I am still on this trail. I have found that homeopathic preparations with intention, structured water, and weed tea works perfectly. Let's face it we don't all have access to cows or horses. However, most of us have weeds. When these. Weeds come from our land they contain exactly what the soil needs. Though I typically apply a small amount of sea salt too.
The weed are gathered, placed in a pickle drum and weighted down before being filled with water. After a week you have a very smell batch of green manure tea. This is then pumped into another barrel where an airlift pump circulates and oxygenates the mix until a thick foam head is running over. The top of the water lift pump vortexes the water through some magnets. This mix of living dynamic "energy" is then poured and soaked into the ground.
Homeopathic mixes of silica, oak bark, and others are used if needed.
Results? One bean plant outproduced 40 bean plants grown in the same soil without fertilizer. Earth worms fill the soil around the west tea plants.
So why combine all these weird ideas? Because I tried each separately and could see improvement in trial plants.
I will be building a quantum broadcaster of two types this year to test the results.
I would imagine it hard to find a "modern people" who would eliminate plastic or machines altogether. Ther are the Amish, a few native American tribes. I know its possible to return to primitive simple living and live well if we can part from our modern way of thinking and reasoning and lust.
Not many people like hard work. Machines can cut work my years if you work by your self. I'm not sure if you are referring to only living without toxin-emitting machinery or building without out it...
I have lived a primitive life when I went to the campo in South America. Every cup of water was precious because of the half mile walk to the spring. It was a very clean life close to nature and I actually enjoyed it immensely once I adapted. We constructed a brick tower and put a water tank on top and a small pump on the spring and piped the water up to the tank, This gave them running water for the first time. Their joy was so great and they immediately began wasting water.. The women spent so much time hauling water and believed they expressed many reasons why life was then better. I would agree after living a primitive life for a while some technology is good for a quality life if you any desire beyond being in nature. Every human invention comes with damaging effects to nature are always abused and used to live in unnatural ways. I think machinery can definitely be constructed to be responsible and appropriate. I guess that's the key. Using technology when its appropriate and add to the value of a life and does not take from another life. Using cordless tools charged with solar energy is very doable. Of course, the pollution is just let loose upwind from someone else at a different location..
I could see building a large rain catchment and ferrocement storage tanks where you could dip your water out with a bucket or jar from a well inside a house made of raw earth. There are quite a few communities who build natural houses. Im sure they will turn up for you. I have never kept a list when I discovered one.
If you cannot find what you seek perhaps you should start a community?
I am going to be building a wattle and daub double wall structure with 18 inches of loose packed straw/weed insulation next spring. It should be cheap, non-toxic, super efficient and beautiful as well as highly functional with thermal mass & insulation. Using passive and active (machine) methods to keep it comfortable in a harsh climate. I should hold a workshop.. I battle with going fully passive and using earth to moderate the temperatures my adjusting what I will tolerate, but then I love to wear comfortable clothes year around and feel good indoors. In this climate, it's just not possible to stay comfortable without some machinery. I suppose I could live in a screen hut during the summer and jump in the pond every couple of hours.. Its a balance of personal choice, expectations, and how much of a purest we want to be. Most people are fine with pollution as long as its in someone else's air. Some feel there should be none. As long as money is the measure of value in the world someone's poison is always going to be in our lives. I totally agree with you on eliminating every toxin we can. I distill my drinking water because the groundwater tested as having poison from a golf course and a fracked oil well changed to water to acidic where it dissolves lead out of coal in the ground. Our water only touches glass after coming out of the machine. I want to build a detox retreat that operates on donations and gifts where people can vacation and detox from it all in a clean environment; magnetically, dietary, water, and breathe clean plant purified air, and healthy ideas.
Its amazing how they manage to feed themselves in the past. The mesa are a great source of water and minerals. I actually planted hopi corn in east texas the same way the hopi do and I got great crops. 14 seeds to a mound, dig down until the soil is moist and plant. It was 6 inches deep to moisture when I planted the black hopi corn seeds and in 5 days the corn was up! I never had to water it and the bunch grass corn was amazing.. Then the deer and coons thought so too...
