A homesteading thread... What are you doing today?

Looking to purchase 25 to 40 acres in south Alabama, just across the FL/AL state line.

I'm in a suburban area in Georgia, where I do have an array of raised bed gardens, but long term that is not a solution.

Garden going...

Trying to decide on planting fig trees.

what year IS this Rumplestiltskin?

Spreading mulch every day. 100 yards down, 100 to go. Planting in the mulch beds timed with when it rains. 90% perennials and sub tropical trees. 10% annuals.

Did hoeing in the garden this morning. Working some on the greenhouse we have been building. It has been very wet here this year so I had to improvise on some of my gardening.

I started a new spot for some things which is not ideal but the onions, broccoli, and cauliflower seem to love this new space. My peppers, not so much. I hope they make it.

We spread saw dust under the chicken roosts, and they have to be well protected about anything will kill and eat them given the chance

Watered first thing in the early morning, usually do it in the evening but had other plans last night.

Cut up shade cloth to put over the roof peak and east side of the greenhouse. Put that on and it was a bugger and so I was out in the roaring heat of SW NM!

We had strange weather earlier in the year which caused massive amounts of new weed types to take off here. I have been weeding and mowing for weeks now and I am finally seeing some improvement in that area.

I have stuff coming up nicely right now but know better than to start counting on it … until it is in the house sitting on the table for dinner! Same goes for the meat chickens and laying hens!

The wild rabbits are being killed off by some type of bleeding fever. They, USDA, are warning to watch the meat rabbits you raise for it and to kill off any that are sick. DO NOT EAT the meat.

Rabbits, Pigs and all other types of livestock are VERY hard to find in this area now. Buy them while you can! Just bought a Droper ram lamb yesterday. Nice little guy.

Went to the Ace harware, bought gardening supplies, went Busch's and bought whole free range chickens which are smoking on the Traeger right now.

Planted Pontiac reds and Yukon gold.Getting ready to can a few dozen pints and quarts of ham. Have tomatoes from seeds doing good. The pepper seeds never did anything.

Here’s a tip for everyone, allow your herbs, one of your carrots, onions, leeks, beets, etc. to go to seed and in the fall when you are cleaning the beds sprinkle those seeds all around their box. I already have cilantro, green onions, leeks, cilantro, lettuce and beets growing without any effort on my part. I also leave a tomato in a couple of holes that always reseed themselves and catch up to the ones I grow myself.
I have planted red and white onions, cabbage, lettuce (put some in a row that grew from last years seeds) celery, celiac, and a couple artichokes. I have a dedicated potato hill I planted with several varieties that are all coming up now. Planted 40 tomato plants yesterday, will plant 30 pepper plants today, need to get my corn in the ground. My garlic will be ready to harvest in a month or so. I suggest everyone get an herb box too. I grow a wide variety of culinary and medicinal herbs. I also have pumpkins, zucchini (yellow for beta carotene) and dark to save seeds, butternut, spaghetti,acorn squash, 15 cucumber plants, and sunflowers in the ground. We are in Zone 6+ but this has been an unusually warm spring so I’m getting an early start this year. Normally won’t plant warm season veggies until May 8. Our garden area is a half acre and I do no till organic gardening using our horse manure as a top dressing. My tomatoes grow to 8 ft tall! I went and picked a bunch of Morels by the river and going to try spreading the water I clean them with to see if I can grow some! Fingers crossed. I am also growing 1500 year old beans and Irish Annie beans for drying. If you can get your hands on the 1500 year old beans from rare seeds.com they are the most prolific bean I’ve ever seen! They vine like crazy and the beans are better tasting than most any other bean I’ve had! Put them on a fence they can vine.
Good luck everyone, we may depend on our gardens more than ever this year!

I forgot to add I got my first bee hive last weekend and have that in my garden too. We have two wild hives so have great pollination but I wanted a source of honey too.

Excellent source for garlic:

Received ours last week and they were healthy and already catching.

