Re Post - Homesteading

[zzGypsy]

careful with the sweet potatos... if they take, they can become invasive and take over an area.

I had a terrible time trying to grow potoatos in So. Cal. I got a small crop when groing them in the high desert, but down near the coast I tried 3 years and never got them to thrive. looking forward

to trying again in MO.

the other thing I want to try is an aquaponic greenhouse garden. properly set up, one should be able to maintain it year round, and get a fish crop too. maybe we'll be able to set that up this summer as well.

 

[Noymira]

Quote:
I'd love to grow carrots! One of my earliest memories of gardening is of pulling up and eating carrots fresh out of my grandmothers garden, the best tasting carrots ever!

I'd also love to grow sweet potatoes, my favorite! I will have to look into those as well.

I do not have any squash in the ground now, but would love to grow some winter and acorn squash next year, I love squash as well!

Sufficient Self is great, not as many active members (yet

) but some good threads and great people (even some of us BYC'ers)!

 

[Noymira]

Quote:
I have no idea if sweet potatoes would grow enough here to become invasive, I'll have to research that some more I guess...

I'd love to try aquaponics for some veggies since our winters can be long and fresh greens would be nice. But we don't have much space or money for a setup like that, maybe in the future!

 

[LilyD]

Quote:
ha! wrecking balls, that's excellent!
one arrangement I've seen is heavy duty cattle panels, 2 layers, with the second layer shifted up half a grid, framed on 4x4s. hog house shelter end is 4' high and about 4'deep. pen section is 12' long and the whole thing is 8' wide. takes a tractor or a draft horse to move it. a hot wire on short standoffs can be used inside the fence if needed... a solar charger can be mounted right to the side of the house.
hog panels would work fine too, as long as the piglets are big enough to not slip through when you get them.

Yeah that was sort of what I was thinking you will have to dress your tractor up like fort knox to keep them in but once you do it will be good for every year for pigs. We have a pig house that is basically a reinforced horse stall 12X12 and we have a small yard that has cattle paneling for the walls placed into 2 foot cement around the base. They aren't kept in the little yard much only the last few weeks before processing but before that they have a whole pasture that they share with sheep and goats (chickens sometimes when they jump the fence). It is 4 foot field fencing on 8 foot cedar posts with 6 inch insulators that we run straight wire through and a 19.9 volt cattle fencer to keep it charged. They did test the fence quite a bit the first few weeks but now they are more than happy to stay in their pasture and eat everything (and I do mean everything in sight). They are very good though and don't ever bug the other animals only the vegetation. We must have lucked out and gotten good pigs. hehe.

 

[m.kitchengirl]

GREAT THREAD!

I really want to try sweet potatoes. Some websites say that "you shouldn't even bother trying to grow these in the North" because they are a warm-weather crop.

There was a great article in June on how to grow sweet potatoes in Mother Earth News, below is a link to a different article. I wish I could find the other one, it had great info on how to keep them from invading the rest of your garden.
I plan to grow some next season in a garden that has a weed problem. Potatoes and sweet potatoes are good for weed eradication.

http://www.motherearthnews.com/Organic-Gardening/2007-04-01/The-Sweetest-Potato.aspx

I am subscribing to this thread, thanks!​

 

[MyBlackHen]

Quote:
I'd love to grow carrots! One of my earliest memories of gardening is of pulling up and eating carrots fresh out of my grandmothers garden, the best tasting carrots ever!

I'd also love to grow sweet potatoes, my favorite! I will have to look into those as well.

I do not have any squash in the ground now, but would love to grow some winter and acorn squash next year, I love squash as well!

Sufficient Self is great, not as many active members (yet

) but some good threads and great people (even some of us BYC'ers)!

My daughter has been going nuts on the carrots, she eats them as soon as they enter the house!

Do you have a good book on root cellaring? I'd recommend "Root Cellaring: Natural Cold Storage of Fruits & Vegetables" by Mike and Nancy Bubel. It is a great resource with lots of ideas for storing fruits and vegetables through the winter. They tell you which types are "keepers" and which aren't. For example, I didn't know that acorn squash don't keep as well as many of the other types, such as butternut. They talk about how to store your stuff in nooks and crannies in your house and yard if you don't have a real root cellar (I don't).

