Homesteading

by Sandra O

A number of years ago I awoke to the unpleasant reality that when the stuff hits the fan and people were unable to get food and water, they would spill out into the suburbs, even past the burbs, to our sleepy community, to take what they wanted by any means they could.

Although I lived in a “safe” area with preps, a garden, and neighbors who were hunters, I realized I could not expect them to protect me, nor would I be able to defend the property I owned.  I recognized I was going to have to move out of my comfortable environment.

It was just a matter of where.  I started to search for a country homestead where I would stand a chance of staying alive and protecting myself.  A place small enough to be manageable on a small income, but large enough for my kids and their families to come when “the trigger event” occurs. This is the short version of how I did it.

First, I evaluated how much I could spend.  What could I pay cash for, what could I get a mortgage for, how much tax could I afford to pay once I left my job?  Would I buy just raw land or could I get some kind of a residence on the property?

Once I figured out that magic number, I had to decide if I was going to pay cash up front or get a small mortgage?  I called my bank and ask them what they would offer me and I was impressed with the no points and the very low rate they quoted.

I had to pray hard on what to do because I didn’t have any debt.  If I used my retirement funds to pay cash for a place it might put me in a tight spot later on. I finally decided to take a mortgage out until I could sell the suburb house and pay off the new mortgage.  With a pre-approval letter in hand, I started looking for my country homestead.

Where to go?  I read the recommended books, considered the options, including moving west where my husband’s family is located.  But, I like the state where I live. Tennessee is listed as one of the top 7 “freedom” states and the state legislature, while not perfect, thinks about preserving the people’s rights more than other states I have visited.  Plus, there is no state income tax and while there are four seasons, winter is normally mild and the growing season is about 8 months depending on the year.

I got the map out and decided where I was going to start looking.  I did a lot of research on the internet to learn about the counties and the small towns in those counties. I looked up taxes, best use rights, zoning laws, and restrictions.

Almost every weekend for a year, I was in the car driving the back roads of Tennessee. Besides my BOB (click here to read M.D. Creekmore’s bug out bag checklist), I always had maps, boots, hat, bug spray, a compass and a handgun with me (M.D. Creekmore’s Top Handgun Choices).  I frequently got lost and would go into the local café or gas station and ask directions.

I talked with the people in the cafes and ask them about the area and if any places were for sale.  Some places were friendly and others not so much, which gave me an idea of whether “outsiders” would be accepted or not.

I had to learn about the topography of the land in different counties. When you look at the pictures on the internet, they don’t show you that 13 of the 15 acres for sale are on a 1500 foot high hill, which would only be good for goats.

I walked quite a few properties so I could learn the lay of the land.  I wanted some acreage, so I learned to use land and farm sites, not realtor.com. I learned how to check google earth to see what was bordering the land I wanted to look at so I didn’t drive 3 hours to a site to find the next plot was a junkyard.  “Prepper” real estate ads and sites were way too expensive for what they offered and real estate agents were not willing to drive 1 or 2 hours from their offices to show you property.

I learned how to work around the agents to go see property myself and talk to the property owner and their neighbors.

Country folks are usually sitting on their porches watching the world go by. I’d pull in a driveway and wave at them and if they waved back, I’d go talk to them. They’d tell me who died and who was wanting to sell.  I would always ask if the land flooded, how often, where the closest stream/river was, if it was good hunting land, and if they would buy the land. I heard quite a few interesting stories!

After about 6 months, I got pretty knowledgeable and narrowed down the counties I would consider buying in.  I programmed my favorite internet sites with the parameters I wanted and then it was just watching, visiting and waiting until the right property came up for sale.

After about a year, I had my choices narrowed down to two counties and two properties.  One homestead I wouldn’t need to do anything to the residence, the land was a pasture with ponds, but it was located closer to a small city than I wanted and the taxes were higher than the other choice.

The second choice I would have to refurb the residence, but the land was raw hunting land with a meadow and natural springs scattered throughout and it was more isolated, but still within 12 country miles of a tiny town.  Both were about the same acreage and had old barns on the property. I spent a week praying and doing “what if” games in my head and finally put an offer on the property with the raw land.

Buying a property from country folks is not anywhere similar to buying a house in the city or the suburbs. There is a lot of poker face haggling going on, but basically what you see is what you get.  If you are not an expert, you have to bring your team of experts with you.

You need to have a guy for the house, the electrical, the roof, the well, the septic, and for the outbuildings. If you are going to farm the land, you need a guy to come check the land.  Depending on how far out in the country it is located, it is not easy or cheap to get this team of experts out to the property when you want them to come.  Did I say that country folks work on their own time schedule?

One thing I will caution readers about is to find out if the property is in any sort of tax relief program.  For example, is it planted with trees for logging?  Does it have an agricultural exemption?  Is it in any program which offers a tax reduction?

My property was in a “greenway”, which was supposedly county sponsored; but after research, I found it was really funded by the state, which was really funded by the federal government.  I had to take the property out of the program, pay taxes from the last year which the property had a tax reduction.  By doing this, the property is no longer considered a tax-relief property and is no longer on the government inventory list.

I purchased the property for a reasonable price, considering I was going to have to redo the residence interior.   The bones were good but the guts were old. I had to find a contractor I could work with, who would drive an hour into the country! Most contractors would listen to what I wanted and tell me no, it was too far for them.

It took me three months to find two contractors who could do the job and get bids; I picked the one I liked the best. The contractor did the work I couldn’t do; wiring, plumbing, moving walls, digging a basement. It was not cheap and it was not fast, but it was good.

Between weather delays, people delays, inspector delays, it was about 8 months to complete the contractor part of the refurb.  My sons laid the new floor, painted the interior, changed lights, fans, etc.  There are still baseboards and crown molding to put back up; plus a hundred other little things to do.  It’s a work in progress.

The house had a fireplace with a 40-year-old gas log set, so I went shopping for a wood stove to put in the fireplace. Wood stoves are not cheap!  Once you find what you need, it has to be installed. I’m not talking about just inserting the stove; the chimney has to be inspected, primed and flued and a topper added to keep the brand new roof from burning up.

Again, getting people 1 hour out in the country was a time-consuming effort; but it ended well. It heats the entire house to between 66 and 70 degrees, depending on the outside temperature.

I tried to make all the basic systems redundant, the electric HVAC is backed up with a propane generator, which is backed up by a wood stove and fans. The frig and freezer are backed up by the generator and the kitchen stove runs on propane plus the wood stove is also a backup.  The electric well pump is backed up by the generator, but I’m still working on getting a solar system for the well, then I might add to it later.

The septic, while new, can be diverted to the first owner’s old country line, which runs out in the woods somewhere.  My son installed a video surveillance system that shows 360⁰ completely around the house and which works beautifully. With 7 large dogs outside and 6 yappy little dogs inside, not much goes unannounced.

The last couple of months have been spent fencing the front 2 acres, installing gates, clearing the garden, planning a rain catchment system, and coops for the chickens and ducks!  It has been frustrating slow at times but exciting at the same time.  I have been accepted in the area and my neighbors are friendly and helpful.

I think any horde, gangs, or desperate people leaving the big cities, which are 125 and 175 miles distant, will get tired, lost and discouraged long before getting anywhere near the backwoods, especially if they are walking.  Most people out here have guns and I hear target practice going on all the time.

I feel safe; I can defend myself, and am working towards establishing a home business and being at least half-way self-sufficient!  I hope this inspires some of you to take the challenge and find yourself a country homestead!

by Matilda

With limited space, time and money, I want an optimal, seasonal yield from my cool climate garden.  No matter where I live or how much room I have, the garden is a significant part of my daily life. It also provides an opportunity for appreciation of God’s provision.

Most vegetables are beyond comparison for taste if you grow them yourself.  However, some take up garden space for a very long time or, if the season is too short for heat-loving plants, you may end up being disappointed with the crop.

Everyone can grow something, even if it is only sprouts on the kitchen bench. Everything you grow yourself makes you more self-reliant and can reduce your potential chemical exposure.

Those folk fortunate enough to have a greenhouse (especially one with some form of warmth) can extend their growing season considerably in some cases.

I don’t have a greenhouse so this is the criteria I use to determine what to plant in my garden. Ponder these considerations within your own context and growing zone.  I have included a few of my own examples.

1. 1. Does it grow well in my zone?
      Only fast crops of tomatoes, corn, pumpkins, melons etc ripen or mature for me. Even then, the cool humidity puts them at greater risk of disease.  I only put in a few plants for immediate blissful eating, not to store.  I just don’t have the space to potentially waste.  Of course, every now and then, you might get a bumper crop as a result of an extended period of lovely weather.  In that case, thank God for the crop and preserve what you can.
      For the most part, though, there seems little point trying and trying to grow something that just doesn’t thrive in your garden.
   2. What frozen, dried or tinned foods are cheaper to buy than grow?
      For me, dried beans, grains and legumes are way cheaper to buy as well as frozen cauliflower, peas, corn, brussels sprouts. Tinned tomatoes, pineapple, beans, legumes, and asparagus are better value for my time and space too.  I have a couple of olive trees but they are unlikely to provide all our needs.  Bottled olives are on my shopping list.
   3. It grows well here but how long does it take to grow?
      Cauliflowers, large cabbages, storage onions all grow well in my district.
      But I don’t give them priority because they take up space for a long time.
      So do other plants, but they are better value, which brings me to the next point:
   4. Can the whole plant be eaten or used?
      Of course, you can compost any of your spent vegetable plants. However, I give priority growing space to those with the most edible parts – even the ones that take up space for a long time such as:

Garlic
My favorite cool climate vegetable is garlic.  I plant it very close together in rows, thinning it out as it grows.  First I use the shoots, then the slightly swollen bulbs as green garlic when it just starts to bulb up.

By the time the bulbs really start to swell as the weather warms, the remaining garlic is spaced well to encourage large bulbs.  By that time we’ve been eating fresh garlic for months already!
Any garlic not eaten, dried or planted by the time it’s ready to sprout again in autumn, gets brined and hot smoked in a makeshift smoker – the wok.  I’ve only just started doing this and found that hot smoked garlic lasts a couple of months or so in the fridge.

Sprouting Broccoli:
It makes little flowering side shoots for a long time.  Additionally, you can eat the leaves as greens.  Has anyone tried making little savory rice rolls (similar to dolmades) out of broccoli or other brassica leaves?

Beetroot and Carrots:
Quite fast growing.  The tops are also useful as steamed or salad greens and in soups.  I make pesto out of carrot leaves and it’s not too bad.

Parsely:
Excellent value for space.  It produces lush leaves until it flowers and goes to seed.  The flowers are among the best beneficial insect attractors.  Then you can collect the seeds.  First green seeds to add to salads and soups, then after the seeds have dried on the plant, they can be used as a cooking spice.  When I eventually pull the plant out, the root is scrubbed and used to flavor stock.

Other “cut and come again” greens:
Lettuce, Asian vegetables, spinach, chard, rocket, celery, kale, and many others all keep producing leaves until they eventually go to seed.  As a bonus, some seed is suitable for saving and sprouting after you’ve eaten all that leaf produce.

Fast growing veggies:
Radish is a great value for everything vegetable.  It grows very fast and there are winter varieties, that if planted at the right time, will overwinter in your garden, to be used as you want until the warm weather arrives and they eventually bolt to seed.  Collect the seed for sprouting before adding the spent plant to the compost heap.  Young leaves are tasty in salads, as steamed greens, and in soups.

Radish also has a surprisingly beneficial nutrient profile.
http://www.nutrition-and-you.com/radish.html
Asian greens and rocket are other examples of speedy vegetables.