[link to www.naturesgarlicfarm.com (secure)]

Food Is Never Gonna Be Cheaper Than It Is Right Now...


My advice is to BUY Your Food rather than spend your final precious moments growing it.

The time you would spend gardening could be better put to use by shopping for, acquiring the Essential Gear you won't be able to find in the near future.

Great fun to garden.

We are facing a brutal collapse of our Nation and most other developed countries around the world.

What do you and your family NEED to survive?

Do you need a nice garden for birds and pests to loot? Do you need things like Water Filtration for your home? Maybe a gutter system to gather water when it rains?

Got a composting pile going to enable your kitchen organic garbage to enrich your growing later; or maybe feed your chickens or pigs?

Pretty difficult, risky, and expensive to attempt growing all you will need from starting right now. Takes a huge garden to grow a years food supply; no matter what you read about Intensive Gardening. The real risk is the attraction and exposure to animals and weather.

You BUY what you need for the 16mos ahead, and spend your time working on all your other gear and necessities. No Worries about your food... No unwanted intruders coming onto your property because they're hungry and they've seen what you got.

How many canning jars and seals do you have? Those are a Big Essential. Saw lids for $5 a pk last week in town. Used to be under a dollar... All this shit is spendy! Canning jars at resale shop for $1ea? Crikey!

While your money is still worth something, spend it on Food and Tools/Supplies.

Lots to be done Right Now... Gardening is a luxury; unless you got a bigtime already established plot that will feed you for sure. Probably, if that's the case, you are already set with food storage. Most aren't.

All sorts of neccesary tools to maintain your gear. New ones make hard jobs go much easier. Ever try to use a blunted file, or a dull knife or axe?

So much needed to make daily life go smoothly.

Get your food Now and use your time wisely. You don't buy "flour" you buy a grain mill and bulk grains. Store the grain in sealed plastic buckets. Grind your flour fresh and with all nutrients preserved... Feed Stores, Farmer's Co-Ops sell bulk grains for human consumption. Be sure what you buy isn't "treated". Treated grain is for commercial planting, not fit to eat.

After the collapse you'll have plenty time to garden. Likely will be camping out to watchover your crop. Like a shepherd... Plenty of time because will be nothing else to do...

As the coming events unfold, there will be no benefits to being outside and exposed to the risky events and violence. KNOW that your food supply is established. Sleep easy when you do sleep...

There will be plenty to worry about without worrying about when you will next have something to eat.

I put the girls and rooster in the chicken tractor and parked them in the shade for some greens.

Watered 70 tomato plants, 10 yellow squash, 15 kabocha, watermelon, sakita sweet melons and cantaloupes. All have soaker hoses, thank goodness! All but the yellow squash are being grown vertically. Also watered 3 raised beds full of ginger, lemon grass,cilantro, garlic chives, green onions, 3 types of lettuce, kale and other greens. Everything is growing very well! Potatoes are laying under mulch but are starting to get green shoots when I checked.

I planted 2 eggplants and 14 hot pepper plants after amending the soil. Those went in ground from plants I raised.

I need to get more straw for mulch.

In the past month we planted Moringa trees, passion fruit, kiwi, black berries, mulberry trees, plum trees, raspberries and beans.

All that's left to go in the ground are the okra, I can plant that today, I guess, it's hot enough.

I also strung up 27 of the tomato plants. I grow them in ground, then attach jute to a wire above them, then use vine clips to keep them vertical.

Got most of my transplants in to the garden. Going to direct sow some seeds today.
Right now repairing quail house so I can move them and reclaim a chix coop they’ve been staying in. Need it for broody chicken that’s about to hatch out some chicks. She’s still in with the big flock and they keep laying more eggs in her nest can’t have that!
This coming week will finish planting the veg garden then work around pool area to make it pretty. Will also be making some more walking paths in our woods for my kids mainly but everyone will enjoy them.
Love this thread!

