DIY Seed Starting Set-Up

Now, I'm not the kind of girl that needs to have the latest or most expensive kind of purse or shoes. Far from it, actually. I have exactly one black leather handbag which I bought in 2004. I spent $90 on it back then, so I feel like I should be able to get at least another couple of years out of it.

Those kind of objects don't tempt me to spend a lot of money, but homesteading gadgets and gewgaws do. When I saw this lovely seed starting set-up from Gardener's Supply Co., I nearly started to salivate. 

3-Tier Sunlite Garden, sold by Gardener's Supply Co.

We attempted to start some of our vegetable plants from seed last year and had mixed results. The main problem was that the plants got leggy due to lack of adequate light. This doodad would completely eliminate that problem. There's room to start quite a few seedlings or nuture larger transplants and the level of the light fixtures is easily adjusted.

There's just one problem. The Sunlite Garden costs $599, shipping not included. Ridiculous, isn't it? No worries. You can create your own, even larger version of this set-up for a fraction of the cost. 

Here's how we did it:

Materials List: 

1. One  74"x 48" 5-Tier Shelving Unit - $79.97 at Lowe's 
2. Four 48" T8 fluorescent shop lights - $17.98 each at Lowe's
3. One 12 pack of 4' T8 Cool White Fluorescent bulbs - $29.98 at Lowe's
4. Eight S-hooks - 78 cents for two at Lowe's 
5. One power strip with timer  - $13.98 at Amazon.com

GRAND TOTAL FOR HARDWARE: $198.97 plus tax

We assembled the shelving unit and then hung the shop lights from each shelf

I found out from my research that you don't have to use special lights to grow strong seedlings. A standard fluorescent light will work provided that you can adjust it so that it is 1-2" above the seedlings. Shop lights already come on 9" chains; all you have to do is buy a few S hooks to hang them from the shelving unit at the level you need. Seedlings need about 12-14 hours of light a day and a power strip on a timer makes it easy to provide the right amount of light while saving energy.

The level of the shop lights can be easily adjusted using the chains and S hooks

Other expenses: You will also need something to start your seeds in. You can buy sterile seed starting medium or make your own. We plan on recycling toilet paper and paper towel rolls for seed starter pots (read about how to do that here) and milk jugs for larger transplants, so those will be free.  We invested in some leak-proof seed starting flats, clear domes to cover the flats during germination, and a couple of heat mats to use with the most heat-loving plants. We will be starting seeds inside our house, but if you are planning on doing it out in a garage or cold basement, you will need to have a source of heat for the seedlings.


We'll be starting our first seeds in less than a month. I can't wait to put this system into use! I think I'll take all the money we saved and buy something truly useful.... like more chickens!

Reference:

Best Tips for Starting Seeds Indoors by Barbara Pleasant in the Dec 2012/Jan 2013 issue of Mother Earth News  

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Anyone else starting seeds indoor this year? What kind of set-up do you employ?

January has been "Prep-uary" at our Place

We've been very busy this month with prepping-related projects.

• Hubby Dear and I cleaned and organized our storage room. It had collected a lot of odds and ends and, frankly, it was becoming a bit of a dump. I inventoried our long-term food storage and came up with a long list of items I need to buy. We've used some things that we need to replace. According to the food storage calculators, our family now consists of four adults and two children (children 7 and up are "adults" for food storage purposes), which means that I also need to increase the amount of food we store in general. 

Once we cleared out the clutter, it became apparent that we had used A LOT
of our food storage and never replaced it.

We also have a lot of canned goods that need to be eaten and restocked. Rotate, rotate, rotate! 

We still have some of the onions we grew last year left. They are stored in cheap pantyhose, which works
pretty well to keep them fresh and mold-free. You'll notice that a few of them have sprouted, though!

• Because of some health concerns that I have, I started following a Paleo diet back in December. I no longer eat grains, legumes, dairy, refined sugars, or refined fats. In other words, I can't eat most of our food storage! I hope that this way of eating will help resolve some of the problems I have as a result of chronic inflammation in my body, but it does provide a challenge to store food that meets the criteria of my diet. I'm brainstorming a list of Paleo-friendly foods to add to our storage and this is what I've come up with so far:  sprouting seeds, canned coconut milk, coconut oil, lard, nuts in the shell, and canned tuna and salmon. Anyone else out there who is both Paleo and a prepper? I'm curious to see how you handle this dilemma. 

