Growing Organic Vegetables

Friday, March 26th, 2010

Growing Organic Vegetables

Growing organic vegetables is a lot easier than you might think.  Most of us were brought up to think that vegetables couldn’t grow properly without all sorts of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, but that’s just not true.  While it may make the likelihood of losing a portion of your crop greater, you can still harvest plenty of food from your garden without all of those unhealthy chemicals.

Organic vegetables also tend to taste much better than those chemical-laden hybrid vegetables you find in your local grocery store.  They are bred specifically to survive longer in bins at the grocery store and on long trips across the country, but much of their flavor is sacrificed in the process.

In this article, I’m going to go over a few things you can do to make growing organic vegetables much easier.  Once you taste fresh, organic vegetables straight from your garden, you’ll never want to go back to the store bought junk again! Read More→

Categories : Organic Gardening
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Farm City by Novella Carpenter

Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010

I recently finished reading Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmerfarm city by Novella Carpenter.  It’s a witty, interesting, and even educational look at what life is like on a real urban farm.

Set in Oakland, California, the book is an autobiographical look at Ms. Carpenter’s life on her own urban farm.  She starts out with a beehive given to her as a birthday gift by her boyfriend, Bill.  Soon it expands in ways she probably never imagined.  She took over a vacant lot and turned it into a beautiful garden with all sorts of fruits, vegetables, and herbs.  She ordered some baby poultry including chickens, ducks, and turkeys and raised them to adulthood (minus a few sad tragedies).  And she even ended up raising rabbits and pigs!

And remember, this was all done on a rented property in the middle of Oakland, California! Read More→

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Urban Farming

Tuesday, March 16th, 2010

garden_girl_istock_000004175844xsmaUrban farming is, for many, the ultimate step to self sufficiency when they live in an urban or suburban area.  Techniques like vertical gardening, lasagna gardening, raised beds, and container gardening make it easy for urban dwellers to raise some of their own food.

The past few years the economy has been pretty bad.  The cost of food has risen astronomically in the last decade, and that combined with the poor economy is a perfect recipe for more people to start trying to become more self sufficient.

Some people simple grow a few tomato plants or some herbs, and that’s great.  Even the smallest steps can make a big difference to a family’s budget (and health!)  Others prefer to go all out, raising many different types of fruits, vegetables, grains, and even livestock.

Of course, there can be issues… Read More→

Categories : Self Sufficiency
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Choosing a Chicken Breed

Tuesday, March 16th, 2010

Choosing a chicken breed isn’t a matter of simply picking a type you think is attractive or whatever happens to be least expensive.   It’s important to choose the right breed for your

purposes, whatever they may be.

First, you need to figure out exactly what you want in a chicken.  Do you want meat, eggs, or both?  Are you looking for a particular type of egg?  Do you want to exhibit your chicken in shows?  Are you interested in preserving certain rare breeds?  Are you more interested in their appearance or their functionality?

Once you know what type of chicken you’re interested in, it will be much easier to choose a breed.  Many people choose a breed because it’s cheap or easy to get, but then they realize it doesn’t suit their needs well.  Different breeds are good for different things, so choosing the right type is critical unless you want to be stuck with a bunch of animals that aren’t very well-suited to your purposes. Read More→

Categories : Raising Livestock
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Self Sufficient Homesteading

Monday, March 15th, 2010

http://bethtrissel.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/istock_000002286112xsmall.jpgHomesteading is a bit of a dying art, but it’s been making a revival in recent years as more and more people are beginning to shun urban life in favor of more space, healthier living, and a greener planet.

What does self-sufficient homesteading mean, anyway?  To some people it means being totally self sufficient, producing most or all of the family’s power, living off the grid, making one’s own clothing, growing most or all of one’s food, and basically buying very little.  Other others, it just means moving towards being as self-sufficient as possible.

Whether you’re truly “hardcore” and you want to be completely self-reliant, or you just want to take baby steps toward self-sufficiency, homesteading is something that isn’t to be taken lightly.  While the idea of homesteading may seem romantic or exciting, it’s hard word.  It’s VERY hard work.

Having been raised in a family of farming grandparents and great-grandparents, I understand what the life is like.  It means getting up before dawn to care for your animals.  It means spending your life without the modern conveniences you’re probably used to.  For some, it even means going without cable television and even the internet. Read More→

Categories : Homesteading
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Top Bar Beekeeping

Monday, March 15th, 2010

Thttp://www.anthonysbeehive.com/images/istock_000003986137small_1__6u9k.jpgop bar bee hives are generally much less expensive than traditional hives, and they are also much safer.  They expose beekeepers to fewer bees, so they have less of a chance of being stung when working with their hive.

