Just find a flower bud before it matures and cloth bag it. Once it matures, find a male flower from the variety you want(you can do hybrid crosses between two species as well this way)get some of it's pollen on something (your finger/Qtip whatever) and put the pollen into the female flower of the plant. The most important thing to do is to make sure that, this is CRITICAL for success, as you are putting the pollen into the female flower making a buzzing noise like a bee After you pollinate the flower cover it back up until the flower finishes to avoid other pollen being brought in by insects.
Ok not near us at all Please keep us updated on how your build is going. We will be building in an unorganized township but it is always good to know of hiccups/issues with builds.
These guys may be able to offer some insight: http://www.naturalbuildingcoalition.ca/ we went on the natural home tour last year, the architect that helped get the building code in Ontario changed for straw bale homes was on the tour. I have his card at home, but you may be able to just email them and let them know what you are trying to do. I know that minimal cost is your goal, so natural building may not fit, but they may have some insight on building codes questions etc. or at least be able to point you in the right direction on who/where to ask.
I practiced vermiculture composting for a couple of years, so I am far from a pro. Here are my thoughts though.
Don't change a thing. If the worms aren't all conducting a mass exodus there is no issue. If you are wanting to use the casting/compost now and that is the issue you can take out what you need bit by bit and use it where you want. You'll be removing some worms when you do this, so the terrible result is that wherever you use the compost you'll be adding worms as well (OH NO!! ).
I used a 5 bin system (holes drilled in 4), with the bottom as my worm tea collector. I am assuming you are using a similar system. What I observed is that as long as the worms are still in an area they are still using it. I would leave each layer alone until there were very few worms left in that layer. My worms seemed to like to lay their eggs(little white orbs) in the lower levels so by leaving them as long as possible your worm population will increase exponentially. If you are adding that much material and they haven't finished eating the first layer I would say you don't have enough worms yet, so removing any unhatched eggs could actually hamper your overall progress with the colony. Once I had a lot of worms in every layer, (by that point my bottom bin was pure black muck) I started adding it to my potting mix, this would add worm eggs/worms (you'll never get them all out, but once your colony size reaches a certain point it will have no effect on it) to my seed starter mix, which would be grown indoors and eventually be transplanted out in the garden. By doing that it accomplishes many different beneficial things for very little input. Another thing I did was add some of my finished compost to each layer to let all the microbiology do its thing (I have no facts to back this one up, it just makes sense to me...)
The other thing you could do is just split your bottom bin between all of your other bins and add more dry material. Really though if there isn't mold and stuff growing all over and your worms aren't leaving I'd say there is nothing wrong. After about a year with my worms I got an old blender from a garage sale and started making "worm smoothies" every time I fed them. It allowed the material to be eaten a lot faster, but it'll also allow it to compost faster as well. I overfed them and that is exactly what happened to me, You'll know something is wrong when you see a few thousand worms climbing out of the bin lol. To fix it I just scooped out all the leftover "food" and a bunch of the dirt and just mixed in fresh dry bits. After that was sorted I continued using the smoothies and made sure they were keeping up to what I was feeding them.
I had my bins indoors in a 40% humidity environment in my grow room which has a dehumidifier set at 40%. I am not sure how much the humidity level will effect the bins.
Oh yea, I didn't buy the worms either. At 20 bucks plus shipping for 1 pound of worms I said screw it, walked out to the garden, flipped over some leaves, grabbed the worms that were in there and used those to start my colony.
I only have 1 years woth of experience playing with a cold frame... What I found is that you can kill the plants very quickly by letting it over heat. I was not home during the day to open it so it got stupid hot really quick. Instead of killing a bunch of plants I left the frame on an empty bed to help heat/thaw the ground faster. I start a lot of stuff indoors and usually plant out a week or so ahead of the last frost date. At that time if you know it'll be cold overnight put the frame back on, but if not don't worry about it. This year I'm going to try using wedges to keep the frames open a little to hopefully find the "sweet spot".
