Community gardens – why you should join one

Posted on May 14, 2012 by Tony

Our local elementary school is built on land that was once a farm.  As more and more development occurred in the area and the need arose for a new elementary school, the county bought this farm to provide a place to build the school.  At one time, there was also a plan to build a middle school on the same property and 22 acres of land was reserved for that purpose.  The middle school was never built, and now, almost 30 years after construction of the elementary school, that 22 acre parcel of land is still vacant.  The land is also the site of the original farm house, the first portion of which was built in 1783.

The house has been added onto several times and has now been unoccupied for several decades.  It is in great need of renovation/restoration.  Fortunately, a group of interested citizens has formed dedicated to preserving this piece of local history.  The preservation society has leased the property from the school board and slowly begun working on the house.

Another great thing they have done is to start a large garden plot on the farm property.  The garden is divided up into plots which can be rented by members.  The structure is what would normally be called a community garden.  In this case, however, it has been named “sharing garden” rather then “community garden” because it is only available to preservation society members, not to everyone in the community.  This is only a minor issue, though, because anyone can join the farm preservation society and then be eligible to rent a plot in the garden.  This is exactly what I did.

Even though this garden is called “sharing garden”, I will use the term “community garden” for the rest of this post because I will be talking about community gardens in general.  I am a strong supporter of the community garden concept for several reasons.  First, if you don’t have a suitable location to plant a garden on your own property, it provides a way you can still grow your own food.  But even if you do have all the land you need to garden, I still believe in the community garden for the interaction with other gardeners – both in the purely social aspect and to teach and learn.

This is the first time I have participated in a community garden, but I have lived in town and planted raised vegetable beds in the front yard before.  No matter what I was doing in my front-yard garden, people would walk up to talk.  Many of them had never gardened before, but they began to take interest.  Even though it slowed me down a bit when trying to get something done, I really enjoyed these interactions and so did many of my neighbors.

The community garden experience is much the same, except that all the people are interested gardeners, whether experts, beginners, or somewhere in between.  I have met many new people, learned some new things, taught some people a few things, given away some plants, and just enjoyed talking and spending time in the garden with other people.  These are all great reasons to be a part of a community garden.  It actually builds a community!

I have seen a wide variety of different methods to achieve the same goals.  I will write about some of them in future posts.

If you have a community garden nearby, I say join up even if you already have plenty of space to garden at home.  If you don’t have one available and you don’t have any other place to plant, try gardening in the front yard.  One or two people may complain that you are lowering their property value (an absurd argument in my opinion), but most will think it is way cool and stop to talk every time they see you out there.

Leave a comment and let us know what you think.  Do you participate in a community garden?  Do you have more good reasons for community gardening?  Have you ever planted vegetables in the front yard?

This post is linked to the Homestead Barn Hop.  Check out some of the other great blogs there.

Posted in Grow Your Own Food | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Log Cabins: How to Build and Furnish Them – a book review

Posted on May 10, 2012 by Tony

A few weeks ago, I went to a local discount store called Ollie’s with my wife and mother-in-law.  This is the kind place that has a wide selection of junk, overstock items from other stores, some damaged things, some cheap things, and so forth.  You can find some good bargains if they happen to have something you need that day and you have the patience to look through it all.

Within a few minutes, I had already made it through all the tools and garden items and taken a quick look through the rest of the store.  My wife and mother-in-law were still about half way down the first aisle.  They are both the type to pick up every item, turn it over, look at it, put it down, discuss it, pick it up again, look at it, then maybe move to the next item.  I can’t get them out until they have physically touched every item on every shelf in the store.  That means I was done but still had about two hours to wait before we could leave.

Lucky for me, the store also has a book section, so that’s where I spent my time.  I brought several books home.  One of them is Log Cabins: How to Build and Furnish Them by William S. Wicks, originally published sometime around the turn of the last century.  Mr. Wicks was the Buffalo Parks Commissioner from 1897 to 1900 and he died in 1919.

Even though it is billed as a how-to manual, you will not be able to build a log cabin following instructions in this book.  Still, I highly recommend it for a couple of reasons.

Like many really old books of this nature, it gives very general statements on how to do something without getting into step-by-step details.