Lester, the last thing people need to do is learn to garden when they are depending on it to at least partially feed them. You don't wait until collapse to learn that skill! I've been gardening for years and know all the pitfalls, pests and all and I can tell you that I'm glad I have that experience under my belt.

You can only prepare for so long when buying food.

Just hatched 30 new chicks. Couple of them weak so they in the house, keeping the dogs intrigued! GSD #1 burnt his nose on the infrared heat lamp, being a bit too curious. Don't think he'll do that again!

Laying in some pipe to collect rainwater from an outbuilding as we#re opening up some more garden area. Got 3x 5,000 litre tanks for it; will be piping them up this week, hopefully.

Our male turkey lost an argument with a truck last month, so tomorrow am taking two of the girls who are ready to visit anothr male on a friend's farm.

People for
Eating
Tasty
Animals

Build up community connections too...my kiddos joke that we will never run out of venison or jelly because I can trade my skills for those things.
We were totally off grid and self sufficient except for salt, sugar, and spices for quite a awhile..but had some financial needs that went beyond that so back into the work force and real homesteading is a full time job.
Glad I have the skills though. I can process a fleece to a sweater, make soap, make cheese, preserve foods in lots of ways, rig a water system, do a little electrical work to get the solar running again, maintain a composting toilet or get the septic going (in most cases), I can do some basic building and repair a roof in a rainstorm, cut my own firewood (also totally worth buying rather than spending time on imo), know which wood burns what way to maintain your fire for heating and/or cooking, basic sewing skills, etc.
The more you work out in your community who has what skills and which resources, the better off your will be if you need something and cannot afford it or find it in the store.

Great idea. Here, you'd get fruit in 3 or 4 years, but they grow wild all over the place. We collect the fruit and sun-dry them on frames we make up. They last till the next crop is in if you get enough.

I do agree with much of this. I was recently given advice to slow down on trying to plant a years worth of food while learning to garden at the same time, because it's been really stressful. It's probably better to worry about gardening full time AFTER everything dies down anyway. I'm already worried about how many people already are aware that we have chickens, just outside of town.

I had been working on learning other lost skills, aside from gardening, so perhaps I'll work on bulking up the pantry while trying to garden a little in the meantime. It's only the second year we've had the space for me to actually grow anything worthwhile.

I found a post on YouTube where a guy regrew his onions he bought from the store. He did it with green onions, regular onions and pineapple! You might look into that.

Be careful where you plant your mint. It has a tendency to take over everything. You might consider putting it in a large pot.

Did my raised beds a while ago. We on the lake today :)
85°

The weather is great today.

We put a fence around our garden because we have so many rabbits, deer, racoons lol.

Saw my first bluebird. Took a bike ride which I haven't done in years.

Feeling a little sad though because someone hit a wild turkey that had been hanging around. I'm pretty sure they did it on purpose.

We went Morel hunting this morning. Found a few but not a lot.

Here's a tip.

I use an old cattle watering trough for chicken poop,

I daily go through the Chicken pen scooping-up the larger poops, and put them in the tank, along with other bio-degradable waste.

Stir regularly.

The tank fills with rainwater, and I rake the used Chicken straw and soak that in the tank with the poop.

When the straw thoroughly soaks up the poop water, you have an evenly coated straw/poop amalgam.

Take the straw/poop and compost it for about a year, or more, us it in the garden.

"Stirring the Shit" will take on a whole new meaning for you.

Racked and stacked five cords of wood for next winter mostly maple, red gum, and beech. Planted some fescue grass seed in the dog enclosure hoping it grows as they wear the old grass out when they run and dig.

Probably another two years. Nice, and I bet you can't wait!

I have a sweet almond to go into the ground and three persimmons. Very excited to plant them.

I have SO many seedlings to transplant into bigger pots today/tomorrow. Also starting a few other seeds I found kind of late.

Big house cleaning day and bread baking too!
:)