Tag Archives: compost

What We Did This Week To Prep 6/29/12

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We’ve started pasturing our rabbits. We spent the first few weeks we had the rabbits slowly/progressively getting them used to fresh grass and clover. They adapted well as evidenced by their continued solid poops and healthy growth. We’ve now started taking them out of the rabbitry daily and putting them under a movable “rabbit tractor’ in the backyard. We have a good growth of clover and the white clover we planted in the spring is finally starting to come up, so the rabbits should have plenty to eat; hopefully they’ll eat enough to make up over half of their diet. We’re still feeding them rabbit pellets and dried grass hay, but they have been eating progressively less.

Even though the rabbits are still several months away from breeding and producing litters we are already benefiting from their manure. Rabbit manure is the most concentrated fresh animal manure available (NPK), it can be put straight onto the plants, it breaks down relatively quickly, and has no smell. The chart below shows how it compares with other livestock manure (the others all need to be composted before adding to the garden, and many have a strong odor).

Material Nitrogen (N) % Phosphorus (P) % Potassium (K) %
Chicken Manure 1.6 1.5 0.9
Cow Manure 0.3 0.2 0.1
Horse Manure 0.7 0.3 0.6
Pig Manure 0.5 0.3 0.5
Rabbit Manure 2.4 1.4 0.6
Sheep Manure 0.7 0.3 0.9

Since we don’t have enough to manure yet to cover all the plants, we’re maximizing what we have by making rabbit compost tea. We mixed a couple of large scoops of manure into a 5-gallon bucket of rain water (from our rain barrels); it’s been sitting for a couple of days and this weekend I’ll go around and water each one of the plants with it. We’ll especially get some extra on the tomatoes because their leaves are yellowing a little and I understand that means they’re low on nitrogen.

Unlike most of the country, Western Washington had cooler than normal temperatures in June. Our average high temperature for the month was 65.1 degrees, and we’ve only had six days that have reached over 70 degrees. We’ve also had 27 days with partly cloudy or cloudy conditions. Because of our cooler temperatures and lack of sunshine our garden hasn’t done much yet. It hasn’t suffered but it certainly hasn’t “bloomed” either. Most of the plants are about the same size as when we put them in the ground, with the snap peas and potatoes being the exception. This week we put more plants into the ground from the greenhouse, but we still have half of our tomatoes in there and the ones in the greenhouse are doing better. While we know much of the country is suffering from hot temperatures we’re jealous of their garden productions and early harvests. We’re ready for summer to start here, July should be warmer and more sunny; it typically is, with a monthly average high of 75.3 degrees.

What did you do?

Momma Bear’s April Preps

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April has been an unusual prepping month for us. The unseasonably warm spring in Virginia has been joined by some dry weather (sad face as I drag the hoses around the yard). The gardening is a huge, HUGE learning curve. This month I did manage to buy four 55-gallon pickle barrels and twenty 5-gallon buckets for ridiculously great prices (though the smell was terrible!). Two of the barrels are already composting on a new rack in my back yard; next I’ll focus on a rain barrel. I woke up one morning and discovered long white cat hair in place of all the leaves on our tomato and pansy seedlings. So rather than starting over, we sucked it up and bought heirloom tomatoes from the nursery, not hybrids, so that we can harvest seeds when we are finished. We also discovered that something has been eating our beautiful little blueberry bush so we had to make a cage around that. Currently we have lettuce, radishes, cilantro, sunflowers, onions and chives all making their first appearance in the various garden spots and planters. We are very happy so far!

Food storage is always on my mind when I prep. We stored another two weeks of food supplies in mylar, after adding sprouting beans to our stores. Having lived in Asia, mung beans (long bean sprouts) are our favored sprout. I buy mine at the international food store where they are super cheap and there is a big selection. I cannot tell you how great sprouts are as a secondary fresh food source in a SHTF scenario, especially since they are grown indoors in just a jar. I also recently got a second vacuum sealer attachment for my food sealer (now I have both sizes). I learned two things this month about vacuum sealing jars, 1) The jar of my husband’s favorite pickles can be resealed with the attachment (an additional source of jars/lids for things that don’t have to be “canned”), and 2) You can vacuum seal lids by using the Ziplock brand handpump over the Foodsaver jar attachment (see photo). Although with non-canning type jars, because the lids are harder to release once sealed, it is best to poke a pinhole in the lid and seal it with electric tape, then simply pull up the tape when you want to release the seal. In this case I am using the jars for seed vaults since the jars still smell like pickles (I think it’s the lids). I also managed to pick up almost three cases of mason jars in assorted sizes for $10 at a yard sale. I treated the family to a “beans night” which they survived. I am trying to incorporate more beans into our diet and try more recipes since it is the ultimate survival food. Half of us like beans, half don’t and this night was no different food (we love rice though!). In this instance I made northern beans in the crock-pot, with leftover ham/bone from Easter, and then threw in spinach at the end so it was like a soup (but a completely balanced meal since I used so much spinach). Here is the recipe link.

