Homesteader News

Reduce, reuse, recycle… those are wise words to live by, although most folks tend to focus on the third and not so much the first two. Homesteaders are known for being thrifty and for finding use for items others have cast away.

The first lesson, though, before we can even reuse our items, is to store them properly. That free bag of grain I salvage from the end of horse racing season does me no good if I leave it in my garage and attract mice. The spare pieces of wood left over from a building project can’t be reused if I’ve left them exposed to the rain. Field mice, rats, sun, rain, wind – these elements penetrate and damage items that aren’t stored properly. You may find yourself watching a truck load of ruined items head to the dump. It’s certainly happened to me at least once.

This past month I reappropriated several useful items around my homestead. I finally took out a rock and cactus garden bed that the former owners had put in by our front door. I wanted some kitchen herbs there instead, and so we removed the rocks and put in our plants and dirt. There were a LOT of rocks. I decided to use those to border a medicinal herb bed. I took away the cinder blocks that I had previously put in as that herb bed’s border, and moved them to my asparagus bed, adding a second layer of blocks to help deter roaming kids and chickens. I added another level of cinder blocks to two of my children’s gardens as well, so they can create deeper garden beds.

Cinder blocks may be one of the best reusable homestead items! I’ll be using some of our remaining cinder blocks as pier foundations for the new chicken coop I’m building. It will be a raised coop, with 4x4 posts set inside cinder blocks on level ground, with cement poured in the cinder block holes. Sturdy, but removable should we need to move the coop.

Yesterday I passed by some old tomato cages that are, of course, useless for trellising tomatoes. The tomato plants always get so big and heavy that they tip the cages over. This year I’ll use it to trellis beans and peas instead of the tomatoes. For the tomatoes I’m reusing some old stakes and some new twine and will train the tomato plants along those, espalier-style.

Old garage shelving, plastic five shelf shelving, is being moved outside to hold flats of seeds I’m starting. I always flatten and reuse old cardboard as the base layer under my garden beds. We move the old chicken bedding to the compost pile or to fallow garden beds, and we shred our paper mail and add that to the compost as well. Our property has areas that slope down toward a canyon, so whenever I have excess green trimmings, branches, palm fronds, I haul those down to the bottom of the field where I’m building up the land. We create less trash than ever before, sometimes not even filling up the trash or recycling bins, and for a family of six it’s a big change from before we had our homestead.

I hope this inspires you to take a look around your homestead and see what you can reassign, saving you money and a trip to the store for new supplies, and sparing the landfills that much less junk.

 As we are planning our gardens this spring, I’d like to invite everyone to consider taking action this spring to help honeybees flourish. While adding beehives to your homesteads would be wonderful, you can help honeybees even without installing hives.

Bee gardens:

Planting flowers that attract honeybees is probably the first thing that comes to mind. The list, of course, is extensive but there are some basic concepts to follow. First, native plants are a double benefit. Besides being perfectly adapted to your climate and water availability, native plants are thought to be more attractive to your local bees than flowers imported from other ƒregions. Secondly, choose locations that shelter the bees from the wind a bit; it makes it easier for them to land and gather their goods. Then pick a variety of plants (shrubs, trees, flowers, herbs) that bloom at different times of the year, rather than plants that all bloom just in the spring. This provides year-round food for the bees. Perennials and/or plants that reseed easily are best.

I’ve provided a list of some recommended flowers at the bottom of the article.

Community Awareness:

Many municipalities have a practice of exterminating hives when swarms are reported. Check with your city government and see if they have made the paradigm shift to helping preserve bee hives. Most areas have volunteer beekeeping groups who would love to receive hives. If your government is still exterminating these endangered honeybees, you may be able to help change their policies.

Careful with Pesticides:

Please remember that usually what is sprayed to kill pests will damage beneficial insects. In California, for example, we are battling the Mediterranean fruit fly and my area is under quarantine. I cannot sell any produce on the quarantine list unless I process it or spray my trees. The organic spray, Spinosad, is harmless to just about everything but is highly toxic to honeybees. The agents near me try to avoid blossoms when they spray, but it is ironic to think that in order to eliminate the fruit fly menace, agents in Southern California are putting honeybees at risk.

