Urban Homestead

If I live in a town/city and garden, don’t I have the right to call my home an Urban Homestead?

People may be wondering why I just posted that. Well, a family from Cailifornia has decided that they own the words Urban Homestead, and Urban Homesteading along with a few others. According to them, you cannot use their words without talking about them, or their gardening methods, and therefor should have permission before using the said words.

Ha!!!! I am kidding right?????? These people had some success in an urban setting, so they found ways to share their story. I’ve read about them in a Mother Earth News magazine once. Looked over their web site after words and forgot about them. From the sounds of it, they have wrote a book, blogs and have created Youtube video’s, and from that they have decided that they OWN the rights to the WORDS. Any time someone uses those words, like Urban Homesteading in a blog, they must be talking about them and their methods. I can’t use the words Urban Homesteading to talk about my own Homestead.

People can no longer talk to their co-workers about their urban homestead, unless they are using the words to talk about the Derveas. Stupid Bull to me. Websites have already been shut down for using the words Urban Homesteading as part of their title. I can’t use the name Joshsurbanhomestead.com. Books published before they even wrote their own, are being attacked. This book, The Urban Homestead: Your Guide to Self-sufficient Living in the Heart of the City (Process Self-reliance Series, is currently being attacked by the Derveas family, even though it was wrote before their own work.

So this post is really nothing but an anti-Derveas thread. Its like seed companies saying they own seeds that mother nature created. Its bull crap that we don’t need. Those words have been used in Laws that date back centuries, so how can one family gain the sole rights to them. Maybe I should trademark Gardening, or Food and see what I can get out of it.

For more information about this, check out this http://www.thesurvivalpodcast.com/listener-calls-2-17-11.

So lets talk a little about what I’m planning this year for this blog. I always wanted to try to do 2 post a week, sometimes that doesn’t happen. This is about gardening mainly right now, but eventually I hope to bring other topics in about other ways for you to be self sustaining. My wife seems half way interested in the idea of helping me with the blog, and when it comes to recipes and stuff, she is the one who knows what she’s doing. Better for her to write than my self. I’m also hoping to bring in some podcast, and Vblogs once I can figure out how to edit in windows movie maker.

So Seed Starting

Its the middle of Feburary and so that means in some ways it may already be a little late for thinking about that garden. This past week we’ve had some odd weather, where it was single digits the week before, then this week its been above 60. There are some crops that are best grown in cold climate, like that of spring or fall. Cabbage and Broccoli are 2 of the plants that I just started.

Know What You Are Growing And When To Harvest

This year I’m keeping a notebook for information. I’m tracking when I start a seed and looking over the calender and marking the point when I should be able to harvest that crop. This first batch of cabbage should be done by May 1st, and my broccoli should be ready late April, then it will give off many side shoots.

Not all varieties are the same, if you get a seed packet that doesn’t give much information, look around the net. I bought some seed at a big box store, and ofcourse not much information, so a quick 5 minute internet search and I was good. You can also ask around in gardening communities online.

Starting is Easy

Its not that hard to do. This year I rolled up newspaper around an empty pop can, taped it down to hold its form and filled it with a Jiffy seed starting mix from the big W store. You could use your own compost, which would be even better. I then put the containers into a plastic box I had laying around, added water and put into a window.

Next blog will show pictures on how to do this. I’ll also talk about a gardening method called HugleKultur this week. Well I hope you all have a few good days.

Josh

Well folks we its a new year and its fine time to start planning that garden for 2011. Today we are gonna look over straw bale gardening. I am looking at adding the straw bale or SB gardening method to my gardening approach this year. For one I think they look attractive, plus they seem to be less work than working the soil. Its a great idea for those interested in setting up that first garden this year.

Using a SB garden is like creating an instant raised bed. I love raised beds because they make gardening a little easier. The beds sit higher off the ground, so its less work to bend over. You can also build a raised bed over bad soil, or have a bed over something like concrete. Using the bales, you get free nutrients as the bale compost over time. You can have a good composted raised bed after a year or two if you build something around the bales to make a constant raised bed.

Hay vs. Straw.

