Joseph P. Bubile

Hello he & she fellow permies...
I am constantly amazed in the number of people want to spend good money for bag compost, bag manure, and raised beds... To each his own thoughts... But... Have you ever wanted a small greenhouse in the back of your growing area, or even at the back door of your kitchen.. AND NO ONE WOULD BE THE WISER...!!!  You can... And it can also be your compost box, or it can be a raised bed, or even a winter time un-heated bed for your food pulled from you garden....
THINK, RECYCLE that old refrigerator... You can get a HVAC technician to stop by your house, remove all the Freon gases from unit... Remove all the cold plumbing pipes and ice maker... Remove the compressor... Now a days, they save and recycle all ....
WHAT IS THIS GOING TO COST YOU, NOTHING IF YOU GIVE THAT TECH AND HIS FAMILY some garden produce next year...

Now I'm sure, every woman reading this is thinking JUNK IN HER YARD... But no... Lay that refer on its back and surround the sides with your pallet picket fence.... Stain / paint it, it is hidden....

Or it can be your mini-greenhouse in the winter months....prop the lid open , attach some plastic sheeting around the lid. Instant hot box of over wintering some plants....

Or it can be your worm bin... Put about 12" of logs (hugleculture) , add some of that lousy clay ( as you say) from your yard, sod, grass clippings, leaves, food scraps.... You never, SEE THE "YARD VARMINTS" GETTING INTO IT, and there are no smells....go around your neighborhood, collect bagged leaves, put them in the box... And if you by chance you put some sod from your yard, or the flower pot dirt in the box, this gives you your first "worms".   And it being insulated, any worms should be working all of the cold months.... Making that God given lovely smelling D.I.R.T....

I have 1, commercial 2 door unit, a 1 door commercial unit, and 2 small half size units....all of them have compost working all year long....

My wife "steals" the dirt out of my small units for her patio plants... She is constantly dividing the plants to make more for the hummingbirds to hide in...

All of my compost boxes are rescued refrigerators.... The oldest one is the single tall one... I've prolly have been using for 20 to 30 years..
My first worm box...stainless steel sides....I have 6 boxes....
I have them across my 4-1/2 ac patch of land.... All are at the forest edge....

I beg all the power line cleaning crews close to my house, I always try to find the crew-boss, and
"accidently drop" a (20) in his truck as I leave my location with him...

Last year I saw a fellow un-loading a dump truck full of stable droppings....He brought me 45 loads, free of charge... He was cleaning out a stable and need a dumping spot....

Please, stop and think, you can do just as much, probably more....
I will have  (82)  candles on my birthday cake this December...

And I am self employed repairing restaurant equipment in Piedmont NC... Every day, I drive about 100 miles most days getting to my customers... I gotta slow down, my knees are wearing out...(I pray over some old pizza ovens, deep fryers and ranges)…..

I would put up some pictures, if I can figure out how to load them...

Ya'll have a great day...
Joe B..
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Is there any "picture" chart, and/or someway to help to find out what is a possible way to identify what fig that we have ...  We are entering the last phase of our current season's pickings... One tree, planted on south-east side of residence....About 3 ft. away from wall of cinder blocks (footings)...
House wall of silver-gray siding... The fig tree is about 10 to 12 ft tall.
Our window of fruit picking is about over.... So far have picked at least 4 gallons, and need to pick again...
   The figs have very small seeds, about 1/16" in diameter.... My wife has made so far about 24 jelly jars full of "fig jam" ( to kill for )...

I do not know what the type of fig it is or where it came from....

So I'm looking for a good way to identify....

Any help is appreciated...

Joe B.

Any fig tree data

The fourth truck load of chips are being dumped on my lot I'm re-building, from no worms or any
tilth to this lot's soil base...after having 45 dump-truck loads of horse stable droppings earlier in the year.... Hoping my local power-line cleaning crew can return next week after the July 4th holiday......

When the fourth (4th) load of wood chips are being dumped in my lot that I'm re- building by the great power-line cleaning crew here in
piedmont NC....

