Dave Bross

North Florida here, where it has been getting into the low 20s a couple nights this week.

Things to deal with that..and worse?

A 10 x 35 greenhouse with 15 55 gallon plastic barrels along the walls to soak up heat during the day and give it back at night.
The water in the drums is chlorinated to keep it useable for drinking long term.
If the sun is out during the day the greenhouse heats up nicely even if it's cold outside.
If we lose power the greenhouse will hold above freezing if temps are in the 30s, maybe high 20s, but I'll lose the plants if we go very far into the 20s.
Two tiny electric space heaters will hold the greenhouse above freezing, as thy did this week when night temps were in the low 20s, but no power would mean goodbye tomatoes.
If I really wanted to save the tomatoes I have a long piece of steel flex pipe to fit my garden tractor exhaust and I believe leaving it running inside the greenhouse with the exhaust vented out might hold it above freezing. Haven't tried that yet.

The old mobile home I live in isn't very well insulated so I might be inclined to go "camping" here on my property in a severe cold snap.

My shop is an old army surplus  20 x 32 truck maintenance tent tucked in under some big oaks.
Anything plant-wise I wanted to try to save from freezing seems to make it in there.
The big trees seem to hold a good bit of heat under them.
I have a large camping tent I could set up inside the big truck tent, and yet another smaller tent that would fit inside the big camping tent if needed.

All my camping gear I've had since the 1970s, like Coleman stoves and lanterns, multiple sleeping bags and grills and other gear to cook over a wood fire.
Lots of oak here for fuel wood. I could have a lovely campfire for quite a few days.

I used to work outside in very cold weather 50 years ago and still have all the clothing and insulated boots from that.

I have 2 small generators and an old pickup truck with the 24 gallon  fuel tank behind the seat, so an easy to siphon fuel storage for generators.

The last really bad freeze here was 1984, with 3 - 4 days steadily below freezing. I remember having to use the exhaust from my car via flex pipe aimed at the water line up into my house to unfreeze the line daily.  
That was the end of any serious commercial citrus growing in this part of Florida. the trees froze right to the roots.
I was in the junkyard business at the time, and this being a very poor area, a lot of folks didn't run antifreeze in their cars. I ended up junking a LOT of cars with their engines split wide open from the water in them freezing, up and breaking the engine block.

If I never have to deal with extreme cold, snow or ice again that would suit me just fine.

Another Farberware fan here, the electric percolator.

I gut them of all the aluminum parts (Alzheimer's risk) and proceed to make coffee cowboy style...although I don't strain it through an old sock as tradition might dictate.

Cowboy style = fill it with water, add grounds, plug it in, setting a wind up timer for the amount of time discovered in what I'll explain Next.

My Dad worked for the folks who invented the percolator, Landers, Frary and Clark, the Universal was its brand name.

He told me about the great amount of testing that went into figuring out when the coffee was done, but not overdone.

The magic number they turned up was right around 150 degrees F.

Slight variations either side of that produced different tastes but 150 was right in the middle of what was acceptable. Much over that and bitterness begins.

I timed my pot to find out it hit 150 in exactly 10 minutes, hence the wind up timer to track it.

The grounds will be floating on the top, so mix them in and wait a few minutes, or, go get the strainer if you're in a hurry. It's tastier if you wait.

Single best resource and most accurate description of what it's like to be in the nursery business....ever.

This will open your eyes. It convinced me not to ever do that, even though there's a family history of owning nurseries.

The book is:

So You Want to Start a Nursery  - by Tony Avent

If you still want to do it:

Another good resource would be all the backyard nursery videos from Mike McGroarty on youtube. There's a LOT of excellent info in those vids.
That info is not slanted towards food production, it's about ornamental stuff, but most of the info applies to food plants/shrubs/trees also.

Mike's always pushing/selling a bit hard to join his membership, but, if you do decide to take the plunge into a nursery biz that would be a very valuable resource.

Mike himself has been working in/owning nurseries since he was a kid so he has incredible knowledge on the easiest way to do things.

The membership is $600 last time I checked.
That gives access to a buy sell forum where you can buy liner plants (rooted starter plants) for incredibly low prices.
There's also a forum there for questions and answers from fellow nursery operators.