• As I was organizing my storage room, I decided that my vintage, 1940s-era water bath canner had finally bit the dust. It is just too rusty and decrepit to use any more. Identical products on Amazon.com had very poor reviews - I guess they don't make granite ware like they used to - so I invested in a Victorio Stainless Steel Multi Use Canner.  This product can be used as either a water bath canner or steam canner and seems really sturdy. I've never steam canned before - have any of you? 

RIP, vintage water bath canner. You gave me (and others) years of good service.

• Hubby Dear and I ordered our seeds for the spring and bought the components of our DIY seed starting set-up. I am excited to share with you our plans for the year in an upcoming post. It won't be long before we'll be sowing broccoli, cauliflower, and kale indoors. 

Seeds, glorious seeds! So much promise is inside these packets. 

• I bought an assortment of homesteading books. Let's see if you can guess what kinds of things I am researching by a few of the titles: Sepp Holzer's Permaculture: A Practical Guide to Small-Scale, Integrative Farming and Gardening, Keeping A Family Cow, and The Backyard Goat: An Introductory Guide to Keeping and Enjoying Pet Goats.

• Some friends of ours are downsizing due to job loss and health challenges. We bought a generator and some other homesteading paraphernalia from them, which served to help both of our families out. 

Our "new" 5500 W generator.

I did the math, and this generator will run one of our refrigerators and the furnace fan and that's it. It is definitely not a total solution to a long-term power outage, but it is a start. Now I need to stockpile some gas tanks, gasoline, and Sta-Bil.

Have you been celebrating "Prep-uary" at your house? Tell me what you've accomplished so far in 2013. :) 

2012 in Review and 2013 Goals

Happy New Year, y'all! I hope everyone had a blessed holiday season.

Unfortunately, I was either busy or sick for much of 2012 and so my posting here wasn't as regular as I would have liked. Nevertheless, I managed to make progress on my preparedness goals. Here's the list of goals I had last January. I didn't accomplish everything, but I'm not unhappy.

In 2012 I :

• Upgraded our bug-out bags 

• Added a bit to our first aid supplies. This is definitely an area where we fall short. I will admit to being a wee bit complacent about first aid since Hubby Dear is a medical professional. I need to improve. 

• Expanded our garden and learned some hard lessons during a very poor growing season. Our area of the country experienced the hottest year on record as well as one of the driest, so our garden was far less than stellar. 

Delicious heirloom fruit and vegetables

• We added to the orchard we established in 2011. We planted apples, blueberries, pears, and an almond tree. I learned a lot about organic orcharding from an amazing book, The Holistic Orchard: Tree Fruits and Berries the Biological Way. I immediately started implementing the principles from the book and saw an amazing amount of growth in our existing and new fruit trees. I can't recommend that book enough. 

• I planted comfrey in our orchard area. It's part of the whole holistic orchard deal, but the bonus is that it is also a medicinal herb. I learned about permaculture and now have plans to have a bunch of medicinal perennials growing among the trees in the orchard. 

• My favorite item on the list (and new obsession) is poultry. We started raising chickens, ducks, and turkeys. Having livestock was a big stretch for two former city kids like Hubby Dear and myself, but we have really enjoyed the journey. We started off with chicks and poults from hatcheries and ventured into hatching eggs with an incubator. Our chickens gave us 1,645 eggs in 2012; the ducks provided 124.  

Some of our ducklings

• Related to that last one, we butchered our first animals. It was so rewarding to grow our own meat and butchering is definitely a worthy skill for any prepper. 

• All the manure that started appearing on our property provided the impetus for us to begin composting. 

• Managed to keep our strawberries alive! We won't have to re-plant this year. I am hopeful that we will have a generous crop next spring. 

• Another success: I learned all about sprouting, an easy way to grow fresh, nutritious greens all year 'round.

• My success with sprouting for people encouraged me to grow wheat grass for my birds. It took a couple of tries (and a horrible infestation of fruit flies), but I finally got the hang of it.  I'm also proud of the black oil sunflower seeds we grew for the chickens. 

A Peredovik black oil sunflower

• I survived pneumonia. That should count for something, right? 

• I stocked up on reusable Tattler canning lids. I used them for all the canning I did and I finally got the hang of using them. They are a little different than standard metal canning lids, but once you get it, you won't go back. 