Our last area of preparedness for April was our taxes and a house refinancing (we also amended a couple of years of returns as well which were caught by our new tax professional). Because it was our first year in the house we were able to claim a lot of expenses and will get a nice tax return, which in turn will go toward credit debt. Because finances are a tough area for us, we pay to use a tax service that comes with one of those “previous year audits” and insurance to reimburse us for any of their mistakes that result in us making payments to the IRS. We balance the expense of using a preparation service against the peace of mind that it was done properly. We also were able to refinance the house (after only one year), reducing both our interest rate and our monthly payment. This was a tough decision for us since we are not the most financially minded people on the planet, but we’re trying to learn.

How did your preps go this month?

(Monday: DIY Indoor Grow Box)

What We Did This Week To Prep 3/2/12

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This week Ryan and Chanse built a T-bar trellis for the raspberries. Last year was the raspberries first year so, of course, there was a lot of growth–with shoots coming up all over–but very little fruit. This year we plan to trellis them, over wires connected to the T-bars, to keep them more organized and maximize the space. We’re going to allow them to spread out some more, but at their perimeters I had the boys bury pieces of plywood (vertically 15 inches deep) to keep them from getting out of their allotted space. Hopefully, this the raspberries second year, we’ll get a good harvest.

I borrowed a truck from a friend (can’t wait to get our own, it’ll make these jobs much easier) and returned to the Landfill Compost Factory. The first day Ryan and I got two cubic yards of fine compost (I describe it as ‘fluffy dirt’). The following day I went back, by myself (Ryan started track practice), and got another two cubic yards, this time of the coarse compost (it’s more like slightly composted mulch). Between the two days we added about five inches of new compost to the garden areas, both front and back; it’ll have about three months to ‘settle in’ before we plant into it in June. The soil in this area was initially just clay and rock with about an inch of topsoil, so hopefully the soil improvements we’ve made the last couple of years will pay off.

Sarah and I finally made time to get together and finalize our seed order. Sarah had mapped the garden area, labeling what would go where, to make efficient use of the space available. As mentioned, last year was our first real garden and we had deliberately kept it smaller (and only had limited success); this year we’ll be planting about twice as much space. After looking at her garden map and making a few additions to the list, we got our seeds ordered. Ryan and I will build the greenhouse in the next couple of weeks.

What did you do?

(Monday: What Bridges?)

 

Sarah’s View: Time To Order Seeds

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Even though we’re still in the dark of winter, now is the time of year when we peruse the seed catalogs and start planning our garden.

Last year was our first “real” garden, and it did okay. It wasn’t spectacular, but it wasn’t horrible either. Part of that can be blamed on the weather – it was a very cool summer and plants that normally do well around here, like tomatoes, struggled. But much of the garden success, or in this case failure, was directly related to our inexperience. It was the first year we started our plants from seed (instead of seedlings) and we tried items that we had no previous experience growing. We also do not have the best soil… okay, the soil here sucks. Our subdivision’s “soil” is mostly rocks and clay.

Trace has been actively working to improve our soil. He built up our back yard compost pile, brought in additional compost from the local landfill, and expanded the space for the garden. We hope to continue the soil enhancements this year. We will bring in more compost and are selecting specific crops with soil improvement in mind. Trace is also pursuing a lead on donkey manure.

There were a few plants that did well. Of the perennials we planted, the strawberries, raspberries and asparagus all survived. The rhubarb, on the other hand, didn’t go so well. And we were able to harvest some tomatoes (albeit mostly green) at the end of the season. This year we’ll again try tomatoes, green beans, and zucchini. I’ll have to check on the herb garden and see what survived the snow, but we will have – either from seed or carried over from last year – basil, rosemary, thyme, sage and chives.

