garden Archives - Living Off the Grid: Free Yourself

Looking for the perfect spot

My girlfriend and I are interested in building an earthship. We have been studying sustainable and off-grid building practices for the past few years, and are finally in the financial position to make a move. We are not limiting ourselves to a specific area of the country, but we would prefer something in the Pacific Northwest. We don’t need a lot of land to ourselves. We must have enough space to start a large production vegetable garden and raise chickens. We highly value the idea of having public land either backing up to the property or very close by.
We are looking for other people that want to go in together on some quality land. The perfect plot of land, not necessarily the biggest, is what we want to focus on. If there is anyone out there who shares similar goals or has some advice to give, we welcome you to contact us.

Thanks
Joe and Elica

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March 19, 2022 No Comments

Food

Understand Your Growing Zone

Growing your own food, and enough of it to last a while, is one of the pillars of living off the grid. Knowing about your Growing Zone is the key, allowing gardening off-grid to morp from a hobby to something vital to survival. And while there are other ways to put food on the table, gardening provides a balanced diet for the off-grid family as well as exercise and community.

A huge part of living off-grid involves understanding the area in which you are situated. Knowing your surroundings, including the success of past harvests, is essential to creating a garden that will sustain your lifestyle. Here are some tips for understanding your growing zone for a bountiful garden.

Know Your Spot on The Map

Go to map

To understand your climate and growing zone, you need to know where your land falls on the USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map. This useful tool assigns a number to each growing zone within the country. This number corresponds to how well different plants will grow in your area. For example, North Florida is in zone 8, which is great for growing apples. But you’ll have a tough time trying to grow grapes or cherries. Keep in mind that each growing region includes two subcategories as well. It’s possible that a plant that thrives in your growing zone won’t survive because of individual circumstances. However, staying with those plants rated for your growing zone number should help bring forth a bountiful harvest.

Know Your Soil

Another thing to consider when growing a substantial garden is the soil. You may have a wide range of plants in your growing zone, but not everything will do well in the ground on your property. Specific plants prefer a certain kind of soil that your land may not provide. You can add organic material to help fix soil conditions, but that doesn’t guarantee success.

Know Your Season

Northern homesteads will see cooler spring and fall seasons while southern ones will see plenty of hot weather. Different produce grows better in different seasons. It’s best to start out with cool-season vegetables like lettuce, peas, and broccoli well before hot weather arrives. If you’re living in the south, you may have no choice but to start with a warm weather crop like melons, zucchini, and cucumbers. Knowing your area and the average temperature for each season is vital to successfully sow seeds at the right time.

Know Past Weather Patterns

Taking note of past weather conditions within a season will help you understand and work your land better. Prolonged winter temperatures or a freak spring snowstorm can significantly decrease the amount of food that you can produce. Gardeners in Colorado know to wait until after Mother’s Day to plant. Yet the picture above was taken in late May, two weeks after the last forecast frost. …

June 13, 2019 1 Comment

Planting by the moon, hype or help?

I was born in 1965 so I grew up less than one generation removed from those in my family who really farmed and those who went through the Great Depression. We saved everything, we didn’t throw anything into the trash until it was used up, worn out, reused and even then, it would be more likely put aside for parts…

I remember hearing my dad talking about “planting by the moon” as I grew up, one summer he decided it was all nonsense and would just plant whenever, with no regard to what the moon cycle was doing. Well, that year our garden wasn’t as good as it usually was, after that, we went back to planting by the moon.

What does that mean? Well, to simplify it, anything that is harvested from underground (root vegetables, carrots, onions, potatoes) need to be planted by the “dark of the moon”, when the moon is past full going toward the new moon. Anything that is harvested above ground, (corn, tomatoes and the such) should be planted by the “light of the moon”, meaning after the new moon going toward the full moon. If you get an “Old Farmer’s Almanac” it will get even more detailed as to the specific dates when you should plant based on the moon phases.

There is science behind this, it’s not hocus pocus, the moon affects water on earth, just look at what it does to the tides. Here is a video explaining how all of this works.

https://youtu.be/kYtnZPuP4zk

What about you? Do you plant by the moon? Do you believe in it or do you think it’s nonsense? Let me know below!

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April 20, 2017 No Comments

Community

Growing in a bale

Surely growing in a straw bale couldn’t possibly be as good as growing in the soil…

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March 24, 2017 No Comments

Community

Hugelkultur

Hugelkultur, pronounced hugle (like bugle but with a “h”) culture, it’s really simple, combining raised beds with lots of organic material under and on top of the mound. You take wood logs and twigs, preferably older ones but fresher ones can be used, cut them to the length of the bed you want to create, lay them in a pile then put dirt on top of them, you will be planting in this dirt. The idea is the wood logs decompose and hold lots of water, meaning you don’t have to water as often. It’s a win win situation. Some even work swales into the hugelkultur beds to help capture water that would otherwise run off too quickly.

I know it’s the end of the summer gardens for most of us, but this is the perfect time to begin planning and building our gardens for next summer. I still want to make a keyhole garden, I might incorporate some of the hugelkultur into a keyhole garden by using decaying wood logs and twigs that we have an abundance of around here, putting it in the base of the keyhole garden. Also working with the rocks and wood when the temps are cooler will be safer (for me) from snakes, scorpions and other creepy crawlies that sting and bite.

Here are a couple of videos about hugelkultur gardening.

https://youtu.be/Sso4UWObxXg

and

https://youtu.be/Lkx2JFO0Dhw

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August 20, 2016 No Comments

Community

Strawbale gardening dangerous?

I have always loved the idea of using straw or hay, lots of it in my garden as a thick mulch, I follow the Ruth Stout methods of gardening. Then came strawbale gardening, planting directly in the strawbale itself, I witnessed one of these gardens planted by a neighbor who had very rocky soil and couldn’t grow anything before, her tiny strawbale garden exploded with veg, it was very happy there.