Edible “weeds”
Truly a survival food.  Foraging is growing in popularity.  There are many edible “weeds” that we like to include in our diet.  There are also lots of books and websites to help identify edible and poisonous plants.  One good thing about edible “weeds” is that most of them self seed.  They will always be in your garden happily cohabitating with your fruit and vegetables.
Dandelion is my favorite “weed”.  The young, tender, slightly bitter leaves are excellent steamed with other greens and in salads.  They also have medicinal properties.
http://foodfacts.mercola.com/dandelion-greens.html

When the dandelion plant gets a bit old, especially after flowering, we chop off all the old bitter leaves and new tender ones emerge from the root again.
Eventually, the root can be dug up, scrubbed, roasted and ground as a coffee substitute.  Caffeine free and delicious! Other edible weeds in my garden are chickweed (for salads), sheep sorrel (adds a citrus tang to salads), milk or sow thistle, amaranth, nettle, fat hen, to name a few.  Here are some great ways to eat your weeds!
http://greekfood.about.com/od/discovergreekfood/a/wild_greens.htm

1. 1. 1. Invest in perennials
         Can be slow to establish but generally low maintenance. Just keep them fed and mulched in their “permanent” bed…  They stay in the same spot for some years and can share a bed with a few fast annuals like radish and lettuce that won’t interfere with their growth..  Asparagus, globe artichoke, bramble berries, rhubarb, horseradish are all examples of edible perennials.
      2. Do I have any “Volunteers”?
         Edible weeds are in this category but also a few others. Potatoes, Jerusalem artichokes, peas from pea straw, and anything that germinates from the compost bin.  Tomatoes are some of best examples.  They germinate from compost when they are ready, they usually grow very vigorously and yield a surprisingly good crop – especially the cherry and bush varieties.
         We purchase spent mushroom compost in autumn and spread it on the garden.  One year we had such a yield of volunteers that we had bottles and bottles of dried sliced and ground mushrooms for the pantry!  Be careful with field mushrooms though.  Make sure you can identify them and rule out any poisonous ones.
         So – don’t be too hasty to weed out volunteers.  Assess their potential worth first!

A few final points:

1. 1. • Most people can eat a varied diet of fruit, vegetable, and foraged foods without concern. Do your research about the nutrient profiles of the foods you eat in a balanced diet and plant to provide a variety of nutrients.  Check with your doctor if there are any foods that may interfere with the medications you take.
      • Ensure you have the resources and knowledge to identify edible wild foods. There are some that can kill you like certain mushrooms and others like this one: http://wildwoodsurvival.com/survival/food/poisonousplants/waterhemlock/index.html
      • Don’t forage for food in places contaminated with chemicals, exhaust fumes, peeling lead paint or dog/cat droppings. Be careful what you put in your compost.
      • You can make the most of any growing space you have from pots on a balcony or sunny window to a backyard patch by assessing the value for space, time and money of the edible plants you can grow.
      • Share your experiences with others. Teach the little ones especially where food comes from, how to grow it and how to find it.

God bless your gardening efforts!

by Debbie S

I’ve been seeing a lot of people on forums and comments on other blogs asking about how to save vegetable seeds for next years planning, so I decided to write this article to share what I’ve learned through years of gardening and seed saving…

Hybrids are basically for commercial production and flavor is not necessarily what they are after.  Most of us know they are designed for good shipping ability or for ripening all at once for harvest.  Heirlooms are different.  They’re ripe when they’re ready.  Tomatoes have very thin skins and wouldn’t ship well.  But they have fabulous flavor.  If you’ve never had a Brandywine tomato you’re missing out!

Seed saving is a massive subject and I’m only going to be able to scratch the surface.  There are many books and organizations dedicated to this subject.

• http://www.seedsavers.org/
• http://www.seedsofchange.com/
• Seed saving guidebook
• Join this group (yes it costs money) and you’ll get the yearly catalog that lists other seed savers who’ll sell you their seed at a very nice price, plus you can sell yours.  http://www.seedsavers.org/Content.aspx?src=membership.htm

The first step to seed saving is pollination.  Your plants must be true to form and not cross-pollinated.  Some plants are self-pollinating, others via insects (bees, moths, butterflies) and yet others via wind.  To maintain varietal purity you need to watch how your plants are pollinated.  Isolation via distance is great if you’re on acreage.  If like me you’re gardening in a city there are other techniques available for you.

Time:  Time isolation works well for certain crops provided you’ve enough space.  If for instance, you’re growing two different types of corn you could plant corn one and then wait a couple of weeks and plant corn two.  That way the pollen from corn one will have done its job before corn two has pollen ready.

Mechanical Isolation:  This is pretty much what I do given the small garden I have.  Bagging is great on corn.  Cages wrapped with floating row cover or old sheer curtains from Goodwill work well for tomatoes.  Masking tape closes female flowers on squash, cucumbers, and melons.

It is important to have more than one fruit or veggie to save from.  You’ll want to have the choice of which is truest to the parent and grew well in your garden.  Don’t think one tomato or one corn is enough.  It’s not.  You want to have seed saved from several of the best.  Also be sure you are harvesting from fully ripened fruits and veggies.

I think the queen of the garden is the tomato, so let’s look at saving from this plant first.  Oddly enough there is quite the controversy among seed saver over the extent of cross-pollination.  Some believe that crossing is rampant, while others feel after many years of growing there is no problem.  I don’t want to risk mine so this is what I do.

I cage my tomatoes rather than steak them.  This makes it easy for me to isolate them for pollination.  I have floating row cover although you can use old sheer curtains, mosquito netting or something similar.  I quite literally wrap the entire tomato cage being sure the wrap is taller than my cage.  I then twist the top extra material and tie it off.  This encloses my tomato keeping any little bee out.  I leave this in place until I have fruit set (baby tomatoes) then I remove the wrap and tie a small piece of colorful yarn LOOSELY around the stem so I can locate those first few tomatoes.

Come harvest time I pick all the tomatoes with the yarn and head to the kitchen to start the seed saving process.  I’m sure we all know these little seeds are covered with a jelly-like substance.  It’s important to remove this gel before trying to save the seed.  It’s very easy to accomplish.  All you need is a container, a knife, and some water.

Cut the tomatoes in half and carefully squeeze the seeds into the container.  Careful removal here leaves you with a seedless tomato to eat!  Love not having to forfeit eating one of them.  Once you have all the seeds into the container add enough water to cover them with lots of room to spare.  I use an old water tumbler and half fill with water.  Let it sit on the counter for a long time as you’re going to be fermenting the gel sack off the seeds.  This process not only cleans the seed of the sack but also kills many of the seed-borne diseases.

During this process, your container will begin to stink and a grey/white layer of gunk will form on the top.  It’s pretty stinky so it’s best if you can do this outside; hopefully in an area where kids or pets won’t be able to dump it over.  You’ll want to pay close attention to the seeds as if left too long in the water they will begin to germinate.

You want to stir your seed/water mix a couple of times a day.  When you see bubbles rising in the mix or the grey gunk covers the surface then the process is complete.  Add enough water to double the liquid in the glass and stir vigorously.  The good seed will fall to the bottom of the glass and the bad seed will float.

Pour off the water being careful to keep the good seed.  Repeat this process of adding water, stirring and pouring off until only clean seed remains.  The final rinse should be poured into a fine mesh wire strainer and set on a towel to remove as much water as possible.  Then pour out seeds on a small plate and spread out evenly in a single layer.  Do not try to dry on a paper towel, a piece of cloth or flexible plastic (think plastic wrap).  It’s very, very hard to get the seed off of these things.

You want them to dry quickly and not bunch together so stir them twice a day.  Never dry then in the sun or oven.  If it’s hot and humid, a fan will help speed up the process.  Tomato seed should remain viable for 4-10 years depending of the variety.  Completely dried seed should be sealed in an airtight container and stored in a cool, dry area or frozen for long-term storage.

The next seed I like to save is my green beans.  Again, cross-pollination is an issue.  Bush type plants are easier to work with as you can cover just like you do the tomato plants.  If you’re growing pole beans you could cover one section or use special little bags and cover each flower you’ll be saving from.

They must remain covered until the last flower sets beans.  They are, however, very easy to save from as once the vine/bush is dry at the end of the season you just pull the vine/bush down and let it sit for a day or two.  Then you pull the bean pods off and open the pods.

Opening the pods can sometimes be frustrating.  If so, then place them in an old feed sack or pillowcase, close the top, lay it on the ground and then run in place.  You can also hang it from a tree and beat it with a stick or baseball bat.

Once you’ve opened all the pods you’ll need to clean the seed.  This can be done on a windy day by pouring from one bowl or basket to another.  Be sure to cover your work area with a tarp as sometimes the wind can gust and blow your seed into the grass.  I will sometimes use a box fan to assist if there’s no wind.

Weevil damage can occur so it’s a good idea to freeze them in your freezer for 5 days before storing them for next garden season.  You want to be sure they are dry before doing this so take a few and place on a hard surface like the driveway.  Hit them with a hammer.  If they shatter they are dry enough for storage if they just mash then you’ll need to dry them longer.

They should have about 50% germination for up to four years if stored in a cool, dry, dark spot.

Next, let’s look at corn:

All corn varieties are pollinated by the wind and will easily cross with each other.  Pollen is made by the tassels that form at the top of the stalk.  The silk that forms on the top of the corn cob is the female section.  As the wind blows grains of pollen from the tassel drifts to the silk.  An interesting fact is each silk that is pollinated results in a kernel of corn on that ear.  Corn pollen is light and can be carried a long way by the wind.  Isolation would require about 2 miles between corn patches.

You always want to grow your corn in large blocks or patches rather than long rows.  It’s best to grow at least 100 stalks although more is better.  This will help you avoid inbreeding.    Never work with the tassels and the ears on the same plants and when saving seed try to save from 20 to 50 different plants.  If you are growing more than one variety of corn than time isolation would be an option for pollination.  Plant corn ‘A’ and 2-3 weeks later plant corn ‘B’.

Hand pollination is time-consuming but not hard.  You’ll need a pocket knife, stapler, and bags.  This company has bags: http://www.seedtodayequipment.com/index.php?cat=1&industry_id=4&category=bags_and_packaging_supplies

It takes a few days to hand pollinate and in a drought even longer.  You start just before the silks begin to emerge from the tiny ears; if any silks have already emerged then that ear will be ruined for seed saving purposes.  So when you’re sure the silks are about to appear you want to bag as many ears as are ready.

Always bag the top ear (the plant feeds that one first and drops last in a drought).  To bag your ear you will tear off the ‘leaf’ that is covering the baby ear, cut the tip-off with the pocket knife, cutting enough off to expose the silks, this will look like a pea-sized circle in the center of the cut.  Use care when doing this too far down can damage the cob and cause smut.  You can tear off an ear or two from a plant you’re not going to save from and look to see about how far down to cut if you want.

Once that’s done you cover the ear with a ‘shoot bag’, it covers the whole ear and is wedged next to the stock.  The number you can bag the first day will depend on how many have silks ready to emerge.  You can bag more on the second day and third or fourth days if needed, particularly if the pollen is shedding yet.

The next trick is to staple a brown ‘tassel bag’ around each tassel just as it begins to shed pollen.  Bag too early and the pollen won’t develop.  Once you’re ready to bag your tassels give the stalk just below the tassel a good shake.  This will help dislodge any pollen that may have floated in.

Then pull the branches upward and put the ‘tassel bag’ over the tassel.  You’ll want stalk of the plant in the corner of the bag…  Fold the opening of the bag back towards the stalk and then staple closed.  The object, of course, is to fasten the bag tightly enough to keep the pollen from falling down and out of the bag.  You may notice some of the leaves just below the tassel have pollen in them.  You’ll want to remove those leaves as they have contaminated pollen there.

The pollen will fall in the morning and you’ll want to collect it before the high heat of the afternoon as the sun can kill the pollen inside the bag.  If you can’t collect until later in the day you’ll need to have more pollen to get good seed set as the sun will reduce the quality.  Your best bet is to bag in the evening and do your pollination is the late morning or early afternoon.

When ready to collect pollen bend each tassel bag over slightly downward, don’t break the tassel or the plant!  Give the bag a good shake to dislodge as much pollen as possible.  Unfasten the staple and still keeping the bag down gently shake the tassel as you pull it from the bag.  Once you’ve collected all the pollen bags carefully pour your pollen into one bag and mix well.

Keep the shoot bags on until time to sprinkle the pollen onto that ear.  If the silk has grown long you can trim it to about one inch in length.  Try to think about how many ears you’ll be pollinating and how much pollen you have so you can divide it evenly.

Shake the pollen from the bag along one of the ‘fold’ lines on the edge.  When you first shake it down the bag there will be some debris, just remove it.  Then gently shake the pollen onto the silk, maybe just less than ½ teaspoon per ear.  Try to be even and don’t just dump it in one spot.  Cover your pollinated ear with one of the used pollen bags and pull the bag around the ear and staple a couple of times.  You want it to be loose enough for the ear to grow but not so loose the wind can blow it off  The bag can be left in place until harvest and that way you’ll know to save seed from that ear.

