Ian Kris

Cardboard:
  Flatten boxes, then dunk them in the horse trough.
Once wet they will be soft as a blanket. Roll them into a log and set somewhere to dry.
They will burn slow and hot, like a real log.
  Waxed cardboard boxes make the best free fire starters ever.
I slice them up and keep some by the stove, and some out by the barbecue.

The perfect potato pile:

  A friend used to rake all her leaves into a pile under an evergreen tree where they were more or less protected from rain.
Once she threw some food scrap that included potato peelings into the pile.
Ever since then she goes out, reaches into the leaves, and pulls out fistfuls of perfect potatoes.
Tree leaves are the gardener's gold.

2 sure-fire fixes:
  I. Put a spoonful of cayenne in a balloon and blow it up. Tie a knot and thumb tack it to a fence. Then rub the balloon with some bacon fat.
This works on ANY carnivore, from cats to bears. They take a bite, get a bang and a facefull of red pepper. They won't come back.
 2. There is a little trap that snares coons by the wrist. It doesn't catch any other animal. Coons have a paw that works like a hand, and they have to lift a trigger in the trap.
The downside is there isn't a safe way to release the critter. You have to kill them.

   The best rat control ever...
   We had rats all around the hen house. i set traps daily but it was a losing battle. The clincher came when I went out to the coop one day, saw 4 rats running across the yard, and another dozen scattered when I opened the hen house door. So I tried something else. I had heard that rats can't burp. Based on that I came up with this formula. The very next day there were no rats to be seen.
   It'll cost you just 2 dollars. Buy a box of chocolate cake mix, and a box of baking soda.
Mix the dry ingredients and mix them well. You have to disperse the lumps in the soda. If a rat bites down on a lump of soda he will stop eating.
Put a cupful in a can or small box, and set it in its side where the rats can find it.
The rats will chow down, and when the soda hits their stomach acid they swell up and die. It doesn't seem to bother any other animals if they get into it.
  Rats are nomadic. After a few rat-free weeks some other rats found us and moved in. Another round of the mix and they vanished too. Now I put fresh mix out every few weeks to keep the varmints gone.

  Spuds only need a covering to keep from drying out. The roots will go down and find whatever else they need.
  The best potato patch I ever saw: A lady I knew used to rake her garden leaves under a big evergreen. The tree shielded them from rain so they composted slowly. One day she threw in some kitchen scraps, and the potato peelings started to grow.
 After that she had only to rummage around in the leaves and pull out handfuls of potatoes. Sure beats digging.

  Our soil is clay sand. It stays wet in our Seattle climate, so things tend to rot instead of grow.
  My fix is to plant above ground, but without the bales. I use rabbit fence, which is about 2 feet tall. A 10 foot section makes a 3 foot ring, approx. I fill the rings with brush and garden residue on bottom, then leaves, straw, grass hay.
  Potatoes, bulbs, bareroot trees, banana roots go right in the leaves. I put in a top layer of potting soil for seeds and smaller things. This is kind of a mini hugelculture pile. Decomposition of lower layers adds warmth and nutrienrts, and holds moisture. In the fall I reload the rings with fresh leaves