For 2013, I remain focused on building up our homestead. One reason is that I just like doing it. I love puttering around the garden and taking care of my birds. I have expanded into breeding poultry for pleasure and profit, so that also takes up a lot of my time and energy.

The other reason that my preps are centered on homesteading is that I feel it is quite necessary. The shenanigans in DC regarding the so-called Fiscal Cliff made me sick to my stomach, but I hope that it will serve as a wake-up call to many. I fear that our country is in an irreversible decline and our prosperous American lifestyle is in serious jeopardy. In short, I think we're screwed. I feel that being as self-sufficient as possible will be incredibly valuable in the days ahead. You might not live on 5 acres in the country like I do, but I hope you are thinking about things you can do to help your family weather whatever storm may come.

With that said, here are my goals for 2013:

The north half of our garden, May 2012

1. Continue to add to our orchard. We have peach, nectarine, cherry, and plum trees ordered for the spring. We'll plant more peach, apple, and apricot trees in the fall. Here's the master plan for our orchard if you haven't seen it. 
2. Expand our garden again and try some new varieties and methods of cultivation. 
3. Try new types of pest control in the garden. We garden organically, but haven't ventured much into companion plantings to attract beneficial insects. That is a priority for me this year. We will also experiment with row covers to flummox the evil squash bug that has plagued us in the past.  
4. We tried starting seeds indoor last year. We had mixed results, mainly due to lack of sunlight. We are building an easy DIY seed starting kit that should really help out. 
5. Water storage is a huge issue for any prepper and the horrible drought we are in has really brought it to my attention. I hope to get rain barrels installed and may experiment with using greywater. 
6. First aid - the perennial topic for me. I've got to get going here. 
7. Food storage - I need to take inventory of what we have used up and refill as necessary. I will be canning and dehydrating the produce of our garden and herb garden. 

So that's me. What about you? What do you have planned for 2013? 

Wheat Grass Success and a Plague of Flies

After mixed results with my first attempt to grow wheat grass for my poultry, I decided to follow the experts' recommendations to the letter. The result has been amazing. If you have enough space for several trays at once, you can easily grow enough wheat grass to form the core of your poultry's diet. But I'm getting ahead of myself just a bit. Here's how I did it.

Supplies:

• Something with good drainage to plant the wheat grass in. I bought a set of nursery flats like these to use, plus some additional flats without drain holes to nest them in (keeping the water from spilling all over my counter). You'll need two sets of the flats with holes because you'll use one as a cover when your grass is getting started. 
• Potting soil or vermiculite. I keep vermiculite on hand, so that's what I used. 
• Liquid kelp or other organic liquid fertilizer. This is optional, but useful, especially if you are going to get multiple cuttings of your wheat grass.
• Sprouting seeds. I experimented using both hard white wheat from my food storage as well as a mix Sprout People sells called "Kat Grass". 
• A spray bottle 

Step One: Soak the wheat

Soaking the wheat

Measure out enough wheat to densely cover the bottom of your sprouting tray. Then place the wheat in a jar of cool water, stir, and allow to soak for 8-12 hours.

Step Two: Pre-sprout

See the tiny roots? This wheat is ready to plant. 

Drain and thoroughly rinse the soaked wheat. Then, put the wheat back in the jar you soaked it in or in a sprouter. I used my handy, dandy Victorio 4-Tray Kitchen Seed Sprouter. Keep the wheat in a cool location out of direct light. Rinse and drain the wheat every 8-12 hours until you see tiny roots on your wheat. It only took 12 hours before I was ready to proceed to the next step.

Step Three: Plant

Wheat seed planted

I poured in enough vermiculite to create an 1" layer in the bottom of the nursery flat. Then I added water, stirred, and added more water until the vermiculite was uniformly damp. I also added a little organic liquid kelp fertilizer to this initial watering. Next, I spread the sprouted wheat evenly across the top and spritzed the seeds with water from the spray bottle.

Important detail: After you spray the seeds, take the extra nursery flat and place it upside down to form a tent over the top of the tray. You want the wheat to grow tall quickly and the darkness is the way to do it. The drain holes in the bottom of the the nursery flat also provide ventilation to avoid mold problems.