To harvest the seed, leave ears on until the stalks are completely dry.  If animals or weather makes that impossible, you can harvest mature cobs, husk and dry them under shelter.  Drying should be done in less than 95 degrees F.  Do not remove seed until both cob and kernels are dry.

To remove seed just rub two cobs together.  Any silk or cob debris should be removed by pouring seed from one bowl to another on a windy day.  Any kernels not completely formed should be removed.  Always mix your seed from at least 25-50 plants for best results.  As always, seed should be completely dried before storing.  Sweet corn should maintain 50% germination for up to three years if stored in a cool, dry, dark spot.

Melons:  These are very difficult to save seed from as they need bees and flies for pollination, plus the plants will drop up to 80% of their female flowers.  It’s impossible to know which flowers will be dropped so you’re looking at maybe 10-15% of the hand pollinated ones developing into fruit.

Of course, the best isolation is with ½ mile distance between varieties and for those of you living in outer nowhere that may be possible.  For the rest of us, we’re looking at hand pollination.  It’s not hard but it is time-consuming.  You’ll need to know the difference between male and female flowers and you’ll need to know when they are ready to open.  Male flowers have straight stems clear to the flower while female flowers have a small bump/ball at the base of the flower where it attaches to the stem.

You’ll need a small piece of tape about ¼ inch wide and ½ inch long, tape flowers closed in the early evening.  When you tape the female flowers pinch the tape together beside the flower but leave the tape ends apart, that will make removing the tape easier the next morning.  If you break off the stem from the male flower you can use a piece of tape as a stand-in to help with holding the flower.

In the morning after the dew has dried carefully remove the tape from the female flower try not to damage the blossom.  Then take the male flower and remove the tape and its petals, gently rub/dab the pollen from the male flower onto the stigma (that’s the long slender stick thing) of the female blossom.  Once done carefully re-tape the blossom closed and then mark with a small piece of floss or yarn.  If after 3-4 days the stem attachment is still green and the tiny fruit has grown slightly, then your chances are good you were successful.

Melons seed are ready when the fruits are ready to eat, however, if you can let them slightly overripe you’ll have up to 10% more seeds although the melons aren’t as good to eat.  When you save the seed have a bowl ready and then slice the melon open and collect in the bowl.  Try to remove as much pulp and threads as you can.  Then add water to allow the bad seed and debris to float, pour off and repeat until only good clean seed remains.

Pour the seed into a strainer and rinse thoroughly to remove any of the natural sugar from the melon.  Dry in the strainer on a dish towel to remove as much water as you can.  Then pour onto a cookie sheet to dry.  Seed should remain good for up to 5 years if stored in a cool, dry and dark place.

Cucumbers:  The pollination for cuke’s is the same as for melons.  They don’t like high heat or drought conditions so don’t pollinate during those times.  For seed saving, you need to grow the cuke’s to maturity and allow them to ripen way past eating.  Depending on the type they should turn to a white, deep yellow or even orange.

Each cuke will have hundreds of seeds.  If you keep fully mature cucumbers for about two weeks after cutting from the plant, you should have a greater number of viable seed.  If you find you have few if any seed inside the cuke that generally means you didn’t get enough pollen or it could be a type that doesn’t require fertilization.

To clean the seed follow the same process as for tomato seed.  Use just enough water to cover the seed but not too much.  Set the bowl outside and out of direct light.  After about 3 days, follow the tomato water and drain information.  Pour clean seed into the strainer and dry as for melons.  Under super conditions seed should be good for up to 10 years.

Sorry for the lack of photos, as I said at the beginning; it’s been a long time between gardens due to the deer.  Thankfully the electric fence is keeping them out and I’m hopefully saving seed again.

Heirloom seed saving is a wonderful experience.  It’s easy to save your garden seed for next year and can help with not just prepping for disaster but also reduce the cost of a garden.  There are many books that will help you learn to save heirloom seed and they should be part of any preppers’ library.

by Petermccue

Like me, I’m sure you’ve seen the numbers out on the internet – “You only need a quarter of an acre to support a family of four” or “Five acres for a family of four” or “20 acres for a family of four” – but what is the basis for these figures?

I originally started this article to debunk the “seed safety in a can” products. I’m sure everyone’s seen them, and I’ve always had the idea they were a crock of … err, horse-by-product, but I’d never seen anyone actually sit down and crunch numbers on why they aren’t. So I began looking at numbers – figuring out food you could get for a given amount of seed.

I knew that the numbers I’d seen in various gardening books for recommended numbers of plants to have were insane – mainly based on my own experience with gardening. Those numbers may be enough to supplement a family during the summer, but they aren’t enough to actually support a family for a whole year.

So, I started by looking for data on how much food a typical family consumes in a year. Weirdly, this was quite difficult to find. Oh, yeah, there’s plenty of lists out there for how much to store for a family/person, but not much on how much fresh food a family will consume in a year. While I could have tracked my family’s consumption for the year, this would have delayed this article a bit! Eventually, I tracked down some data from the USDA (hey, finally some use from my tax dollars!) where they gave stats for various ages of both genders.

While the information on meat and such like wasn’t that useful to me, the vegetable and fruit guidelines were quite helpful. Under their “thrifty” plan (and allowing for loss/wastage, and taking the highest possible number for the various age/sex breakdowns), I came up with needing 100 pounds of potatoes, 125 pounds of dark green veggies (broccoli, chard, spinach, etc), 100 pounds of orange veggies (carrots, sweet potatoes, winter squash, pumpkins), 120 pounds of legumes, 305 pounds of other veggies (this includes ALL others – tomatoes, radishes, onions, garlic, etc.), 425 pounds of fruit, and 240 pounds of grains.

The fruit, I’m leaving out of this (except in as far as melons and watermelons figure in), mainly because you mostly get that from bushes and trees. Because in a SHTF situation (or even in an off-grid homesteading situation) we will likely eat a lot fewer fruits and more veggies than the current American diet, I did increase the veggies a bit to account for fewer fruits (especially those from tropical sources – such as bananas or citrus).

I then looked at the various veggies/beans/fruits/grains in the categories and looked for ease of seed saving and ease of growing. I wanted to avoid “finicky” vegetables such as cauliflower or ones that aren’t really that nutritious such as celery (which is also picky on growing). I also wanted to avoid too many biennial vegetables, but that was more difficult – lots of very nutritious veggies are biennials, which makes saving seed a bit more difficult.

My assumption was that we were dealing with a family of four, who had never gardened before, and who would make LOTS of mistakes in the process of learning how to garden well. Also, I assumed they’d need to do other things than a garden, so we went with plain row cropping for the garden, rather than more intensive (and thus more productive) methods of gardening. Thus, I took the lowest yield assumptions for the various veggies I chose, as well as assuming a lot of wastage in seeds.

I then plugged a LOT of data into a spreadsheet (Which if you contact me, I’m happy to share – MD, if you want if for your next edition of the CD, I’ll get you a cleaned up version with the ability for folks to plug in their specifics and get data out… my spreadsheet doesn’t only include a “thrifty” plan, but also a stepped-up version for moderate needs and then a “lavish” plan for what I’m aiming at. It will give you approximate numbers of seed you need each year, etc as well as figure what sort of spacing requirements you’ll need.)

So, with those assumptions in mind – I looked over the choices and made some picks. Any biennials I figured I needed twice as many seeds, so I could plant the second year as well. (I’m not going to show the row feet or the square feet calculations I made, but they are in the spreadsheet).

In the dark green veggies, it’s very hard to avoid biennials. It’s also very hard to avoid vegetables that could potentially cross with each other, which makes seed saving even more difficult, as you must bag/isolate/etc the various plants you’re saving for seed. I ended up settling on broccoli, collard greens, mustard greens, and spinach.

Mustard and spinach are annuals, which makes them easier to deal with, and along with the collards, they can be canned for storage. Broccoli doesn’t can well, but it can be dehydrated and it is also cold hardy, so you can grow it in spring and fall as well as winter if you’re in a mild climate or have cold frames. Kale and chard, although falling in this category, are not only more unfamiliar with most Americans but also biennials.

For our mythical family of four, I was aiming for 280 pounds of broccoli, 60 pounds of collards, 60 pounds of mustard greens, and 100 pounds of spinach. Including plants raised for seeds, they would need 14,000 (2 ounces) broccoli seeds (remember, it’s a biennial, so we double the seeds to allow for two years before our seed saving bears fruit), 2800 (third of an ounce) collard seeds (also a biennial), 3200 (quarter of an ounce) mustard seeds, 3200 (1.5 ounces) spinach seeds.

Orange veggies only have one biennial, but it’s an important one – carrots. Carrots are tricky to save seed from because they can so easily cross with Queen Anne’s Lace. So having extra carrot seed is probably a good idea, so you can keep your seeds pure (and make lots of mistakes in the process of learning). The other tricky veggie here is sweet potatoes, which are very nutritious but do not reproduce from seed.

So you can’t store seed for them. Note that squash and pumpkins will cross with each other, but the procedure for saving their seeds is a bit easier than say … carrots. Although my spreadsheet plans on using sweet potatoes for my family (because we grow them already), I’ve replaced that for our phantom family with extra pumpkins and winter squash, to go along with the carrots. I’ve assumed that our family would need 160 pounds of carrots (they want good eyesight!), 80 pounds of pumpkins, and 160 pounds of winter squash.

Note that the carrots can be canned, but can also be stored long-term, so these are good choices. For this family’s need, they’d probably want 26,400 (1.5 ounces) carrot seeds, 150 (1 ounce) pumpkin seeds, and 1200 (4 ounces) squash seeds.

Beans and legumes are basic to nutrition and can help make up for lack of meat in our diet. Beans aren’t that difficult to save seeds from and the whole family is annuals, so they aren’t tricky for our family. (The main problem is learning when to start harvesting the dry pods!) For our family, I’ve figured on them wanting 280 pounds of dry bush beans, 120 pounds of dry pole beans, and 80 pounds of cowpeas (crowder peas/southern peas/black-eyed peas). For this, they’d need 14,000 (156 ounces or about 9.75 pounds) of bush dry beans, 2800 (43 ounces or 2.75 pounds) pole dry beans, and 5200 (20.8 ounces) of cowpeas. Luckily, you can mostly use storage beans for this, if you increase the amounts somewhat to allow for lower germination rates.

Potatoes are a problem. You need them but you can’t grow them from seeds. And they don’t store past a year. You need about 10 pounds of seed potatoes to plant a 100′ row, which will usually yield about 100 pounds of potatoes. Our mythical family of four will need about 400 pounds of potatoes to eat, and about 40 pounds to seed for next year. What we’re doing here is always trying to keep at least 10 pounds of potatoes in the house, so we can grow them if need be. It’s not an ideal solution, but it’s the best we can do.

Other veggies include a LOT of things that American’s really want to eat. For our mythical family, I’ve culled the large list down to pole green beans, beets (good for both roots AND greens but a biennial), cabbage (biennial and will cross with our broccoli and collards!), sweet corn, cucumbers, garlic (doesn’t reproduce from seed – we’ll discuss later), leaf lettuce, onions (biennial), garden peas, peppers (both hot and sweet), radish, summer squash, and tomatoes.

Peppers and tomatoes don’t cross-pollinate easily, so you can choose a number of different varieties if needed. They are also easy to save seed from. Cucumbers will cross with themselves but can be hand-pollinated if more than one variety is desired to be grown. Garlic is a bit more difficult as it is not only best grown in the fall in most of the US, but it also doesn’t seed, so you need to have cloves to start from. Best bet is to keep some garlic cloves around at all times to have some to start.

Ideally, our family would need 100 pounds of pole green beans, 120 pounds of beetroots (and that would give them about 20 pounds of greens to eat fresh), 120 pounds of cabbage, 120 pounds of sweet corn, 60 pounds of cucumbers (although you’ll likely get a LOT more), 80 pounds of garlic, 80 pounds of leaf lettuce, 120 pounds of onions, 80 pounds of garden peas, 60 pounds of peppers, 20 pounds of radish, 80 pounds of summer squash (although since this is zucchini – it’ll likely be more), and 160 pounds of tomatoes (likely more, but …).