The book starts out with site selection, then covers building walls, joists, floors, and roofs.  These chapters are several pages long and give some level of discussion on these topics, but far from enough to actually accomplish the construction.  The next chapters discuss interior partition walls, chimneys, fireplaces, windows doors and so forth.  These chapters drop to about one page or even less each.  You definitely will not find the step-by-step directions that will help you accomplish these tasks.  Finally, the book closes with a number of furnishings and a series of pictures.

The lack of specificity is actually what I enjoyed about this book, and what I like about most books of this vintage.  Modern how-to books usually go into excruciating detail on every step of every process, because authors seem to assume that their audience knows nothing (and they are usually right).  A hundred years ago, an author would give instructions like:  “just take one these, and grab a couple of those things over there, put them together with a what-cha-ma-call-it joint, and look – a finished chair.”

The reason they could write this way then is that people actually had some basic skills and knew how to do things.  Comparing this book to modern how-to books really gives you a sort of commentary on differences in people then and now.  It is a statement on how far we have come (in the wrong direction) on self-sufficiency.

The other thing I like about it is that it just gives some insight into the way the old-timers thought.  In this book, Mr. Wicks talks about building a temporary shelter to live in while one built the main cabin.  It was just a normal course of action, as if everyone then would do it that way rather than find a place to rent or demand a house ready to move into when they arrived.

Pick up a copy of Log Cabins: How to Build and Furnish Them and give it a read.  You won’t actually learn how to build your cabin, but I think you will enjoy seeing how people thought and did things a hundred years ago.

Now leave a comment.  Has anyone read this book?  Do you enjoy reading this kind of old books?

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Make your own butter – it’s easier than you think

Posted on May 7, 2012 by Tony

Early in my teen years, my father bought about a dozen baby heifer calves from a dairy farmer and we raised them on a bottle.  The dairy farmer used a Black Angus bull, so we had a dozen half Angus/half Holstein cows.  These made fantastic cows.  They produced large calves and gave lots of milk.  They also had a very easy-going nature.  Since they had been bottle fed and we spent a great deal of time with them when they were young, all of them were very gentle.

One of them, though, was even more tame than the rest.  One day my father decided that he wanted to start milking that cow.  We had never milked a cow before, but my father had as a child.  Even though my father kept forty to fifty cows, his family had kept only three or four at a time when he was growing up.  They always had a family milk cow and grew beef just for their own family.  As a result, my father had always been accustomed to fresh milk, and years later he missed it.

The chosen cow adapted very easily to being milked and soon we had more milk than we could use.  Of course that meant that we also had lots of cream.  Soon we were making butter.  When my father first said that we were going to make butter, I said, “How?  We don’t even own a churn.”  He quickly showed us that you don’t need one.  A quart Mason jar will work just fine.

Back then we made great butter from fresh milk straight from the cow, but you don’t need your own milk cow to make butter.  I just made some from store-bought heavy cream.  Here is how it’s done.

First let the cream sit out on the countertop until it comes to room temperature.  You can make butter with cold cream, but it will take a lot more time and shaking.  The little particles of milk fat will stick together much more readily when the cream is warm.  Some people say you should let the cream sit for several hours until it sours slightly to increase the acidity of the butter.  I haven’t tried this, though, because the butter tastes great even without doing that.

After the cream is at room temperature, pour it into a quart jar and screw the lid on tightly.  You will be shaking this quite a bit, so if the lid is not on tightly you will end up with cream all over yourself and everywhere else.

Now just start shaking the jar end to end.  You don’t have to shake it fast, but shake it hard, slamming the cream into each end to the jar as you shake it back and forth.  This action is what causes the fat particles to seperate from the water and stick to each other.  After five to maybe thirty minutes, you will have big globs of soft butter floating in a thin watery white liquid.  This liquid is the buttermilk, it is mostly water.

Now strain the butter through a piece of cheesecloth to seperate it from the buttermilk.  You can use the buttermilk for baking or you can throw it away or feed it to your chickens.

Now use the back of a spoon to squeeze out as much of the buttermilk as you can.  Then wash the butter in ice-cold water, repeatedly squeezing it with the back of the spoon to get out as much buttermilk as possible and then to squeeze out the water too.

Finally, stir in a little salt (I prefer sea salt) and store the butter in an airtight container.  You can use a recycled margarine container for this.  The butter will get really hard when it gets cold.  You can stir in a little olive oil to make it easier to spread cold if you want.

