Sam Potter

We have several open water storage containers for rain water, thou they are not connected yet I want to add onto them for added storage. Mosquitoes were originally a problem but we added some bettas in need of a home to each tank. They are easy to bring in for the winter so they don't die and dont multiply like goldfish or guppies so I don't end up with to many.

My plan for connecting them is to add a hose or pipe at the overflow port Iv put in mine and let it overflow into the next lower one. Then wash and repeat as many times as wanted. Mine will be much closer together so Im not sure if that's a viable plan for your situation. But I cant see why adding flexible hose to bury or let lie on the ground between each one would be a issue. Long as the overflow port is higher then the outflow of the pipe.

As for the grey water we dont keep it in a storage tank because it was to expensive for us to clean it before holding it for any amount of time. It wasnt in the plans to use grey water originally but our septic tank is pretty small and the drain plumbing under the house was disconnected in several places causing flooding that the previous owners thought was from rain. So from each sink and the tub theres a pipe that goes straight out the house to the nearest garden with a hose attachment on it and I currently have just used garden hoses for the last 2 years with no issues. Lets me move it around easily so all that water isnt just in one place. It was a emergency "I have no idea what Im doing repair" that cost us 40$ and is still going strong AND code legal in our area. With a good DIY bog filter and alot of plants thou I bet a simple water filter for the grey water wouldn't be to hard if you are short on rain..... Id do a test run for a few months before connecting it to the whole system first personally. But a fun idea if you have the time to fine tune it!

Plant spacing and rows have been my biggest change up from our neighbors. My gardens looks less and less like a veggie garden every year as I allow volunteers to pop up while planting stuff closer together. It keeps out weeds and helps shade the soil to prevent the sun from stealing all the soil moisture. As a con it dose make harvesting some things a bit more challenging in the deeper beds. So my new beds are only 2 feet wide so its easy to see into the jungle to find the ripe veggies.

Id take a field guide out with you while walking in your area and look for the sabinas in residential areas to compare to other junipers you find. There's a lot of varieties and they can be tricky to reliably tell apart at first. The sabinas generally have a more sprawled low to the ground growth habit and cinamony colored bark that sheds off in little flakes. They smell chemically when you crush the leaves. the leaves can be spiney or have dull scales. depends on the age. Take pictures and samples to compare when your at home and make notes on the plant it came from. I don't like to gather from a plant until I can tell what it is right away 100% of the time. I didnt trust wood nettles for awhile because it was different from the stinging nettle I was used to.

Thank you so much for the assurances that ground chicken can just be treated like other ground meats. I picked up like 25lbs and that's alot of freezer space for just one thing! Im trying to make room in there for the pigs in a few months.

I recently got a bunch of ground chicken and turkey for a great price and was planning on canning as my freezer is reaching a critical point of overstuffed. Checked my Canning book to find no help and then popped onto the internet to look up a quick recipe.  To find out here in the United States we are not approved to can ground poultry per the mighty USDA. Now Iv found over the years that sometimes the USDA just worries its public is not always the best at following directions. And that by asking around I can find a method that's been time tested by locals or a method thats used overseas and is approved by there official food safety folks. And with a little digging it turns out it just hasn't been tested by any proper testing  place yet in the U.S. to approve or disapprove it.

Dose any one here can ground poultry? I was planning on doing it like ground beef and hot packing it into jars before pressure canning it. Any obvious issue Iv missed that's going to make it unsafe?

With to big zucchini I make Zucchini cobbler out of it. It taste like a apple cobbler but I find peeling one zucchini is easier for me then peeling a bunch of apples.

Electric golfcarts are amazing for farm work! My folks used the same 2 on the 900+ acer farmstead for 15 years. We were hard on them to. Wed haul dirt for pond digging, firewood retrieval, tow vehicles, pull stumps out, round up critters. The things could pull a full size trailer if you avoided the hills and mud. Then of course us kids would romp on them thru the mud and race them. about every 5 years we had to fix something on the body but the motor always stayed strong until dad sold them to upgrade to his SxS.

Other wise old retired vehicles are cheap and strong. Picking one that runs well has always been a challenge for us. But old trucks and a Jeep Ranger that my mom crashed and messed up the body work were solid options for us. Plus great for teaching kiddos how to drive! All the kiddos learned with the stick shift while raking hay in the Jeep.

For the past few years my husband and I use cheap e-mountain bikes around our much smaller farm with a trailer. Great for taking like 15 gallons of water to the critters and feed deliveries thru rugged off road terrain. Then off to town to go pick up some milk for dinner and take to the trails on the weekend. I agree that if you cant use both feet they are unwieldly and have questionable shocks that tear the bike and you apart if you cant ride it like a horse jockey. We are thinking up upgrading to a good 4x4 four-wheeler for next year as our needs are starting to grow rapidly. The bikes will get repaired but I think we are going to retire them from heavy duty farm stuff.

I Keep a worn out pie dish of them in the oven to dry out when I preheat the oven. Dont worry you will smell them if you forget there in there while baking lol! Then I finely crush them and use them as a abrasive scrubber on pots that may have gotten scorched or to get built up grease off of the stove top. It works well for getting rust off of my knives and to scrub the bottom of the sink and soap build up in our cast iron tub. (My husband is covered in grease and transmission fluid when he comes home so it builds up quick) We have a grey water system for the kitchen so it all gets sent out to the garden afterwards as a soil amendment after that. Extra powder I give to the chickens or just chuck the egg shells out whole and step on them quick before the chickens notice seems to work well for us. The dogs like the shells as messy treats so they get them outside to spread as they see fit.  

I have a starter pack of sorts Iv been giving out to friends who'v asked this year. Our gardens are finally coming in nicely again after moving a couple years ago so I have strawberries, thornless blackberries, asparagus, potatoes, walking onions and lots of herbs that have self seeded and came up this year that are free game to take. As well as extra starts of tomatoes, mints and peppers. I tell people a green thumb is hiding the compost pile of dead victims of previous plants and to not feel bad if they kill them all and then want to try again next year. Most of the plants I give out are weeds for me anyways!
I choose the plants I do because they do grow like weeds in my area with very little love and are familiar enough to normies for use in the kitchen continuously thru the year. Seeds are a gamble to give to a new person due to the learning curve is to likely to cause a failure that will discourage them from the journey in my area. I also have them come out to grab the plants so they can see how I grow them and maybe get them into thinking about getting chickens later. There fresh brains are easily moldable to permaCULTure as long as we don't overwhelm them lol  

Lambsquarter! We use it as a food source for us, the chickens and the pigs. Its great for my iron deficiency so I dont need my supplements as often. It works as a chop and drop and a ground cover. We love our weeds around here and Iv been slowly learning what they want to grow so I dont have to spend as much time babying plants in the hot summers to eat from our own yard.