Spring Seeds, Containers and Taking the First Step
In Califonia we are having a mild, dry winter... (so far at least). My biggest winter chore is getting all the apple trees trimmed and that is done. Since it is such nice weather I can't help myself but do a little planting.... But it is Winter right?
Well... I tilled the edges of my very long driveway cuz it was just a mess...and then I thought hey why not throw in some dry land winter wheat... IF i get enough dew or a little rain it will work. I put it in a little late... but I am at a higher elevation so should be ok. I will let you know....And just so you store the fact away... you plant hard red wheat in the fall... let it sit through the freeze and winter and you harvest it the next year...
Side note on wheat:
It takes 30 lbs of wheat to plant an acre - 2 five gallon buckets of hard red wheat from the mormon cannery is 75 lbs
- An acre of wheat will produce about 30-50 bushels
- A bushel of wheat equals about 30 -40lbs of flour
- You need about 40-50 lbs of flour per person a year
- An acre will feed 20-40 people a year depending on yeild
- That is why Grain was grown as a trade crop.. you had extra after what you needed for your family Here is a link about wheat
I also have my raised beds which I had prepped for the winter by putting compost on them and then tenting them with black plastic. The tenting keeps the beds from getting compressed if we get a little snow. Since it has been so nice I pulled back the plastic and let my chickens scratch in the beds... Since the soil is kind of warm from the tenting and has fresh compost in the beds I have no problem keeping the chickens in the beds and they leave it with extra nitogen from their droppings... IF i wanted to force them to be in the beds I would get around to making a little portable chicken coop and run that fits right on top of myraised beds... Farming... always another project you can do.
Which brings me to containers and seeds. I have a little greenhouse where I am NOT growing anything under big lights this year. I am growing the standard things in containers like tomatoes, peppers, lettuce, strawberries and a few rasberry bushes but no "cash crop" this year. The plants come in slower without the big lights, but my costs are basically 0 and I am experimenting with getting my greenhouse to really produce on the cheap. I do have a fun experiment going with solar LED's and small watt grow lights. I have my small T25 watt grow lights on my starter trays... and I run THESES from solar. AND...! I have a new LED light that I am trying on one tomatoe plant which is also on solar. If I get a good result I will get a couple more. The whole LED light area is still developing (thanks to california pot farmers) and I am interested in the lower wattage ones that can run on solar.
So start something... ! and get a container for your deck, a lemon tree or something and start growing...
Survival Chic
With the recent passing of the NDAA which allows for unlimited detention for as yet undetermind offences, the Internet monitoring and data collection that is here now and increasing and the "emergency alerts" coming to cell phones... clearly it is time to push back a little and create a "teaching moment" for yourself and your family. The question all must now ask is "do I have to constantly live on the other side of the monitoring and fear broadcast". 
I went out on a mission. And of course found things I wasn't looking for (but needed) and yada yada... so here is what else I found in addition to my list on my last post.
1. Metal Trash cans - If you line the sides, bottom and top with cardboard you get a pretty good home made faraday cage. If you stack them inside of each other and tuck them away they will make great storage bins for bulk foods. 
5. wool socks and work gloves
So where to start?.. I start with harvest. So I have put a little picture of a 
Many people love crabapples because they bloom early, are covered in little red fruits all late summer and have a fruit that hangs around. The fruit makes great winter "bones" in a garden since it lingers on the trees long after the leaves are gone and the snow is on the branches.
I like the tree because of the density of the apples... it isn't uncommon to have 20 in 12 inch square area so they make a great ornamental tree. They are also heirloom and grow on their own root stock... just drop a seed in the ground and you will get a tree.
I was asked how do I collect and store the "little day to day stuff"... and how do I know what I want to store? I thought that was a great question so here is what I do...
Things to do with $20 that might save your life...
2. Food security. This means different things to different people... but at a minimum it is important to remember that getting food takes calories. So store food and maintain a few simple gardening tricks. 
I am a big fan of 
I also started a few dozen of our local hardy plum trees. This is a tree that takes no work at all and starts a new tree from every dropped plum! To get a good plum tree that will grow above deer height you need to pick off the blossoms for three years and prune them.... but then you can plant them basically anywhere where there is a little water. If you just let the trees come from seed and leave them alone you get plum bushes and the fruit tends to be on branches that bend over and touch the ground. Again, I plan to plant them along my creek canyon and my friends creek. Cost - zero! 