Top bar hives originated in Kenya.  Because the are so cheap and easy to make, they were the perfect answer for Kenyan beekeepers who couldn’t afford to buy traditional hives.

The top bar width must be almost exactly 1 and 3/8 inches wide.  If the width is narrower or wider, the bees aren’t as likely to build their honeycombs in the hive, because this is the distance bees naturally prefer to build their combs.

If you create the top bar at a length of 19 inches, it will fit in a standard beehive.  This makes it easy to use the box from a traditional hive, while creating a safe and easy top bar system.

Bees will naturally attach their combs to the ceiling, and sometimes to the walls, but they will almost never attach any to the floor.  Because of this, top bar hives usually have walls that slope inwards, sort of like a reverse pyramid.  This tricks the bees into thinking the walls are part of the floor, so they create less brace comb.  This makes the bars easier to remove.

Because the combs won’t have a wooden frame like they would in a standard hive, it’s very important that you handle the combs very carefully.  Never turn them sideways, because they are likely to break. Read More→

Categories : Beekeeping
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Build a Chicken Ark

Saturday, January 23rd, 2010

Mon tracteur à poules, avec les poules by wisemandarine.A chicken ark is a special type of chicken coop that is extremely quick, easy, and cheap to build.  If you’re not very good at building stuff, don’t panic!  It’s very easy to build a chicken ark, even if you think there’s no way you could ever build a standard chicken coop!

To start with, a basic frame is built.  The frame is shaped like the letter A, with crossbars at the bottom at each end and along the sides.  The midline bar in the “A” forms the base of the roosting area.  Basically, you must build several large wooden A’s, then attach them together at the bottom.

Next, you need to put shingles on the top.  These can be made with flat boards just layered over each other.  Then you can seal the top of the roof with sheet metal, shingles, etc.

The ark doesn’t have to be perfect.  It needs to be stable to protect your chickens, and it needs to be fairly heavy to be sure it won’t be overturned in high winds or by potential predators.  But it doesn’t have to be beautiful or perfectly built. Read More→

Categories : Raising Livestock
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How to Live Off the Land

Saturday, January 23rd, 2010

File:Arctic survival - constructing shelter · 061214-F-4127S-055.JPGLiving off the land is the ultimate form of self-sufficiency.  It can be frightening to live on your own without the safety and security of a home, a grocery store, and utilities!  But if you’re serious about self-sufficiency, it’s a great way to live.

Even if you never intend to live off the land permanently, it can be fun to do it just for a little while to see what it’s like.  I remember when the “life off the land” bug first bit me.  I had just read the book “My Side of the Mountain” by Jean Craighead George.   It’s the story of a young boy who runs off to live alone in the woods on property his grandfather owned.

It was a tremendously inspiring story, and I really wanted to give it a try.  Unfortunately, my parents weren’t as lenient and understanding as the main character’s parents.  They wouldn’t even let me camp in the pasture behind our house by myself, much less running off to live alone in the woods! Read More→

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How to Homeschool

Saturday, January 23rd, 2010

File:Fireside Education frontispiece.jpgHomeschooling is a great way to make sure your kids get the very best education, because you can ensure that they receive plenty of time and attention.  In public and private schools, kids are crammed into classrooms with dozens of other children, limiting the amount of personal attention they can receive from their teachers.

Additionally, you can be certain that your children are being taught the kind of ethical values you wish.  You can monitor the children they interact with, so that the values of children that may conflict with your own won’t be passed on to your kids.

Homeschooling also helps strengthen the family bond, by providing the entire family more time to interact.  These days, most family don’t spend enough time together.  Schooling children at home gives the whole family more time together. Read More→

Categories : Homeschooling
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How to Grow Strawberries

Saturday, January 23rd, 2010

Strawberries are one of the tastiest, most incredible fruits on the planet.  Their sweet, delicate flavor is loved all around the world, and in the summer months, they are at their freshest.

There are hundreds of varieties of strawberries in the world, and it can be very difficult to choose between them.  There are three basic types of strawberries – June Bearing, Everbearing, and Day Neutral.

June bearing varieties produce a single crop of berries in June or in early spring, depending on the type and where they are grown.  They produce over a period of just 2-3 weeks, producing very large fruit, and then stopping production completely.  These varieties have runners, which are vines that shoot out from the main plant, grow roots, and produce new plants.  Their fruits are smaller than the fruits of June bearing varieties.

Everbearing strawberries produce 2-3 harvests, generally in June, again in late summer, and once again sometimes in early fall.  Their fruits are smaller than the fruits of June bearing varieties, and they have fewer runners.

Day neutral varieties will produce fruit all summer long.  They are extremely similar to everbearing varieties, producing few runners and smaller fruit. Read More→

Categories : Growing Fruit
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