ene_thing

In keeping with garden advice, I looked for the nitrogen fertilizer I used last year. I used an organic feather mix that is slow release. I liked it and it was easy to use. While it was easy to find this year and reasonable at $17 a box, the shipping costs for a couple of boxes from CA was $78! It wasn't oversized nor are the boxes heavy. Either their shipping algorithm is screwed up or something is way off. Yes, I left an "abandoned" cart. But prices are going up. Last year I bought packs of coco coir for about $7 or $8 a pack. The discount was bigger in packs of 6. This year I can only find single packs at $22 a pack. Same exact size. Same company. Just wow!

That means a couple of things. One - I'll be looking at bokashi to fertilize. Two - Like it or not, I am going to go flip that compost pile and water it periodically. I'd chase over to Starbucks for coffee grounds, except that uses gas. Once I have the backyard beds all built, I may call for a chip drop. It's a LOT of work hauling those chips up the hill. We'll see if that even happens. The third thing I am doing is making biochar. My latest bed is getting the winter cover crop as plant food. I guess that makes four things. My costs will be water and seed for the cover crops. Just hoping my watering can makes it through the year.

Rain has been a scare commodity. I'll be harvesting the comfrey leaves for the buckets soon. Any digging or reshaping of the land (cinderblock leveling) will be put on hold. The clay will break the shovel. I have a broken tool collection.



It burns me to know that we get plenty of water BEFORE the last freeze but not after. I can't collect rainwater in March when it's plentiful. Hard freezes trash the container and the spigot valve. April 6th was our last hard freeze. We haven't had rain since nor is any forecast for a while. Going forward, I am going to have to do something about that. I am considering a water trough heater, just for those April days when temperatures dip. Before climate change really hit this area hard, we'd get close to 4" of rainwater every month - like clockwork. Now, it's all or nothing. I don't like it but I need to adapt. El Nino not only means high temperatures for the summer, but it also means drought in our area. I've been buying organic straw for all my beds. The Oya will be installed in the newest garden bed. I may make oyas out of old terra cotta pots. I also snagged a failed pottery attempt from Tosten. He was making clay pots with lids. The glaze failed. I think it'll work.

https://youtu.be/gkLRanqTKWw?si=tjvXEz4SRjdbEa0S

My latest video is out on the potatoes. In it, you'll see the latest "purchased" raised bed. I picked up a 2 for 1 sale on Birdies beds last fall. I don't know if I'll like it. My galvanized steel "fire ring" garden has never done well. A lot of garden catalogs are getting rid of a lot of products. Shipping has gotten too expensive. I picked up a wooden bed too, 41" x 36". If I can get that set up this year, it'll hold a zucchini squash plant. That depends on whether I can finish getting the mulberry tree trimmed. It's been too windy. I have quite a ToDo list. As time allows, I'll be working more with items I make out of scrap things. There is no money for purchased items any longer. (With the exception of perlite or soil that I have to get from the hardware store if I am to plant this year)

Yes, I watch their videos. This war has caused them to reach a fevered pitch. I think that seeing the total blackout in Cuba triggered something in the psyche. I'm an old lady. I have had a tad more experience than a housewife with little kids or an over-educated white male urban prepper with a decent income. Why do I watch? I want to learn about alternatives. Personally, I think the innovation coming from people with no income is preferable. They've learned to invent solutions from things around them. However, that isn't the reason for my rant today.

You can "prep" all you want to but unless you use those tools regularly already, you don't know what could go wrong. Many people start gardening and even spend a ton of money on infrastructure. You can't expect to have all the answers your very first year at it. You may not know that leaving bare ground invites ground hornets. All of a sudden, you cannot even harvest your carrots. Or that the cute little squirrels and rabbits will eat all of your plants. Farming is a learning experience. It's like that for other things as well.

Until you have lived through a week long blackout in the middle of winter, you have no idea what all the pit falls are. The pile of logs were frozen to the ground from the ice storm preceding the snow. How in the world do I do laundry? I have diapers and bedding to wash. Hurricane Helene taught many that paper plates are a godsend so you don't have to do dishes because there is no clean water. Can you even flush the toilet? How long before other peoples' sewage backs up into your basement? There is an awful lot to unpack. Some of the channels out there are better than others. Some people actually have experience. It's not just about gardening or stocking your pantry.

I think the best one I heard came from some x military guy. Step One in an emergency: Do I stay or do I go? It's important to prep for both. Randomly, we found ourselves in DC with some time to kill and visited a museum, something to do with buildings. As part of their traveling exhibits, artists had built little houses out of canned goods. There were workshops on how to make a bug-out bag. Stuff like that. It was interesting. It got me thinking. We live near a nuclear power plant. If something were to happen here, what is the recommended evacuation? I've actually seen loudspeakers in farm fields near here as early warning sirens. I googled it. The people who live in that town directly by the power plant are to evacuate to our county fairgrounds, about 5 miles from here. That's it. That's the whole plan. That power plant is 50 miles from here. Is that far enough? They are going to say, "That depends". And it does. Nuclear plants are not all the same. Each company that built them may use a different process. The type of accident may require venting (atmospheric) or it may release into the river. We're back to "do we stay or do we go?" They've since decommissioned one of the two stacks. Someone else told me the second stack is a normal coal processing plant. I don't know.

Every area in the US has some form of disaster that could happen to it. Drought fueled fires, earthquakes, volcanoes, hurricanes, tornadoes, the list goes on. Where does that leave me? I'm thinking about a bicycle driven washing rig that someone posted on Instagram. Do I have a long gear chain? No but the premise was fascinating. But squarely on my mind is clean water. Yes, I have rain barrels but during El Nino, really every summer lately, the sky stops producing water after May. It's raining now, but Tuesday will go down to 24 degrees. I can't collect it without wrecking the container or the valve. Ice expands and really trashes plastic containers. So, yes. Water is still my number one concern. Do I have experience setting up an outdoor portable shower? Only in theory. There's a lot that needs done. I just hope I never have to use it. I think step one is repairing my gutters. They are barely attached anymore on the garage.

I'm up for some learning. How about you?