I find Hay is easier to find. I can look on craigslist and see all types of hay listed, and in my area it sells $2-4 a square bale. I’ve bought straw at a local store for $6 a bale, but figure I could ask around craigslist to find it cheaper.

Straw is the stalks of cut cereals, like wheat. Most of the seeds have already been harvested off of the stalk. You will get the occasional wheat growth, but its easy to pull these up. Straw is usually used as bedding for animals. Its no different than dried leaves, or newspaper as a compost material.

Hay is grass that has been cut and is used as animal feed. It will usually contain seeds of the grasses. It is high in nutrients, as it is a green compost material, but with all the grass seeds it can be a pain keeping the unwanted weeds out.

Getting Started

When getting your bales you’ll want to give them some time to cook. Basically this means to compost them some. If you plant too early, your plants will be cooked and die, so start your bales a few weeks or months early. Getting older bales from farmers is great.

1. Put the bales where you want your garden. Leave the bales in 1 piece, don’t take the twine or wire off. Lay them down so that the wire is horizontally across the sides of the bale, and you can see the straw vertical.

2. Water your bales for 5-7 days. Some people say to add nitrogen fertilizers at this time to straw bales. Being organic you may want to look at blood meal or fish emulsions. Even adding compost to the tops of the bales would help get some good bacteria growth inside the bales. This cause the heat. If using hay, you may want to add a plastic cover to help over heat and kill the seeds.

3. After 10 or more days, the bales should be cooled down enough for you to plant. Make holes, add a little compost and drop in your transplants. If growing things from seeds, add a layer of compost to the top of the bale.

Final Thoughts and video links.

I like the idea and look of these gardens. Here is a link to a google search.

Here are a few youtube videos’

Today I am building a basic Hydroponic system.  Hydroponics is according to Wikipedia, “is a method of growing plants using mineral nutrient solutions, in water, without soil. Terrestrial plants may be grown with their roots in the mineral nutrient solution only or in an inert medium, such as perlite, gravel,mineral wool, or coconut husk.”

The system that I am building is basically a rubber maid tub, water and miracle grow, an air pump, and baskets.  The plants will sit in small baskets filled with a medium like gravel, and the roots will grow down into the water/grow mix.  The air pump, will add oxygen to the water, allowing the plant roots to breath while submerged in the liquid solution.

Some may be wondering why am I doing this now, its fall and the weather is becoming too cold?  Well I am in the process of converting a canopy set in the backyard, into a temporary greenhouse. Inside I have made a raised bed, which will be filled with compost, the Aquaponics system, and then the Hydroponics.  It may even end up with a vertical growing experiment before winter is over.

Here are some links to some of the neat things I have found.

Simple Hyrdoponics

Window Farming Project

AeroGardening

So my co-worker Chris keeps asking how the aquaponics garden is doing, well, I figure I should update everyone.  The Aquaponics is finally coming to life.  There have been some hiccups here and there, but the garden is finally growing some lettuce.

I had read that it can take a few months for the system to really be ready for you to grow things with it.  I had planted some lettuce seed about a month ago, it sprouted within 3-4 days, but never grew much more than an inch or two.  Now it is finally growing.  This can be because of the heat, or just that I didn’t let my system fully charge up and get filled with enough bacteria.  I did plant some cauliflower, but grasshoppers ate the first leaves off, so they died pretty quick.

Another draw back I’ve had is my water disappears quickly.  I’ve noticed that where my water exits the pipe into the grow bed, I’ve got a pool.  Algae is really growing in this spot, and holds the water back.  This is brining lots of birds and bugs to the pool to drink.  I have 2 big spiders who’ve made their home next to the garden, which helps keep the bugs away.  I like looking at those spiders, they are larger than a quarter.

To fix the problem with the algae and the pooling water, I set the system on a timer.  I had read before hand that most systems run for 15 minutes each hour.  Timers cost about $6-7 dollars at wally world, and luckily I had one on hand already.  This should help the algae to die back, and save me some water from birds and bugs.

