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Post by synergy on Feb 3, 2021 22:21:30 GMT -5
Okay I am going to try to grow some squash or summer eating and some for keeping fall into winter. I am still trying to narrow it down . None of my friends would grow a different variety and trade so we could save seed . They said who cares about saving seed . I am a little concerned if we don't start saving some seed , we will continuously be vulnerable for the basic genetics of our food supply .
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Post by synergy on Feb 3, 2021 22:13:38 GMT -5
I read pages of this and still did not actually understand what the topic IS. Still I have shifted my diet due to prices in the stores and today I went to get grapes and they rang up to $21 and I said, that cannot be right , they are on sale . Nope $21 for grapes and I did not have enough money so left them there . Obviously I am going to be eating more seasonally . I just bought 4 more cages for rabbits incase I have to start raising all my own meat , I already do chickens .
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Post by synergy on Jan 27, 2021 10:45:56 GMT -5
I have no sophisticated knowledge but I see fungi growing when a tree falls , the fungi often colonize as the tree breaks down. I bed my horses on wood shavings and when I spread the manured bedding on the pasture it reseeds the pasture and encouraged fungi. Also kits use shavings as a substrate and they suggest you put mushroom innoculated plugs into a newly cut tree like a maple .
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Post by synergy on Jan 24, 2021 12:23:59 GMT -5
Swept my loft , hauled fresh hay to my rabbit cages to keep them warm as we get some arctic weather heading our way here in coastal British Columbia . The less than fresh hay I shoved in a black plastic bag along with pulled mint and ivy as insulation for the worms we added to our compost bin . We had finished fishing so added our worm farm into the compost bin, hoping to start up our successful worm farm again next year so we have them readily on hand for fishing , we started with 36 worms , end result was about a thousand I ordered a Jiro early persimmon and a bareroot apricot tree for spring planting . I also have a small order of Dahlia bulbs coming which I have never planted before but I look forward to adding more blooming things before I ever plan to get bees, and it was supporting a local farm . I also bought a book called Grow Your Own Tea , The Complete Guide to Cultivating, Harvesting and Preparing, as I sit here in snow dreaming of finding Sochi tea shrubs locally here to buy as they and a few more walnut are still on my wish list . I am sure TO DO Lists and Wish Lists are homesteading activities in winter
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Post by synergy on Jan 21, 2021 0:56:19 GMT -5
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Post by synergy on Jan 21, 2021 0:42:35 GMT -5
I am in coastal British Columbia but in a mountain valley , it has been pretty consistantly above freezing so far in January with highs of about 8 celsius and lows of about 2 celsius . Winter is suppose to hit us harder next week with snow and freezing temperatures .
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Post by synergy on Jan 21, 2021 0:39:20 GMT -5
This information is helping me understand . Thank you !
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Post by synergy on Jan 18, 2021 14:03:50 GMT -5
I am trying to plan to space out some plantings and would like advice as I am not so bright at this ; I like zucchini and small pumpkins, spaghetti squash and have intent to grow some red kobuchi squash to try it and styrian pumpkins for seed . Dang to complicate it I would like to grow cucumbers too , will they cross pollinate with zucchini ?
I would like some tasty squash that keeps in winter and is not too big nor hard to cut if anyone has suggestions as well ?
Also I was planning to plant some squash in my orchard that gets south sun, could I add wheelbarrows of goat manure and spent hay now and plant squash starts in that in say 3 months ?
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Post by synergy on May 26, 2020 12:41:48 GMT -5
I am planning a kind of walk under/mow under grape trellising system too, like the ones you see in Japanese videos so I can mow or run ducks or geese ? assorted mini critters under them .
Reed, as long as the top is not too high, just above your head , is it very hard to prune ? The slope my grapes are on is steep enough to make mowing tricky but not impossible . I have yet to install the trellis yet but suspect the frame will be some welded bars attached to high heavy tposts and wire to help with structural strength .
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Post by synergy on May 24, 2020 10:20:08 GMT -5
I managed to get the cattle panels with a friends three horse trailer but have been using them to keep goats grazing brush along a fenceline . I dragged one up to the garden to do a trellis but I am not strong enough to bend it by myself I have the tposts so next time I have some men over I will entice them to do a 5 minute job while I pour them some mint lemonade . I also have about 5 filled half barrels I need pulled into the garden that are too heavy for me to even drag so I may need to provide an entire lunch. Goats are kidding and I need a safe zone so I am carting assorted materials to tie around the fruit trees in my summer chicken pen as it could use a hard browsing by the goats for a few days . I have a broody hen so I need to clean the coop and set up alternative nesting boxes for my layers today .
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Post by synergy on May 24, 2020 10:04:09 GMT -5
I benefited from the marijuana grow industry working coir discarded into the garden to loosen clayish soil at my old farm . Now I moved and have a large indoor grow next door but I think it is hydroponic. I am hoping to purchase a load of sand this summer to mulch my garden with this fall with the idea in mind that it will eventually get worked in to the soil providing better tilth .
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Post by synergy on May 15, 2020 10:30:37 GMT -5
I got loads of coir in my old location from some fussy marijuana growers and worked into my clayish wet heavy soil at my old acreage it did a tremendous job of lightening it up into beautiful tilthy black loam that grew things fabulously combined with long aged horse bedding . I was sorry I could not take that soil with me , it was a thing of beauty .
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Post by synergy on May 15, 2020 10:21:19 GMT -5
The lady running our transfer station called me to come get some fairly heavy 1 inch steel tubing and had some heavy rebar as well two weeks back. The rebar has already been repurposed in a retaining wall for my Dads yard and I cut some large free salvaged irrigation tubing into hoops for my garden which conveniently fit over the one inch tubing used as stakes for floating row cover over my cabbage and carrots right now . My Dad calls me a hoarder , but still comes to me and asks for materials to do projects ALL the time and more often than not I have what is needed, and these materials such as metal are quite expensive . I had also purchased a large pile of odds and sods timbers and plywood for $50 and we already used a free concrete pier, free metal saddle and a 14 foot 6 x 6 beam form the timber pile to reinforce a large structure engineered with a 30 foot free span which was sagging. Now it is jacked up level and supported and the materials to do so cost me maybe a dollar. In my garden I have been using the blue half barrels I used to garden with years ago to plant fruiting bushes I was a little unsure where I want to have permanently . These are placed at row ends so I can pull the hose around them without it pulling across any plantings in the row . Being frugal and prepared to salvage is really serving me by quite nicely , because I am finding just getting by is more expensive .
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Post by synergy on Apr 27, 2020 12:12:05 GMT -5
So I was gifted some tubing that would after some investigation make two 15 x 10 ft greenhouses ( or carports? ) but some of the tubing is wrecked so as I get a chance to reconstruct some of it , I am thinking about fudging it together to make a 20 foot or perhaps even 25 foot greenhouse . Better than nothing north of the 49th parallel
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Post by synergy on Apr 27, 2020 12:03:37 GMT -5
My mother in law gifted me with an egyptian walking onion that has struggled in a pot with amoung other things , grass . I am thinking of turfing the pot and gleaning out the onion to replant in a fresh pot so I can save the onion and perhaps have it flourish .
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