Today I made/bought/learnt (for a post oil world) 5

[Loki]

Tilled up the area for my sunflowers yesterday, around 8000 square feet. It's supposed to rain next week, I'm hoping the rain will flush the weeds, after which I'll till again and immediately direct seed, hopefully with our 3-row Earthway seeder if I can find the right plate.

I'm mostly going to plant Peredovik seed but also plan on planting a couple confectionary varieties. Haven't seen any deer sign lately but may cover in reemay when they come back. Reemay keeps the deer off but increases weed pressure. Hopefully the deer will stay away until the sunflowers can outcompete the weeds.

[rangerone314]

I find I've underestimated the strawberries; last year didn't have much of a yield because there were only a few fully mature plants and a bit of the berries got eaten by something (rodents, racoons, birds?). They spread greatly by runner last year. (I think I had like 7 or 8 plants in 2009, probably 40 or 50 in 2010 and a hundred in 2011, but mostly immature.

This year, a few dozen smaller plants were mature enough to get berries. So far I've harvested about 18 pints off of probably about 80-90 plants. They are mostly located in the blueberry third of my core permaculture garden, although I have already started planting additional blueberry bushes in the fruit tree area and strawberry plants in the fruit tree third and the hazelnut third also.

Given the core garden area is about 2,300 square feet and I could easily have 2 plants per square foot, I could end up with nearly 5,000 plants eventually and about a thousand pints.

[Shaved Monkey]

Too much
Its a good problem to have.

Today is the second share the excess day at the community garden.
Free food.... swap the excess
I hope to have too many strawberries to give away,one day,probably 2 years away for me.
We do get many months of fruit though.

[DomusAlbion]

The Bee Man arrived with our bees this morning at 5 AM. The site for the boxes was all prepped and is close to the garden and orchard under a couple of White Oak trees. This colony is a mixed Caucasian/European blend with a Caucasian queen.

All the pets were curious as to what this new addition to the farm was. One of the barn cats came and sat upon the box, but not for long as the colony was starting to awaken and get active. The cat was chased away in no time. The dogs caught on immediately; it smells good to them but they keep their distance.

It's going to be both beneficial to the farm and interesting to study their behavior plus we'll get some tasty honey.

[DomusAlbion]

I find I've underestimated the strawberries; last year didn't have much of a yield because there were only a few fully mature plants and a bit of the berries got eaten by something (rodents, racoons, birds?).

I've found that our berries are eaten mostly by birds (robins specifically). I moved all our plants into a raised bed (3' x 16') this spring and got a good first crop but most of the berries were eaten before I could pick them. I'm going to build a couple 3' x 8' frames of 2"x6"s with chicken wire over the top that will sit on top of the bed frame and stop the robbery.

[Cloud9]

Try fencing in your berries and put a Jack Russel in the fence. Works on my grapes.

[DomusAlbion]

Tilled up the area for my sunflowers yesterday, around 8000 square feet. It's supposed to rain next week, I'm hoping the rain will flush the weeds, ...

Have you thought of planting peas or climber beans at the feet of your sunflowers. They make a fairly good ground cover and will climb the sunflower stalks and supply a lot of good veg.

[Loki]

DA, I hadn't thought of that. Might try it with some of the larger sunflowers (Grey Stripe), but I'm mostly planting Peredovik, an oilseed variety that only gets ~4' tall.

I did the final tilling of my sunflower bed yesterday, shaped two long raised beds about 330' each. I found an Earthway seeder plate that should work OK for Peredovik seed but I need to get the irrigation set up before I direct seed. I'm about 2 weeks behind, afraid they won't be ripe until October, which is pretty sketchy rain-wise. Didn't help that it rained all last week and I was sick as a dog last weekend and didn't get anything done.

Found some big roundworms in my pigs' poop. My friend who I'm raising them with bought injectable dewormer, so we had to catch them, hold them down, and inject them. Serious PITA, they're getting big and strong. Should have just gotten food with dewormer.

[Shaved Monkey]

Have you thought of natural cures?

I choose to use the natural worming methods. There are many herbs, fruits, and vegetables known to expel parasites. Of these, we have found garlic and rosemary to be the most effective. We also use diatamaceous earth which our feed mill mixes directly into the feed so the pigs get the advantage of a continuous natural dewormer, which is supplemented once a month by adding 2 tablespoons of garlic to their feed once a day.

http://littlepigfarm.com/archives/792

[DomusAlbion]

Found some big roundworms in my pigs' poop. My friend who I'm raising them with bought injectable dewormer, so we had to catch them, hold them down, and inject them. Serious PITA, they're getting big and strong. Should have just gotten food with dewormer.