Step Four: Water twice daily and watch in amazement

It won't take long before the seeds shoot up. And, unlike my previous attempt, there was absolutely no boozy smell associated with it. All I did was spray the tray evenly with water twice a day.

Day  One

Day Two

Day Three

I kept the tray inverted over the wheat grass until day four when the grass was about two inches tall. Now it is time to give the wheat grass a sunny place to grow. I also began watering from the bottom, pouring enough water into the bottom holding tray to last a full 24 hours.

Day Four

Day Five: Greening and growing!

Day Seven: First harvest

After seven days' worth of growth, I cut the wheat grass back to about 1". I could have just given the entire tray to my birds and let them have at it, but I wanted to see if I could coax additional growth out of the same planting. I was indeed able to get two more cuttings before I threw the remaining mass of roots and vermiculite (and fruit flies, but more about that in a bit) out into our garden.

And what was the verdict on wheat grass from the feathered community?  

Chickens love wheat grass

So do ducks

They adored it. Both the ducks and chickens chomped it down with gusto.

There's just one problem I encountered during this little experiment: a massive infestation of fruit flies! I'm talking giant, biblical plague-proportion of fruit flies. Every time I would open the lid to spritz the grass, a cloud of flies launched into my face. By the end of the first week, I had generations of flies living in the wheat grass. Even covering my kitchen counters with multiple tried and true apple cider vinegar traps only put a slight dent in the population. It's been a week since I removed the wheat grass trays (as well as all fruit and other food sources) from my kitchen and I'm just now noticing a sharp decline in the numbers of fruit flies.

I've promised my incredibly patient (albeit slightly frustrated) Hubby Dear that I'll wait a bit before I try sprouting wheat again, but you can bet that I'll do it. Growing wheat grass is only slightly more complicated than alfalfa sprouts, but you get so much bang for your buck. I'm really looking forward to having a continual supply of fresh greens for my birds.... if I can keep those darn fruit flies away, that is.

Easy-Peasy Turkey Bone Broth

When we butchered our two tom turkeys last month, I couldn't wait until Thanksgiving so I cooked one up that same week.

A Bourbon Red heritage turkey

I brined the bird with this recipe and then used these instructions to cook it. It was heavenly. All of the work that went into raising and butchering those birds was so worth it! We butchered or sold all of our (admittedly pesky and sometimes violent) turkeys, but I think they will reappear on our homestead at some point in the future. The turkey tasted that good.

As a sign of respect for the turkey and the sustenance it gave us, I was determined that nothing would go to waste. We ate roast turkey, turkey tetrazzini, the best turkey soup ever, and even grilled turkey and cheese sandwiches. After five days of nothing but turkey, we were pretty much over it, but I knew the turkey still had more to give.

I made a broth from the picked over bones of the bird. It's easy! You should definitely try this with your Thanksgiving fowl if you've never done it before.

I put all the bones from the turkey into a 6 qt. crock pot. I added a couple of splashes of apple cider vinegar, some black peppercorns, and some bits of carrots, onion, and celery that I had hanging around in the produce bin. The vinegar is to help leech out all the wonderful minerals that are in the bones, which is one of the things that makes bone broth so incredibly nutritious. I covered the bones about 3/4 of the way with water and set the crock pot on low.

It cooked for 48 hours straight and my house smelled like luscious roast turkey the entire time. Of course we were pretty sick of turkey at that point so it wasn't a particularly enticing odor. I added a bit more water a couple of times, but otherwise the broth attended to itself.

After 48 hours, the bones were partially dissolved and my broth was a rich brown color. I strained the broth and measured it into pint freezer containers.  

And that was it! I now have some high-quality turkey broth that will add richness to any dish I add it to. I also have the satisfaction that we honored the turkey by truly using every last bit of it.

Fall Orchard Update

We are entering our second year of planting and maintaining our survival orchard. (Here's my original post on the subject. I've made a few additions and changes to our plan since I first posted it.)

Apple trees, comfrey, and newly planted almond. Blueberries on the back right. 

The comfrey we planted thrived. Hopefully I can divide them sometime next year and get more plants to spread the happiness throughout the orchard.

Speaking of spreading something, I have been dumping duck poo and litter in the areas in between the trees. Duck poo is wonderful stuff for plants and will help improve the soil, which is something our hard-packed clay desperately needs. I am careful not to get it too close to the trees lest it "burn" the them, but that seems to be less of an issue with duck manure than chicken manure.