My kids like to feed the goldfish, but they over feed them.  This has caused a build up of sludge on the bottom of the pond.  This is fine, cause it helps create more ammonia, but it just looks nasty.  So my son and I caught a few crawfish to eat all this bottom waste.  They’ll help promote the same ammonia and everything, but they’ll help keep the pond clean.

Next plans are to try making my own fish food.  Recipes seem easy enough, use a blender and use cat food, peas, wheat germ and a few other things, then dehydrate it, or use gelatin to make little globs of it.

Now I want to build the greenhouse in the next few weeks.  Not hard to do, but power is the problem.  I don’t want to run power chords all over the yard and driveway, so I’m looking into wind power.  I have absolutely no clue about this stuff, so well see how it all goes, lol.   Anyone in the local area of Augusta want to help me, show me how its done, I’ll take the help.

Well, that’s a quick update.  I’ll try to post more on some of the things I got going on around here.  Like getting the gardens ready for next year and everything else.

Until then Happy Gardening,

Josh

So I started a new work schedule and am having to adjust to a new days to post my blogs.  I must admit I have been going through a dry spell, or should I say a detraction spell.  Recent events in life have left me with two things to write about this week, and so you will find two post about two totally different things.  One will be a side effect to being outside gardening, and the other is just the local economy.

My last post was exciting.  I had so many viewers looking at it.  Thanks for everyone who did and showed it to others.

So lets talk about our subject.

Poison Ivy is no fun.  I am itching like crazy.  Just thinking about poison ivy makes me very itch, so it is hard to write this post.  This is actually the 3rd time, the last two ended with me going insane and having to take care of the itch.  I haven’t always been allergic to poison ivy, but the more I got it, the worse it got for me.  I’ve had it twice this summer.  I had it most of the month of June and now again at the end of July.

This time it’s all over my legs.  I was weed eating around the garden.  I know where some of the poison ivy has been growing and sprayed some roundup poison ivy control on it.  Its turned brown, but the stuff is hidden everywhere.  It’s hard to stay away from it while in the back of the property.

What it looks like

“Leaves of 3 leave it be.”  Poison ivy has clusters of 3 leaves.  It can grow as a vine, or as a bush.  It will hide itself with other plants quit easily, so be careful of it.

What is the problem?

Poison Ivy has an oil, called urushiol produced by the plant.  It is everywhere, the leaves, the stems, and even on the roots.  If anyone can handle this in a safe way, once could figure out a simple chemical weapon to disperse this oil onto a battlefield.  After a few days, the enemy won’t be as willing to fight.  The oil will stay on what ever it comes into contact with for years.  So if you get it on your tools or shoes, then you can be prone to repeat rashes until the oil is cleaned off.

Take a cold show.

After exposure, take a cold shower.  Both times I’ve gotten it lately, I took a shower soon after contact, problem was it was a warm show.  Warm showers open up pores in your skin, allowing the oil to seep in.  This last time I used a product called Ivarest to clear the oil off my skin, but still got the rash from taking a hot shower.  Next time I will not be taking warm showers.

It spread over my legs for a few days.  The heat and sweat helped spread the oils over more of my legs.  I ended up using Zenfal, which is great at clearing the oils.  It is a bit expensive and is found at walmart, but once I use it, I know the healing starts.  Then I follow-up with caladryl or I’m now trying the Ivarest itch relief, for drying the rash.  Once the oil is cleared,you can take hot showers to help relieve the itch for a few hours.  At times I go totally insane, and the shower helps make me gain my sanity back.

A good site to look at

You can find more information about this icky plant, and see some really nasty outbreaks that people have had on this site.  http://www.poison-ivy.org/index.htm

Write you all later,

Josh

I’m getting more viewers, which is very exciting.  Please tell your friends or family about my site and help it grow.  At most I’ve had 9 views in one day.  Its nice knowing that some people out there are interested in what I have to babble about, and so I must say THANK YOU.

On to topic now

So I wanted to just show a few random photos from my garden.  I took these all last night trying to get ideas of what to make my next post about.  It’s not much of a garden, but its doing fine.  I planted it late but it’s about time to harvest some goods.  I planted Asian long beans, which you pick when they are 2 ft long.  I saw a few vines on the ground and so I started to wrap them around something when I noticed it was a bean, lol.  Should be picking a small handful in a few more days.