Pigs are a great animal to raise. They're highly intelligent and very entertaining to have around. I would often let a pig out under supervised watch and it would go play with the dogs, root around in the swampy part of our little spring fed creek (I wouldn't let it down by the big creek) and eat cattails. We had a very good German Shepard at the time that would help me get Niobe (the Hampshire pig) back into her sty.

We tore down the sty 2 years ago because it was too close to the house (smell & flies) and built a parking shed for my wife's auto and for the tractor. I've got a Ford F350 truck frame on wheels with a tongue welded to the front steering mechanism on which I plan to build a portable pig house and pen. Unfortunately it is toward the bottom of my list of projects. Maybe next winter.

[Shaved Monkey]

Bought a new second hand car
It uses nearly half the fuel of the previous car.
Major problem with the old car was the repair bills were getting way more expensive than the fuel bills.(22 years old)
My fuel bills were only $300ish a year so should drop to $150 to $200 a year and hopefully give me upto 10 years of pretty reliable motoring.(next car will probably be a second hand diesel hybrid or a scooter)
Out of town shopping trips should be about $15/20ish down from $25/30ish
Even a 10 fold increase in fuel costs should still be in my budget.
Just bought a case of rice wine, fish sauce,jumbo bag of dried shitake and dried shrimp,chillies and bulk spices and bulk legumes(for food and green manure) from the big city Asian grocery store when buying the car so that's about 4 years supply of stuff I cant readily source locally.

[PrestonSturges]

I've been spotlighting the big doe that's been eating our vegetables when it comes out of the woods and hangs out in the neighbors yard. I've been shooting it in the butt with my Crossman air rifle, 4 pumps at 25-30 yards. I like to think it will learn to avoid the area entirely, but it may just learn to run when it hears a door open.

[careinke]

I've been spotlighting the big doe that's been eating our vegetables when it comes out of the woods and hangs out in the neighbors yard. I've been shooting it in the butt with my Crossman air rifle, 4 pumps at 25-30 yards. I like to think it will learn to avoid the area entirely, but it may just learn to run when it hears a door open.

You could try and make some of Sepp Holtzers "Bone Sauce." Here is a link:

http://www.permies.com/t/1805/permacult ... ep-animals

He claims it will keep deer away for "Decades". Decades seems like a long time, but he insists it is true.

Being the experimenter I am, plus the fact I was losing the "battle of the deer", I made some two years ago and painted it on my trees. So far, So good. I have not had a deer problem in two years. The first couple of days after application, a few deers came down to try a bite, but quickly left. After the first week nothing.

I was very skeptical about this working, but results speak for themselves. This year I have planted even more trees, and I plan on treating them too.

[Shaved Monkey]

Today the community garden is buying 120 kilos worth of staples potatoes, onions carrots, sweet potatoes and apples at wholesale prices,to be sold for a fraction above cost to who ever turns up.
Plenty of locally grown/produced food to be swapped or given away too.
The small profits return to the garden to continue our works of providing even more food and improving our whole communities food security.

Fear of Peak oil started this.

[RedStateGreen]

Been planting sweet potatoes and mulching the stuff I've already planted. And pulling weeds. For some reason, we have a LOT of weeds this year. My rabbits are very happy.

[careinke]

I've officially given up my former life. The catalyst, was discovering that my hand tailored business shirts, make fine over-shirts to keep the sun off when I'm in my garden. The suits, will probably go to good will.

Honestly, I think I'm on the right path.

[Shaved Monkey]

Well done.
I have hand tailored fine merino suits and bespoke silk shirts in the cupboard too.
Haven't worn them for over 4 years.
Kept them as a safety net, just in case.
So far have not needed them.
Its a good feeling.
.....................................
Spent yesterday marcotting all these exotic fruit trees,some of which we will have no idea of what they are until they fruit in 5 to 10 years.
Great day of discovering incredible stands of exotic mature fruit trees on a large local property, googleing images on the iphone to try and identify the trees.
Shovelling trailers of free horse manure this week
Slowly building resilience in the community.

[vtsnowedin]

My new John Deere was delivered Friday and I have spent part of the weekend mowing back a decades or more of brush growth on a couple of my fields.

[PrestonSturges]

I can't say I've done much except try to keep everything alive in the 100+ degree heat. My neighbor had a French drain put in, and I was able to score a couple yards of dirt in my wheelbarrow to a low spot that I had previously edged with small boulders. The dirt moving was all downhill. I pretty much got that little ping-pong table sized terrace filled and planted with heat loving grass. Not really sure what it's for, maybe just sitting.

[Shaved Monkey]

Just offloaded about 2 tonne of mulch
Massive mountain of mainly wood chip loaded and delivered free by my neighbour using his 4x4 to get it just where I needed it.
I had to offload......knackered
Will spend the next month or so spreading it around and improving my soil.
Already planted potatoes in some and will get some pumpkins and beans going soon too.