I have a over abundance of golden raspberries in a location that I want to cover with concrete for shop floor

These are self volunteers, in that I have owned this property for over 40 yrs, I did not plant them, nor did my wife... There was an apple tree in this area, but it died and i cleaned up the trash, mowed the area and forgot the area... I put in a 40 ft steel storage unit, and over time had to add another building, spaced 12' away.... BETWEEN the two buildings is now full of green raspberry canes... The open area is sited north/south,  with wind protection east/west  

My question is, how can I move the existing canes, and the blooming / bearing canes are pretty, and tasty.... so I want to save... I also have two patches of "thornless blackberries" on the property, and they are about 100 ft away... These patches are several years old, both about 30' -to- 50' in diameter... They self water, rain mostly, with some irrigation thru landscape of yard when it rains ... As a side note, my wife and I do not believe in poisons / pesticides near our food we grow, nor do we use commercial fertilizer ... our go to is chips, leaves, manure, homemade compost with kitchen scraps, leaves, manure & chips ...

My location is Winston-Salem, NC

Can I just dig them up with a ball of earth, and transplant to new location

Thank you for your input.....

   But when you have 4 freezers and
3 refrigerators with food in them, you try to cut your storage electric billing...

I still think going freeze dried might be the way to go....up to 25 yrs (FREEZE DRIED) vs 2 yrs ( CANNED or plain FROZEN)
  And if we have long power interruption, I then have to roll out the standby generator.... Just to keep from losing my stored food...

Again thank you,
Joe B.
   

   Does anyone have any experience with any type of "" freeze dryers "" like a `Harvest Right'  brand of
equipment... It looks to remove moisture in a multiple step process... Like freezing and vacuuming the
product...versus canning to preserve your food ...
    It also looks to be able to keep your product for up to 25 years with no loss... Wow, canning cannot even get close to those numbers....

I would like to see an operating R.M.H.
somewhere close to me in North Carolina or in southern Virginia....
I am in Winston-Salem....
I believe in all of the information I have read to date, BUT, I'm a married man...
I cannot convince my S.O. ( significant other ) that we should head down this path.....
I do have a "heatalator" fireplace inserted in my masonry fireplace....but as anyone who may have had one knows, they eat wood like there is a never ending supply....
Yes it heats, but it takes a lot of wood to keep it fed, and a large amount of heat goes up that 12 x 12 flue to keep the smoke out of the house....
And I'm getting tired of chopping wood... And LP gas is $5.25 a gal. delivered....
So.....is there anybody close to me that would allow me to see their installation, and allow me to bring my stubborn wife along...

Hopefully there is an installation near me....

Thank you
Joe B.

My spare (??) Lot next to my main left property line is a sloping area....
I have about 14 chip-truckloads of chips on the property line of my main lot....(now abt 2 yrs old) in this side lot..
MY IDEA....
To dig ditches with a "ditch-witch" across this area every 4 feet in east-west orientation.... To a depth of abt 18 to 24 inches, the excavated dirt to the lower side of ditch...
The land slopes north (high) south (low)...
In the area below the cleared area the land drops to 10ft. below the property-line highway....And there is a highway culvert for it to pass under road....
    I want to reduce the amount of "rain-runoff" by filling these multiple "ditch-witch" ditches with some of my collected chips from my stored piles....  Say to about 3" from top of ground, with the fill dirt being pushed into cover chipped ditch from lower side...., in effect making a swale across the area, east to west...
The lot was "farmed" ( loose wording ) by former owner's father, who poured the fertilizer/pesticides to all his plantings, mainly sweet potatoes and corn...
      I have had a few good crops of     t-matos, okra, cukes... But a lot of water goes thru that culvert to the wooded area across the road in a good rain storm...
1. I think if I could save some of the water to go into the *water table* locally
2. I think I can add some organic matter to the lot to help me in the future...
3. Any additional ideas ?
4. I do have some "aged horse paddock scrapings" but I prefer to use those in main gardens...
Thanks for any insights
Joe B.....