Give it a try – it goes great on homemade bread.  You can make great homemade butter even if you don’t have a cow.  Leave a comment here to let us know how it goes.

This post is linked to the Homestead Barnhop.  Check out the great blogs linked there.

Posted in Grow Your Own Food, Recipes | Tagged , | 7 Comments

Getting distracted by the rat race

Posted on April 30, 2012 by Tony

Many of you have noticed that I have been delinquent in posting to the blog for a while now.  It has been a very busy month and I also have to admit that I have allowed myself to get trapped in keeping up with the rat race more than preparing to escape it.

I love writing about becoming more self-sufficient and doing whatever I can toward that goal, whether it is growing food, working at starting a cottage industry, finding more ways to save money, or preparing to live without a job.  Like most people, though, I sometimes get distracted with the needs of today, which is what happened over the last month.

I’m not gone, though.  In fact, I have gotten busy again on the self-sufficiency priorities.  As you will see in the next few blog posts, I have planted gardens now in two different states (one for me and one for my parents).  By way of further preview, I can also tell you that in the next few weeks I will be posting about owner-building, starting a cottage industry, money making efforts by teenagers, and a book review or two.  Of course, given the time of year, there will be much more on gardening.  Most readers have probably figured out by now that growing your own food is one of my favorite topics.

While it is easy to get overcome by the daily obligations of life and just keeping up with the rat race and forget about working toward self-sufficiency, it is also easy to miss the beauty of nature all around us.  I was really reminded of this a couple of days ago when I went out for a run.  Here is one of the deer that I encountered along the way.  This is on a government facility where hunting is not allowed so the deer have become quite comfortable around humans.  You can get pretty close to them before they run off.

I also saw some beautiful birds that I have never seen before.  They were black with hints of irridescent purple and green overtones.  The edges of the feathers were trimmed in gold.  Unfortunately I wasn’t able to get my phone out and get a picture before they flew away.  I’m not sure what they were so if anyone has any clues, let me know.

We all get caught up in what we are doing from time to time and get distracted from our goals.  That’s ok as long as you don’t stay away too long.  Just try not to get too busy to see the beauty around you too.

Be sure to leave a comment.  What has been keeping you from your goals?  Do you have any tips to avoid those distractions?

This post is linked to the Homestead Barn Hop.

Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments

The winner of the seed giveaway

Posted on April 3, 2012 by Tony

I am a day late announcing the winner of the seed giveaway.  I was unexpectedly seperated from the Internet yesterday.  I hope you will all forgive me. 

The winner is Mildred.  I will email you for your mailing address and then get the seeds and seed starter in the mail.  I hope you enjoy it.

Thanks to all who participated!

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

The next generation: raising capable children

Posted on April 3, 2012 by Tony

A couple of months ago, one of my favorite bloggers posted Do the World a Favor and Raise a Capable Kid.  It is a story about a 17-year-old boy who ran his car out of gas and had to call dad to rescue him because he was completely incapable of dealing with the situation (and apparently incapable of interpretting what the “E” means).  This story, and just looking around at all the completely incapable children and adults out there, really got me to thinking again about how important it is to pass on practical knowledge to the next generation.

Of course, this is not the first time I’ve thought of this.  A couple a years ago I was doing something out in the garden with my son and he really surprised me with a question, “Dad, how did you learn so much about gardening?”  I was surprised because I’d never even thought that I had a great deal of gardening knowledge and skill, and also because I didn’t think he was really paying much attention.  I answered him that I’d learned most of it from my father.

I realized that I was very blessed to have parents who felt it important to teach my brothers and me all that they could.  From my parents, I learned a great deal of what is commonly thought of as self-sufficiency type knowledge.  I was immersed in a daily classroom on growing food, raising animals, hunting and fishing, butchering, preserving food, welding (though not very well), construction, and repairing things.  Most importantly, I was taught to how to work hard and to figure things out on my own.  I was taught to listen to others and learn from them, but also to reason things out when the answer is not obvious.

In addition, my father taught me a useful and income-producing skill.  My father was a bricklayer and he took my brothers and me to work with him on Saturdays and summers from the time we were big enough to work.  In fact, he took us to work with him even before we were really big enough to do any useful work.  He paid us some insignificant amount at first and then paid us a fair wage when we were old enough to actually contribute.  I did my fair share of complaining, but I was always happy that I had money when none of my friends did.