I thought the Indians said one for the bird, one for the coon, one for the mouse and one for me... I thought they were kidding. I got one ear in the green stage and they got the other 199 ears of corn...
I had hard soil that would not grow weeds. I ripped it as deep as I could scratch the surface and broadcast planted a high diversity seed mix adding lots of winter rye. Each year I saw major improvements. Keep planting high diversity cover mixes, when mature broadcast more seed, and roll or lay them over when they get tall. Keep the soil covered at all times! I don't recommend tilling poor soil more than every other year.
The diversity of seed ensures that something will grow well. Mixes can also be designed to mine minerals and provide nitrogen or carbon to the soil. I had to alternate. High Carbon cover crop in the spring, nitrogen crop in summer, and carbon, tall carbon mix in the fall. The tall winter crop preserved nitrogen and carbon in the crop over winter instead of it leeching away all winter. There was not enough nitrogen to grow two high carbon crops at first.
In 3 years of spring, summer, & winter seeding cover crops we had actual soil! Now we have a food forest with alley cropping and cover cropping in between.
I purchased my seed here : Green Cover Seed . Buy the 50-pound bags and get 5-gallon buckets with lids. save your extra seed for the next season. I used sea salt in the 50-pound bag to add back trace minerals, but you can get a soil test then add back specifically whats missing. Add amendments before you break up the soil.
I don't have my pictures of the transformation with me, but take a look at Farmers Under Cover
You know its ready for trees when trees start planting themselves!
This process was FAR FAR cheaper than buying wood chips and adding nitrogen fertilizer..
In our area, the law actually exempts homeowners who build their own homes from needing an electric license. In the city, it can be different. However, I have been part of many projects where a friendly electrician will file the permit and take a look at what you did and for a couple hundred bucks call for inspection and not say a thing. Sometimes these electricians are not even in the same county and never even look.. Try to make some connections.. Get a copy of the International Build Code IBC this is what most inspectors go by. Follow wire & breaker sizing rules and you will be good.
I have actually studied this idea as well as build two test holes. Once caved in one spring when we had a freakishly log heavy downpour. We have super hard clay soil. The other got fleas and was unhealthy most of the year.
Will It work? It depends... LOL
Fleas, Floods, and Muds.. Unless you live in a VERY dry area you will have moisture problems. Not to mention potential pest problems. Digging into the side of a hill can work.
The best compromise I have found is a buried structure above ground. You should still design it like a house with a roof that is sloped and moves water away. A drain channel in the floor around the walls is a good idea too. You could build it earthShip style or "$50 and up underground house"' style.
As for comfort... That also depends.. On rain, average temperatures in your area, your comfort level. A rocket stove mass bed/bench heater can easily take care of winter by warming your body instead of air.
You really have to decide what you are desiring here. If the price is the issue, I could show you how to build a darn-near-free house that is actually very warm in the winter and very cool in the summer. If hiding is the issue a quonset hut burried is great IF you also insulate. If living secretly on land you don't own is the issue, just fast claim some federal land or build the ultra-low cost house expecting it to be lost.
Anyway, give some more details. What is our purpose, what are your short and long-term goals ect..
Hello everyone. I have been on the homestead path for 10 years now and I am starting to blog and vlog about the adventure. I could really use some help for content ideas. Please share as much as you can think to. I want to write some quality articles focused on common ground the majority of us might have. My ultimate goal is to someday to overcome the last obstacle for me which is income from the homestead. I hope to eventually have enough subscribers to draw in sponsors.
I would like to hear from everyone who is, was, and wants to homestead.
Please tell me about your problems, fears, worries, anxiety, fustrations, wants, aspirations, needs, and desires.
Dig down and look for a clay containing soil. You might have to have it called in. You can also stabilize it with as little as 3% Portland cement and asuch as 10%. Then there is water glass, line, and soil glue polymer products.
I know free sounds nice, but it's not often an ideal world and we have to put some money into it or a lot of work.
