Hauling manure with a longtail bicycle

Posted: February 9, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: 3. Food Security, 5. Alt Transportation | Tags: , , , , , , | Comments Off on Hauling manure with a longtail bicycle

Using my new Wike DIY trailer, I hauled by smelliest load by far this weekend: fresh horse manure.

I built a set of “hot beds” to start seedlings last week from scrap lumber and Freecycle window frames. Hot beds are simply cold frames that have some heat source to warm the seedlings in the winter, allowing them to grow faster than an unheated greenhouse or cold frame.

I wanted to experiment with a non-electric heat source, which pretty much just leaves manure. Under the sloped glass roof of the hot bed, we now have 18″ of manure, covered by 6″of dirt, to provide plenty of extra heat for the vegetable seedlings to get a kick start on growing prior to Spring. We’ve got them located on the North side of our property, sloped to the south, to grab as much winter sun as possible.

The cargo bike and Wike trailer did great hauling this load, although the stable owner clearly thought I was nuts showing up with a bicycle to haul manure.

I’ve been testing the replacement eZee battery this past week; getting about 7MPC. Better than the previous 5MPC, but no where close to the claim 20-25MPC in the eZee documentation. Buyer beware.

Roll your own (fruit leathers)

Posted: February 7, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: 3. Food Security | Comments Off on Roll your own (fruit leathers)

Experimented this week with making our own cheese and fruit leathers. Recommended. Both are easy to do with minimal equipment, and fun to involve the kids. My son took our cheese to sell to the neighbors to raise money for Haiti relief efforts.

We ordered cheese starter cultures from the Cheese Queen Ricki Carroll and a dehydrator for the fruit rollups from Nesco. Both worked great.

The soft cheese pictured here is our Herbs de Provence.

Making food gardens attractive

Posted: November 22, 2009 | Author: | Filed under: 3. Food Security | Tags: , | Comments Off on Making food gardens attractive

Moved our kiwi trellis out of the food forest and up close to the house where it can be hidden from view for just one reason: my wife thinks it is ugly.

And she’s right. The rest of the food forest is quite beautiful with the fruit trees, berry bushes, and recently completed low retaining walls. The kiwi trellis (for both fuzzies and hardies) is three 4×4 posts sticking seven feet up in the air. They are ugly and will stay ugly for several years until the kiwis cover them (they grow like grapes) or the nearby fruit trees get tall enough to screen them from view.

So I took a few hours and moved them before they got settled in their new/old spot in the food forest. Will think of how to keep the deer away later. Perhaps by the time the kiwi vines bear fruit (a few years from now), we’ll have big dogs back in our lives.

Extending the growing season

Posted: November 5, 2009 | Author: | Filed under: 3. Food Security | Tags: , | Comments Off on Extending the growing season

For true emergency planning, you need your garden producing food year round, even in the dead of winter.

This winter I’ll be experimenting with a few different methods, but one initial success is the use of Agribon 30 paper to seriously extend the growing cycle for crops that normally can’t hack the cold. We still have eight different types of salad greens growing strong under these Agribon covered beds. Great stuff.

We’re also focused on different recipes using crops that do well on their own in the cool winter here, such as kale and broccoli.

Food Forest :: finishing the initial build out

Posted: November 1, 2009 | Author: | Filed under: 3. Food Security | Tags: , | Comments Off on Food Forest :: finishing the initial build out

After we got the dirt/compost into the new beds (on top of cardboard to smother the weeds), we planted a collection of berry bushes. Varieties include seaberries, honeyberries, raspberries, gooseberries, goji berries, goumi berries, and elderberries. We found this permaculture berry guide to be very helpful. We also brought in four more types of grapes and kiwis, both hard and fuzzy, to train along a new trellis.

To combat the strong pasture grass, we’re planting comfrey and nasturtium. Comfrey is not only a great chop/drop fertilizer, but also good to accelerate compost heap decomposition and supplement the chicken’s feed. It also acts as a fortress plant, weaving a thick root system to choke out the pasture grass.

We’re leaving two full beds open to plant potatoes in the Spring. Each fruit tree will have a guild built around it, with strawberries and other beneficial plants.