I planted a lot of summer squash.  It’s a patty pan squash that is green colored.  I don’t know why I planted so much, just thought I’d try it.  I have 5 hills of it.  Those hills are starting to flower.  I expected these plants to be long vines which could be used as a mulch to keep weeds down, instead they are bushes.

I am also trying a 3 sisters garden.  I planted a bi colored corn in the middle, 4 row of like 16 plants long.  On the outside of the bed is beans.  These two work great together, the beans give the corn extra nitrogen and the corn gives the beans a place to climb.  I also planted some of that patty pan squash and even some acorn squash on the corners of the bed.  The acorn never showed up, but the patty pan sure did. There are also a few okra plants growing, but they are only about 2 ft tall.

I also planted some peppers and onions.  The onions are a wild onion that I got from a neighbor a few years ago.  It’s funny because I had actually bought some from a seed company for $1.00 a bulb and they never came up.  A few months later my neighbor gave me a huge amount for free.  I’m hoping these flower soon, but they are quit weak still.  Normally they’d have small clusters of new bulbs on them by now.  I planted them with pepper plants.  I notice one is full of small jalapeno’s.

I also have plenty of tomato plants, but still waiting on the fruit.  I wish I was able to get them planted a month sooner, so I could be over running with tomatoes right now.  I do have some small green fruits starting to grow.

Tell me about your gardens,

Please post a comment about your garden, and show us some pictures.  I uses flickr.  Just make a comment and put a link back to your pictures.  You can even make a picture set to show off.

Until next time,

Josh

Hey Everybody,

So I did get my aquaponic system set up and I wanted to share some pictures and the basic design for you.  It’s a simple design.  KISS, keep it simple stupid.  Eventually I will probably add to it.  This is just my experimental system.  This fall I hope to have a 10×12 greenhouse with a larger aquaponic system running inside of it.

Basics of this design

It is really simple, water is pumped up into 2 grow beds.  As these fill up, the water drains out 2 flood drains back into the water tank.  As the water falls, it mixes air back into the water tank, giving the fish something to breath.  As an extra precaution, I did add a small air line.  Pretty short description, but it is just that simple.   Water goes up, fills bed, overflow runs back down to tank and the cycle goes on and on 24/7.

The grow beds are never full of water.  I must say that.  The majority of the water is actually in the lower half, but it does wick moisture up into the upper levels of the tank.

After these pictures I added 10 goldfish.  I am guessing I can add more, a total of at least 30.  For fish like tilapia they grow 1 per gallon of water, so I”m using this same idea.  I think I have close to 30 gallons of water in the tank, so that means 30 goldfish.

What I will grow?

Well I’m thinking of a few heads of lettuce, green onions, cucumbers, and pepper plants.  Its a small system, but all those that I’ve seen grow so much in small amount of space.  I could probably get 4 lettuce heads, 1 cucumber, 2 peppers, and 8-12 onion plants based off of this design.  Now I’ll grow the cucumbers vertically, and keep the lettuce picked so it doesn’t overgrow the space.  Onions can be harvested every few weeks, leaving the peppers taking up the most space and yet thats still not much.

The pictures.

Here is the set up.

A better shot.

Inside the tank.

In total I used these parts.

I used rubbermaid containers that I already owned.  My wife wasn’t too happy about me stealing the ones for the grow beds.  :)  I’m not sure of the total size of the fish tank, but looking around at lowes I figured it was about a 35 gallon tub.  A similar one there was priced at $10.  I’ve seen long skinny boxes just like the ones I used as the grow beds, only these boxes are about the same size as both of mine at walmart for around $10.

I bought 2 bags of river rock at just over $3 a bag, and 2 bags of pebbles for just under $3.50 a bag

10 ft section of pipe was 1.30, fittings where about $0.30 a piece.

The pump is a 100-155 gph fountain pump which I bought at lowes for $25.