A good earth bag home really need the perfect ratio of sand clay and silt to really stick well or 5-7% Portland cement. Natural limestone clay soul seems to work well also. Really at the end if the day if you want it "done right" it's the same mix as eammed earth building. I would say also, I have not visited any of these structures that are comfortable in hard winter or hot summer climates.
Often a lot of energy has to be pumped into the structure or they need to be insulated on the exterior of the thermal mass.
I have a shop with the wet sprayed cellulose. It is not really something I would attach anything to. It always seems to fall off at random. Honestly, insulation is a must and also one of the most expensive aspect of a good building. It's also not something to skimp on.
I spray my own close cell (water proof) insulation. It's a hot nasty job that requires a proper voc filter mask, but saves a lot of money. You might want to look into a diy application on the outside of the dome. You could paint it or the synthetic stucco that they put over styrofoam sticks and does not crack on building exterior. http://www.sprayez.com/c-57-cartridge-material.aspx
Having had heavy subsoil to live in I can share what has worked for me.
1) Go to greencoverseed at get a mixture on no less than 8 species of broad and narrow leaf plants aiming for carbon, but add lots of tiller radish. Put out the seed at twice the rate you think you need. Cover with a thick layer of hay or straw.
2) When the summer heat breaks, broadcast clover, rye, kamut wheat, iron and clay peas, and vetch. Let this grow until next spring when it get shoulder high then roll down the area or use a step bar.
3) Broad cast 50 pounds per acre agricultural molasses over rolled cover.
4) Late spring or early summer broad cast another high diversity seed mix with lots of tiller radish, turnips, and a tall summer grass, including some corn and sorghum. Add more molasses to the seed mixture to be broadcast. You want as much bio mass as possible.
5) spray on raw milk(5 gallon per acre) mixed with compost tea or quality broad diversity inoculation of fungus and bacteria.
Repeat as many times as needed.
It can take 2 years to turn sticky clay into nice brown soil. You know that you have arrived when a shovel turns up earth works anywhere you dig. It really is amazing how much work the soil life can do for you! Keep a living root in the soil at all times and keep the soil covered at all times.
The first year we did this it was slow to get rolling giving us some supplemental chick feed, but by the second year we got 15 pounds of wheat & rye(beat out on plant into 30 gallon trash drum. So it's nice to get some immediate production. This year is edable wild weeds which are being eaten, but will soon be rolled and using and electric chain saw I cut grooves in and push a walk behind seeder through to seed kamut, sun flowers, and sorghum, the cover suppresses the weeds and each year the cover gets thicker, but the soil life consumes it all in a season!
When we are off grid we just use the plunger thing with a one way check valve in it. It really does a good job without to much work.
Along with a manual ringer. It works great proving everyone is allowed only 2 sets of clothes and each washes their clothes when before they go to bed.
I would like to add my ramblings to this discussion.
It's pretty easy to meet ones needs. Desires are a whole different animal. Ill come back to this later. It's been said there are only two markets: desires, and needs.
Marketing to 'needs' is very difficult because there is a world wide industry fine tuned to production of cheap goods/foods using government money ( yes craft, for example gets more money than farmers). Needs producers often produce goods at the cost to our world and future generations. I don't think even permaculture can compete, really.
Marketing to 'desires', however, leaves room for profit. Like boxes of natural peppers for $3 each to the socker mom and lawyer husband wanting the best and having the means.
Selling value add products over the Internet makes its very easy to make a profit. That is IF you run it like a business with every dollar tracked coming and going. I know a farm that is money powered and would never make a profit because it's input driven. Permaculture can certainly produce volume by layering production, but it's often labor intensive and profitable only with immigrant labor or woofers if selling only produce. Now, take a $4 basket of blackberries and make two $6 jars of jam or a .80¢ tomato and make a $2 sundried spiced storable product you double your efforts for money.