All the trees and bushes we planted over the past year survived despite the drought that continues unabated. If we do not get a lot of rain and snow this winter, the powers-that-be are going to add more water restrictions which are going to make it hard to keep things alive.

"Bluecrop" blueberry

Our blueberries will technically be old enough next year to give us a crop. They still seem pretty small to me, so I'll be interested in seeing what actually happens. Look how pretty blueberries get in the fall! Blueberries don't only produce delicious fruit; they also are beautiful landscaping plants. All you suburbanites with hoity-toity neighbors should take note! ;)

A sloooooow growing pecan tree

Last weekend we did two important fall orchard tasks. First, we put tree guards around the trunks of our trees. The tree guards will help keep voles, mice,and rabbits from eating the bark off the trees. Since the guards are white, they will also help reflect light on sunny winter days and prevent southwest injury. We will take the tree guards down in the spring because, according to The Holistic Orchard, they hold too much moisture against the trunk and provide cover for borers.

The fun (albeit exhausting) task was to plant our new trees: two pears and an almond.

Our new All-in-One Almond tree

I think nut trees are an essential part of any survival orchard. Last year we planted pecans, this year we planted an almond, and we will be adding walnuts in the future. You might be surprised to learn that folks as far north as Zone 5 can grow almonds. There are two varieties that will grow here, Hall's Hardy Almond and the All-in-One Almond. It seems that more people like the taste and texture of the All-in-One Almond and so that is the variety we went with. Either variety will make lovely ornamental trees in addition to producing lots of nuts.

One of our new pear trees. 

We planted two varieties of pears, Maxine (also known as Starking Delicious) and Seckel. These two varieties will cross-pollinate each other and have different strengths. Maxine is your typical Bartlett-type pear. It is great for eating fresh or canning and supposedly will last in cold storage for a while. Seckel pears are a smaller pear that are great for fresh eating but also dry well. We planting standard-sized pear trees so they will grow between 18-20 feet tall and 12-13 feet wide.

A drawing of the orchard layout, mostly to scale
The dots with circles around them are current plantings; plain dots are future plantings

We're making slow but steady progress. I look forward to the day when all this hard work will pay off!

How to Grow Garlic

Garlic is a staple at our house. Luckily for us, garlic is one of the most simple and rewarding garden plants we've ever grown. If you like garlic and have a few square feet of garden space, you should give it a shot.

Here's the most important bit of information you need to know: it must be planted in the fall. We wait until after the first freeze of the fall and then get it in the ground.

Last year we bought 1 lb of organically grown 'Music' seed garlic from Peaceful Valley. That worked out well for us and I'd definitely recommend finding organic seed garlic if you can. Many of the nurseries are sold out by now, however, but don't worry. You can even plant garlic straight from the supermarket, though there are no guarantees as to how it was produced or what variety it is. Read here to see how Kendra at New Life on a Homestead grew supermarket garlic.   

The seed garlic we saved from this year's crop

When we harvested the 2012 garlic crop, we selected our biggest, best-looking heads to save as seed for the 2013 crop. We stored them loosely in a mesh bag and hung it in our cool, dry basement storage room until planting time.

A square foot bed ready for planting

We prepared the garden box by stirring in a bit more compost.

Separated cloves

Then we separated the cloves from each head of garlic, discarding any that might have gone bad. 

Four cloves per square foot

We garden primarily by the square foot method. (Read more about that here.) You can plant four cloves of garlic per square foot. Plant each clove 2 inches deep with the pointy part facing up. Cover with soil.

Mulch with straw

The last step is to put the garlic down for a long winter's rest. Cover the bed with a nice layer of straw. Though you won't be able to see it, the garlic will be busy during the fall and winter months. It will put out roots and when spring comes, it will pop through the mulch.

Mid-March 2012

We had such a mild winter last year that the garlic was well out of the ground by mid-March.

You can see the garlic standing tall in the back. 'Music' grows to about 3' tall

By mid-May, the garlic was truly gigantic. All we did was keep it watered and fertilize occasionally with foliar applications of kelp. Pests ignored it completely. 

Drying 

We harvested the garlic in early June and hung it up to dry it for several weeks. That's it!


See? Growing garlic is easy! If you've never grown garlic before, why don't you give it a try this fall?