freezing rain today. Getting up my driveway to the house yesterday was NOT a thrill. That continuous snow had turned hard packed and icy, but my 4WD came through, a couple of tough hills to climb had me on the edge of my nerves. Mom said I arrived just in time for the heating. She couldn't keep the fire going in the stove, and she was rationing the kerosene heater and covered herself in blankets. I guess I'm home now.... I think I'll go back to bed!

Deep,

First of all:

Don't take this the wrong way.

I have ALOT of family down that way. I was just waiting to see if you would run away when it got tough. Give me a way to get ahold of you off list and I pass it on to the rest of the crew. Once that is done, don't be surprised if you have things done for you. They'll watch for awhile and if they do it, it is all up to them.

I get back that way once in awhile and it is ALWAYS a party. Lots of food, lots of moonshine, and a few boys having at it with knives. Gotta remember you'll be dealing with "backwoods" people who think that justice is letting the involved parties have at it and the winner is the one who draws first blood. After that it is done and we all kick back at drink and eat way too much.

Next time I get back, I'll let you know and I'll make a detour if you want.

 

[DeepseekerADS]

Deep,I was just waiting to see if you would run away when it got tough.

Nah, won't be running away when it gets tough I'm up to my nostrils in this! My brother and his son made it up the driveway yesterday, and we "had at it" in the woods. Dragged a large pile of logs up to the house. The house is warm I was getting dangerously close to being completely out of firewood, We would have been out of wood this morning. I cut enough up to last two days, the rest is still laying there. I have to run to town for some groceries and liquid refreshments (those keep my brother coming up!), and hit the bank & post office. The weather forecast has more Wintery weather this week up to Saturday, and then just maybe it looks like we're breaking into warmer weather. Then, finally I can focus on doing some beds, compost, planting, etc. Actually might be a little early for actual planting, but at least I'll have the time to get at it.

 

[DeepseekerADS]

It's been a couple days since I posted here. I got all the fencing stuff missing from my Lowe's order. They called and said it was ready for pick-up.

I got there yesterday morning, and they had ALL of my original order, two carts full, and all I had to do was load it up and walk out with it - a bonanza. But, when the roll is called up yonder, I do not want to have to answer for theft, which that would have been. I've long learned that honesty leaves fewer regrets. So we took the time and went through the order, and I walked out only with the missing roll of fencing, and the missing bush axe.

I also picked up 4 bags of organic compost I need for planting the 3 types of grapes I ordered from Burpee. I have a grand plan on the grapes, and also hops for the homebrew I'm planning And that's another subject I'll bring up along the way of this thread.

Today's temperature is supposed to hit 69 degrees However, tomorrow we're supposed to get 1-3" of wintry mix, and a low of 13. I've a good pile of dry locast wood supply right now, and just maybe what I have is a beginning for next year's firewood.

I'm still on the hunt for compost, found a place about 1 1/2 hours away for $6 a front end loader bucket.... Danged I shouldn't still be looking for compost, I should have nailed that by now. Compost of my own manufacture is still a bit away. I haven't turned over my compost heap, so I have no idea what it's doing. The surface still looks the same as when I started piling it up.

 

[BurntBear]

Dropping in to keep up on this thread.

 

[DeepseekerADS]

Yesterday was beautiful here. It was time to go out and just do what came to mind at the moment. Up my overgrown South field there's 3 streams coming together in a pretty short distance. We've been picking at that area, establishing beach heads into each of the 3 areas. Those areas are so messed up with those big green briar vines, they're inhospitable. I just hope they aren't blackberry bushes, I don't think they are.

My brother was using the mulching mower to clean up this side of the creek bank, and I worked my way over and just started clipping briars. I'd carve me out a place and then just pull those briars out from their entanglements and drag them down to one of our piles to become bonfire material.

It wasn't a serious day, and it wasn't a needed day, but it sure felt good to claim more space. That South bottom land is crucial to our future, but our gardens are going to begin on this side of the creek.