Our land is stony, thorny, cursed subsoil that was mines for gravel 30 years ago. However, it grows goat weed, briars, crab apple, and tons of unknown fast growing weeds. So, we discovered tall spindle apple orchards and planted 8 rows of apples on trellis 3 foot by 11 foot. Giving us 160 apples trees under planted with 120 primacane blackberry plants. The trees cost $5 each and the berries were $2 each in bulk from a family bases wholesale nursery. $1240 for the whole lot with shipping. The irrigation system cost all of $300 and $120 for 4 used pickle barrels, $240 for renting a mini excavator, $300 for a homemade apple press, $272 for beer bottles& caps, $1072 for trellis, and $100 for 5 yards of composted wood chips. So about $3644. Cost not included would be the land, $4000 well/pump, truck and fuel. Using the tall spindle system we got 25+ bushels of apples the second year or 875 pounds of apples in the SECOND year which was pressed for 78 gallons of juice. The juice was lacto fermented using water keifer grains and bottled in 480 20 ounce bottles without labels. We sold these bottles on farm through social media for $6 each giving us $2880 cash. You want to see the tax return? Umm No sorry..
Did we make money? NO. HOWEVER, next year as per the tall spindle orchard system we expect nearly 10,000(~238 bushels) apples and 24,000 the fourth year. We ate all the blackberries, but perhaps this year we will sell blackberry/apple fruit leathers or cider.
Is this permaculture? In part Yes! Those 50 gallon pickle drums are used to ferment weed tea and push the apple fertility. Earth Worms have filled the barren soil where the tea is applied. The problem was the solution! No inputs besides power for the water pump. Earth care. We hope to layer in more production as time goes on. Ducks have been added to bring in fertility and eat snails and provide eggs. Free range animal care. I also hope to spin off a Bitcoin called community coin where value is based on contracts offered and bid on by community for value making it possible for a child offering dog walks to have instant value to exchange for our cider or berries and other goods, even before they have delivered a single good or service. Ofcourse we would entertain barter as well. People care.
We are doing this in an area about .65 acres. It's possible to get that much land for $2000 in this area in the form of a lake lot. If I had no land I would graft all the Bradford pear trees in the city or plant the public strips and do it with no land!!
I don't think it's a matter of weather permaculture works or not. It's a matter of will one choose to take what they have and do it without getting hung up on weather or not it looks like their dream of permaculture. Sure, I would love to just lay in my hammock and wait for the food Forest to fertilize it's self and produce apples, but that is just not going to happen on this land, with what I have to work with. So, I bust my butt to pull every weed I can find and pour weed tea on every single tree, every single week. Will blight or bugs interfere with future crops and require new solutions or cost? It's possible.
One major factor that helps us be successful by our own definition is that we eliminated all debt a few years back. We built a simple house and purchased small acreage and we can live on $700 a month; half of the fair share amount. So, we are close to living a dream of doing what I want when I want including a yearly trip out of the country. Not having to get up and drag my butt to work. If you want to pay for your BMW and million dollar house, perhaps your life style is not really fitting the ethics or you will need to develop markets and value for many many people to make even more. It's a fair share thing that works! Just take the average wage of the world's people; $1400/month. It's not that hard to reach a fair share.
Could we eat on our crops? With forage, yes! However, it would be subsistence and a boring diet. Did you know 80% of the calories from the food you eat is used in digestion or passes through unusable? Did you know fruit caloric intake can be almost completely used and requires no insulin response? So of that 2000 calories diet only 400 calories are delivered to your cells! One apple yeilds 95 calories so 5 apples per day is enough to survive!! Sounds like BS doesn't it? I have been living and working on 6 grapefruit per day for half a year now and have more energy than ever! Of course I will eat some duck eggs for omegas and b12 as well as drinking combucha...
Well, enough rambling from me. Go look up the videos and documents about tall spindle orchard systems! The universities have actually done a great job and the system gives yeilds in 2 years and profits in 3-4 years all over the world. Dream and draw, but most of all DO IT NOW! Even if you gorilla garden or permaculture the back side of your parks and public areas! Permaculture is people care, and you are the first person that needs to get care and surplus! Apples may not work for you but something will!! Don't be afraid to fail! That's the price of education.