I got the air pump and light from an aquarium that my parents had in their garage.  Speaking of that, if you have an old aquarium, you can use that if you want to try this at home.

So there you have it,

Josh

So what is Aquaponics?

The idea isn’t new, it is said that its roots go way back to many different ancient cultures.  Like all things, ideas get lost over time and then reinvented later.  With aquaponics we use two other types of farming methods.  It is a combination of Aquaculture and Hydroponics.  Aquaculture is fish and aquatic cultivation and harvesting.  We used to have the Corbin Fish Farm just outside of Augusta.  They raised catfish for consumers and I’d think local restaurants to use.  Some aquaculturist raise koi for small landscape ponds, or bait fish.  Missouri raises a lot of trout to keep their tourism market running. Everytime I’ve been around some of their state parks you see hundreds of people fishing.  Problem with aquaculture is you get a large amount of built up ammonia from the fish waste.  Lots of times this is dumped back into rivers, adding more pollution in large amounts.

Hydroponics takes gardening out of the soil and allows you to garden most anywhere.  In hydroponics you build a system which uses water infused with fertilizers to feed plants.  A real simple set up which I intend to try is to use a 18 gallon rubbermaid bucket filled with water and some water based fertilizer.  Then you cut holes in the lid and set small pots of plants down.  As the plants grow, their roots reach down to the water.  Problems with hydorponics is it can be expensive.  The cost is mostly in buying fertilizer, but you also have a waste going on with the water.  It is just sitting waiting on the plants.

Aquaponics is a combination of the two.

How does it work?

You basically have a water tank that is also raising fish.  As the fish eat, they produce ammonia through their waste.  This ammonia attracts bacteria which eats the ammonia and turns it into Nitrites, which is devoured by another bacteria and turned into Nitrates which is absorbed by the plants.  Instead of having a filter in a fish tank, you pump this rich plant food up into grow beds, which acts like a super food for your plants.  The plants filter the water and send it back to the water tank.

The systems can use your house hold fish aquarium or you can custom build your own unit.  I’ll even help you design and build one.

My system is almost complete.  It is up and running, just in need of fish.  I can hold about 30 fish in mine, which for starters is just goldfish.  You can get these at local walmarts and stuff for around $0.30 each, so 2-3 per dollar.  Eventually as I get experience my system will raise both Crappie and Talipia.

Here are a few video’s of others aquaponic systems.

Josh

A Great Site for Seeds

Now I want to tell everyone about a nice site that my friend Johnny Max set up.  Its at www.heirloomseedswap.com.  Unlike other seed service sites, you don’t have to pay a membership, and you can post your seeds for free.  There isn’t any cost to you, you can create an account, sell seeds, trade seeds, or post a list of seeds you want all for FREE.  This is nice, but eventually I think Johnny will need to do something to at least help pay for server fees and all.

My Seeds

Now I do have seeds listed.  I picked some nice apricots  off someone on craigslist.  (I love that site too)  The Apricots are wonderful compared to those I’ve tried at the grocery store.  I had 19lbs of them, so I have probably close to 100 seeds.  I’m gonna start some and sell the trees, and others I’m posting as sets of 10 on the seed swap site.

Want a link to my post, here it is. http://www.heirloomseedswap.com/item/137

Now the site is new and so it still doesn’t have a lot on there, but with time and more members, we’ll make it into a great site for swapping seeds.  I’m gonna grab some heirloom tomato seeds from my brother-in-law, some for myself and some for trade.  He’s got some nice cherry yellow pears that can just produce more than you can imagine.  Great heat tolerance too.  Within 2 days of my apricots being posted, I had 2 offers.  I am getting bloody butcher tomato seeds for my greenhouse this fall, and amish blue  popcorn.  Kids are already saying “yuck” to blue popcorn, lol, but it will be neat to grow.

Final words

So if everyone could stop by and sign up and post any extra seeds you may want to swap, it will help make that site grow.  Why should we always buy high priced seeds that are mostly hybrids from seed companies, when we can trade heirloom seeds for free.  Heck you could probably trade non heirlooms too.

Have a great week,

Josh