The other reason I never started a for profit nursery is that there are a ton of other nurseries locally and they sell stuff for peanuts.

Do check for a similar situation around you as part of your decision research.

This guy has been working for and then owning nurseries since he was a kid.

Scroll down here to the info on potting soil. I've done what he suggests for many years and it works great.

I re-use all my potting soil, adding more pine bark as the bark in the mix decomposes over 4 - 5 years.


https://mikesbackyardnursery.com/2014/12/mike-mcgroartys-secret-bed-building-and-potting-soil-recipe/

As mentioned, winter rye grass might work.

Cowpeas also. The ones in the grocery stores often sprout and grow just fine.
Black eye peas and conch peas are extra tansy cowpea varieties here.

Reading descriptions here may turn something up. I've bought cover crop seed from them before and they're good folks.

https://petcherseeds.com

I would check the well water and soil for toxic ag chemicals and metals on any property ever used for commercial ag.

Trust...but verify.

Thanks for the pic of the Universal food grinder.

My dad was one of the vice presidents of Landers Frary and Clark 1940s early 50s.

They were a very old manufacturer of appliances...starting back with appliances that were  pre electricity like the Universal grinder.

They made a lot of manual coffee grinders too.

I remember one of those Universal grinders sitting in the kitchen cabinets forever.

Unfortunately, they made a number of bad decisions with the flush of cash they got from military contracts in WW2 and went down the drain a few years later.

They were a classic US manufacturer, with their own in house foundries, machine shops, sheet metal shops and the like.

Everything they sold was manufactured in-house.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landers,_Frary_%26_Clark

https://connecticutmills.org/find/details/landers-frary-and-clark


Edit - someone sent me a news clip where the remaining Landers factory buildings are being converted to affordable housing. Love that.

Ooooh boy, just like my struggles to use billboard tarps as end doors on my military truck maintenance tent (great big canvas quonset hut ) that's used as my shop.

I finally gave up other than rolling them down in freezes so I can drag frost sensitive stuff into there.

When it's frosty here it's usually no wind.

As far as stopping the sides flapping, the tent came with large hooks  all the way down the sides, like the speed lacing hooks at the top of hiking boots .
It worked to use these and holes punched in the edges of the tarps to lace up the sides against the wind much like you would lace up a shoe. Much work required there every time you do that.
It would make it easier to have put hooks on the tarp also. I did buy some small coat hooks that looked like they might work, but never did try it.

Bigger pulley blocks on the ropes rolling the tarp up and down were a big upgrade.

I'm using the same basic rope lifting  setup illustrated here.
I used a long 2x2 with the tarp stapled to it instead of a pipe as a roller. Pipe would have been better.

Nice description here. Love the updates and "wrecks" too.

Oh yeah, a wind up kitchen timer is one of my best tools too.

For:

Not overfilling the greenhouse reservoirs

Not forgetting to switch or turn off irrigation

The aforementioned cooking escapades, not turning things Cajun...as in blackened

A reminder system for my inevitable flaw of attempting to multi task and forgetting all the other task but the one I have my nose in at the moment

appointments

And on and on....

I carry it around in my pocket when in use...which has led to some humor when friends ask "What's that ticking noise?" and my comments about mad bombers.

One thing to know if you've never used these before.

You have to wind them all the way around then back to the time you're setting.
I hate to admit how long I struggled until I learned this.
No instructions come with the newer ones and the way I found out was an old US made one I got at a yard sale had a sticker on it explaining this

Tradeoffs here.

I eliminate all the conifers because they act as a lightning rod sticking above the canopy and if you don't burn off the pine needles then one dry season day you'll be faced with the hundred foot wall of flame rapidly destroying everything in its path.

The native folk burned off the pine woods regularly to avoid the wall of fiery death and open up the understory for hunting.

Ii sometimes wonder how pine was the dominant species when Florida was first "discovered" by white people...and the answer may be the original natives biased things that way via burning.

In the last few years a large market has opened up here for "pine straw," which is baled pine needles, so that may be one use for the pine needles.
They do make a long lasting mulch, which is spread out enough to minimize fire hazard.

Much like using petroleum, machinery, and plastic, perhaps controlled burning  begins the process, enhances fire safety, and gives you results until you can figure out a better way.

Another perfection may be the enemy of good?