Getting the money:
$47/month Cut off internet and cable
$14/day stopped eating out saved 1/2
$40/month stopped making any extra drives
$24/month stopped going to movies
$300/year kept wearing old clothes
$40/month writing freelance articles
$200/month renting extra room
_____________________
$11,172 year saved!!! Before paying off old truck and land($8000) From dead broke every month to quitting work (I hope) this fall!!!
I would still start with the basic passive design and anything from underneath would be a bonus. Further, I sure drums will rust out fairly quick. You might consider old water heater tanks. Even if they drip a bit you can top them up.
passive system the heat source are black 55 gallons barrels filled with water.The rule of thumb is 2.5 gallons/ft2 of glazing for season extension or 5 gallons/ft2 for all season.
For each degree of drop in water temperature at night then 9130 BTUs are released.
I was saving a copy of the most inspiring videos from these short videos, but I have a partition accident and lost them all. I don't see this video on his website.
How to grow European wet moist veggies in dry hot windy environment without irrigation? Hmm. Is this a hot, warm, or cold desert?
I think any significant amount of growing is going to require irrigation. Every production system uses it.
Who's is that Permaculture guy in death vally where they get 2" of rain? Anyway, he uses swales and soaks millions of gallons of water into the shallow aquifer then pumps from the ground for drip irrigation. He uses much less water than he captures.
However, if you have a way to concentrate water for each plant to a level approaching normal for that veggie you can raise the plants in a shade house in flats, 1 inch apart, for two months prior to wet season. Then, if that season is appropriate you can transplant out the plants and they will mature and produce in a little over a month.. Ah-la grow bio intensive method.
Corn, beans (marama & that black Mexican bean), water melons, cactus are much more in line with the clate without irrigation. If all you want is a small veggie plot try unglazed clay pots burried and filled with water, ollas.
Now, having said that I have seen a storm water surge pit in the desert growing tomatoes un attended...
Andy Jorgensen wrote:The problem I'm having is finding seeds, and affordable ones at that.
How are you guys tackling this issue? I'll give a few examples:
Marama bean- nearly unavailable. Made from unobtainium perhaps?
Texas elbow/spring herald- semi-available but cost prohibitive.
Honestly, you need to be present when starting trees and it might be best to wait until you move to start a tree nursery. This way the trees are strong and on-site when the rain comes and it's time to plant. Also, once you have one tree you will have plenty of seed. Lecueana, and acacia make a lot of seed by the second year. Marama bean seed is expensive and will only really grow planted on site. Sol-ros university has grown them in trials and have some seed. Once you have a producing vine you will have plenty of seed, but it's like a tree taking 4 years to get up to production as the bulb gets up to 3 feet in diameter.
The point being there ARE bulk sellers out there if you want seeds, but it might not be best to transport saplings..
I grow seedlings in a 2' deep sand raised bed and an automatic water sprayers about 1 inch apart; 2000 about 1800 of which will sprout saplings in a 4 foot squre bed. Pre scarify and soak legumes before planting! I plant them out at 1 to 1.5 years old. Saplings don't need much nutrition and sand is not only easy to pull trees out of, but encourages good root development and the competition of proximity makes then grow fast, tall and straight.
If you want to make transplanting a breeze, grow them in deep tree cones which direct roots downwards and make saplings transportable without the roots drying out or being overly damaged:https://www.stuewe.com/products/deepots.php
Eating animals is often equated to bad practice if the industrial system which is destroying the world. The thing is, we have the methods of management to do a great job, but things will never be as they were. There would have been enough Buffalo and other migratory animal to feed everyone, but we all claimed ownership of land and put fences and roads across everything. The nature of our society is such that it's just not compatible with nature. As sep holtzer said now you must do the work of the pig... Our society has done nothing natural, but has yet to take responsibility for their choices & damage. Growing animals does not have to be damaging and the discussion of efficiency in their raising is not valid, I think, really. Animals make protein and soil from large areas that would never be used in any meaningful way otherwise as well as producing nutrients we must have. Zinc and minerals and vitamins are all abundant in the organs of the animals we throw in the trash. So, again the problem is our choices. Including the coice to forget the ways of the past and live a modern scientific, industrial life and eat the "ice cream" of the plant/animal world. The only consideration given by the centralized food system is profitability. Unfortunately profitability often leads to exactly the wrong choice, but then money is "required" to function in a false world of greed. We don't value the only things that have true value, like our future health. As long as this is the case ranchers will most often choose what is both easy (no management) and what is profitable over what is right.