For this, you’ll need 560 (9 ounces) pole green bean seeds, 4400 (2 ounces) beet seeds, 5200 (three quarters of an ounce or so) cabbage seeds, 2400 (2 pounds) sweet corn seed, 320 (half an ounce or so) cucumber seeds, 4 pounds of garlic, 12,400 (half an ounce) leaf lettuce seeds, 21,200 (3 ounces) onion seeds, 9200 (84 ounces or 5.25 pounds) garden peas, 400 (tenth of an ounce) peppers, 1320 (half an ounce) radish seeds, 120 (half an ounce) summer squash seeds, and 240 (under a tenth of an ounce) tomato seeds.

Fruits mainly concern melons and watermelons – you don’t need much of these because they don’t store well and are hot weather growing plants. I’d be comfortable with 200 seeds of each type for our mythical family, which should give them plenty of fruit.

Grains are the last category. For our mythical family, I’ve chosen flint or dent corn, popcorn (which can do double duty but will have to be hand pollinated to keep it from cross-pollinating with each other and with the sweet corn), wheat and oats. The wheat can come from storage – like the beans, just increase what’s used for lower germination. The corn cannot come from storage, as it’s most likely hybrid.

And most folks store rolled oats, which won’t work for sprouting. Ideally, the family would grow 100 pounds of dent corn, 100 pounds of popcorn, 120 pounds of oats, and 600 pounds of wheat. To get that, they’ll need 2 pounds of dent corn, 2 pounds of popcorn, 32 pounds of oats, and 100 pounds of wheat. The corns would be planted in rows, but the oats and wheat would be broadcast as it’s unlikely they will have the equipment to drill plant the other grains.

Now, what amount of space would be needed for this? Assuming row cropping the garden vegetables, and broadcasting the oats and wheat, and NOT doing any double planting throughout the year, you’re looking at about 1.68 acres for our family of four – assuming normal soil conditions. If you have access to manure/compost, spacing requirements would probably be lower. If you’re in dry conditions or on poor soil, it’d be more. And this doesn’t allow for letting a field lie fallow for a while or something similar.

Looking at those numbers of seeds, it’s easy to see that most “survival seed banks” are not really worth it. They won’t be tailored to your climate, firstly. Also, they will include seeds that will not store well – onions for example. Sweet corn is another seed that doesn’t store long. They also get the numbers way wrong. For example – one seed vault has 65 green bean seeds. This isn’t going to be near enough to allow for any loss in germination or other catastrophes.

Another one out there (marketed as working for 1 acre of gardening) has 1700 tomato seeds! That’s about 1000 more than even *I* would store at my most paranoid. And they are all one variety too! But they don’t just get the numbers wrong – they also get the varieties wrong. Many many vaults include onions that don’t keep well – such as Walla Walla. Don’t get me wrong, WW’s are a great onion, but they don’t keep. You want a long keeper such as Stuttgarter or Yellow Flat Dutch.

I found one vault that included 700 jalapeno seeds – really? Does anyone need that many jalapenos?? I had 10 plants last summer and that made so many peppers we were drowning in them. (Lesson learned – next year – 4 plants!). They also include vegetables that are very difficult to grow for beginners – such as eggplant or celery. And celery is not exactly high in calories or nutrition, so it’s taking up space better used for other seeds. Even the ones that include grains, don’t include enough. Most include at most half a pound of grain seed – which isn’t going to be near enough.

When I started this project, I’d originally thought that having one of those seed vaults wouldn’t be a complete waste of space. I had hoped I’d find one that could serve as a useful backup to my own seeds. However, I’ve come to the conclusion that they are pretty much utterly useless.

And that’s without having seen the “instructions” that are included! I’ve come to the conclusion that they give a false sense of security to folks, who think that if they have one, they don’t need to bother with gardening or practicing – but they can just “grab the can” and start gardening and grow tons of food. You’re better off getting the supplies to store your own choices and tailor it to your own needs than buy one of the over the counter collections.

By Joel Skousen

Author,  Strategic Relocation and The Secure Home

Kentucky and Tennessee are a couple of my favorite states for relocation for those already in the East looking for safety.  They are both in or beyond the Appalachian chain of mountains which will channel refugee flows coming from the east into known highway corridors, which can be strategically avoided.  First, let me offer some general comments about Kentucky, which is a very diverse state, with 13 distinct geographic regions, each with their good points and bad.

Far western Kentucky includes alluvial plains and small hills with good basement potential but not as much forestation as the east.  But be careful, certain western counties surrounding Madisonville also have large coal deposits. The low lying areas south of the Ohio River, however, are nearly flat and thus poorly drained, thus leading to a lot of wetlands.  Where good drainage allows, the land is fertile and productive. The cities of Louisville, Owensboro, and Henderson along the river are highly industrialized, with pockets of poor crime-prone areas.

The East/central Bluegrass region around Lexington is probably the most sought after area in Kentucky and is known for its horse farms. The land is expensive because of that but you can still find reasonable land away from the horse farms.  I’m partial to the south/central area around Bolling Green, Ky, This is a great small city that has friendly people and low crime. It is surrounded with great country farms with lots of patches of forest and trees.

Kentucky has the advantage of having huge swaths of forested land out in the main farm areas of the state.  If you look on the satellite view at Google Maps you can see a very broad swath of forest land starting just south of Louisville and meandering back and forth, east and west of I-65 on its way south to Bowling Green.  When you find farmland backed up to these forested areas, you get both farm self-sufficiency and forested retreat privacy.

Your choices in Kentucky are broader than you think, but the important thing is to follow these general criteria:  1) find land with basement potential, 2) good water resources (well, spring, or creek), 3) a mix of forestation for shielding and open land for cultivation, and 4) the home site should not be visible from any main or secondary paved road.  

For higher security farms and retreats, a lot of preppers are attracted to the Daniel Boone National Forest which is located along the Cumberland Plateau in the Appalachian foothills of eastern Kentucky—the subject of this briefing.  It encompasses over 700,000 acres of very rugged terrain and characterized by steep forested ridges and deep ravines—less than 15% is in private hands.  

This is also coal country, especially in the regions abutting the national forest, where the most private land is found.  Here, you do have to be careful of pollution from mining as well as the uncertainties of not owning the mineral rights under your property.   Be especially careful about buying land after it has been strip-mined and then “reclaimed,” by bringing in fill dirt of unknown quality.

As a consequence of coal and difficult terrain, the region is highly depressed financially as coal has been strangled by environmental regulation and farming has never done well in small plots—though that’s what we want for retreat farming if they otherwise meet the above criteria.  The eastern counties of Kentucky have hundreds of small, mostly dying towns. The downside of all this is that newcomers to the area are looked upon with some suspicion. Why would anyone want to come to a place where there are few jobs?

Another negative is the political orientation of Eastern Kentucky–a Democratic stronghold due to the mining and welfare mentality that persists in this area.  Even though Kentucky is in the hands of two Republican Senators, Rand Paul is a positive, and future Senate Majority Leader McConnell is a problem—a compromising Republican leader who talks a good story but doesn’t follow through, except to support the Powers That Be.

Weather is often cloudy and rainy in the Appalachians, so you have to be prepared for that.  The rain provides abundant water resources but is not the best for livability.

For a look at the various divisions of the national forest, open up this link to the official map. The long national forest extends almost to the Ohio border in the north down to Tennessee in the south.  It is divided into 3 districts, the Cumberland to the north, the London district in the center and the Stearns district to the south. But, notice that there is a large district to the East called the Redbird district that is rarely shown in green (designating national forest) on most maps.  

That’s probably because it is riddled with private land, which is great for retreat farms.  And there’s a good-sized town in the middle, Manchester, Ky. In this district, you’re surrounded by national forest but there’s plenty of private lands to choose from—unlike the West where most national forests are locked up tight and where “inholders” are few and far between (and treated with some hostility by the Forest Service).  By the time these large forested lands were turned into national forests in the Appalachians, there was already way too much private farming to buy them all out, so they remain as “inholders.”

Normally, in Western states, I discourage the buying of remote inholding lands because there are too few property owners to mount an effective legal battle against the federal government should they choose to arbitrarily close off your access (which they have done in the past).  I don’t think confiscation of inholding land is a danger in this area because there are so many private holdings, and the constitution requires compensation (money the feds don’t have).

Some of the best areas of the National Forest in which to find private land is in the Southern Stearns District, West of Williamsburg along highways 92 and 478.  You don’t want to locate along those particular highways, but there’s a lot of private land and smaller roads branching off from both where you can find secluded homes and forested land.  In the middle of the district are the tiny towns of Stearns and Pine Knot which become the tourist and service centers for those living inside the National forest.

I actually prefer the land outside the forest between the town of Monticello, Ky and the western border of the DB National forest, bounded by the meandering south fork of the Cumberland river. This is where you find real retreat land, already carved out by small farmers, but no major tourist roads or traffic—and less coal mining.

The central London District goes from Lake Cumberland in the south to the Kentucky River farther north.  This district is between the two major towns of London to the east and Somerset to the West, which provides good commercial access to those who find retreat sites amid the forest in between.  I-75 also crosses through the forest from SE to NW so stay clear of that passageway. Much of the good retreat property near Somerset is to the East before you get to the National Forest, so don’t think you have to get within the national forest to be safe.  This central district is one of the few places that has a river running north/south through it (most other rivers simply cross the plateau West-East).  There isn’t much private land along this Rockcastle river, but there is some. Follow it on google maps (satellite view) to find cultivated parcels.

The northern district (Cumberland) is East of Lexington, Ky, a major city so there is more pressure on this area for second homes for the wealthy of Lexington.  But still, there are plenty of rural farms available. If you need to be near a big city like Lexington, locate east of I-75 so you don’t have any major obstruction blocking your access to the mountains to the east. The towns of Winchester and Mt. Sterling are ideal for being fairly close to Lexington but also very close to the mountains.  

The text and illustrations of this article are from Organic Gardening and Farming; October 1973.

By Philip and Joyce Mahan

After some study and experimentation, we have set up a productive food chain– table scraps to earthworms to catfish–in our backyard. The project is satisfactory in many respects, utilizing waste materials to produce fresh fish for food and at the same time yielding ample compost for a small garden. The material cost is minimal. The whole operation can be set up for less that $15.00. The equipment occupies only about 12 square feet of space, and the entire assembly can be easily moved if necessary.

The materials can be very simple: Two 55-gallon steel drums, three panes of glass 24 inches square, and a medium-sized aquarium air pump. One of the drums will serve as a tank for the fish, oxygen being supplied by the air pump, and the second drum should be cut in half to provide two bins for the worms. The panes of glass are used as covers for the worm bins and fish tank, and for ease and safety in handling can be framed with scrap lumber.

We chose catfish because they are readily available in our part of Alabama, and reach eating size in a summer. Various small members of the sunfish family, such as bluegill or bream, would also be suitable.

While we readily admit that our plan has no commercial possibilities, we know that we can produce, for our own table, tasty fresh fish that is uncontaminated and costs practically nothing, both considerations being highly relevant at this time.

Fish are usually efficient food producers; a one-pound fish yields approximately 10 ounces of food. Further efficiency is indicated by the fact that fish fed on commercial fish ration convert about 85 percent of their food to meat. While we are not prepared to compute the technical data about food conversion in fish on an earthworm diet, we can readily state that the fish relish earthworms, and do grow well on this food.

Spraying the water back into the tank aerates the water and at the same tie releases the ammonia produced by excretory matter in the water. Because the oxygen requirements of fish are quite high, the faster the circulation of the water, the faster the growth of the fish.

We decided to keep our equipment as simple and inexpensive as possible at the beginning, but to use the maximum stocking density advised, keeping 40 fish in a 55-gallon drum. Although inexpensive circulation pumps are available, we chose to use a METAFRAME HUSH II aquarium bubbler for oxygenation and a garden hose to siphon off water from the bottom of the barrel.

We take off 15 gallons of water per day, but as we run the wastewater onto the worm beds and adjacent garden, the cost is negligible. Although we have creek water close at hand, we were advised to use city water to avoid the introduction of undesirable algae and fungi that might be harmful to the fish. Because city water is usually quite highly chlorinated, it is necessary to draw the water in 5-gallon buckets and let it stand for a day in the sun before emptying it into the drum to replace the water siphoned off. We have seen no evidence of oxygen starvation in the fish with this method of water circulation.

