Steven Hendrickson

Hi Diane, Steve here. If you haven't found what your looking for please let me know. I'm about to make a major life change and I believe we might be able to create a symbiosis. As for being able to support myself I'm more than capable. I'm definitely not looking for a handout or a leg up.

I am a bit of a chemistry nerd and was wondering if anyone here has attempted to do their own soil tests. Sure, we can all buy the kits off of Amazon or take a sample to the county or examine our plants for lack of npk, but I'm curious to know if anyone has tried to make their own npk tests from scratch. A pH test is easy enough but the npk is a more involved.

What does C4 mean? I've not encountered that term berfore. I am in central Florida, just south of Orlando and just south of the the guy in the article that supposedly plants a fall crop.

Since we have an extra long growing season here in 9b I am trying an experiment with fall corn. I am planting patches of corn throughout July and August in the hopes that a) the florida sun doesn't slaughter it b) the frequent torrential downpours and hurricane force winds that sometimes occur don't blow it over c) the grasshoppers don't strip it bare d) It can actually make maize with the steady decrease in daylight as opposed to the spring increase.

Am I crazy? Anyone else ever try a fall corn crop? I got the idea from this article:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.tampabay.com/things-to-do/consumer/the-last-farmer-of-floridas-prized-zellwood-corn-is-thinking-of-packing-it/2325203%3ftemplate=amp

I don't know the first thing about growing mushrooms but you just sent me on a Google rampage. Any particular type you would recommend? I'm in zone 9b so I don't know what would variety of shrooms would be easiest for a newbie.

Something I stumbled on I thought was kind of cool and worthy of sharing. Im in the process of converting 2.5 acres into a food forest. There were a few tall pines that just had to come down... Too close to the house. The contractor I used cut them down and cut them all into nice managable 3 foot lengths. I rolled each of the logs to make a nice 2 foot tall natural wall next to the wood putting the entire tree right where I wanted it with the intent of one day burying the logs for mounds... Heugelkultur style. Fast forward 2 months and I notice the bark or these logs is now very loose. I grab a hatchet... Hit each log  lengthwise across the top and the bark splits into 2 beautiful perfect slabs... one on each side of the log. Low and behold on each slab is all of these juicy 1 inch long grubs that my chickens absolutely loved. Over the course of about 2 weeks I must have harvested and fed my chickens 100s of these grubs and placed each "slab" of bark to make beautiful pathways around the property. Each slab was a perfect semi circle and when stepped on made perfect pine bark mulch paths. This was never planned but wow was it satisfying and I was very happy with the outcome. It was much more satisfying then when I think about the labor involved with burying all of those logs! :-)