He taught me to lay brick when I was a teenager.  He always stressed that expected me to go to college instead of being a bricklayer, but that he wanted me to have the skill in case I needed it later in life.  He reasoned that if I lost my job, I would have something else to fall back on.   I have never worked fulltime as a bricklayer since then, but I have taken side jobs many times over the years for a little extra money.  I have also been happy to know that if I needed to work as a bricklayer I could.

 It is important that we teach our children to be self-sufficient.  We should teach them to grow their own food, build and repair their homes and other structures, and maintain and repair their equipment and cars.   We need to teach them critical thinking skills and independance.  We need to instill confidence in them.  We also need to teach them something that will help them bring in an income in hard economic times.

It is also important that we not neglect our own education in these matters.  I have certainly missed opportunities to learn from the older generation.  Many of them have much to teach us and we fail to take advantage of those opportunities.  Much of this knowledge will be lost as a result.

This post is linked to the Homestead Barn Hop.  Take a look – you’ll find some great blogs there.

Now leave a comment here.  What opportunities have you had to learn self-sufficiency?  What opportunities have you missed?  What are you doing to pass knowledge to the next generation?

Posted in Self-sufficient knowledge | Tagged , , , | 7 Comments

The secret to great collard greens

Posted on March 26, 2012 by Tony

I am sponsoring a giveaway.  You can win seeds and a seed starting kit.  Go to my giveaway page to enter.

If you follow on Facebook, you know that I picked some collard leaves last weekend.  If you don’t follow on Facebook, be sure to click the “like” button to the right.

Now I want to share the secret to making great collard greens.  Most people I know put a little sugar in their collard greens to cut their bitterness and I used to do this too.  Then one day I learned a secret from one of my aunts.  The sugar is completely unnecessary, but we’ll get to that in a bit.

First, you need a couple of ham hocks or other smoked pork.  If you are concerned about the fat, smoked turkey works well too.  Put the meat in a pot of water and let it simmer for at least an hour.  While the meat is cooking, get the collards ready.  Wash each leaf and cut them up.  A good way to cut them up is to stack six or eight leaves and roll them up.  Cut lengthwise down the center and then slice the roll of leaves into sections about an inch wide.  Drop all the leaves into a pot of water – not into the pot with the meat.

Now here’s the secret.  After the collards boil for ten to fifteen minutes, dump them out into a colander, drain all the water, and lightly wash them.  All the bitterness will go down the drain with the water.

Remove the meat from its pot and let it cool.  Then pick the meat off the bones.  Drop the meat and washed collards into a pot and cover with beef broth.  Bring to a boil then let simmer for about an hour and serve.  You will be amazed.

Here they are on the plate with some roasted zucchini, squash, and beets and  a thinly sliced grilled flank steak.  The beets make everything around them red, but they are a perfect side to the collards.

Now leave a comment.  What do you love to cook from your garden?  What are you growing this year?

This post is linked to the Homestead Barn Hop.  Please follow the link to check out some great blogs linked there.

Posted in Recipes | 6 Comments

Seed and seed starter giveaway

Posted on March 26, 2012 by Tony

Since I want everyone out there to try growing their own food, I am hosting a giveaway of seeds and a seed starting kit to help get you started.  Here it is:

This includes packets of bell pepper, zucchini, lettuce, cucumber, and cherry tomato seeds.  These are all new seeds I just purchased.  The seed starting tray is actually a salsa garden kit (I bought several on sale this winter) which includes jalapeno and cayenne pepper, cilantro, parsley, green onion, and roma tomato seeds as well. The seeds in the kit are from last year, but I have planted the seeds from an identical kit and they all came up.

Here are the rules.  You can enter through Saturday, March 31.  The winner will be chosen by random number drawing on April 1.  I will post the winner here and email you for your shipping address.  You can enter up to three times.  You get one entry for liking the blog on Facebook and leaving a comment to say that you did.  You get one entry for following on Twitter and leaving a comment saying that you did.  You get one entry for leaving a comment to say what you are planting this year.

Good luck!