It's only the crisis that helps us decide to change what "we" do or how we do it.
Choosing to not eat a cow because it's weed and grass conversion rate on otherwise unused large land areas is really rather lacking in my opinion; As is saying producet is evil because society's money making ranches choose earth destroying practices. On the other side of the coin it's good that people have a conscious sensitive enough to avoid using products that are causing problems because of how industry produces it or because they respect all life. Unfortunately the masses will have to meet crisis before they think about any change.
With health problems and cancer sky rocketing as they are one would think more people could connect the dots. I think it is possible to have a truely complete diet, but old wisdom and a paradigm shift in society is going to have to made. In fact society's have had a 100% falure rate in the past. It's necessary to have a global food system just to just survive with our unnatural centrilized populations and it may be necessary to have higher dieoff rates to have a sustainable society. I, however, would prefer to do a bit better that only sustain..
I think we need more people trying to live 100% on what they can produce! In only this way we will rediscover what we truely required. Trade is perfectly normal natural for humans. It's not that we need to truely produce 100% of wht we need, but rather that the land produce 100% of what we need in the form of direct foods as well as a tradable surplus to fill all our needs from food to shoes and Internet, lol. It been done for thousands of years and it's only in this modern life of a few hundred years that we forgot how to live.
I suspect the source of our programing to belittle people who try to live off the land apart from society is partly our middle and lower brain function as well as the need that government and mega rich families that need you to come to town and spend a portion of your life sustaining their fortunes. That part of society that is just not going to produce anything useful what so ever. The 1 or 2%..
An old timer told me when he was a kid the counties families would come to the square in the fall and put out their extra surplus. Everyone was free to take anything they needed. His mom grew tons of apricots and would can 2000 jars, but could not grow corn. So by trading freely everyone had what they needed. Even when their crops failed to yeild enough.
I'm one of the people that doesn't believe it's possible in any real sense. I think a vegetarian diet has very real shortcomings. This can be debated to a ridiculous extreme, but it is clear in my mind that humans are not meant to be vegetarians, and trying to find a vegetarian answer to a problem caused by being a vegetarian seems like spinning your wheels. YMMV
Lol. I understand. I think vegan is not a good idea. I am sure its possible, but the problem with science is that it's such a simplistic approach and live is interconnected and extremely complex. It like growing hydroponic veggies in 12 mineral salts, sure they grow, but the plants and the prersons eating them suffer a while host of problems and deficiencies. It's probably unfathomable to understand every interaction of mineral, vitiman, emzyne, protein and sugar as it interacts across a healthy multi species eco system. Assuming we could even find one..
My grand parents grew everything they needed. They were big, strong people who worked amazingly hard. They grew veggies, cows, chickens, as well as hunted and foraged. A meal might consist of 3 different veggies, homemade butter, baked chicken with a breaded(eggs) cow liver, and a wild blue berry pie and a glass of milk to wash it down. If that was not enoigh you coukd snack on wild bullnettle nuts. I can remember how flour was such a big deal because it was limited by how much they could grow. They both lived past 100.
Unfortunately my parents forsook the farm life for "easy city" life and failed to teach me a single useful thing. My grand dad was strong and working at 90, and my dad at 64 can barely get around.. I suspect most big farm foods don't contain the numbers given by the FDA for foods and almost no minerals.
vitamin B1 0.45 mg mL-1
vitamin B12 2.7 mg mL-1
vitamin C at about 1.8 mg mL-1
Duck eggs
3.8 mg B12 (63%)
There is also a huge difference between synthetic vitamins and bio available natural forms.