So I couldn't seem to find a break down of Russian territories, I looked at a few weather maps and I am thinking you are more of a USDA zone 4(-30F or -34C) and 5(-20F or -28.9C) and warmer?
Also could you tell me which Family Estate is in the coldest region? I am willing to trial plants that could be rated for USDA Zone 3-4 in hopes of finding a variety that will survive, I am thinking my best bet would be plants that are grown in your colder regions.
Would you have access to enough nuts to send a few my way as well? I may have some veggie seeds or something that I could swap with you, or if it's easier/preferred I could also send a cash transfer. I am only at the very start of experimenting with planting different nut/fruit varieties on our property near Rainy River, we are trying to get a variety of hardiness levels for zones 2-4 with the hope of setting up another trial site further north in the future.
I've only ordered from the Hardy fruit tree nursery so far, I have put in another order with them as well for the spring. All of the plants they sent took to the planting and will hopefully still be alive when we get back to our property in July.
I'd be game for this as well. I'll have to make a post later on everything we have though. Off the top of my head:
3 types of Pickling cukes.
Daikon and cherry belle Radish
a few types of "surprise" squash (usually spaghetti/zuke/pumpkin cross)
chives
night scented tobacco
Mongolian giant sunflower
a smaller Red sunflower(saved from a hybrid it still has a bit of unstable results)
Mini pok choy
aunt mollie ground cherry
Amaranth x 2 (love lies bleeding and another)
3-5 tomato varieties
oregano
dwarf grey snap pea
calendula
zinnia
Giant mullien
6-10 pepper species
I know there are a bunch more... I'll post them later.
Better late than never, here are two suppliers near montreal that have smaller nurseries. I've only ordered from http://www.hardyfruittrees.ca/ so far though. The https://www.greenbarnnursery.ca/ I am planning to order from this winter for delivery in spring. Both of them are not cheap, but I can't find any other resources for such a variety of different food producing trees. The University of Saskatchewan does a lot of cold hardy species development as well. Last year I ordered from http://www.saskgojipower.ca/Saskgoji, the seed packet they sent had quite a few seeds which had a good germination rate (we ended up going away for the month of July many died from the neglect).
Do you have any sites that you have found and like?
I may be a little biased since my spouse makes it, but this stuff works great http://www.smilingdaisiessoapco.com/ She doesn't use any SLS, parabans, or sulfates in any of her products. No artificial dyes either, she uses either micas or ground herbs for colour. Some of her products do use a "fragrance" for the scent, but they are free of the chemicals which give me(and many others) headaches. She also does make some with only essential oils for the people who want a completely natural product. Depending on the product she also infuses the oils with different herbs, some of which we grow ourselves(no herbicide/pesticide/gmo), this helps to add their properties to the soap (Calendula for example people have been finding works amazingly for their eczema). Depending on where you live shipping from us can be way to much money. I'd recommend hitting up local farmer's markets and really put the gears to the soapers asking specific details of why thy used specific oils in their product. If they can't answer you, chances are they have no idea what they are doing, probably found a soap recipe on Pinterest and are selling you the first bar of soap they ever made. In our area "Soapers" are popping up quicker than the most vigorous of weeds in a garden. Most of them also disappear as quickly as they popped up. Hopefully you will soon find a soap that will make you happy.
Don't give up! We've been gardening in the same spot for about seven years and we are still learning lessons almost daily. Some plants will go into a bit of a "survival mode" if temperatures get to high. If you mix a drought in with that and the plants will definitely be stressed. Plants are very resilient though, you may still get a crop once it isn't so hot.
Since you had plenty squash last year your soil shouldn't be an issue. Did you use fertilizer this year or last year? Is there anything else you may have done differently? Planted them in a different location?