The most important variable we have found is water temperature. Catfish will feed at temperatures as low as 40 or 45 degrees, but their greatest growth is achieved at 84 degrees. We noticed a decided increase in feeding activity when we painted the barrel black and moved it into full sun. Leaving the buckets of water in the sun not only speeds chlorine dissipation but warms the water as well. In areas where city water temperatures are close to the growth optimum, the chlorine can be removed by setting the hose nozzle at fine spray, and the barrel can then be filled directly from the water supply. Although summer growth is greatest, the project continues throughout the year. By judicious use of sun when possible, plus auxiliary heat when necessary, winter growth can be kept at a fairly high level.

When water temperatures are right, the fish will feed so enthusiastically that they may leap completely out of the barrel. For this reason, the top of the barrel should be covered completely with a pane of glass which will also help in keeping the water warm. Because fish feed most eagerly in late evening and early morning, we feed them at these times of the day. As with earthworms, care must be taken not to overfeed. In warm water and bright sunlight, any uneaten worms will die and decompose rapidly, giving off gases which are poisonous to the fish.

Transferring any grown animal to a confining environment produces the equivalent of cultural shock, and is followed by a period when feeding is light and growth is slow. At this time special care must be taken not to overfeed. Unless fish can be found that have been hatched and grown in a tank, small fish should be selected to stock the barrel, as their adaptation time is proportionally shorter that that of larger fish. To eliminate as much transplanting shock as possible, we use a large wooden box, lined with two layers of polyethylene sheeting and covered with an old door, to stock with fry. By the time the fry reach fingerling size, they can be transferred to the barrel as replacements are needed, and very little shock is evident. An insect lamp over an opening in the cover of the fry tank permits the small fish to eat at night while ridding the garden of night-flying pests.

Earthworms, as any angler knows, are food for fish in their natural habitat; and most fish in captivity prefer live food to the dehydrated type. Kitchen scraps make excellent food for earthworms, and even the most careful organizer will have enough refuse to feed, quite handsomely, 5,000 to 10,000 worms.

We found that growing earthworms at home is not difficult. The basic materials are easily arranged, and the earthworms’ demands are simple. All they require are a protective container, reasonable temperature control, adequate moisture, not too much food, and a light loose bedding which is never allowed to become acid.

The steel half drums are ideal worm bins as they are effective protection against the earthworms’ predators in addition to being quite inexpensive. They have the added advantage of being movable so that as cold weather approaches, the worms can be carried to an enclosed porch or basement to continue composting activity and fish food production throughout the winter.

Each half-drum will house between 4,000 and 6,000 worms. The two half-drums are utilized most effectively if they are alternated so that the worm population is allowed to build up in one, while the second supplies the fish food. The eggs that remain after the worms are removed will serve to start a new supply when the first drum is converted to feeding.

Worms will start breeding when they are about 90 days old. Each worm, possessing reproductive organs of both sexes, will produce an egg capsule per week, containing from three to 25 eggs apiece. The most economical way to establish worm bins for a home food-chain and composting operation is, to begin with capsules. Although a little more time is required initially, there will ultimately be more worms available to work with. Under the protected conditions of a worm bin, the survival rate of young worms is very high.

The type of worm selected is not important. There are two compost-bait types raised commercially — usually known as “brown-nosed worms” and “red wrigglers.” Either type may be purchased from most dealers.

The bedding for the worm bins may be any organic material that is water-absorbent and does not pack so as to exclude oxygen and impede the worms’ movement. Leaves and old straw are good, as is aged sawdust soaked in several waters for a week or so. Ground peat moss, being odorless, is ideal if the worms are to be kept inside. Soil should never be used as it contains no nutriment and is likely to pack.

It is safe to assume that earthworms can eat any kitchen scraps except citrus rings, vinegar dressings, and bones. Though they eat almost anything given them, their intake of food, and likewise the production of compost, can be increased by frequently feeding foods that are especially tasty to them. The prime consideration is to avoid overfeeding. Although worms thrive on decaying food, they should never be given more than they can consume in 24 hours.

The dangers of acidity cannot be overemphasized. It is the only real hazard in worm raising. Acid bedding frequently destroys an entire worm farm in a few weeks. To maintain accurate control over the acidity, one should use a soil test kit or a pH test strip of the type used by industrial and medical laboratories.

Tests should be made at least once a week, and the pH factor (degree of acidity) should remain between 5.5 and 6.5 on the scale. A reading of 5.0 or below means danger, and immediate steps must be taken to neutralize the bedding with an application of pure ground agricultural limestone. It is important to read the label carefully to verify that the limestone does not contain any added phosphates which also bring disaster to a worm bed. 

The drums should be located in an area protected from temperature extremes. Optimum temperatures for feeding and growth are between 60 and 70 degrees, but worms will thrive in most summer climates if the beds are well shaded and the bedding is kept loose. During the summer months, the bedding must be sprinkled daily, but it should never grow soggy. The glass tops on the half drums serve to conserve moisture, but they will not prevent crawling. Worms have a tendency to roam at night during damp or rainy weather unless preventive measures are taken. A small light over the bed is an effective deterrent to their wanderings, while an equally effective measure is to cut a remnant of carpet to fit the drum exactly and lay this on top of the bedding.

The table scrap-earthworm-catfish food chain, even from its inception, was never intended to evolve into a money-making project. It was simply an effort toward a better way of life through cooperation with the forces of nature; and in this respect, our project has been a complete success in more than one way.

First of all, we have a regular supply of fresh fish at minimal cost. A seven-ounce catfish fingerling grows to 25 ounces in a summer, thus producing a pound of food in four months. In the second place, we have netted ample compost for our vegetable garden, thereby further ensuring a low-cost and nutritive food supply. In addition, and perhaps this is the greatest benefit of all, we have the satisfaction of working with growing things and the gratification of knowing that we have not wasted the earth’s resources. We have made an elementary biologic principle work in our own backyard.

IF YOU’RE THINKING OF RAISING CATFISH

The fish were channel catfish.

Our fish were not fed exclusively on earthworms in that we started them on commercial catfish food. Because it is very difficult to teach pond-grown fish to eat in confinement, we offered them exactly the same food they had been eating in the pond. We continued these rations for about four weeks before their response was sufficiently enthusiastic to risk changing food. Then the earthworms were introduced gradually — a few at a time — until the fish accepted them.

Some of the fish recognized the worms as food immediately, and within a week the water literally boiled when the worms were thrown in. We wondered, then, if they might not have started eating more readily if we had used the worms initially.

The weight of fish: We don’t have any figures at all on the weight of the fish we started with, and we didn’t weigh any before we ate them. As we stated in the article, we began with 40 fish — fingerling size. Although we arrived at this number on the basis of Auburn’s ratio of water as estimated by the fish farmer from whom we got the fingerlings. He didn’t weigh the fish and we don’t remember what that estimated weight was. We didn’t know this thing was going to work.

Earthworms: Again we have no figures on pounds of worms used. For reasons of ethics (we advertise in OGF), we didn’t mention in the article that we are in the worm business. Since we have so many worms around, it just didn’t occur to us to keep records of how many we used. We simply tossed the worms into the barrel until the fish stopped eating. We fed once a day, but we don’t think that all of the fish ate at every feeding. I would estimate an average of 75-100 worms per day. The worms were small, not weighing more than an ounce per hundred. We were careful not to feed breeders to the fish.

Table scraps: We have been feeding table scraps to earthworms for a number of years; and to date, we have not weighed a single scrap. We can, however, offer fairly precise figures on this step. Earthworms are reputed to produce their own weight in compost daily; but our experience has not indicated that they really do. A thousand worms weigh 13 or 14 ounces, but daily feeding per thousand does not approach that weight. We usually keep a container of around 2,000 composting worms in the kitchen, and I give them a couple of tablespoons of selected (that is to say, soft and mushy) scraps each day. In liquid measure this amount would be only two ounces.

It never occurred to us that a nutritional deficiency might develop in fish fed only on earthworms. I doubt that either of us would have recognized malnutrition if it had occurred. As we don’t have backgrounds in biochemistry, we are not in a position to make any statements concerning the nutritive value, qualitative or quantitative, of earthworms. We did definitely notice a considerable increase in feeding activity when we started giving worms.

In fact, we ate our first fish — seven of them — when they were only ten inches long because they jumped out of the barrel, and we didn’t want to put them back for fear they had been injured. We feed our tropical fish (Red Oscars) earthworms also, but we can’t continue the diet for more than two months at a time because the fish get so lively and eager for food that they leap out of the aquarium whenever we lift the cover for feeding. I would say we are inclined to agree that earthworms are a near-perfect fish food.

The text and illustrations of this article are from Organic Gardening and Farming; January 1972 The new series of reader research projects starts with an exciting plan to turn grass clippings into organic fish.

Dr. John H. Todd with Dr. William 0. McLarney, Director of Aquaculture Director of Aquaculture Studies for the New Alchemy Institute

OVER THE PAST FOUR MONTHS in the series “Shaping an Organic America” I have dealt with the urgent need to create a science and biotechnology which will permit revitalization of the countryside along organic and ecological principles.

It is my belief that if such a science is developed and its findings put into practice, an ecological crisis of saddening dimensions can be averted. I have also pointed out that there is no guarantee for the development of a truly ecological science by the scientific community alone.

Most scientists simply are not trying to set examples for the future by living and working with the earth. Because of this, the recommendation was made that the science for the organic method should marshal the participation of many, many people from all walks of life arid particularly you who are already working with the land.

If this were to happen, then a true restoration of the countryside might be possible. I know that this is a tall order and no doubt the concept will be scoffed at by many scientists. Yet, my confidence in the whole idea of the Readers’ Research Program has been bolstered by the letters I have received following my article in the November issue of OGF.

Several really ingenious and even brilliant ideas have been presented by a number of people. (In a future issue I would like to describe some of these exciting plans and discoveries which are not directly associated with the experiments outlined in this column.)

In the entire history of man, there has probably never been a period quite like now when so many people feel a sense of despair and helplessness towards the future. I think this can be changed if enough people are able to see even the slightest possibility of embarking upon a personal course of action which will truly benefit the planet as well as themselves.

Organic gardening, farming and homesteading are among the most positive steps that can be taken in this direction. Involving ourselves in creating a science for tomorrow is a commitment upon which so much will depend. This month inaugurates the Readers’ Research Program and for many of you working with us, it will be a way of beginning, in the words
of Bob Rodale, “1972 as the Year for Organic Action.”

Introducing the Readers’ Research Program

New Alchemy Institute scientists, with the support and collaboration of the editors of ORGANIC GARDENING

And Farming magazine, will be working with you to organize a widespread, continuing research program to investigate many of the important organic concepts. As gardeners and homesteaders you will have the opportunity this year to become involved in any one of at least three scientific projects.

Besides the Back Yard Fish Farm research which is described in this article, the second project will involve a country-wide search for the most pest-resistant varieties of vegetables. At the present, this essential information is not widely available to the organic gardener.

The third Readers’ Research project planed for 1972 will investigate ecological design in agriculture. Specifically, we will compare complex interplantings of vegetables in home gardens with single or monocrop plantings. Soil fertility, resistance to pests and a number of other variables will be measured and the differences between the two approaches will be analyzed.

I would like to begin by describing the way in which the Readers’ Research Program will be organized. Each of the research projects will be outlined in these pages. After you have read the articles outlining the projects, if you are seriously interested in working with us on a specific experiment, please inform us of your intent to become involved. The address is: The New Alchemy Institute, Box 432, Woods Hole, Mass. 02543. After you contact us we will send further instructions on how to set up the experiments, what equipment you will need, where to get it, and how much it will cost.

There is one point I would like to emphasize at this time. If the research program is going to succeed and be an important source of information, please do not ask us for project instruction booklets unless you honestly intend to carry out experiments with us, and have the space and facilities to do so. The booklets cost money, and replying to casual inquiries takes up valuable time. Since we are operating this program on a relatively low budget, the time and money you save us will give us a greater opportunity to work toward the success of the program. All the information you need to make a decision about your participation can be made on the basis of what you read in this column. The booklets will only add the “how-to” details and outline some of the potential pitfalls that the investigator needs to know about.

The organization of the first project, the Back Yard Fish Farm, will be slightly different. It is possible that the number of people who would like to become involved will exceed the supply of brood stock which we have available. Thus, we will have to limit the study to match the supply of fish.