Carol depp does a pretty good job growing all her nutrients. To say it's not possible to grow everything you need is really not true. It's a modern mindset really. We're so domesticated.. In an age where the whole of human knowledge is at our finger tips, many are so dumb or simply do what they really learned in school; to follow directions and get answers from the authority.
No matter how careful we are it's easy to over look something like b vitamins. So, we learn and we share. I am so greatful to hear of someone who did make the effort to grow all their food. It's a rare thing. Keep plugging away at it. You will get it!
It's true when you provide all your own food you need to be sure it's a complete diet. I have found fermentation for preserving is the best option. Combucha tea has a lot a b vitamins. I have found I function so much better and am more productive when I drink it regularly.
Ecology action has some great material on growing food and providing a complete diet. It's bases on studies of traditional dirts that sustain people for generations. Here is an example of a Mexican diet. I'm not
I have been working on growing avocados. Even the hall die in our mild winters, a low of 20° only at night and never more than a week. It appears if you leave them in pots and bring them in for winter nights for the first year or two then plant out after they develop true bark on the truck, they will then survive.
Well, I have observed, life brings about more life. I have used raw milk to improve the top my a dry hill where the soil was hard and dry. I had to get a cover crop on during the month of favourable conditions. Once covered the raw milk fed the soil life and eartworms came. Now the soil is much more productive.
I am going to try this microbe brewing thing in combination with living soil cover. So, I banged together a 30 gallon brewer made from a drum, a PVC gyser air pump and a stone. I prefer to have the stirring done automatically and for the mix to be aerobic. I tried a batch in a 5 gallon bucket with no air and it stank like crazy after a week. I did the same batch again, but this time with an air lift and it smelled funky, but not in a bad way..
Any ways, if this works I'll get back to this thread and post the results at the end of the growing season.
Being healthy already, I don't waste money for medical insurance. After 2 years the medical people always take a 10% cash payoff. A more fair price.
My daughter had a $300,000 heart surgery. The doctors part was only $7500 and the hospital took $20,000 which we had already saved. Sure, we had to go a few years without a new car, but 2400 jars of jam later, we enjoyed the toxic new plastic smell again. The reason they sell insurance is to make money, not help people. They know most people don't need it. I personally am willing to life and die free. Security in is not living to me and I don't waste a day worrying. Somehow it always works out fine in the end. It becomes something you can trust.
Just know it's possible. It's something you have to experience to understand. It's letting go of the programming and questioning every single thought and belief.
Good story thanks. The Indians have a good perspective.
I find it amusing that modern people see it as blasphemy against progress, intelligence, and impossible to grow all you eat.
Its very possible and a personal growth challenge for me. It a secure feeling. It's also necessary for good food because of corporate and government deception and stupidity. I know its not easy to grow every single thing you might want, but it darn sure is possible to grow what you need and it does not take a village!!! Anyone can make the tools required. I have a book that shows you how to refine iron and cast in sand, make hand tools and work all the way up from earth to engines laths ect. I choose to not grow fiber and weave cloth, but it's entirely possible with our modern tech to do it more easily IF such tech was important to develop. We have 3d printers and nano tech. So, there's no reason we couldn't have a bio plastic extruder with a thousand heads and Weaver in one unit that prints cloth. The point being it's possible with the right prospective.. I'm not saying anyone should try to do everything and forsake trade, no no. Just climb up high and snap a picture to remind your self to find the right perspective...
hopefully I can muster up enough to put in a pin, coop and other amenities
Don't forget to consider what you have. Hedges/fences can be made from living trees. It takes time though.. Sand/clay can be rammed or wattle & dobbed to make coops. Construction sites often have waste wood and roof metal, tatch is not hard if you have reeds or grass. Sometimes community programs have surplus or recycled building materials.
The point is you can have what you need money or not.
The best 2 years I ever had is when I lost my job and was forced to live what I have been studying concerning growing food and simple living of the Amish.
