Stacy Witscher

I'm a single women living off grid. I live with three of my adult children, but no partner. I've never lived completely alone because I've had children all of my adult life.

I buy field corn whole and make it into masa when needed. Last year I grew some as well. Just make sure you have some pickling lime as well.

I love my seed starting mats as well. Huge difference. And they really aren't bad on power. I haven't checked the wattage individually, but I know by monitoring my solar output that it's not bad.

I use the hanging bucket with nipples and love it. Anything on the ground they just knock over. It did take them a while to get the hang of it, but now it's great. I fill it about once a week. We have hard water but it's never been a problem. The nipples are replaceable if need be.

I have the soil blockers and don't like them at all. I'd be willing to send all the parts to someone if you are interested. I'll have to dig them out and let you know what I have. PM me if interested.

I'm lucky that my mom buys a lot of 4 inch pot plants for her church, so I have what feels like an endless supply. When things start to break down, I double stack them for longer life.

Another good citrus to grow for restaurant/foodie customers is kaffir lime leaves. They are difficult to find. Typically used in Thai cuisine, but fine dining fusion restaurants love them. And because you are raising them for leaves not fruit, cold spikes during flowering don't really matter.

I've also seen some blood oranges that are more cold tolerant for sale. They are very popular with chefs because of their visual appeal.

While I can't speak to much of what you are asking, I do have a few answers. While I lived in the SF Bay Area, zone 9-10, we grew citrus. Many citrus trees are really more shrub-like, so the height issue shouldn't be a problem. You can get plenty of production out of a 8 foot tree. And from a single Meyer lemon we would get 200-300 lemons a year. Meyer lemons are sought after fruits for fine dining chefs and foodies. Citrus are nice because there isn't a big rush to harvest, they keep well on the tree, in fact, better on the tree than off. Some citrus are more cold tolerant than others, I would go for those.

Often you can find generators available for resale, the trouble is getting them moved. Either Craigslist or generator maintenance people are good places to look.

My system is much larger so my personal experience isn't likely to be helpful. We have a 20v Koehler and a 48v diesel DC Shawnee.

That makes sense, thank you. I'll have to look into more. It would definitely be something that I did over time. But I'm always looking for places to put rock.

When we had fencing installed, they used a mini-mini to dig the post holes that then were cemented in and even then the fence stretcher pulled down some of the fence posts, so imagine that type of fence wouldn't work with gabions. Our entire property is pretty sloped which I expect would further complicate things. I have one area that I'm thinking of just using for a dairy cow and a horse that is pretty flat, maybe it could work there.

Very interesting thread.

My understanding is that gabions aren't structurally sufficient for fence posts. Around here they are mostly decorative and a place to put all the smallish rocks. I would happily be wrong as we have so much rock.