The procedure for the Back Yard Fish Farm will be as follows: First, if you are seriously planning to get involved, contact us. Then, just prior to constructing the dome and installing the pool, you must contact us again to see if the fish are available. If we say yes, fish will be reserved for you. When the fish farm is built and a picture of it sent to us, we will ship the fish for the experiment.

Becoming involved in a research program may also provide a bonus that you may not have counted on; you will get to know the nearest organic gardener-scientist working on the same project. If at all possible, we will try and send you the address of the nearest participant, so that you can work together if you wish.

As the growing season proceeds you will continue to collect scientific data. At the end of the season your results will be sent to us for tabulation and be included with the findings of other investigators. Finally, we will describe the results in these pages and in research publications. Within a few years we will be able to make recommendations to you that have a large and meaningful body of knowledge to back them up. It is just possible that the Readers’ Research Program will help create the wisdom that will guide those of us who are working with the land.

The Back Yard Fish Farm, A Revolutionary New Way To Raise Foods at Home

Dr. William 0. McLarney and I are working together to organize the Back Yard Fish Farm research. The project involves a totally revolutionary concept in agriculture. If it should prove successful, fish farming, on a small scale at least, could become a common practice throughout the country.

We are proposing that you raise fish in a small pool inside a geodesic dome using intensive culture methods. You will create tiny fish farms which are organic and capable of producing foods of excellent quality. If you have ever enjoyed keeping an aquarium of tropical fishes, then I think you will receive the same pleasure as well as a food crop from the Back Yard Fish Farm.

In the November issue of OGF, I described some of the thinking and theoretical concepts which went into our Back Yard Fish Farm prototype. I also outlined the reasons for choosing herbivorous fishes from the tropics and using the dome to create a suitable climate. I think it would be wise to reread that article, as space limitations prevent my repeating it. This research project will use the same methods and fish (tilapia) as we did in our prototype.

What I didn’t point out in the November article is the necessity for developing organic methods in aquaculture. It has become clear to us that organic fish products are desperately needed in this country. The area of Cape Cod in which Bill McLamey and I live is dotted by tiny lakes, many of which provide good fishing. Bill, an ardent fisherman, can be seen often casting for pickerel, perch or bluegills.

His harvest is an important source of food for a number of us. Since fish are one of the most complete, health-giving foods, we usually jump at the chance to eat them — or at least did, until a pesticide-chemist friend examined our fish.

The little pond in the woods, far away from industry and agriculture, is contaminated. The perch we were eating had up to 40 parts per million of DDT in their fatty tissues. This is far above the allowable limit for foods. We already knew that many marine fishes are contaminated with a variety of harmful substances, but the pond was the last straw. We had to start figuring out ways to grow fish organically and cheaply and we had to do it soon.

Philosophically, we were committed to small-scale intensive systems, based upon ecological and organic principles. If the fish were to be relatively poison-free, their diet would have to consist of aquatic plants and algae; this would shorten the food chain and make the system more productive while less prone to accumulating harmful substances in the fish. The prototype we developed will act as a model for the initial OGF research project.

How To Do It

The first task of the experimenters in the Back Yard Fish Farm research will be to build an inexpensive geodesic dome which will house the pool for raising the tilapia. Tilapia are excellent and much revered tropical fish which will primarily eat the algae you grow right inside the pool.

In order for the tilapia to grow to an edible size, which is about one-half pound, a growing season that’s at least six-months long in water that is normally well above 70 degrees F. will be required. The dome provides these high temperatures by trapping the heat from the sun, which is stored in the pool and transformed into algae growth. The fish will die if the temperature drops much below 60 degrees F. Their vulnerability to cold is one of the reasons we chose this

fish. If some careless person ever takes them out of the dome and puts them in a local stream or lake they will not survive the winter to upset the natural ecosystems. This is not true for the Imperial Valley in California, parts of southern Florida and southern Texas. Although tilapia are now found wild in these areas, we do not plan to aggravate the problem of exotics by conducting experiments in these regions where they can survive outside the dome.

The dome is a very effective heat trap and the pool is quite an efficient heat retainer. At the time of this writing, which is late October, the water temperature in our prototype Tilapia-Dome is still in the 60s even though the outside temperatures have been dropping near freezing at night. With the addition of a little bit of heat, we have been able to push the temperatures up into the 70s during the cool days of fall. With design improvements in the dome, we think that even in our climate, the addition of heat will not be necessary in the future.

Building the Dome

Building a geodesic dome is relatively easy and inexpensive. You should plan on two or three days to complete the task. Some of you living in the more southerly regions of the country will be able to build them for less than $50. More sophisticated structures, incorporating a double skin of clear greenhouse vinyl with an air layer in between to prevent heat loss, will last for a number of years but could run as high as $200 for materials.

Feeding time in the tilapia dome. Their main diet will be the algae which grow in the pool, but it should be enhanced with small amounts of insect larvae.

Some of you living in the more southerly regions of the country will be able to build them for less than $50. More sophisticated structures, incorporating a double skin of clear greenhouse vinyl with an air layer in between to prevent heat loss, will last for a number of years but could run as high as $200 for materials.

Our prototype was a dome 18 feet in diameter, although we wished that it had been larger. One problem was that we couldn’t move around the 15-by-10-foot pool inside. This was annoying as I had wanted to start some plants growing inside, and to do more insect-culturing research to provide new kinds of supplemental foods for the fish. The optimal size for domes to be used in the Back Yard Fish Farm would be 25 feet in diameter.

This size should provide freedom to work inside while allowing a greenhouse area. All of our future research domes will be of the larger size. Costs begin to shoot up drastically when the diameter exceeds 25 feet. Our dome was built by Multi Fassett and Marsha Zilles of Earth House in Cambridge. The plans they used and strongly recommend for the Back Yard Fish Farm research can be obtained from Popular Science magazine, 355 Lexington

Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10017. (Ask for the Sun-Dome Plans.) The plans and instructions cost $5 and include a license to build it from the inventor, Buckminster Fuller. You should also read Knight Starr’s OGF article in the September 1971 issue on the geodesic greenhouse. Although this dome is too small for the fish experiments, he does provide a lot of valuable information. If any of you have access to a cheap supply of window glass, you may be able to build an experimental dome which will last for many years.

The Pool

The pool can be any type of children’s swimming pool, which varies in price from about $40 to $100. We used a 15-by-10-by-4-foot-deep, almost rectangular pool with a 3,400-gallon capacity. We assumed that this shape would be more conducive to breeding fish, but this original supposition was not correct. A 12-to-14-foot-diameter pool, 3 feet deep would do just as well and cost much less. The
volume of this pool would be close to that of the prototype since we only filled ours to a depth of three feet.

There is an alternative way of constructing a pool which would be less expensive: digging a pond in the ground, about three or four feet deep and 12 to 15 feet in diameter. Since we haven’t tried this method, we don’t know how well it will work. If your soil is heavy and contains clay, lining the pool to prevent water seepage will not be needed. One problem that we can foresee with the pond-pool is the loss of heat from the water into the surrounding soils. This might be minimized by the use of an inexpensive liner combined with a good insulating material.

Fish for the Back Yard Fish Farm

Tilapia, a tropical fish native to Africa and the Near East, will be used in the experiment. They eat algae, the microscopic plants that color lakes green. This coloration is especially prevalent in the summer months. Because it is possible to grow algae in huge amounts and at almost no cost, algae-eating fish can be raised quite cheaply.

Each of the experimenters participating in the project will receive one pair of tilapia parents from us. The only cost to you will be shipping and handling fees, which might run as high as $25, depending on where you live. However, if they survive and breed, this will be the only investment in tilapia you will ever have to make. Once established, the parents will be capable of producing thousands of young per year. This will supply you with plenty of offspring and you will be able to pass them on to any friends who may be interested in starting their own Back Yard Fish Farm.

Place the adults you receive in the dome pond. As soon as the temperature climbs to the low 80s they will start to breed and lay eggs which they care for in their mouths. Don’t panic at this stage; they are not eating their young. Tilapia are members of a group of fishes known as mouth-breeders.

After the brood is hatched and swimming freely about the pool, the parents will breed again if conditions are right. This process should continue until an optimal population density for your experimental pool is reached. If, after sampling the population, you find that there are more than 500 fish in the pool, you should pull the parents out to prevent overpopulation and stunting of the residents.

After the first year’s growing season is over, if the conditions have been favorable, you will have an excellent crop of edible fish. These can be frozen or stored live in aerated tanks for eating fresh as needed. The Malayan peoples in the Orient often store their live fish in rain barrels just outside the back door. Fish that are not of edible size can be held over the winter in warm tanks exposed to sunlight, or they can be fed to the chickens or pigs as an excellent high-protein organic feed.

The idea of feeding livestock herbivorous fishes is not as crazy as it sounds. At present, we are experimenting with growing tiny herbivorous fish, to be cropped at a small size, as a future source of organic food for poultry — but more about that in a later issue. A small number of fish should be held over the winter. That way you will have brood stock the following spring.

Food for the Fish

The main diet of the tilapia will be the algae which will grow within the pool. After the pool is filled in the spring, one-gallon samples of water from a number of local ponds should be added. This makes it possible to seed your pool with a variety of algae species.

You will also have to provide fertilization. In our prototype we suspended a small burlap bag filled with horse manure. We estimated the algae growth by scooping the water into a tall glass and examining the color. If the water looked green enough, we shook the bag every few days. When the “bloom” began to wane, we replaced the used manure with fresh. Many of you will have cow, chicken or rabbit manure which can be used instead of horse manure. The weight and source of all fertilizer used must be recorded. It is very important not to over fertilize, as too many nutrients could deprive the water of its oxygen. Be careful!

Supplemental Feeds

Thousands of years ago the Chinese found that the growth and health of plant-eating fishes is enhanced by feeding them small amounts of animal matter in the form of insect larvae. This past season we raised our fish on a variety of insect larvae including mosquitos, midges, rat-tailed maggots and house fly larvae. Each experimenter should culture one or two types of insects or earthworms. The goal should be to produce one-half pound per day of these animals. Two productive and easy insects to culture are the ordinary house fly and the midge.

If you have ever opened a garbage can that has rotten meat in it and seen the thousands of larvae or maggots crawling around, you have discovered how easy it is to raise fly larvae! Small garbage cans and a little waste meat might produce the supplemental food your fish need. Midges are cultured on trays in water fertilized with manure. The production of one pound of midges per day on a three-foot-square rearing tray has been achieved by fisheries scientists in Israel and Florida.

Apart from the algae and the insect larvae, your system should require few other food inputs. We have tied bunches of carrot tops and grasses to rafts as additional feed in the prototype Tilapia-Dome.

Collecting of Scientific Information

Intuition and common sense have played a large role in fish farming in the past. Science has hardly penetrated the domain of aquaculture. But scientific data is needed if we are to discover the best possible methods of fish farming.

It is essential that the participants in the Readers’ Research Program collect basic scientific information. At least half an hour per day should be spent caring for the Tilapia-Dome and collecting information. The first year’s data will not be very difficult to collect. We
need:

1) Temperature profiles taken twice daily, including air temperature, temperature within the dome and in the water; also, a log of weather conditions.

2) Estimates of the population in the pool made at least twice; once at the end of the month following the first appearance of young fish and once at the end of the season.

3) Measurements of fish growth taken each month from a selected sample of individuals.

4) Production calculations made at the end of the growing season by counting and weighing the total crop.

Building the geodesic dome is comparatively simple and inexpensive. It should take two or three days to complete the job. Costs can run from $50 to about $200.

5) A description of the food used (worms, insect larvae, etc.) must be given with the amount listed in pounds.

6) A description of the amount of fertilizer and the source must be given, including the length of time between changes.

Hopefully, we will be able to design a simple colorimetric test for you to estimate algae production on a weekly basis.

We do not know how successful the Back Yard Fish Farm idea will be. We have indications from the prototype that it will work. In fact, some of you may produce edible organic fish at less than 20 cents per pound (exclusive of your labor), some may even set still-water fish culture records for this country. All of you will have fun and learn a lot.

The experiment is risky . . . you could also end up with fish only large enough to feed to the chickens.

This may not make you happy, but your scientific data will tell us what went wrong. Your Tilapia-Dome can be used as a greenhouse the following winter, or if you are excited by aquaculture, you may decide to trap native fishes and fatten them in the dome in the winter. Thus, the experiment cannot really fail.