Besides the “regulars”, we are hoping to branch out (pun intended) a bit this year. Trace has requested cabbage; luckily I’ve heard it grows well around here and shouldn’t be a problem. I would also like to grow potatoes. We found a potato box diagram online that will allow us to grow them without using a huge amount of space.  We are also going to add butternut and spaghetti squash, radishes, onions, garlic, black beans, and peas to our garden. None of those are all that uncommon, but will be “new to us”.

One, more unusual, plant we’re going to try is garbanzo beans (aka chickpeas). We regularly fry them on the stove to make a snack and would love to have enough to do this and make our own hummus. In addition, the other uncommon plant we are going to try is comfrey. We are specifically planting this with soil improvement in mind as it is known as a valuable fertilizer and will pull nutrients up with its long tap root.

This year, after having more time to look over the many many options, we are going to go ahead and order from Bountiful Gardens again. Their catalog has a plethora of information on each plant and I truly value their philosophy: “For the benefit of all farmers, gardeners and consumers who want an alternative, we pledge that we do not knowingly buy or sell genetically engineered seeds or plants.” As preppers, I feel it is important that the plants we grow have seeds that can be saved and successfully planted in future years.

What are you planting this year?

(Friday: What I Did This Week To Prep)

note: This is my wife Sarah’s second post (first post: “What Do You Think of All This?” – A Prepper’s Wife’s Point of View). She will continue to post under ‘Sarah’s View’ the second Wednesday of each month. I’m excited to have her regularly writing for us!

What I Did This Week To Prep 1/6/12

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We’re expanding our garden this week, not a whole bunch–our yard isn’t that big here in suburbia–but some. We’re making more room for the strawberries and to maximize the areas that get good sunlight. The cool thing about it is that this time we’re using compost that we made.

We’ve been composting for about a year now with very slow, unpredictable results – learning as we go. Our compost pile has had lots of ‘greens’ (high in nitrogen) coming from kitchen vegetable and fruit peelings, coffee grounds, and plant cuttings. It hasn’t had enough ‘browns’ (high in carbon) that can come from fallen leaves, hay and straw, or paper and cardboard. You need significantly more browns than greens to achieve the right ratio in your compost pile, and we’ve been short on browns. You wouldn’t think that here in Washington we’d have a shortage of fallen leaves, but the problem is (here in suburbia) all the trees were cleared when they developed our subdivision. We also can’t just pick up someone else’s bagged leaves because they’re all put in large yard waste bins for collection. So I sent Ryan out to an area with lots of leaves on the ground and he collected three big bags. We added one bag of leaves (unfortunately I didn’t shred them first – next time) to some coffee grounds from Starbucks and continued adding our normal kitchen wastes. A a week later our pile was actually ‘hot’, it had never been hot before! There are still good leaves to be had so we’re going to collect some more to have on hand (“One man’s trash…”). We’re also going to buy a cross cut paper shredder to produce more usable browns. (I found good composting tips at compost-info-guide.com)

We also took advantage of Sarah having a few extra days off over the holidays to make a day trip over to the Sequim area and look at potential homestead properties. We had plenty of time so we ambitiously visited all eleven listings we have been loosely following online. It was a long, but fun day. We brought Kate, our four month old Border Collie, and she had the time of her life tramping through the wooded areas as we walked around the different properties. We found one we liked, sure it has it’s issues – there’s a reason why it’s listed so cheap and is still on the market. But it was kind of cool. It feels remote, on a hill in a very forested area, while still being close to services in the nearby small town. When we got home Sarah looked up the plat information and found everything she could about it online, including that it is adjacent to state forest land. We asked our realtor to follow up on it for us and tentatively scheduled a date with him to go back and look at it closer. Is it “The One”? Probably not, but it has potential. We figure the more we look at, and the more we understand the process, the better prepared we’ll be to make that final decision.

