Are You Stocking Up On Food?

[Stumpy]

I seem to remember a gardening show about potatoes. They put bone meal in when they planted them. The best crop of potatoes I've ever had were planted in somewhat sandy soil.

 

[Baymule]

Arienwolf, haven't dug the sweet potatoes yet, will do that in a couple more weeks. If the wild riot of vines aboveground is any indication of what is underground, we should have sweets all winter!

Thanks for taking a look at my garden. I have paved walkways with bricks that cut it into beds and I plant flowers in it too to attract bees and make it pretty to look at. On the new potatoes, I had 2 small 2'x4' beds that I dug deep with a shovel. I composted heavily, tossed in a couple cups of lime and watered deeply. I think I planted 5 pounds of eyes. I got them at the feed store, cut them in pieces and laid on newspaper to cure. When the cut sides were brown and leathery, I planted them. I dug a trench about a foot deep and covered the eyes with about 6 inches of earth. As they grew, I filled in the trench. As they grew more, the vines were so thick and crowded, all I did was water them. The main thing is COMPOST COMPOST COMPOST!! And LOOSE soil!

You are on the right track with giving your chickens vegetable waste and letting them do the composting for you. You might want to expedite matters by raking leaves and putting them in the coop/run. My coop floor is dirt for that reason. Last winter I just kept adding more dry sawdust and leaves on top of the wet gooey mess and then I dug it out this spring.I dug down over a foot deep. PHEW! If you do this, be advised the buffalo gnats will be attracted to the smelly bottom layer. Scatter lime, I used pickling as hydrated will burn their feet, and rake it in. Let it dry good before putting more litter in. Also, spray your girls on the roost with vanilla, it will keep the gnats OFF them. Hang several vanilla scented Christmas tree auto air fresheners in the coop and it will help keep flies away. And the whole time you are digging out the poo/leaves/last month's scrap rejects, you can picture big beautiful potatoes grown in the finest smelly ol' poop you could dig for them!

 

[Baymule]

I found this list very intresting. While it might be a lot to go buy or try to keep on hand, it gave me ideas of stuff I hadn't thought of.

http://www.grandpappy.info/hfood1yr.htm

And a very thought provoking opinion on pets and livestock

http://www.grandpappy.info/hpets.htm

And some more info

http://www.grandpappy.info/hnow.htm

Don't anybody get their panties in a wad, I posted these links because they gave me insight I hadn't thought of. I am not going to come to your house and eat your dog.........unless he might be young and tender....

Seriously, I thought this guy had some intresting points. Dig around on his site, he also has some recipes for what to do with all this stored up stuff we are hoarding.

 

[bucky52]

dh and i look ahead.we never know whats in store for the future.we can fresh veggies,beef and we store dried food.we store drinking water and ammo.we have lots of wood,as we heat our basement in the winter months.we have tried to encourage our two daughters to store supplies that they may need to survive on.they look at us like we have lost our minds.we own and run a retail business.and come in contact with lots of people.and when we hear of lawyers and police officers storing food.so yes we are stocked.we have food in closets under beds.and our store room is runth over.

 

[caspernc]

We have a hand pump on our well and a solar moter for sunny times. In sept. of 2000 huricane Fran came right over Raleigh. Surprize!!!! After two days the city started having block cooking parties from the freezers that were thawing. All were welcome to eat. Someone had to eat all this food. We had generaters but it was a long 9 days without power. We could drive 20 miles and everything was fine. We didn't have the flooding just the wind knocked all the trees down. That got us thinking. And doing.

 

[arienwolf]

Arienwolf, haven't dug the sweet potatoes yet, will do that in a couple more weeks. If the wild riot of vines aboveground is any indication of what is underground, we should have sweets all winter!

Thanks for taking a look at my garden. I have paved walkways with bricks that cut it into beds and I plant flowers in it too to attract bees and make it pretty to look at. On the new potatoes, I had 2 small 2'x4' beds that I dug deep with a shovel. I composted heavily, tossed in a couple cups of lime and watered deeply. I think I planted 5 pounds of eyes. I got them at the feed store, cut them in pieces and laid on newspaper to cure. When the cut sides were brown and leathery, I planted them. I dug a trench about a foot deep and covered the eyes with about 6 inches of earth. As they grew, I filled in the trench. As they grew more, the vines were so thick and crowded, all I did was water them. The main thing is COMPOST COMPOST COMPOST!! And LOOSE soil!

You are on the right track with giving your chickens vegetable waste and letting them do the composting for you. You might want to expedite matters by raking leaves and putting them in the coop/run. My coop floor is dirt for that reason. Last winter I just kept adding more dry sawdust and leaves on top of the wet gooey mess and then I dug it out this spring.I dug down over a foot deep. PHEW! If you do this, be advised the buffalo gnats will be attracted to the smelly bottom layer. Scatter lime, I used pickling as hydrated will burn their feet, and rake it in. Let it dry good before putting more litter in. Also, spray your girls on the roost with vanilla, it will keep the gnats OFF them. Hang several vanilla scented Christmas tree auto air fresheners in the coop and it will help keep flies away. And the whole time you are digging out the poo/leaves/last month's scrap rejects, you can picture big beautiful potatoes grown in the finest smelly ol' poop you could dig for them!

I'm trying. I do have sandy soil as I live in Florida. So even though I have added compost, top soil and manure, my soil is still very loose. So composting has become one of my top things to do throughout the yr. The area for my chickens is also bare. When I go out to do the weeds in my garden and all around the yard I put buckets full in their coop so the girls can eat and scratch through them. But when a couple of days pass I pitch fork it out (its usually withered and pooed on good by then) and I throw it right in the compost pile and till it in. I think I WILL however dig out a good foot off the sand/soil that's in the chicken pen.(like you do) The sand has gone from white to dark brown/black.

got me thinking it will be great to use in the garden. I think Ill throw some of the soil from the garden in the pen to compensate. And rotate it. Wonder how that will go.
Your garden is beautiful. And you cant argue with the harvest. Makes me envious!

Thanks for the tip on the Vanilla scented Auto fresheners will be sure to try it when I go out there to rotate the soil.

I was going to try vertical potato growing with kenebec tates but I haven't even been successful with garden potatoes who am I kidding? lol.

 

[mickey328]

Another awesome thing for soil amendment is peat moss. We use quite a bit here because our soil is heavy clay and the moss helps break it up. It works great for sand too because it adds organic matter that will hold the moisture. I think it's way cool that the same substance will fix two totally opposite problems, LOL

 

[TexasLisa]

Hi!

My husband and I moved from Indiana to the Houston area 5 years ago. We both grew up with basements/root cellars. Even though we have moved to the country, they don't build basements due to the water table being too high. How can I store my vegetables (potatoes, onion, etc.), canned goods, etc.? It is hard to 'prepare' if I can't store it properly.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Lisa

 

[Baymule]

TexasLisa, I live 75 miles north of Houston. I kept our potatoes and onions in the house until we ate them all. Having a small garden, it wasn't a problem. It I harvested hundreds of pounds...........yeah, THAT would be a problem-a good problem to have, but a problem to store it. Extreme heat and humidity makes storage double hard around here. Have never had a basement or cellar, must be nice to have something like that.

 

[TexasLisa]

Thanks Baymule! I love being in Texas. My husband and I are learning to deal with clay soil and loving the fact that you can put in two gardens a year!! Every time we turn around, we are learning something new.

It just makes me wonder how they did it back in the old days?

By the way, I love your 'handle'!!

Lisa