A few things that we do to help is to use woodchip mulch (back to eden method)in our in ground garden. Last year we made raised beds, in those I've been using weeds and tree leaves as mulch. This helps a lot with keeping moisture in the soil(among many other things, like suppressing weed growth) as well as building all the beneficial fungi/bacteria/critters in the soil. One warning with that is this year (it's been wet) we have had a rise in slugs. It is only now that the frogs and toads are really moving in to help take care of that issue. I'm guessing it will take more time for everything to come back into nature's balance.
For pollinators we have noticed this year to be the best for how many different insects are coming in. I think it takes time for the different insects to figure out where you are growing. As well we are trying to keep our own seed for the veggies we are growing. This means many of our plants are left to flower. Bees love oregano, I'd recommend growing that and letting it flower. The more flowers you have in your garden the bigger your sign that says "Hey we're over here pollinators!" becomes. We also learned this year that letting carrots and parsnip go to seed will attract ladybugs. At first the parsnip had little pest insects all over, I let them have at it since they weren't damaging the seeds at all. After a while the ladybugs moved in and now they are breeding like crazy. Radishes are another good one for the amount of flowers they pump out, super easy to save seed from as well.
It's never any fun when your work doesn't result in food to eat, but as long as you learn something from it don't count it as a failure, but an experience. Don't be afraid to experiment either, we tried three different methods for growing potatoes last year. Two of those methods I'll never try again, it wasn't a failure though, it was a lesson.
Don't lose hope! As long as you are putting seeds in the ground, you'll get more out of it than the person who doesn't garden at all.
Hopefully it'll work out once it cools down.
You could try looking at what "weeds" are growing around your garden. I've never paid for a soil test, but I figure if Nature wants that plant to grow there, and Nature's end goal is soil suitable for a forest, than that "weed" is growing to fix/add something that is missing. For mineral miners figure out which "weeds" have deep taproots and use those. We usually chop n drop weeds from the area and use them as a mulch on our beds, Great Mullein, dandelions, yarrow, and plantain are a few "weeds" that we mulch with... I've not yet done a soil test though, lol so my theory could be right out to lunch
Hope that helps, if you do try them out please let us know! I'll hopefully be ordering some myself to try out in NW Ont, it's a little colder there but who knows...
First off thanks to everyone for the input! It's always good to get input from so many people. Long Live Permies!
Tristan Vitali.
I noticed you didn't post even a topography map from google maps
Good point, I'll put one up,
Tristan Vitali.
I know there are also companies that do high resolution topography mapping out there and they're not cheap, but not as expensive as you'd think. If you have the $$, that would be a huge help in getting a very valuable resource for your planning.
I may end up doing this, if I can find the file I can print them out at work. Right now I have the Sat imagery printed off on about a 2' x 3' map that I am using along with my memory to do the rough plan.
Tristan Vitali. subsoil types on the property - a general idea of where the better draining subsoils are compared to the boggier subsoils, the clayey/sandy/silty/rocky subsoils, etc, gives you a good idea of the various lines of delineation.
Added to my list of things to do this summer.
Tristan Vitali. Any running water on the property?
Unfortunately none that I am aware of.
Tristan Vitali. Mark Sheppard's STUN isn't about throwing a zone 6 plant into a zone 3 and expecting some to survive
I still keep hoping that one day one of the avacodoes I grow outside in the summer will survive lol
Tristan Vitali. And I hope that's helpful.
It is. Thanks!
Deb Rebel. If you are Canadian look up University of Saskatchewan.
I actually just ordered from http://www.saskgojipower.ca I didn't realize they had others, thanks. The apple trees I ordered are from http://hardyfruittrees.ca/ the types I ordered are supposed to be hardy to zones 1 (September Ruby) and 2 (Fall Red)
Deb Rebel. The only outside chance you have for peaches is Reliance and it is at least a zone 4
This is on my wishlist I won't try it until I live there to protect it if we get a cold snap. Peaches are by far my favourite.
Barbara Greene. Remember Mollison's words, "protracted and thoughtful observation rather than protracted and thoughtless labor"...