As I mentioned in my What I Did This YEAR To Prep post, my wife Sarah is my “biggest prepper asset”. You’ve seen her hand in every post I write because she sits down with me, after I’ve finished writing, and helps me edit it before it’s published. She’s a good writer with very strong technical skills (she gets it from her dad, CJ Booth, he recently published his first book, Olive Park). She and I talked, on our Sequim property search road trip, about the blog and we discussed her writing a post as sort of “guest blogger” (possibly even on a monthly basis). The more we discussed it, the more we liked the idea. Next Wednesday, the 50th TraceMyPreps post, Sarah will answer the question every prepper’s wife gets, “So what do you think about all this?”

What did you do?

(Monday: Product Review: Gerber EAB Lite Utility Knife)

What I Did This Week To Prep 12/9/11

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Sometimes it’s hard to stay motivated in our prepping, especially this time of year.  November 21 to January 21 are the darkest days of the year; in Washington State on the ‘shortest day’ there are eight hours from sunrise to sunset (time to break out the Vitamin D). The holidays are here, everyone’s schedule is hectic, and money is going toward gifts, food, socializing, etc. I know, I feel it too. On TSP Jack did a show this week entitled, Avoiding Prepper Burn Out (episode 797). It was a timely and appreciated. So during this month, if you’re feeling it too, know what you’re not alone. Also realize that, statistically speaking, the world probably isn’t going to end this month (that’s not scheduled until December 2012). If you need to ease back on your prepping in December (as I do) do it, and do it guilt-free. Use this holiday season to really enjoy your family, they’re the reason we’re prepping after all.

This week we (and by ‘we’ I mean Ryan) expanded our compost bin system from two to three bins. When we had two bins, we could only have one pile going at a time because the other had to be left open for rotation. Now with three bins we will be able to have an ‘older’ and ‘newer’ pile going and use the third open one for rotation. This is the way I’ve seen others do it and think will work best for us.

We went Costco shopping early this month to get ready for Christmas. I saw a new item that I had to get: a 4-pack of industrial grade duct tape! As a good prepper I couldn’t pass this up; I’ll probably get another one next month. We all know how duct tape is the physical ‘glue’ that holds together the concept of improvise, adapt, and overcome. I also bought some more household surface disinfectant wipes. Again, in any kind of disaster keeping clean is essential and water could be in short supply. Both these items store long-term and can be regularly rotated.

What did you do?

What I Did This Week To Prep 11/18/11

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Now that summer gardening is over, I wanted to get a jump on improving and expanding the growing space for next year. I hate watering grass, but the home owner’s association thinks it’s important, so I came to a ‘compromise’. I expanded the gardening area in the front yard so it now covers about a third of the yard. Next summer I’ll feel better  about watering because now I’ll also be watering a garden. Removing the sod was a hassle, it’s a lot of work and it’s heavy.

Ryan, Chanse, & Brynn

Once the sod was out, Chanse and I (using his dad’s truck) picked up about two yards (two truck beds full) of fine compost from the landfill compost factory (the compost is made from local yard wastes). The boys and Brynn helped me add a layer of compost to the expanded front garden, and we also covered about half the back garden. We still need a couple more loads for the backyard, but it was a good start. I hadn’t purchased compost in bulk like that before; it was interesting to see the steam coming off the compost and feel the heat in the pile, even after we got it home. It felt like fluffy dirt, and was easy to move and spread.

Sarah and I finally selected and ordered some winter seeds, hopefully we’re not too late (we’ve been talking about it for weeks). We ordered from Bountiful Gardens, we like their company and love their catalog (we’d definitely recommend requesting a catalog). We’re not doing a lot, we ordered a compost crop seed mix, containing: vetch, wheat, rye, and fava beans that we’ll plant in all the beds. We also ordered Dutch White Clover seeds to spread in the backyard grass, both to improve the soil and in preparation for getting rabbits. We’re tentatively planning on getting rabbits (for meat) sometime around February.

As winter approaches the Northwest (it has definitely arrived in some parts of the country already), I decided it would be a good time to inspect the cars for winter. Ryan, Chanse and I checked to ensure all our vehicles had: ice scrapers (had to add one to Chanse’s car), air in the spare tire (couple were low), jacks, good windshield wipers, wiper fluid (needed some), and we added additional warm clothes and sleeping bags. I do still need to take Ryan out in the Jeep and review with him how to use the 4WD (both high and low), but other than that we’re in pretty good shape.

What did you do?

(Monday: But I’m Working Now)

(11/12/11)