According to news articles (http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/37884), “A study published Friday in the scientific journal PLOS (Public Library of Science) One found about three out of five pollen and wax samples from 23 states had at least one systemic pesticide — a chemical designed to spread throughout all parts of a plant.” On your homestead, you can make pesticides that are not harmful to bees, such as from soapnuts.

Add Beehives

And of course you can add beehives to your homestead! Beehives are possibly the most profitable commodity in homesteading. They do not require fenced pastures or barns, we don’t have to sheer or shoe them, and cost of food is negligible. They are easy to maintain. One can even install a beehive on an apartment balcony! Fortunately, as beekeeping is becoming more and more popular, there are numerous books, magazines, forums, and email lists devoted to beekeeping.

It has perhaps never been more important to promote beekeeping and take measures to help bees flourish. I hope you are able to do something to help them, for without the honeybee we are lost.

Plants for Bees:

Thyme (drought-resistant, perennial)

Heather (long flowering season)

Lavender (tolerant of poor soil, drought-resistant)

Beebalm (good supply of nectar)

Fruit trees

Additional flower recommendations:

http://nature.berkeley.edu/urbanbeegardens/list.html

http://www.thedailygreen.com/going-green/tips/2790

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2010/03/26/bee-killer-still-at-large-new-evidence-makes-pesticides-a-prime-suspect/

While my homesteading neighbors further east are still fully in the
throes of winter, spring is already under way here in San Diego,
almost to the point of causing me to fear that I’ve missed my early
planting windows!  My greens are growing well, garlic has sprouted – I
even have two tomatoes on a plant that endured through fall and
winter!  But I’m hoping for some winter from the east coast to rub off
over here and give me a bit more time to browse my catalogs and get my
orders in.

Even in the world of organic seeds, there is a multitude of seed
catalogs, but I only receive a handful (mainly because I get
distracted by my family each time I sit to browse the web and order
catalogs).  I have a favorite source for my garden vegetable and
fruits, and a favorite source for my herbs.  Everything else is gravy.

For vegetable and fruit seeds, my absolute favorite is Baker Creek
Heirloom Seeds (www.rareseeds.com).  Their catalog has beautiful color
photos of most of their products, and they usually have descriptions
of where they sourced the seeds.  Many are grown by family farms.  For
example, for the Cherokee Trail of Tears Pole Bean, their catalog
reads:  “This heirloom was brought from Tennessee by the Cherokee
people as they were marched to Oklahoma by the Federal Government in
1839 over the infamous "Trail of Tears;" that left so many dead and
suffering. This prolific variety is good as a snap or dry bean and has
shiny, black beans. Hardy, vining plants..”  If you are ordering off
of their website, you can utilize their review feature and see how
each product has been rated.

The other thing that makes Baker Creek my very favorite is that they
are building community rather than just selling products.  They’ve
created festivals, events with guest speakers, opened a restaurant
based on donated foods, and have launched a magazine.  They are
bringing business to their small corner of Midwest America and are
helping the careers of the musicians and crafters who participate in
their events.  Baker Creek is rated in the top 30 seed companies at
Dave's Garden Watchdog (http://davesgarden.com/products/gwd/), a
helpful resource for evaluating seed companies.

When I want to add to my medicinal herb gardens, I turn to Horizon
Herbs (http://www.horizonherbs.com/).  Their catalog isn’t as exciting
as the Baker Creek catalog but it features botanical drawings that are
quite nice.  Their seeds are open-pollinated and they grow their own
seeds – they don’t source and resell them.  They grow and offer seeds
of plants that are endangered, in efforts to preserve those herbs.  In
addition to seeds, they sell roots, tinctures, and books.  Besides all
of these wonderful advantages, one of their offerings I find most
interesting is the packets they put together:  ayurvedic, Chinese
medicine, Native American, medieval, African, and many other
compilations.  When I was doing a medieval history block with my kids
last year, I ordered the Medieval garden packet from here and we were
ready to build our own Medieval garden!  We try to order at least a
few endangered seeds each year.  Then there is the China salad
collection, the Four Sisters Collection, the Kidzerbs packet, a
medicinal herb packet, “My Mother’s Kitchen Garden” and many, many
other neat arrangements.  When I am browsing this catalog, I’m
mentally building more and more herb beds around my property!

