Homestead Acres

Posts Tagged ‘organic gardening’

Spring has come early to the homestead.  This past winter seemed longer then normal…It was actually quite mild.  But after the cold summer and cold wet fall we had last year, we are very ready for spring!

Saturday we spent some time getting the yard cleaned up.  There is a raised bed in the front yard that had a yew tree planted by the last owners.  I’ve never liked it much.  I also don’t like having toxic plants around kids or pets.   The tree had also sprolled out and taken over the garden bed.  So it was time to get it out.  Dh fired up his chain saw and got it out of there.  Now I need to decide what to replace it with.  I’m thinking about a mock orange shrub I love the smell of them.

I also dug up all the garlic from the garden.  Last year it rained so much in the fall the garlic bulbs were very soft and mucky.  The would have rotted if we harvested them.  So we decided to let them over winter in the gardens.  They did very nicely to.  With the nice weather, they had grown up 3 to 4 inches.  I dug them up and carefully pulled each clove apart, each had a nice set of roots growing already.   The day was getting on so tucked them into buckets and into the greenhouse.

Making rows for the garlic.

Sunday we had a lot of rain so we had to wait until mid Monday to till the garden.  Luckily the ground had been very dry so the rain didn’t turn the soil to muck.  By the time we were finished planting we had done 17 rows, 35 feet long each.  There is still a few handfuls of cloves left over.  I’ll tuck them into the garden here and there.  Maybe in the flower gardens as well.

In the next day or two I hope to get the onion sets in.  Then start the seedlings in the greenhouse.

I originally wrote this article April 30th 2008. Today as I was working on my garden plans this topic came to my mind. Really not much has changed since I wrote it. Yes food shortages have dropped off the mainstream media headlines. The prices in our stores have come down slightly from a high 2 years ago. However a little digging through news articles will show that much of the “third” world countries have never recovered from spiking food prices. Each time I go to the grocery store prices are higher.

The only ways I have to combat that price jump is being as frugal as possible, buying in bulk and growing as much of our family’s food as I can.

Is Your Families Food Secure?

Feeding our families healthy food at a good price is always a parents concern. With the rising food and energy crises in the world prices are jumping sharply. While we have seen the increase in food prices in North America it is the developing countries that have been hit the hardest. In North Korea the price of rice is up 186% since April 2007, its overall food price has soared 70%. In Pakistan wheat is up 66% and it’s overall food price has gone up 35%. Many countries are in a similar or worse position and I believe that it will soon be affecting our families more. The bulk store/flour mill I buy from has been affected by the grain prices. For years I had been able to by a 10 kg bag of unbleached white flour for about 4.50, this was half the price the grocery stores charged and the flour was much fresher. Now the same bag is almost 12.00 and the price of name brand flour in the grocery store is around 15.00 for 10kg. It is not only wheat that has been effected but all grains including corn and rice. Many areas of the world have been hit by repeated years of drought and now much of the grain crop in Africa is being damaged by a new stem rust Ug99.

Image via Wikipedia

The rising prices of grains will effect all areas of our food. As rabbit farmers we have seen the price of our feed jump. Many farmers are dumping pigs and other livestock on the market because of the high price of feed. This is causing a temporary surplus in meat and lowering prices farther. However in a year or so we could see a sharp jump in the price of meat due to both feed cost and a shortage of supply.

The best way to find out how venerable your family is to food supply inflation is to ask your self some questions. When most people think about food we tend to think :

Am I hungry?

What sounds good?

What will it cost me?

But we need to get much deeper then that.

Where does your food come from?

Try thinking about the individual items you buy. Where does the tomatoes and lettuce come from? What about your bread, potatoes and other staples? How much of your food comes from your garden?

How much does your garden produce?

Keeping a garden journal is a huge help here. A small investment in seeds often under 20.00 will return hundreds of dollars in fresh, healthy vegetables for your families table. In your garden journal record what varieties you planted and were. Keep notes on what mulch you used, what the weather was like and how many pounds of harvest you had. Your journal will help you to see what varieties grow and produce best in your location.

How much food do you eat in a year?