Now I discover that with all the pesticides and poisons that are being sprayed, it’s now a problem for those of us who just want to garden using straw or hay. I was under the assumption that if you got something that was used for animal food and bedding that it must be safe, turns out I was making huge and incorrect assumptions.

It seems that it is common practice for the farmers to spray their fields with weed killer and pesticides, it’s apparently not a major issue for the animals eating it, though honestly I can’t see how it can be good for them. But once these contaminated bales hit your soil, they can and do affect how your are able (or not) to grow your food. What you thought was safe and organic is not so safe to use.

What can you do? You must find out the history behind that bale of hay or straw before purchase, find an organic grower and stick with them, yes it may cost you more, but how much is your health worth? You might even be able to get a better price on “old” or spoiled hay or straw from an organic grower.

You can learn more about this here:
https://thegrownetwork.com/hidden-dangers-straw-bale-gardening/

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May 8, 2016 1 Comment

Community

Keyhole garden

It’s so nearly spring, I am itching to get out and do some gardening, I’ve been getting seed catalogs, the siren song of the gardener. About a year ago (+/-) I discovered another method of raised bed gardening, it’s called a keyhole garden for obvious reasons, it looks like a keyhole from above.

From what I can see, you make a round raised bed with a notch in it that goes to a central basket that holds compostable materials, kitchen scraps, fruit & veg, egg shells, coffee grounds (including the filter), paper, cardboard, grass clippings and the such. The garden is watered through this middle part, transferring the nutrients from the decomposing material in the middle to the garden that surrounds it.

The notch is important, it allows easy access to the central basket to add more compost and water, you also need to be able to reach every part of the garden area, so don’t make it too large, you can always build more keyhole gardens as needed.

I have seen many materials used for the outside, from bricks, to pavers, rocks, some are cemented in to make a permanent structure, others are just dry stacked so they can be removed later, it can even be made from wood, metal or plastic. I watched many videos on how different people make theirs, some do it very simple, others more elaborate, one I saw this evening looks pretty good, but I saw the builder do something I probably wouldn’t do, after marking out the circle, he used a fork to dig up the soil, the reason I wouldn’t do that is because you aren’t using THAT soil to plant in, you are placing layers of cardboard, paper and mulch type materials in the base, you don’t add soil until the last foot, so disturbing the base layer of soil is not necessary and it seemed to me it would be counter productive.

Here are a few videos you can watch to get a better idea of how this is done, enjoy!

<br />

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March 11, 2015 No Comments

Gardening roundtable

About a week ago, I got a phone call from one of my neighbors and friends out here, it was time to do another gardening roundtable. That’s where a bunch of us gets together to discuss our gardening experiences. Living in the high desert mountains in far western Texas, we have a unique growing area, and within this area, there are even microclimates to deal with, so my garden may have different qualities (temperature, moisture, wind, soil conditions…) than someone who lives at the same altitude as I do but just around the corner from me…

So today after church and our second Sunday church potluck lunch, we just had enough time to get over to the community center just up the road. There were about a dozen of us there, most are experienced gardeners, a few were very new to gardening, a few had gardened out here for many years.

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July 13, 2014 1 Comment

Community

It’s garden time!

I grew up watching gardening shows on PBS, one of my favorites was the Victory Garden, and during pledge week, they would always have Howard Garrett and Jerry Baker on, I loved watching their easy but effective DIY fertilizers and pest control, Garrett Juice and Jerry Baker’s tonics are easy to make, easy to use and work! Over the years, I have made my own concoctions using a bit from both recipes, yeah I cook the same way…

Don’t tell anyone but urinating on your plants works too, you will have to dilute it to about a 10% solution, and no kidding, if you do use urine, don’t tell anyone, no one will want to eat from your garden :)

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April 11, 2014 No Comments

Food

EU to ban heirloom seeds and criminalize unregistered gardens

(Truthstream Media.com)

If the global domination is allowed to take root, biotech and Big Agra will control the world food supply, at the expense of personal liberty.

Because independence is the greatest of all crimes under the emerging global government, which essentially works to protect the dominance established by the biggest of corporations, who participate, in turn, as de facto members of the ruling oligarchy – and in baby steps through the EU, and emerging North American Union, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, et al.

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January 17, 2014 1 Comment

Community

Autumn is coming, what’s in your garden?

It’s hot, hot hot, those of us with gardens are in full swing… now it’s time to start your fall gardens. Things like greens, spinach, lettuces, garlic… honestly in the past, I haven’t given much thought to fall gardens, I have gardened so hard all summer that I’m pretty worn out for thinking about planing more things. But this is not the mindset of a good homesteader or off-gridder, especially if you are relying on that garden to supplement your food.

So let’s keep that excitement we had during the late winter and spring and get that fall garden started!

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August 4, 2013 No Comments

Gardening roundtable

Last Sunday afternoon, I went to a gardening roundtable discussion in my community. I live on a mountain side in the high desert of far west Texas (yes, Texas does have mountains, the Davis Mountains to be exact). It was quite interesting talking to the various gardeners out here. Some were just starting out, some were experienced gardeners but not in this location, and some had gardened out here for many years.

I have been really itching to get out and garden this year, I haven’t gardened much for the last 2 years because of water issues, we didn’t have much of a rainy season those two years. Our rainy season usually starts in July(ish) and ends in September(ish), during those few months we get most of our yearly amount of rainfall. It’s hard to wait for the rainy season to start, typically I would start in spring and hand water.

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March 22, 2013 3 Comments

garden

If the global domination is allowed to take root, biotech and Big Agra will control the world food supply, at the expense of personal liberty.

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