Bill McLarney wants to start a research project to find out if the dome can be used for two fish crops a year. During the winter he would like to try fattening bluegills, perch, crayfish, and clams to be harvested before the tilapia experiments begin again in the spring. The majority of us here want to use the prototype dome for growing kale, spinach, Chinese cabbage, and lettuce this winter. I suspect the cooks rather than the fisherman will win the first round.

I hope many of you will become involved in the OGF Reader’s Research Program. It could become a potent force for a saner agriculture in this country.

The Solar Greenhouse That’s Right for You (Text & illustrations for this web page came from the August 1978 issue of Organic Farming & Gardening) Here is a new gardening tool that produces fresh food when the snow flies.

by JACK RUTTLE

ALMOST ANY STRUCTURE that is built to look like a solar greenhouse will work. That is to say, the solar greenhouse concept is so right that you can ignore (or not know) the fine points of solar design and still build a house with much less need for supplemental heat than a traditional greenhouse. But once you understand a few basic solar-greenhouse design ideas, you can easily put together a greenhouse that truly lives up to the label solar, and provides remarkable efficiency.

Dave MacKinnon, Ph.D., ORGANIC GARDENING greenhouse designer, has put it all together after three years of experimenting and has created a design formula that gardeners in any climate can follow. His newest solar greenhouse, which he has built and tested in Flagstaff, Arizona, epitomizes a good solar shape. It has produced food through two winters without requiring any outside heat source. Almost all the floor space is usable for growing beds because the energy storage is on the walls. And it uses a minimum of materials because the design, insulation and heat storage are in balance and arranged to complement each other.

The best measure of a solar greenhouse is the plant-growing environment it creates. When the building is skillfully made, you will get midspring soil and air temperatures in the depths of winter on sun power alone.

Our experiences suggest that solar greenhouses can maintain that kind of environment in most parts of the country. ORGANIC GARDENING researchers have built two different greenhouses that have worked well despite unusual winter weather. The Flagstaff greenhouse performed well with much less sun than is considered normal, and the one at our Maxa-tawny, Pennsylvania, research center worked through the coldest winters in recorded meteorological history.

In December and January, we harvested enough salad greens every day for three or four people. Cold-hardy plants, all very rich in vitamins A and C, produce best. Escarole, lettuce, parsley, corn salad, chervil, chives, and other salad herbs are dependable. So are kale, chard and chicory, which grow so thin and tender in the weak winter sun that they are best in salads too. In spring and fall the harvests are bigger. Succession plantings make heat-loving plants like tomatoes and cucumbers possible far beyond their normal seasons.

Dave MacKinnon’s solar greenhouse greatly expands his crops of homegrown food. He picks salads every day through winter. Frost nips his outside garden early, so greenhouse protection has meant the first heavy-producing tomato plants he’s ever grown.

SOLAR GREENHOUSE BASICS

At the least, a solar greenhouse should have three features. One of the long walls should face due south rather than east or west. The south wall should have two layers of glazing. All the surfaces that don’t face south are insulated. But there’s a little more to it than that if the greenhouse is to live up to its solar potential. The new Flagstaff greenhouse is a perfect model.

Dave MacKinnon says the greenhouse should be about twice as long (east to west) as it is wide. Accordingly, his Flagstaff greenhouse is 20 feet by 12 feet. The two-to-one relationship offsets the effect of the shade that the opaque east and west end walls create. The building thus captures more solar energy for each square foot of growing space. If the building is made much deeper than two to one — that is, closer to a square floor plan — the heat-storage material in back is shaded too much. These proportions are recommended for greenhouses everywhere.

MacKinnon has learned another rule of thumb for sizing the energy-collecting south face properly, and has built it into the Flagstaff greenhouse. The peak should be made about as high as the building is wide (north to south). Heat-storing materials in the back of the greenhouse will then get the direct exposure to the sun they must have if the storage is to work efficiently.

The slope of the north roof is an important feature of MacKinnon’s greenhouse, though the precise angle of slope is not critical. Sunlight which enters the greenhouse and strikes the aluminum-foil-covered roof (white paint works well too) is aimed back down to the growing beds. From the outside, the interior of the greenhouse looks almost black because very little light is bouncing back out to the viewer. If designed well, solar greenhouses with reflective walls can actually deliver up to a third more light to the plants in winter. In the traditional all-glass design, much of the light passes right on out the clear north roof and wall. Angles between 60 and 75 degrees for the north roof will work well in the United States and southern Canada.

The slope of the sun-collecting south face might appear to be trickier to decide upon. The angle does affect how well the translucent face collects sunlight, but for greenhouses, it’s not as critical as when setting up a compact solar-heating unit. Actually, a wide range of angles will work equally well at any given latitude. The simplest thing to do is to add 20 degrees to your latitude. A south face with that angle will give optimum performance in January. But if that particular angle proves hard to work with, go to a slightly shallower one, and you will be favoring solar collection in spring and fall. If you use 50 degrees rather than 60, which, for example, you may figure is your ideal, you still have sacrificed very little midwinter light.

Given this leeway, other factors like convenient construction can help determine the south slope. The south face of the Flagstaff greenhouse was made steep all the way to the ground to shed snow quickly. That feature lets sunlight in sooner after storms. The Maxatawny greenhouse has a vertical glazed knee wall from which a shallow, clear roof slopes up to the peak. There is much less snow to worry about there, and this shape makes working in the front of the growing beds easier.

When it comes to putting in insulation and heat storage, however, solar greenhouses can get needlessly expensive. The key is to have sensible amounts of both. Great thicknesses of insulation can’t do away with the need for heat storage, and are wasteful. And obviously, adequate heat-storage material without a certain amount of insulation in the walls is equally wasteful. Even if you build a greenhouse that is not completely solar-reliant, using a balance of these component parts guarantees an economical building that will work well. (The information on the map indicates the proper proportion of materials, as well as recommending minimum amounts for a fully solar structure.)

HOW HEAT STORAGE AND INSULATION TEAM UP

The connection between heat-storing materials and insulation works like this. Without heat storage, solar greenhouses are something like a thermos bottle — all the energy is in the sun-warmed air. Drafts will quickly drain off the heat, because even the most tightly made building will have a fair amount of tiny cracks. Energy held within storing materials is not lost along with escaping air. The energy is released slowly as the greenhouse cools, and the building stays warm much longer.

A no-less-important effect is that heat-storage materials keep the greenhouse from overheating during the day. We quickly learned that without storage the inside temperature can soar into the 80’s or 90’s on cold, bright days. That is quite hard on a winter greenhouse crop.

With storage absorbing some of the incoming energy, the result is a milder daytime environment.

The amount of heat storage for full solar heating seems enormous at first, but is manageable in practice. Both of MacKinnon’s greenhouses use about 1,000 gallons of water stacked vertically on the rear walls. That amounts to four gallons of water for each square foot of floor space. The best method we’ve found is to use rectangular five-gallon honey cans with a rust inhibitor added to the water.

“Five-gallon honey cans make efficient heat-storage containers,” says MacKinnon. They pack the maximum amount of water into a given space.

Why do we rely so heavily on water? It is admittedly hard to work with because it tends to corrode containers and to leak. But water is about the best heat-storing material known and is cheap. The best alternative is rock (in any form from sand through concrete), but water holds about five times more heat. So water reservoirs on walls make compact heat storage that gets a good share of direct incoming sunlight.

MacKinnon favors smaller containers over 55-gallon drums for two reasons. Drums leave empty about a third of the space they occupy, because they are big and round. They also permit warmed water to gather into a few large areas, which causes both greater heat losses and poorer collection in those areas. Smaller containers keep the energy more evenly distributed. On the other hand, the large barrels are certainly worth using if they can be had cheaply. We’ve also used translucent plastic cider jugs filled with water dyed black, and have heard reports of success with beverage cans sealed with tape and stacked right-side-up.

The amount of insulation that MacKinnon judges to be practical in various regions is roughly the same as local, energy-efficient recommendations for homes. If that seems lavish for a greenhouse, remember that homes get a lot of extra heat; the greenhouse is designed to get along with none. To me, the need for plenty of insulation is a reminder that people aren’t much different from plants in their requirement for warmth, among other things. To use less insulation, however, is to need more heat storage, which demands more space and money.

Two other simple things are crucial to the success of our greenhouses. The earth below them is insulated to a little below frostline with plastic foam. And at night an insulating curtain is drawn over the clear south wall to reduce the high heat losses there.

It pays to insulate the earth below the greenhouse because the earth is a relatively poor insulator, contrary to a lot of lore.

A few inches of most common insulators match the R-value of ten to 15 feet of earth. But earth is a good heat-storing material, lying somewhere between rock and water. So insulating around the perimeter builds heat storage into the structure while stopping steady heat losses to the ground outside. We checked the advantage of doing this at the Maxa-tawny site. Six inches below the surface, the insulated soil was in the 40’s in January and in the 50’s in February, while the ground outside was frozen solid several feet deep.

The day comes when shuttering the glass or plastic face becomes practical despite the inconvenience of twice daily attention. Past a certain point, there’s no easier way to gain a few degrees inside. The south-facing glass loses a tremendous amount of heat compared to the other three-fourths of the building’s surface that is insulated. To add enough storage material to make up for what shutters can save would take too much room away from the plants.

We’ve found that a good nighttime heat barrier for the window doesn’t have to be a great insulator, but it must be durable and easy to maneuver, since it will get heavy use. More important, the material should be reflective on the inside and fitted tightly at the edges to stop air flow. A reflective material (aluminum paint or foil) will block all escaping radiant energy. Combined with an airtight seal, that seems to do plenty for me greenhouse. Beyond that, any insulating value you can build into the curtain is so much the better.

The muscle power it takes to raise and lower the heat-trapping curtain is the only non-solar energy a well-designed greenhouse needs.

Without a doubt, a thin, aluminized fabric which is operated by ropes or a pulley is the cheapest system to make and work with. The best one Dave MacKinnon tried was made of aluminum foil glued to one side of parachute fabric. That curtain lasted two years before needing repairs.

The third winter at Maxatawny we used a shutter system that could hardly be bettered for stopping heat. Panels of one-inch urethane foam, aluminized on one side, were held in place with wooden battens. We kept them in an air-lock entrance room that doubled for storing tools and gardening supplies. The only drawback to the foam is that it is expensive. Any exposed foam surfaces should be painted to waterproof the material against condensation that accumulates on the glazing.

Those are the basics of a solar greenhouse: the sun-catching design, strategically placed insulation, and heat storage. Together they make a cool-weather garden possible even in Northern states. In ours, the air inside has averaged 42 degrees higher than outside and between 45 and 55 degrees F. in the soil throughout the winter. Many vegetables will thrive in that temperature range.

VEGETABLE GROWING IN THE SOLAR GREENHOUSE

There’s a lot to be learned about cool greenhouse vegetable culture. The most important trick we’ve discovered is using the right growing container. Traditional greenhouse wisdom recommends pots on waist-high benches — easy to reach and easy to isolate diseases and pests. But continuous temperature recordings in the soil pots showed that the temperature in the root zone changed right along with the air temperature because the exposed surface of a pot is so large. There were large swings every day, extremes that plant roots aren’t used to. So we switched to two large beds 18 inches deep that cover the greenhouse floor. They held the root zone to a 10-degree daily change which is natural and also made a greater heat-storing mass.

Beds have many other advantages. Roots have more room to forage for water and nutrients. The environment becomes a better one for natural predators like spiders. Because the soil in beds holds a large amount of organic matter, they also become an important source of carbon dioxide. Plants in a sunny, airtight greenhouse can use up all the available carbon dioxide in a few hours.

Nothing like these greenhouses is available for sale yet, but several years from now you will start to see them. The big greenhouse manufacturers are redesigning their products exactly along these lines. They will probably be expensive. But a home-built, sun-heated greenhouse like ours

can be constructed now for less than the finest energy-wasting glass house, and will be tailored to match your local climate.

In the far North, where solar greenhouses will be the most expensive to build, they will yield the greatest expansion of the gardening season. Even in southerly Flagstaff, Dave MacKin-non reports that his solar greenhouse has made possible his first really good tomato crops, so dry and short is the growing season there.

Properly made and maintained, a solar greenhouse should outlast its builder. The materials are all durable or renewable.