 

[zzGypsy]

Quote:
I'd love to try aquaponics for some veggies since our winters can be long and fresh greens would be nice. But we don't have much space or money for a setup like that, maybe in the future!

doesn't take a lot of space. we looked at a setup in CA, might buy the basics from the guy. the smallest system is made up like this:
a 6'x12' table height growing area (lined planting area with a gravel bed, 6"deep about ) with the top of the bed about hip high
a 4'x4'x2.5' high fish tub with a lid, 1/2 the tank tucked under the planting area so only 2 feet stick out
a 2'x2'x4' high settling tank.
a trellis suported above the growing area to string up top heavy plants.

add a couple of feet around the whole thing and you're maybe 16'x10' total area inside the greenhouse.

the gravel planting bed can be densely planted with tomatos, corn, green onions, peppers, herbs, lettus, zucs and squash... basically anything that isn't a root vegetable. there are a few things that don't thrive, but most of what they've tried has grown lushly. it's such a high nutrient environment that everything just goes gangbusters.

it's a system I *want* <whimper>

oh, and the same size fish tank and settling tank will support a 6' wide bed more than 40' long...
not to mention it produces pounds and pounds of tilapia.

the tilapia eat miscelaneous chopped greens, duckweed or koi-type food. if you want to grow your own duckweed, a couple of kiddy pools of it are all you need... and I'm thinking, properly arranged, they could be under the growing bed table, if you mounted grow lights underneath it.

 

[Noymira]

m.kitchengirl :

There was a great article in June on how to grow sweet potatoes in Mother Earth News, below is a link to a different article. I wish I could find the other one, it had great info on how to keep them from invading the rest of your garden.
I plan to grow some next season in a garden that has a weed problem. Potatoes and sweet potatoes are good for weed eradication.

http://www.motherearthnews.com/Organic-Gardening/2007-04-01/The-Sweetest-Potato.aspx

I am subscribing to this thread, thanks!

Great link! I will definitely be growing sweet potatoes next year!

Has anyone tried straw bale gardening? It's something I've been checking into, looks really interesting!

http://www.strawbalegardens.com/

http://www.no-dig-vegetablegarden.com/straw-bale-gardening.html​

 

[Noymira]

Quote:
I'll have to add that to my Amazon book list (getting pretty long now)!

We have a walk out basement that's 3/4 finished, I'd love to learn more about root cellars. I'm hoping we can figure out something with our setup since part of the basement (away from the woodstove) stays pretty cool all year.

 

[hydroswiftrob]

Quote:
I'd love to try aquaponics for some veggies since our winters can be long and fresh greens would be nice. But we don't have much space or money for a setup like that, maybe in the future!

doesn't take a lot of space. we looked at a setup in CA, might buy the basics from the guy. the smallest system is made up like this:
a 6'x12' table height growing area (lined planting area with a gravel bed, 6"deep about ) with the top of the bed about hip high
a 4'x4'x2.5' high fish tub with a lid, 1/2 the tank tucked under the planting area so only 2 feet stick out
a 2'x2'x4' high settling tank.
a trellis suported above the growing area to string up top heavy plants.

add a couple of feet around the whole thing and you're maybe 16'x10' total area inside the greenhouse.

the gravel planting bed can be densely planted with tomatos, corn, green onions, peppers, herbs, lettus, zucs and squash... basically anything that isn't a root vegetable. there are a few things that don't thrive, but most of what they've tried has grown lushly. it's such a high nutrient environment that everything just goes gangbusters.

it's a system I *want* <whimper>

oh, and the same size fish tank and settling tank will support a 6' wide bed more than 40' long...
not to mention it produces pounds and pounds of tilapia.

the tilapia eat miscelaneous chopped greens, duckweed or koi-type food. if you want to grow your own duckweed, a couple of kiddy pools of it are all you need... and I'm thinking, properly arranged, they could be under the growing bed table, if you mounted grow lights underneath it.

Any pictures or links to what you are describing. This is new to me and I would love to see how it works.

I am also a subscriber to this thread!