Posted in Uncategorized | 7 Comments

Used furniture: really cheap or even free

Posted on March 22, 2012 by Tony

When I started writing about where peoples’ money goes, I identified rent or mortgage, car payments, and food (including groceries and eating out) as the three big expenses which gobble up most of the paycheck each month.  It didn’t even occur to me at that time that some people spend alot of money on furniture because I’ve never really spent much money on furniture.  I have looked at new furniture over the years, though, and realized that it can be very expensive.

This weekend, my wife said, “I need you to come with me to load the new dresser.”  My response was “What new dresser?”  She went on to explain that she had found a dresser on a community trading post type page on Facebook.  An older gentlemen was downsizing to a smaller house and was giving away various pieces of furniture that he now longer needed.  My wife graciously offered to help him in his efforts to make his possessions fit into the new, smaller house – and also she wanted a “new” dresser.

This has happened to me many times over the last twenty years.  I usually complain that we don’t need whatever it is that she is picking up, then go and get it anyway.  What I don’t complain about, though, is that we have spent next to nothing on furniture for twenty years.  Almost every piece of furniture in our house was acquired used.  Much of it was given to her.  Some pieces were acquired at yard sales.  We do buy new mattresses and I would not recommend used mattresses to anyone.  Occasionally, she will find some unique piece at an antique shop.  Those purchases usually turn into a weekend (or longer) project to refinish something to make a nice piece of furniture out of it.

Here is the bottom line.  You can spend a ton of money buying new furniture or you can pay attention to all the sources of used furniture and save a small furniture while still nicely furnishing your house, though it does require patience.  Here are some sources of cheap or free furniture:

Yard sales.  It is spring now, the time for yard sales to start in earnest.  If you regularly check out yard sales in your area, you are sure to find plenty of furniture.  People frequently are more concerned about just getting rid of something than making much money.

Online.  There are numerous sources online.  Craigslist is a great place to start.  They have a category for free stuff and many people post items for sale at practically give-away prices.  You can also look for community bulletin board type sites for your local area.

Family.  Many people have family members who like to buy new furniture to replace perfectly good items.  Then they want to get rid of their old, but still really good, items.

Consignment shops.  Prices can vary widely, but if you spend some time looking you can find good deals.  This may require some refinishing, but you will end up with beautiful furniture that will have special significance because you have invested yourself in it.

Thrift stores.  Much like consignment shops, you can find plenty of overpriced pieces, but you will also find great deals.  In thrift stores, such as Goodwill, in more upscale areas you can frequently find really high quality pieces cheap.

If you keep your eyes open, you can find plenty of other sources too.  I’ve even taken a few pieces out of dumpsters and refinished them to produce good furniture.

So there you have it – you can spend a huge chunk of your paycheck and run up debt for furniture or you can find for practically nothing.  Now leave a comment.  Are you a frugal furniture collector?  What are you favorite finds?

This post is linked to Your Green Resource.  Check out the great blogs linked there.

Posted in Reduce Other Expenses | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Sunshine and soil: the next steps

Posted on March 19, 2012 by Tony

The plants have been growing nicely under the lights indoors.  This weekend was so warm and beautiful that I took them outside for a few hours to get their first taste of real sunshine.

2012 plants getting their first taste of real sunlight

This is the next step toward moving them into the garden.  Before they are planted they need to harden off outdoors.  You can move them out for short periods of time and increase the time until they can be left out over night.  This was just their first trip out of the house.  It could still turn cold again and the plants are really still too small to transplant anyway, so they will continue to spend most of the time inside the house for a while longer.

I have to admit, though, that with the beautiful weather this weekend, and in fact a number of days lately, I was unable to resist the urge to buy a few cold hardy plants when I was in Home Depot on Saturday.  I brought home some broccoli and lettuce and planted them.  This is my first garden bed of the year.

First plants in the ground for 2012

I do have both broccoli and lettuce growing inside, but they are not ready to plant yet and the plants in the store looked really nice and healthy.  Even though it could still frost again, I don’t think it will be enough to kill these cold-hardy plants.  If they do die, I will still have others to replace them and if they live I will set those out later and have a larger harvest.

I’m really getting excited about the garden this year.  Hopefully this warm weather will hold out and we will be off to a great start!  Now leave some comments.  Have you planted anything yet?  Will this warm weather last?

This post is linked to the Homestead Barn Hop.  Please check out some of the other great blogs there.

Posted in Grow Your Own Food | Tagged , , | 3 Comments