Honora Holmes

I ordered and had 5 tons of composted horse manure delivered to my house. Now I'm reading about issues with Grazon and other herbicides that are in hay that could damage any tomatoes and beans I try to grow in soil treated with manure from animals who have eaten contaminated hay. I put in a call to the man I bought my manure from but honestly I doubt I'll get a straight answer. He said he keeps nearly 30 horse so I'm sure he's not growing all his own hay. And while I don't really know this guy I have a hard time believing he'll track down the info from his suppliers so I can know whether or not his manure he's selling will kill or stunt the plants of people he sells to. I guess I'm just cynical. I can try and find out myself with the manure but it involves several weeks growing beans in soil with the manure to see if it's bad or not. In the meantime my plan has been to spread the manure NOW all over the garden so I'll be ready to plant in a month.

I guess this is partly just a vent. I'm as much bothered by the idea of being out $160 for contaminated manure as I am just sick to death of dealing with crappy soil that NEEDS a lot of amendment and I have such a hard time finding good clean healthy straw, hay, manure etc in large and cheap enough quantities to improved thousands of square feet of garden space. I'm sick of these stinking poisons in my air, soil and water that we have to work so hard to avoid and then sneak up on us in a thousand different ways regardless. I love to garden but struggle with poor health and am trying to make my life and gardening easier. 5 tons of horse manure was supposed to help do that and now I just created more work for myself instead of less.

I'm reading Farmers of Forty Centuries right now and carving my front hill into terraces.

My husband is one of those people that graduated with a computer science degree right as the tech bubble burst. He was not able to get a job in his field. He ended up with a crappy job at Enterprise. He slaved away there for I think it was 7 years before he lost his job there right in the middle of the crash in the fall of 2008. It was awful at the time. But it ended up being the best thing that ever happened to us. He had to act fast to make a living so he starting putting his computer programming skills to work and getting jobs online. It's been 3 years since he started. We now make well over 3 times what he made before he lost his job and he simply doesn't even have enough time to keep up with the demand he has for what he does. But we are totally preparing for a large continuous decline in the economy and investing in our home and land.

We aren't investing in the stock market because honestly we don't know how to play that game. Our goal is to pay off our home, invest in solar and a well and whatever it takes to remove our dependence on the system. We are slowly increasing our gardens on our 1 acre. It's not an ideal acre. It's very hilly but it's what we have and we'd prefer to live in a more suburban area. It decreases our dependency on a car. We live across the street from my parents who have an over an acre and will probably end up owning that acre in the process of needing to support them in their old age. We don't ever expect to achieve real self sufficiency but we do think that working the soil is excellent for our mental and physical health and besides being a total joy to do it it's also a way to prepare for retirement. Our goal is to be debt free and as self supporting as we can be on our one acre and continuing to find ways to support ourselves without being subject to the whims of a large heartless corporation. We intend to do this regardless of what really ends up happening with the economy or peak oil because we think it's in our best interest to do this. We are investing in our soil and expect a great return on our investment. I'm thinking of that blog article someone shared recently on the return on investment we get growing food.

I only registered two weeks ago and it said to use a real name but it didnt' have to be your own so long as you didn't admit one way or the other. I thought that was said in this thread as well. The point being it's a place with "real" people not Bertha Buttcheeks and Bacon Grease McCoy. I don't entirely get it but that's what's been stated and if you are bothered by using your "real" name I don't understand why not just take the opportunity to be able to do what you are asked while still respecting your privacy online. It's sort of beside the point whether any of us thinks this makes sense to us, right? We aren't calling the shots or paying for the forum. But I don't see how it's dishonest. It's never been considered dishonest to use a handle online. What's dishonest about being asked to use a handle that doesn't seem like one?

Ahem, Steve. If your ex is a stalker then maybe you accidentally put down the wrong real name and you can go ahead and change it real quick.

Sorry, I was being tongue in cheek wy my remarks. Paul has posted elsewhere that the site was automatically giving the names of either Hatfield or McCoy when there was no other last name listed. It sounds to me like you ought to be able to change your first name of "heathensteven" though. But I've not actually tried to figure it out myself.

It sounds to me like your name is Steven and you are a feuding heathen.

Was this not always in the registration info? I only registered maybe two weeks ago and when I did it specifically said I had to use my real name or a real sounding name and not admit that it was not my real name. I'm baffled why this is such a big deal if it's in fact been such a long standing policy? I guess the problem is that it's been a policy on paper but just not been enforced?

We love fermentation as well, Jamie. I've been fermenting foods for years. My problem is about the only place I have that it's cold enough to store it is in a fridge. Are you building a root cellar that will be cold enough?

I have a nice canner but hate the long drawn out process and heating up the house. I'm totally a prepper or at least a prepper wanna be. It goes along with wanting to be self sufficient. I might not be able to grow it all but I can certainly store it and reduce our dependence on the grocery store. We store grains and bean and oil and honey in buckets. And we store a lot of meat in the freezer. Other than that I plan on mostly storing vegetables in the garden. I grow vegetables year round and under pvc hoops and plastic in the winter. I hope to have even more out there next winter! Right now I have leeks, fennel, cilantro, varieties of lettuce, radishes, beets and spinach.

LOL Thanks for the explanation. I had been reading through older threads and was so confused about who all the Hatfield's and McCoy's were.