Homesteading

I had the fortune of some friends yanking me away from the computer to go help them clear some land. There was lots of food and fun so it turned out great. Everyone knows I like to garden so when they said there were lots of different plants they wanted to clear I was interested.

What could I help them save to use in their small garden? It was carte blanch so anything I wanted was mine. It is good to drive the old Ford station wagon in cases like this. Note the wagon saw her last days, I will miss all that storage space.

So I get to my friends house and what do I see right off the top? Wild raspberries, at least fifty separate groups, well developed and bearing fruit in excess. We started by digging up the wild raspberries . They grow with shoots so I dug deep.

A quick tip makes sure you dig out a few feet from the base of the stalks; you will find wild berries can have a very large root system. If possible clear at least three feet around the bush before you dig. This will help you get the greatest amount of the root system. You need to see what you are digging up. As with any uprooted plant make sure you keep the roots wet and transplant ASAP if not immediately.

Our second cool find was a huge area of orange day lilies. Because there were so many we only dug up half the plot. We picked the rest for gifts and for them to sell at the country market. With day lilies it is hard to mess up. Just clear a foot or two around the base of the lilies and dig away. One good problem with Day lilies is the spread rapidly. My suggestion is set aside a whole area just for the lilies and watch out.You can also sell the flowers as part of your homestead income. Remember the more revenue streams you have for your homestead the better.

Our third find was a patch of wild grapes. It looked like someone had set up a grape arbor out of wood which just about rotted away. This is a wonderful find because if grapes grow well in wild, if you give them some attention they will do fantastic

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It appears our grape find are Concord. Concords turn a dark purple when ripe. My understanding this is a good wine grape. I see a how to make wine essay in our future.

Our forth interesting find was an old sad looking Black Walnut tree. I estimate it is about forty years old. It had seen better days and appeared to be pretty wind and weather damaged. The great news was it was at the edge of their property just forty feet in. This was far enough from the neighbors where they would not complain but far enough from the back of the house not to be an eyesore. Now why am I all excited about this old Black Walnut tree?

Because it is still bearing lots of nuts that can either be eaten, sold or planted for your Grandchildren and Great Grand children's college funds. Have you taken a look at the price of Black Walnut per board foot or veneer for that matter?

The stand of Walnut has five manageable seven to ten year old trees growing. We will harvest them to replant elsewhere. The nuts we will examine and either eat, sell or plant and sell the seedlings in five or so years.

What is my whole point of this article? Please take the time to really examine what you already have on your homestead property. Accurate plant identification is very important aspect of homesteading. In the coming weeks we will interview a leading expert on wild plant identification. The first rule is never eat anything you are not 100% sure of. The second rule is have fun, and learn about the different plants that surround you.

Till next time happy homesteading.

By growing your own food you take a massive steps is self sustainable life.

In stage two we setup our own Mittleider sustainable garden.
Below are instructions on how to setup a Mittleider garden soilbed, this is the method I use and have great success with.

First off, you MUST have direct sunlight all day long for vegetables to thrive. Therefore, use only the space that has no shade. And don't worry if it seems small! You'll grow twice the food in one fourth the space others are using, so just do it right in the space you

have. And actually, starting small is a good idea anyway! It's easier, more fun, and won't wear you out!

Level ground, or something with a slight Southern slope is best, in order to catch the sun's strongest rays, and to avoid rapid water run-off that will wash out your soil, seeds, and seedlings.

Begin by clearing your ground of EVERYTHING! No weeds, rocks, or anything else is allowed.

"Cleanliness is next to godliness" certainly applies here, and you surely want your garden to be a thing of beauty, as well as being productive!

Measure and stake the perimeter of your garden. This gives you an important starting point for figuring out how many soil-beds you can have, and then placing them properly. Let's use
25' X 35' as an example of what your garden area might be.

It doesn't really matter what direction your beds face, so far as sun exposure is concerned.

What does matter, though, is that the beds be level, and that you plant taller plants to the North or East of shorter plants. This is to assure that taller plants don't shade shorter
plants, and rob them of essential sunlight. So, align your beds to maximize those factors as much as possible.

I'll assume we are able to run the beds lengthwise along the 35' dimension. Your soil-beds should be 18" wide and any length you choose. When you become experienced in this method of growing, and want to specialize in growing certain crops all the time, you may want to begin using 4'-wide beds, but let's stick to the best family garden layout for now.

The ideal size for aisles is 3.5', and since we have 25' width in our example garden, this will give us 5 - 18" beds with 3 ' aisles. If you have only 23' you could get by with aisles a little narrower. But don't squeeze those aisles! You will be growing plants that need all of that space, and reducing the aisle space only leads to problems of not enough light and air for your growing plants!

We'll make our beds 30' long. This leaves us 2.5' on each end of the garden for walking, and 30' is a good length, because it makes caring for the garden easy. More about that later.

Using 18"-long stakes, stake your 5 - 18" X 30' beds, with 4 stakes per bed.

Apply 32 ounces of the Mittleider Pre-Plant Mix, and 16 ounces of Weekly Feed Mix to the soil under your strings. This amounts to about 1 ounce and half ounce per running foot of those VERY important natural mineral nutrients. Dig or till the soil of your soil-bed to a depth of at least 8".

Then, using nylon string, tie strings between the stakes, to outline your soil-beds.
Begin making raised, ridged beds by pulling about 2+ inches of dirt from the aisles into the 18"-wide bed area under your strings. Smooth and level that dirt, and then check the level of your bed area. It must be level to make watering easy and efficient, so don't ignore this step! Move dirt from the high spots in your bed to the low spots, until your bed is no more than one inch higher at the water-source end than the other end.

Make 4"-high ridges all around your bed by pulling soil from the center of the bed to just beneath the strings. When you're finished you should have a planting area that is about 12" wide and between 1 and 2" above the level of the aisles, with 4" ridges, the top of which are 18" apart. Re-check the level of your planting area, and move soil as necessary to keep the bed level from end to end.
Your Mittleider "Best of Organic" garden is now ready to plant!

Part of my homestead mentality is to produce as much food as possible using the Mittleider method of gardening. So what I am doing is investing in a hobby which will not only save me money (I save thousands a year on food) it can also earn me income. (By selling the vegetables and berries)
I also build good will and and friendships by dropping off free vegetables to my landlord, mechanic, doctor, accountant, co workers, senior homes, and the food bank.
It feels great to see the smiles on peoples faces when I hand them a bag of vegetables that were picked one hour ago.

Another example, I bought a chest freezer this has saved me thousands already. Grow what food you can then preserve it either by freezing, canning, drying.

My next major step is starting to build my solar power system one panel at a time. The goal is within three years be providing excess electrical power and selling it back to the power company.

Homesteading is a lifestyle. myself I greatly prefer "elbow room" and the outdoors is like a living museum and landscape. Piece by piece we will have everything we need to survive on our Homestead.