We cut all expenses and stoped payment of loans because there was no choice. We had already payed off our land and built a small 3 bedroom house for $13K. Growing much of our food and foraging what we found it was possible to more than get by. What I discovered, though, was a peace, security, and richness I could have never purchased. The trash bill went away because we did not buy or make trash. Our health improved because of fresh real food. Many many Hours of meaningful thinking to do a little also meaningful work was a rich reward in its self. We took the lessons of the depression and Amish. We repaired, reused, recycled, and repurposed everything.
It was a slow start. I did any odd job I found; saving every penny. Now, after some time, we can produce value add products from the land capable of paying taxes, buying clothes, buying a new vehicle every 6 or 7 years, taking trips to other countries, ect, ect..
However, the odd jobs thing has become demanding. There is so much word of mouth business that it's possible to work every day and make lots of money. I looked at buying a tractor, but the cost of owing and using one is many many times higher than doing it by hand with simple tools. It would take far more hours of work to pay for a tractor than hours of work by hand. Because we have time to think we could see the fallacy in "time saving devices" that actually enslave you to more work. Now, we bought some more land for a Permaculture project and are moving towards stopping the "working for a living" all together. Life is just to good to spend the only true currency you have, time, building "the system" for someone else's luxary and control.
Yes, money is expensive. It also has a way of holding on to you; promising something more at another time. Yet, it never fully delivers, it's never enough. I honestly can see a way and a time when we will choose to live mostly with out money, no more jobs. It's easy to trade a few goods for money when taxes, clothing, solar panels, pumps, plumbing ect. It does require being debt free, saving and owning some land or doing the work-a-way/wwoofing thing. The real secret to life is knowing everything you need for life is free and all around you, and being content with what you have, but not content to rent. I was unable to see housing, for example, as free and available. Now, I know I can build a rammed earth house, earthen plaster, stove, and with a grass roof. Very comfortable. The only barriers are in our minds; the expectations we have and the expectations placed in our minds by programing which is never fulfilled.
These enslave us and take our time.
I priced our diet, at Walmart substandard quality prices, and it would cost $600 per person each month to eat this way. It's a quality of life on par with being wealthy and yet not working for it, not stealing more than a fair share of others labors.
I wish everyone could find meaningful work. If you do what you love, then you will never work a day in your life! Some days are physically very demanding, buy I love it and it's not work. Every day is different, not repetitive. I have learned to be an electrician, a plumber, a farmer, a rancher, a salesman, a medic, a biologist, botanist, an engineer, a builder, a host, a traveler, a programmer, a mason, a meditator, and so much more!
charlotte anthony wrote:..weeds you have gathered with water and let ferment for 21 days. you then stir for one minute counterclockwise and `1 minute clockwise several times a day. after 21 days you dilute about 10 times and spread with sprayer or watering can.
Question, must it be an anaerobic fermentation? Can I ferment in an aeration air lift bucket and multiply microbes?
You know there are not a lot of weed, or anything, in the desert..
Yes, on the ranch. Organic matter is very lacking. I'm thinking soil imprinting with native grasses along with adding soil orginisms will improve the broader land scape. It's going to take some time to retain moisture.
I want to try the microbe teas and givumreitum at Terlingua. On wet years I suspect a lot of organic content can come from soil life. However, Terlingua gets 8" or less rain each year and is frequented by drought. Two years ago even the pad cactus and agave were dying. So, as Geoff says, we must get the timing of things correct. If we start in drought years efforts may fail or require waiting a couple years. If, however, you locate your self correctly you have access to huge flows of water (I.e. Christmas mountain oasis) or options to build limonia catchment on large rocks. Estaishment water can also be collected with large shallow check dams on flat land, pumping the water into large tanks. Wells are to expensive and a gamble. Large solar stills could work, but are also expensive on a scale large enough to be useful.
I suspect trees do not grow in the swales because the seeds do not get under the soil and are eaten. The soil in the bottom has a lot of fine clay in it and is hard. I have a surge water pit by the road. It grows flowers and grasses in the bottom, but trees start only around the edge a foot up. I planted seeds so I will see.
Geoff should know about this so I suspect if compost is mixed in and mulched over trees will grow...