According to the FDA Americans eat 1500 pounds of food per person each year.

Do you know were the local farm markets and stands are?

While many of our family farms have disappeared, taken over by large factory farms. There has been a resurgence in fruit stand, farmers markets, pick your owns and CSA’s. Find out what is in your area and take advantage of what they offer! Like produce from your own garden it will be much fresher and use less natural resources (transportation and preservation) then items purchased across the country or across the ocean.

How much food could your family produce?

If you put in a little more time in the garden, how much would your production rise? What about grinding your own flour, baking your own bread, canning and freezing your harvest. All of these things will increase your families food supplies.

Does your community work together?

Many areas have empty lots, try working together to start community gardens. Working together shares the work load and will increase the amount of potential harvest. It helps neighbours to form close bonds and keeps young people busy and out of trouble.

How large is your pantry?

Lets suppose that a natural or economic disaster cut off your normal ability to shop.  How long could you feed your family on what is in your house right now?

With world wheat stores at it’s lowest in a decade and prices jumping, countries putting export bands on grains so they can feed their own people each of us should be prepared. Keeping a pantry is not a fad thing nor is it a crazy thing. It is a very practical thing to do and our grandmothers before us relied heavily upon them.

A few years ago a major black out hit the Eastern USA and Canada, some areas were with out power for days. Many people lost everything in there freezers (that’s why I prefer canning), people who had gas in there cars were driving long distances hoping to find ice. Not only for there freezers but the temperatures were in the high 90’s F. Most gas bars were shut down, you can’t pump gas with out electricity and generators were almost impossible to find. Many people had little food in the house because they like to shop every day and had no way to cook. Grocery stores were forced to destroy there supplies of meat, dairy and frozen items along with much produce. I remember it was weeks before the stores started to be normally stocked again. Why did it take so long? Because it was a wide spread problem! ALL the stores needed to be restocked, so supply was limited.

These things really do happen! Maybe not every day but we still need to be ready when it does.

How much energy does it take to produce your food?

It takes a small amount of labour to care for a well planned garden. But commercially prepared food takes 10 kcal of energy to produce just 1 kcal of food, not including home cooking energy. That means that the USA food production system uses 10 times more energy then it produces in food energy. This is only sustainable while fossil fuels are cheep.

Making a huge difference in your families food bill and health is not as hard as it may sound. Even in a small lot or patio you can use intensive method to get high yields. Wide rows, square food gardening, mulching are all things that help to reduce the work load and get the maximum potential from your soil.

Learning to use whole grains, cooking your foods from scratch will all help save you money and boost your nutrition value.

We have our first and only potato beetle larva and garden update.

With an unusually cool and wet summer the fungus late blight is hitting early. For the first time plants sold in garden centers are contaminated and spreading the disease in home gardens.

Late blight shows up as black spots on the leaves also a white mold. As it spreads the stocks turn black and die. The fungus also causes the fruit to rot.

What is Late Blight?
http://www.nysipm.cornell.edu/publica…

Potato famine disease striking home gardens in U.S.
http://www.reuters.com/article/scienc…

Blight has tomato growers on alert
http://www.blueridgenow.com/article/2…

Late blight reaches Ohio, threatens potatoes, tomatoes
http://www.cantonrep.com/lifestyle/ho…

Late Blight Prediction in Maine (PDF fact sheet about late blight)
http://www.umaine.edu/umext/potatopro…

Organic Alternatives for Late Blight Control in Potatoes
http://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/lateb…

Organic Management of Late Blight of Potato and Tomato with Copper Products
http://www.extension.org/article/18351

The OMRI Products List Database
http://omri.org/OMRI_datatable.php?se…

Pest Management
http://attra.ncat.org/pest.html#disease

While tilling the potato patch today I had an idea on how to build a tool to hill potatoes. It easy to build and works well. Much faster then hilling with a hoe.

We are putting in a new strawberry bed.
Sharing some info on how to grow strawberry’s, planting root stock, spacing, mulch etc.

We are trying to grow carrots in our raised beds this year with a lighter soil. Our top soil here is heavy and carrots don’t seem to do very well.

A video tutorial on how to start your own seeds.