Get out on your land in every season first. Watch and observe what goes on there. It really is best to spend a whole year living on your place
It's killing me, but Bill knows best. For now I'm going to plant a few trees/plants that I can move/cut down later. Earthworks projects have to wait until we move there, not having the cash to pay for earthmovers right now helps me wait too lol.
Earl Mardle. I would start by asking why you are doing this, and why you chose this particular property.
Life has chosen to force me into a career move. The property was purchased from my spouse's parents. So the price was right, and it keeps the property in the family. We have a lot of resources in that area. Her dad has 160 more acres across the road and has a couple of tractors and a portable sawmill and the knowledge of how to operate them. Her uncle is a cattle farmer so more knowledge there. Her sister's inlaws own a local construction supply store and do construction so good discount with that. My family is mostly within a couple hour drive as well.
Earl Mardle. I don't want to seem mercenary but what is your budget and your time frame?
Budget is kind of on call... it's complicated. Right now we are budgeting to be debt free in 3 years (excluding our house). When we move we should walk away with at least 30k(minimum) from the house. Most of that will most likely be used investing in solar/wind power and renovating the little house that is on the property. I'll still get paid approx 30k for four years after I move there in approximately 3 years. I should also get a lump sum payment or a life long pension, again unsure of amount. lol Life teaching me to be flexible. At minimum I'd get $9,600 a year after taxes as a pension which is separate from the previous possible pension/lump sum. Time frame is until I turn into worm food
Mick Fisch. I would recommend a large map of the area... take pictures
I like this idea a lot. I think I'll just number spots on the map take photos, do a soil sample, check soil drainage and use the map numbering to track where each is from. For the map we usually just laminate them or use "map tack", which folds a lot nicer, to waterproof the maps we use. You can than use permanent marker right on the map, hand sanitzer or a pencil eraser will clean it off.
Jared Kanter. You talked about moving/planting trees. Just remember that wildlife will eat and kill young trees.
We are going to fence the hell outa them this summer, it's only four trees so we should be able to protect them easily. lol I do want to cook up the bone sauce though Deer are all over the place out there, not to many moose though I think. We accepted that these first trees may/may not make it. We only have $150 invested in them so not to much of a setback if we lose them... I'll still do everything I can though cause it's still 150 bucks!
Brian Murphy. Jean martin fortier is (yet) another youtubeable resource who's (and wife's) farm interestingly makes >100k on <10 ac and if i remember correctly requires 3 fulltime staff.
I hadn't heard of him definitely checking him out. The property back home isn't very close to any big cities closest is 3 hours to Winnipeg, MB,
Peter Ellis. But the biggest thing I recommend is working on your skills before you get on the land
Every year that goes by we learn a bit more, and realize we know so little
Thanks again for all the info/recommendations time to hit the books and refine the plan some more.
I forgot to thank you for the water level link up above, so... Thanks! I was just watching Geoff's lecture from a PDC on dam case studies (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20YUvD9s1a4&index=32&list=PL6S83Kg2Lr9SjIMs16NW5PaZ62aV3gw_M ) and he mentioned the laser level with a pick up staff. So I googled that and got this vid: http://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh/video/0,,20811754,00.html I'm still a little unsure on it's actual use though... So you set up leveling unit, set the receiver to the exact height of the unit (?) Walk around with the receiver and peg your line when the receiver beeps? I'm guessing this will save tons of time.
Thanks! I forgot about that vid. So I watched that a couple of times and spent several more hours reading/watching related initial design processes etc and put "pen to paper". Here is my rough concept outline for the farm.
So I was talking with my wife about this last night and she raised a good point... If you just open the doors in winter and let the water freeze in place, all the veggies you have in the cellar would freeze too! Unless your using it only for cooling thru the summer...
Welcome to permies Jim! It's a bit overwhelming eh? Maybe you could start by raising chickens where you are now to get experience doing it. You'll probably need to answer the questions that tyler has been asking me so they can get a better idea of what you want to do. Good luck on getting the farm!