House-attached greenhouses are even cheaper to build. As you plan your solar greenhouse, you should think first of this kind for many reasons. Attached greenhouses have about a third less surface area for the same floor space as a freestanding one. Thus construction costs are lower, and less heat is lost at night. Attached solar greenhouses are the most efficient hot-air solar collectors known. High and low vents that open into the home through the common wall exchange solar-heated greenhouse air for cool air at floor level from the house. At night, the house can return some of the heat to the greenhouse. All the design principles for solar greenhouses apply to the attached greenhouse, except they may need less heat storage. The only requirement is a suitable spot facing south that is unshaded in winter.

Looking only at the money, it’s obvious that a durable solar greenhouse, attached or freestanding, will repay its cost. Compared to conventional all-glass models the fuel savings alone will pay for its construction in three to four years in the North. And they make you independent of an unhealthy agriculture and the transportation system it depends upon for fresh vegetables to tide you through winter. That’s why we recommend so strongly that you build one if you can.

 

by Ron Melchiore

I had another post in mind to submit to you folks but forest fires are a subject that is near and dear to my heart. I’ve recently become aware of the fires burning in various areas particularly in the Southeastern United States. In fact, it finally made the National news tonight. I thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail many years ago and I can’t imagine the number of fires or amount of territory now burning through those areas.

As some of you know, we’ve had our share of forest fires out here. They’ve literally had us running for our lives. I can’t think of too many things that demand immediate attention more than walking out the door and seeing a billowing curtain of gray/black smoke rising skyward in the nearby forest.

The following paragraph is an excerpt from my book Off-Grid and Free: My Path to the Wilderness.

“It was like being in a movie theater, the big screen showing a large-as-life fire burning right in front of us, with black smoke billowing upward and a dense veil of white-gray smoke hugging the ground so thickly that the bright orange flames were visible only when they leaped skyward above the fracas.

A slight diminution in the smoke allowed just enough visibility to see an orange-red glow, much like opening the door to a furnace allows a view of the orange-red coals. And, like the furnace hungrily consuming its fuel, the intensity of the forest fire’s heat incinerated everything in its path. “

I have a full chapter devoted to our fire experiences. I am not a fire expert. Rather I’m a guy who has dealt with at least 4 different fires in our 17 years of wilderness living in northern Canada. Two of those fires have gotten to within 90 feet of our homestead. All totaled those fires burned at least ¾ million acres around us.

Here are some general tips anyone can do to prepare well ahead of time. They are not things to contemplate when the fire is ¼ mile away and working towards you. Have an escape plan having multiple paths of egress. If this road is blocked, where to now? Is there a lake to head to as a last resort? Is the vehicle fueled up? Is it pointed in the right direction?

The last thing you want to be doing is packing in a panic! Consider what items are of greatest importance. Purse/wallet, identification, important documents, medications, backup laptop computer, hard drive or USB with essential financial or other data? What is deemed essential will vary from person to person.

In our case, in spring, since we are only one lightning strike away from disaster, we have a survival bag by the door as well as our survival suits. We have smoke masks and goggles. We pack some food and water in the boat and have the water pump and boat fully fueled and ready to roll. Remember, we have the added factor we are alone out here so we plan accordingly.

Rake all combustibles such as leaves and debris far from buildings. Be aware fires will create their own winds so those leaves you raked to the perimeter will be blown around again. If I had a chipper, tiller or some device to reduce and shred and /or bury leaves, I would use it.

If you are in an evergreen forest, I would consider removing trees near buildings. At the very least, remove all lower branches in nearby trees which act as ladder fuels. (fuels that allow a ground fire to start climbing the trees)

The above are routine things we do every year to be prepared. Since we live on a lake, we have a sprinkler system set up preemptively. Forget trying to put the fire out. That’s not going to happen. All you can do is try to get combustibles away from any structures and take measures to bounce the fire around your property.

When we moved out here, we bought a water pump, fire hoses, garden sprinklers and garden hoses (which serve as sprinkler supply lines). Higher quality sprinklers and supply hoses are available and if I had to do it over again I would opt for those. Our spring ritual is to set up all our equipment long before the first thunder and lightning appear. By doing so, at the first sign of trouble, we’re ready.

The first step is to set up the fire pump on our beach. By means of a quick coupler, a 2.5 inch PVC suction line is connected to the pump and extends about 12 feet out into the lake. On the end of the pipe that is in the water, I have a foot valve which allows water to flow one way to the pump but prevents water from draining back into the lake.

That’s important because you don’t want the water pump to drain of water and thereby lose its prime. The foot valve rests on a rock about 8 inches off the lake bottom so that sand and other debris isn’t sucked into the system.

On the output side of the water pump, there is a threaded coupler which ultimately connects to a standard 1.5-inch fire hose. Several 100-foot sections of hose are connected together to make the run up the hill to the house.

Mounted on a porch post is a manifold which takes the high-pressure water from the pump and redirects it out to smaller feed lines, the garden hoses I mentioned earlier. We have 5 outlets on this manifold which we can control via individual valves.

We can shut off or engage each sprinkler with the turn of a valve. Sprinklers can be mounted singly or in series, so there are some instances where one valve may control two sprinkler heads.

Our manifold also has an adapter and valve that allows us to continue a run of standard firehose out to our homestead’s perimeter to tackle any smoldering areas and hot spots. We have two nozzles that can be attached to the end of this fire hose.

The first is an adjustable spray nozzle capable of spraying water in a short, wide pattern or a jet of water that can shoot out one hundred feet if need be. Our second nozzle has a narrow opening that delivers a high-pressure jet of water capable of pulverizing the ground to reach fire that is smoldering in roots and moss.

Our home and outbuildings are top priority to protect so I head up to the roof of our two-story home and mount a sprinkler on a short pole at each end of the roof. A short hose connects them in series and then the feed line drops from the roof to the nearby manifold. Our house and outbuildings are now protected.

Forgive me for the cuts from the book but time is of the essence and I want to get this information out. The following is another excerpt from my book Off-Grid and Free: My Path to the Wilderness and has more specific information.

What has saved our home twice?

Sprinklers! Both our own system and those of the provincial fire crews. Part of my spring ritual is to head to the house roof and install two sprinklers, one at each end. I also have full-length trees cut, approximately 20- to 25 feet long, and have a sprinkler head attached to the top of each of those trees.

We pick locations around our house site where we can stand these trees back up, like big flag poles, and either wire each one to another smaller tree or attach a set of tripod legs to the pole, so that it can be free-standing. The higher these “flag poles,” the more coverage and the better the protection.

The Honda water pump with a 1 1⁄2 ” firehose delivers pressurized water from our lake to the input side of a manifold and all the sprinkler feed hoses come off the output of the manifold.

Once a fire gets into the crown of the trees, it’s hard to stop. So how do sprinklers prevent the property from being incinerated?

The basic premise of sprinklers is to bring up the humidity in the protected area as high as possible before a fire arrives. The dome of humidity has a tendency to bounce the fire around it, allowing the fire to bypass the protected areas. They most certainly will not extinguish a wildfire!

For anyone living in fire-prone areas, this concept will work for you as long as you have a reliable water source. A swimming pool, pond, stream, or even household tap gives you a chance at saving your home. At a minimum, a couple of sprinklers, proper water lines, and a water pump are all that is needed for some cheap insurance.”

When we first moved out here to build our homestead, we knew we would eventually have to deal with a forest fire. But we had no idea the scope and intensity a conflagration could possess. During construction, we flew in metal siding and roofing for our home’s exterior. It gives a great deal of fire resistance.

For anybody doing new construction, especially in fire-prone areas, consider metal or masonry exterior. And finally, never underestimate a fire. I have personally seen forest fires run 5 to 10 miles in a day! They will lob embers far in advance of themselves to start new fires. Good luck!

Bio: Ron and his wife currently live 100 miles in the Canadian wilderness on a remote lake. As part of the back to the land movement that originated in the 70’s, they have spent their adult years living the homestead dream. You can follow and contact Ron at https://www.facebook.com/offgridandfree.mypathtothewilderness or http://www.inthewilderness.net/

The Grandma White Method – From “The Complete Book of Composting” Copyright 1960 by J. I. Rodale

Using Compost For Tree Growth

Start right from the very beginning. Use compost to start and nourish your tree. We cannot recommend commercial, chemical fertilizers which do not add humus to the soil. You must add organic matter to the soil if you want productive, disease-free trees. Soil that is well supplied with humus retains moisture and has good drainage and aeration.

As humus decomposes, it releases a continuous supply of plant food in contrast to the “flash” action produced by chemical fertilizers. It encourages the existence of beneficial bacteria and earthworms. It fights erosion and over-compactness of the soil.

Every tree grower must have a compost pile. Use your compost as a mulch around each tree. Your trees need nitrogen, phosphorus and potash and your compost pile should contain these nutrients in good proportion.

When organic expert Herbert Clarence White of Paradise, California, plants a tree, he doesn’t even glance at the little instruction sheet that the nursery sent with the stock. He proceeds to plant the tree using an unusual method handed down to him by his grandmother years ago.

Grandma White’s method has worked so well for Herbert over the years that he has used it to plant hundreds—possibly even thousands—of trees. He has seen fruit trees planted by Grandma White’s method show 3 or 4 feet of new growth in a year, and start bearing crops in only a couple of seasons.

You start out by digging a hole 3 feet wide and 3 feet deep in which to plant your young tree. That size hole is much bigger than is usually recommended, but a big hole is the heart of Herbert’s method and he insists on it.

Separate the topsoil from the subsoil that is dug from the planting hole. In the bottom of the hole place, a couple of pieces of 4-inch drain tile and plug up the ends with stones. Fill up the bottom foot of the hole with a mixture of equal parts of topsoil, peat moss and finished compost, plus about five pounds of phosphate rock or colloidal phosphate.

The top 12-inch layer—consisting of a mixture of compost, thoroughly soaked peat moss, leafmold, colloidal phosphate, and rich topsoil, is most important. This is the immediate “seedbed” where the tender young feeder roots will be working.

No raw manure or chemical fertilizer should ever contact this area. Such materials will seriously burn the roots, and perhaps even kill the tree outright. Even raw manure, used as a mulch at the top has often proved disastrous to newly planted trees. So go slow on the manure!

On top of that mixture place a layer of small rocks. The next one-foot layer consists of pure topsoil. Now put into the hole a large stone. Spread the roots of the tree over that stone, then fill the rest of the hole with the compost-topsoil-peat-phosphate-rock mixture.

As mulch over the planting, place one inch of compost, 3 inches of leaves, plus a layer of stones if desired. White also advises putting 250 to 500 earthworms in the top compost layer, and adds this postscript to the description of his method:

Does all this sound too weird and grotesque? Too utterly fantastic? If so, far be it from me to try and convince you. But if you are just a wee bit interested in watching a miracle, just try it out on one little tree—following the planting plan as indicated in the diagram carefully—and it will be hard for you to believe your own eyes when that baby tree starts growing.”

Here is the “Grandma White” method for planting trees. Start out by digging a hole that is 3 feet wide and deep, separating topsoil from the subsoil. Place drain tile, stones at the bottom, filling the hole with topsoil, compost, peat moss, and mineral powders.

In treating a sick tree, or one which has failed year after year to produce a crop, use the same formula as used in planting a baby tree. In other words, make a “blend” or mixture consisting of ½ yard (12 bushels) topsoil; 2 bushels compost (completely decomposed); 2 bushels leaf mold (completely broken down); 20 pounds colloidal phosphate (or rock phosphate); and 20 pounds of rock potash.

The above formula will be sufficient for a young tree from 2 to 6 years of age that has shown little vitality and below average growth. This enriched earth will be used to fill the 20-inch holes that encircle the young tree. (Dig 8 holes, 8 inches in diameter and 20 inches deep, around the tree at the drip line.)

The next step in “treating” a sick tree is to level off the land around the trunk a little beyond the drip line of the branches and to build a sturdy dike just outside the ring of 20-inch holes. Ten pounds of each of the two above-mentioned minerals should then be spread from the trunk of the tree out to the rim of the basin and worked lightly into the soil with a rake.

One inch of compost and leaf mold (mixed) should then be added to the area within the basin and spread out evenly.

If domesticated earthworms are to be used in this “health-building” program, they should be spread over the compost (from 500 to 1,000) and covered with a 3-inch leaf mulch. A little cornmeal or coffee grounds spread on the compost before spreading the leaves would help to give the worms a good start in their new environment.