My 3 grape types will be here someday, and looking at my wild fox grapes, I thought that maybe we should pick a good live vine about every 20 ft and domesticate those individual vines. And we'd do that all the way around the about 100 yards of existing wild vines. Don't need those many grapes, but see several reasons to keep - they're there, why not keep them, they could become good producers and food is food, I've heard that local vineyards purchase grapes from other producers, and not finally, but finally - why the heck not!

We walked part of the clean side of the creek and easily found good vines every 20 ft, and still a whole lot of mess to clean out.

We found another thread about a sustainable farm making $100k an acre. Not really interested in the money on that, but how the heck is he doing it. His entire effort focused for 5 years on building his soil. Obviously that's the direction this effort has to go - building the soil of the beds. That's while my brother wants to turn this into a beautiful park, which will be pretty sweet, but I'd personally rather eat well right now. So, it's okay if we take different directions on this.

Sure is raining out there right now.....

Keep the faith!

 

[DeepseekerADS]

Here's the two most important, separate threads here concerning gardening. Individually, I'd like to see both of these threads progress, because we learn more about soil and gardening with them.

And those threads will fit in with my evolution to self sufficiency.

http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/s...teroids-organic-farmer-grosses-100k-acre.html

http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/s...r-massively-outperforms-gmos-organically.html

 

[DeepseekerADS]

It's cold outside, the fire is set for now, and I READ TOO MUCH!!!

Every morning I grind my own coffee beans, brew it, and drink my two cups. The left over coffee, I pour down the drain....

And, then I read this:

Coffee Grounds for garden

Plants Like Drinking Coffee Too
by: Connie

I'd just add that old brewed coffee is good for use in watering types of plants that like acidic soil. I have been using coffee exclusively to water my hydrangea. It is doing very well.

Sooooo.......

I'm going to start keeping the leftover coffee in a jug for the garden

 

[rockhound]

Raising night crawlers and or red worms will vastly improve your compost pile. Their waste will greatly enrich your ground and make it more fertile. If only raising worms in an od freezer or barrel on its side, you can turn the barrel over every few days and rap the rewards. The barrel or freezer should have drain holes to catch the rich black gold oozing from beneath. this worm urine is like magic. Those used coffee grounds as well as occasionally feeding oatmeal will keep your worms happy. Also learn how to make charcoal for enriching your garden. a long story made short, In south American, I believe Brazil, there once lived a civilization before the Spanish descended upon the region. Until a few years ago no one knew anything about them. After finding mounds of earth above the flood regions of the amazon, they discovered a very rich soil that had been used in ancient times to grow crops during the wet season. After analyzing the soil it was found that it was a growing living soil that could replenish. itself. For the last several years it has been gathered and sold as garden soil all over the country. Always after a short time replenishing itself. Scientists have been trying to replicate its amazing properties ever since with no success. Although they have determined what is in the soil, they can't make it a living organism able to reproduce itself. After years of trying to duplicate its properties they have come up short. If they could figure this out then all mankind could benefit, all over the world. Good Luck. rockhound

 

[DeepseekerADS]

After analyzing the soil it was found that it was a growing living soil that could replenish. itself.

Thanks rockhound. I did a DuckDuckGo search on this and found:

Origami's Living Soil
Featuring Terra Preta Soil Practices

terra preta soil , why it is important | Origami's Living Soil

I watched the first video, about 53 minutes long, and starting at the 35 minute mark, they kinda touched on the soil.

Maybe the 2nd video will talk about it more. You said it's sold here, so I'll be looking into that as well.

 

[rockhound]

I don't know whether or not it is available here in the U.S. or not. I do know they sell it all over south and central America. Most Brazilians buy and use it every year in their gardens and or farms. Mostly they grow rice from cleared forests, but now I think they may not need to do the deforestation thing to get good soil for farming. I know a man who has his urinal piped and filtered with charcoal and fed directly into his garden plot. he grows some of the best vegetables I have ever seen and I am a former FFA member and also a took horticulture in school, so I know a thing or two about farming, pollinating and growing fruits and vegetables. urine is the best fertilizer you can get, whether human, cow, pig, chicken, goat or rabbit. I know many people who raise rabbits for food and fertilizer. They reproduce so fast that they provide an never ending supply of food and fertilizer., but they are so lean that you could virtually starve to death only eating only them. Good Luck. rockhound