Free wood chips from local arborists line the walking paths (again, laid over wet cardboard). Food Forest version 1.0 is almost complete, just in time for the rains to begin. I’ve already started making my list of version 2.0 improvements to tackle next summer.

More photos in this slideshow.

Building a “food forest”

Posted: October 13, 2009 | Author: | Filed under: 3. Food Security | Tags: , | Comments Off on Building a “food forest”

We’re creating our version 1.0 food forest. It’s a system of food crops arranged to mimic a natural’s forest ecosystem. Our fruit trees are the top canopy, berry bushes the mid-canopy, with normal vegetables making up the remaining forest layers.

It’s been fun to build, although quite a bit of work and I blew my budget by a factor of 3X. Several times during the construction I wondered if this was my version of a mid-life crisis. It probably is. Oh well, it least a food forest is more productive for my family than a little red sports car.

We started with this sketch of an existing site on our property where I had installed deer fencing and drip irrigation already for 15 fruit trees and a handful of raised beds. I had already chipped rough stairs out of our heavy clay soil. We laid out the pathways between the existing two year old fruit trees with tape. We then brought in 30 yards of compost/dirt to build the new mounded beds.

This is the second of two loads. The first 15 yards of compost/dirt only made three beds (you can see them in the background). We could probably use a third load, but I’m *really* tired of hauling dirt up and down this hill. We’ll expand next spring for version 2.0.

Note to self: a truck containing 15 yards of moist compost/dirt is pretty darn heavy. Heavy enough that it will snap any irrigation piping in the ground that it rolls over. Oops. This one only cost me $4 to fix, but several hours of digging to find the broken pipe.

Next up, planting the mid-canopy berry bushes for the food forest and lining the paths with wood chips.

First eggs

Posted: October 12, 2009 | Author: | Filed under: 3. Food Security | Tags: , | Comments Off on First eggs


Ah, the joys of “maiden eggs” (as Joel Salatin brands these small pullet eggs). We finally get to enjoy the benefits of the chicken tractor investment.

Two double yolks so far!

Permaculture expert

Posted: September 30, 2009 | Author: | Filed under: 3. Food Security | Tags: , | Comments Off on Permaculture expert


I mentioned a “food forest” we’re working in several posts. Here’s a bit of background and an image to explain what that is….

After reading a few permaculture books (Gaia’s Garden was the best of the bunch), we hired a local expert who lives in our town to come over and discuss specific ways to implement permaculture in our yard. One of his interns created a nifty set of drawings like this one of a food forest to provide guidance.

Not a bad investment of $250 for several hours of their time, ideas, and delivered sketches. We’re using an area in which I already had deer-proof fencing and irrigation piping.

Growing your own

Posted: September 29, 2009 | Author: | Filed under: 3. Food Security | Tags: , | Comments Off on Growing your own

 

Feeling good about your work to become more self-sufficient? As I am building out our food forest (photos soon), I was feeling a bit smug about it actually. Until I took the time to think through the 100 foot challenge. Yikes. We’ve got a long way to go.

But growing your own food is worthwhile, and it is radical. One of my new favorite quotes is from Jules Dervaes, the urban farmer and founder of Path to Freedom.

“Growing food in one of the most dangerous occupations on the face of this earth, because you are in danger of becoming free.”

Portable chicken coop additions

Posted: September 10, 2009 | Author: | Filed under: 3. Food Security | Tags: , | Comments Off on Portable chicken coop additions

Our first couple of winter-style storms blew through recently. Had a chance to observe the effects on portable chicken coop.

There was no issue with the coop trying to turn into a kite via the tarp and sail off. But I found that if I added another section of tarp on the SW corner (the direction our storms come from), it served two purposes. The new tarp both stops the strong storm wind from chilling the chickens and also provides shade for the longer days of late summer, when the sun can still get quite hot.

In anticipation of our 15 birds beginning to lay eggs for the first time, we also added a few “nest boxes” to the coop as well. These are simply upside down 5 gallon buckets with doors cut into them.

Sand + dichotomous earth on the bottom gives enough weight to keep the buckets upright. The spikes on top keep the chickens from roosting and pooping all over them. I admitted defeat and used store-bought spikes after trying twice to make my own from bamboo sticks.

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