Marco " At your latitude, you'll want raised beds" " If water isn't a problem for you (two wells and swamp land), I wouldn't mess with hugel beds" So my idea is to grab windfall trees and make a "log cabin style" frame with the trees about 4-5 ft high. In there I'll put a few logs/sticks/straw/black earth. Those were going to act as my hugel/raised bed garden areas. The height is for when I'm an old crippled man and cant bend over, as well as the heating/well draining characteristics that I think this type of be would have. Plus the beds would cost me fuel for the tractor and some time, so right in my price range . Why wouldn't you recommend hugel beds though? I want to make sure I'm not missing something here...
I just made a hoop house here at my current house and yea... all I could think is why didn't I do this sooner. I had kale come back from the plant stems that were left in the garden from last year! It was - 15 C the other day! Pretty pumped about that
I actually just watched a talk by Joel Salatin on Permaculture Voices Youtube (great channel!) I added him to my list of people to study. Right now I was thinking of modifying Geoff's succession plan he does with the chickens by doing exactly what you said running the goats, maybe pigs, to chickens, to *BAM* forest.
On a side note has anyone ever stumbled across a getting started guide? Like a "rough" step by step on things you should think about before you start. Geoff talks about how there are constants in everything and the more constants you know the easier things get(lol at least thats how I interpreted it)... So I guess that's my main objective with this question, What are the constants for things you need to know when planning out a property? I can think of a few like:
-Zone
-Prevailing winds
-where is the sun
-what do you want to do with the land
-get a good contour map
-what grows in you area
-Water?
Should I just make this question a separate post all together?
I'm hoping to have it cover our house needs for the first bit and eventually have some income start coming in. Right now the only experience I have for animals is with chickens. Eventually I'd like to get goats, pigs, maybe a cow or two, rabbits, and aquaculture. I dream big though...
For the cashflow the ideas I have are:
Set up a green house for plant/seed sales
Fruit and nut orchard (Apples, Plum, Maybe Peach/nectarine if I can get it to grow..., Hazelnut, butternut, whatever else will grow)
Diamond willow for woodworkers
Haskap, Goji berry, Seabuckthorn(maybe...) Blueberry, Rasberry
selling perennial divisions
Minnows(maybe)/worms for fishing
Wild rice(again if I can get it to grow)
CSA baskets and/or farmers market
Dried Herbs, teablends(maybe)
Mushrooms(morels grow wild so should be easy to cultivate)
lol and of course everyone's dream of one day teaching PDC's on the property.
I'm on a big Mark Shepherd kick right now I like his tree growing style with the alley cropping. The cattle path system on Zaytuna is pretty slick as well. That's pretty far down the road from now though. Right now I want to get some more experience. A side project dream I have is to try out a buried greenhouse system with aquaculture, rabbits, and a RMH. If I can do that I'd like to try and get a grant to bring that up to some of our northern reserves to show some of the very isolated communities how to do it(this one is a long way in the future). I agree in not touching the woods yet, I was thinking of focusing more on the field to the south of the house and the areas right by the house as I'm thinking they will be my zone 1 and 2.
Here's a pic of property. lol I made it in paint so sorry for the quality. The two purple blobs are existing wells. The blue lines are supposed to represent the slope of the ground, it drops maybe 6 ft between the two and then levels off with a very slight slope to the south (I think...). The property does go to the east a bit further, more wooded swamp back there. I haven't done a full blast plan yet, I'll post it when I do.
More info on the land. The property is already mainly wooded and in a fairly undisturbed state, the picture from google earth is maybe 3-4 years old and it has grown in a lot more since then. They did clear the big open field to the south of the house about 50-60 years ago and grazed sheep over it. The soil there has a lot of clay and is pretty wet. The little hill that the house is on is a big gravel deposit. The further east you go on the property the more it turns to marsh then full on swamp at the most eastern point. There is also a clearing to the SE of the house which is a big chunk of rock.