In addition to growing organic seeds, whenever possible I like to buy
biodynamic  seeds.  I don’t have a favorite source for these seeds
yet, although http://www.biodynamics.com is a good resource.  Turtle
Tree Seed looks promising (http://www.turtletreeseed.com/) but my main
interest is in a farm located in my county, Tierra Miguel
(www.tierramiguelfarm.org).  Tierra Miguel is active in educating the
public about the current failures of our conventional agriculture
programs, and it has farm workdays and monthly open houses, in
addition to selling CSA products.

These are my favorites but each homesteader has his or own priorities
and preferences.  Seed Savers Exchange (www.seedsavers.org) is one
organization favored by many.  Its members are continuing the
tradition of seed sharing that America's pioneers survived on as they
pushed west.  For other seed companies, I like to check Dave's Garden
occasionally and see what catches my eye.  Dave's Garden
(http://davesgarden.com) has an astonishing number of companies
evaluated by its members.

This past year I tried my hand at saving my own seeds, and so I hope
in a couple of more years to not need to purchase the majority of my
seeds at all.

It is shaping up to be an exciting year for our garden!  So many
gardens, so many blisters, so little time to fit it all in…

My original plan for this month’s column was to talk about my favorite
seed catalog.  However, winter in our area gave me a curve ball,
reminding me that so much of homesteading is dealing with nature’s
curve balls.

We live in the San Diego area and had some pretty significant storms
last week.  I’ve lived in Texas, Arkansas, Missouri, and Virginia and
the storms I encountered here in San Diego were more severe than any I
can remember in these other states.  San Diego as well as Los Angeles
had at least one tornado, almost unheard of for this area.  We had
hail, very strong winds (ranging from 45 mph in my area to 90 mph
about 40 miles away).  And of course we had an enormous amount of rain
– a handful of inches in just a couple of days.  In southern
California, that is a mixed blessing:  we are in a level 2 drought so
of course we need the water, but our grounds are bare with barely any
grasses to hold the soil in place under the rain.  Most of the area is
just dirt (unless it’s irrigated and landscaped) because our last
rains were last spring; the majority of grasses have dried up.  And so
when we receive a torrential rainfall, we get mudslides and erosion
damage.

At my homestead, the wind did a significant amount of damage.  It blew
over a euphorbia succulent that was about 14’ tall, and blew some very
large limbs off of one of our trees.  These limbs were major limbs of
the tree, essentially all of the limbs on that side of the tree are
gone so we may have to remove the tree.  We lost several branches off
our tall ash tree despite having had it trimmed recently.  Worst of
all, it very nearly blew over our very large tangelo tree right into
the corner of our house.

When the storms were over, it was time for us to do damage control.
We used our tractor and a chain to hoist the tangelo tree upright.  We
put three stakes in the ground with rope going to the tree, but the
ground was so saturated the stakes came right up.  We got stronger,
corkscrew stakes and they too want to pull out of the ground.  We’ve
left the tractor and chain anchoring the tree upright and picked about
100 pounds of tangelos off the leaning side of the tree to remove some
of the weight load.  If we can keep the tree upright (without the
tractor) we’ll probably save the tree – but finding a way to keep the
stakes in the ground without the tractor as anchor is challenging.  In
the meantime, we’re juicing the tangelos and freezing the juice for
later.

The storm also blew part of our chicken run askew, causing the door to
fail to latch and also resulting in us discovering an exposed wire:
it was sparking against the wire of the chicken run.  The coop we use
is old and came with the house when we bought it.  Building a new coop
has been on our list but now has been bumped up significantly.

We are lucky to not have had further damage.  We didn’t lose any
animals or garden plants.

Having this storm pass through, in an area that very rarely receives
hard rain, was a good lesson in preparedness.  It is critical to know
where the circuit breakers are (and to have the switches well marked).
I learned how to test a live wire and to repair a broken wire – a
skill I was sorely lacking before.

Encountering a storm such as this also underscores the value and
importance of having the right tools for the job:  a tractor and
chains, chainsaw, stakes and rope, barrels to gather water, a
generator, emergency supplies, and a well-stocked pantry.

It makes for a lot of excitement around the homestead during this time
when there is not a lot of gardening action.

--
Shannon
www.midnightmoondreams.blogspot.com
twitter:  moonrisefm