I have a feeling that you are right, I guess I need to figure out how to use the laser level to map it. Any advice on where some good info is on that subject? Or what the best low cost method is?
Here's a little blurb from the Rainbow Heritage Farm near Ottawa, ON.
"Our root cellar uses natural geothermal energy. Proper design allowed us to use the Earth’s constant temperature to keep our veggies from freezing in winter.
In addition, we make our own ice blocks using Rubbermaid bins each February. By placing these in our root cellar we keep our veggies nice and cool through the summer. We capture winter’s cold and store it to fight off summer’s heat. The only annual energy needed each year is solar water pumping and 25 hours of labor in February. On the other hand, we receive 600 square feet of ideal cold storage for our fruits and veggies for 365 days/year. Up front design and proper investment has made this possible"
I don't know all the nitty gritty about it, but they do have an email address. Of course this does rely on your outside temp being cold enough in winter to freeze all the water... Food for thought anyway.
He needs more vids lol I've watched as many as I can find. Zaytuna is insanely genious in its design, I love the turnable elbows to control his water levels GENIUS.
For that part of the planning I'm still stuck on the fact that I don't have a good enough map to even begin to design. I guess my end goal is to "prep" my land to be designed. From everything I've looked at I need a contour map, winter/sun angles, try to identify microclimates, soil ph, soil composition/drainage, Zone, and rainfall. I'm hoping to take an online PDC from Geoff if he runs another one, I'm sure that will help me a lot. I'm just trying to gather the basic info right now so that when I get a PDC It'll all be there waiting for me to design.
Also since I only get back there once a year I don't want to miss some critical little thing that I could have taken care of while I was there.
First off, I have a little experience with gardening/permaculture, but ultimately... yea I'm a newb.
So we have some land and won't be moving there for at least 3 years... I'm wondering what I can/should be doing to help prep us for our eventual move to the property. I have a rough idea, but would love the input of someone who has a little more expertise than I currently do. The property is currently 24 hrs away so we only get back once a year during summer leave (Julyish).
Currently on the property there is a small 1 bedroom home with no power/running water. We do plan on eventually building different living accommodations, but we will probably stay in the little home for the first year or two. Luckily the property is right next door to my spouse's parents and they are fully connected to the grid so that can always be a backup while we sort out solar.
The property itself is in NW Ontario near Fort Frances it is in zone 3a-4a (depending on what you check...) It is mostly wooded on the property with Poplar, Tamarack, Spruce, Pine, Diamond Willow, a few birch and some others (I'll be going back this summer to look closer). There are a few wild plums and hazelnuts as well as tons of raspberries growing on the property as well. My spouse's father will be planting 2 butternut trees and 3 different types of apples this spring to hopefully use down the raod as parent's for grafts(once I figure out how to graft ) I'm also going to move some of the plums and hazelnuts into more favorable conditions to see what kind of yield they produce and what they taste like.
Some other things we are looking at doing while we are there are:
-Bringing various perennials from our garden here to plant there
-Dig holes in various spots on the property to do the "Jar test" and check drainage
-get a water test for the wells
-try to seed wild rice in our small pond
-make a better catalog of what plants/trees are already growing
-build protection for the trees from critters
-Plant Black Locust seeds
-Make some raised log hugel beds
-Talk to the local lumber mill and see if we can get wood chips
-learn to drive a tractor
One thing I definitely need help with is getting a contour map... the best I have been able to find is contour lines every 10 meters, that gives me 1 contour over the property. Any ideas?
Are soil samples something I should be doing? If so how spread out should they be?
Is there anything else I am missing that would help me figure out a better plan of where I am going to put everything and what "everything" will consist of :: ?
I also had a "large" C-6 herniation a few years back. I tried sucking it up for about a year before I opted for surgery. They had me on Flexerols which turned me into a drooling mess. The procedure they gave me was called an Anterior Ferminotomy, basically they cut through the front of my next and drilled into my vertebrae where the spinal column was being compressed. Dr Vasco Da Silva from Ottawa, ON was my neurosurgeon. I'm not sure what kind of herniation you have or which specifically they can do this procedure for, but I was 85%ish pain free within a few weeks and completely recovered in 6 months. Lol then I got smashed in the head and fractured my C-7 and have been hurting for about a year and a half now. The thing that has helped me most right now is acupuncture, once every week or two. Voltaren helps a little, for short bits of time. Also as so many others have said, the Yoga stretches help as well. Yoga might be a little tricky to do if your stuck in bed though. There's a topical cream called Zostrix with capsaicin as the active ingredient, my specialist said it is supposed to trick the brain and block the pain signals from the nerves. It didn't work for me, but everyone's different. Saunas and hot tubs are always good too.
Cheers and good vibes
You've got tons of people rootin for ya
So here are a couple of ideas I had this morning while trying to milk youtube for some knowledge and would love some feedback/Harsh slap of reality as I haven't tried this out yet.
It has to do with the improved Heron fountain video on his thread. My first thought was to use this system with rain barrels and a little water wheel for a little power generation possibly(I'm kind of new to the power part...) You could use the system in a wide variety of settings( I have an underground greenhouse design I am working on that would use 55 gal drums as thermal mass heated by a RMH, having the water flow would help circulate the warmth thru the area) especially if you can get at least a trickle charge to supplement a solar system. Here's a drawing, the bottom half is an idea I'm going to try in our pond this summer to aerate the water.
The second idea/question has to do with fresnal lenses. My idea is to use a fresnal lens to heat a solid or liquid thermal mass (RMH double function? Heating for aquaponics/Water Mass?) Mike Rohas has a bunch of videos of him playing with the lenses they are pretty impressive. If you could get it to work right for you I'm thinking you could power a steam generator(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dI-Zl7nEzA8 ) to again supplement a solar system (not sure if this would be that much of a benefit as the sun would have to be out in full force meaning your PV cells would be charging...) My main goal for this idea is the heat capture anything else is a bonus. I was even thinking of making a cob oven with a concrete removable plug for the top so you can blast the inside with the sun build the heat replace the lid and bake.
If anyones tried anything like this or knows the science of how/why this will/won't work please let me know!
Julie and I are in our low 30's we currently live by Petawawa (2 hours west of Ottawa) we have 2 dogs no kids. We have been gardening here for about 6 years now, started from scratch with tons of sand/clay no silt. We went to the back to eden style of gardening about 3 years ago and are getting some great results. We have raised meat chickens for the past 3 years as well, we would like to try egg layers at some point...
We have been canning and dehydrating for a few years now as well. We do some wildcrafting in the area for different herbs/berries. We always seem to miss the fiddle heads...(trying again this year) We are just getting started on fungus ID as we have mushrooms popping up everywhere in our garden and some of them must be edible. We just planted Seabuckthorn, Haskaps, Currants, and gooseberries last year hopefully they come back. We have a bunch of other perennials that we are establishing as well (edible and non edible) We started saving our own seed 3 years ago, still learning with this... I do have a sweet zucchini on the outside pumpkin on the inside that will attest to the fact that I have a lot to learn... or I'm good at (unintentionally) crossing genetics to create new plant species.
We have a bit of land up in NW On near Rainy River that we plan on retiring on. Right now we are working on establishing perennials and planting trees that we can use for propagation in the future. The property has a south facing hill (its a big gravel deposit so good drainage) that we are hoping to build an earthship style house, we don't want to use the tire method right now we are researching options (a few of my unresearched ideas are using shipping containers filled with earth in place of the tires or using earthbag construction...)
We are interested in any earthbag, cob, rocket mass heater, beekeeping, aquaponics, and tree/shrub grafting workshops in the area. If you are in the area we love trading plants/seeds just let us know.
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