Brussell sprouts and asparagus are two plants you can let go wild. Personally I can only eat so many brussel sprouts anyway so I tuck them out of the way and go pick a few when I feel like it. From a structure point of view they look pretty prehistoric in the gargen and when they go to seed they get lots of shoots with pods everywhere...very messy (asaparagus is the same way although the plants are lacier). I try to collect seeds from everything that is successful in my garden so from time to time I will hit a new area in my woodland garden with a rototiller and drop a few seeds in. That way they don't have to compete with overgrown ones and I can see if the seeds are still coming true. The picture is NOT mine... My brussell sprounts are mixed in between flowers and weeds and really really messy! I just mow the whole area down from time to time when I can't stand it any more! 
One of my new goals for this year is to get more seed exchange going. I have the plant a fruti tree effort underway in our county and this year we are encouraging everyone to "bring your collected seed packages" to our farmers markets. If you bring a couple you can take a couple etc. We sell the extras to our shoppers who want to grow local heirloom seed that works. I have found lots of cute do it yourself seed package layouts on the web.... color or not... personalize them and hand them out to friends after you collect seeds! 
Always plan ahead for how to control years and years of weeds. Drip is line and line is a pain to move so my view is if you have drip put it in once... having no weeds is key. We have a toe'd in area where we are growing out pots for a local nursery. The pots are toe'd into my compost and we tarp it for weeds and lay drip on top and then some bark. One of our little secrets is pots in pots! When we lift a pot out to deliver, we just pop another pot in. 
Another secret is having a really good in line fertilizer delivery method. We use a lot of organic and manure tea... we make it in garbage cans that we pour through a filter into our fertilizer feeding barrels. We can turn these barrels on in our drip lines with the flip of a valve... the nautral water pressure in the barrel forces it out the drip lines, works like a charm. We also put our fertilizer barrel about three feet up on a platform to give us a little more pressure on the line. I feed once a week. This is a pic of a do it yourself bottle stuck on a faucet that is on the drip....when you feel like it you just dump fertilizer in, otherwise you can just leave it. Most of these home models have a separate screw top opening so you can dump the fertilzer in without unhooking anything. 
I used the recent Black Fri to hit my local good will. Yep, they had a sale too. I was after lots and lots of blue jeans to make a rag rug out of. They were on sale for $1.50 to 2.00 a pair and now I know where all those "mom" jeans go! 
So.. the list is.
Couldn't pass on posting this... another stinkin cute salvage greenhouse. 
I Love the idea of a small guest house or studio that is tucked away. All built with salvage and intended as a personal place.... 
It is pretty easy to have plumbing and a little propane water heater and fireplace.... 
As my friend is laying out her retreat she has a wonderful opportunity to plant her orchard at the edge of and through some wonderful old pine and oak trees. She hopes to create a woodland garden with grass and edible shrubs. She is planning ahead to make it a garden party and dining spot. We have a pile of pics we have torn out over the years as examples. photo credit Victoria April 2008
The 20 acre parcel she bought is fairly flat and is raw ground with great "retreat" possibilities. I will chronicle her adventures and self sufficient goals. First item aleady in is the gravity well and water system and a spot to park her living quarters horse trailer while she builds. 
I am in zone 6 which means we get hard frosts... but not solid snow for months on end. In early winter the last of the foliage is down so the goats go out on the winery fields. They will spend the winter out there but be moved before the vines start new shoots in spring.. the goats love those and that is a problem!
A month makes all the difference here. We go from lovely fall colors in Nov to winter... but we get early grass which means winter lambs and forage for certain animals. Every climate is different so figure out what works for you and your area. I don't keep goats myself.. this is a beautiful winery on the road to my farm. 
Here is a newly planted lemon tree (one of several) which will eventually grow about twice the size of this. 
First of all the actual house is small, as a guest house should be but is very charming and full of lots of luxuries. A 15X 30 main room with a 14X 25 bedroom wing and a 12X24 covered porch that spills onto a large patio next to our pond. It is field stone exterior (faux) on a steel barn (MD) framework. with log accents. There is a basement (root cellar) under the main room. 
It is always a challenge to try to do something in a small space. And in thinking about a kitchen that could produce 
Bruschetta
I have been thinking however about building an "orangery" along one of my garden walls. I have attached a picture of a greehouse (in england) that is kind of what I have in imind. My goal would be to use a beam about 2 feet out from the wall at about 9 feet, greenhouse roof panels and 4 sets of sliding doors. One on each end and two on the sides. I will put a solar powered set of vent windows in a couple of spots on the north pitch between the top of the wall and the peak of the roof. We are temperate enough I hope I can just leave the sliders open all the time and achieve the climate I need. I have been researching tangerines that are more cold hardy than oranges and of course limes and hopefully avocados. I have also found one variety of dwarf olive tree that can produce a liter of oil per tree. Update because I was asked for more info in an email. Mandarins, Olives and avocados are all hardy to 20 degrees and good to about 3500 ft elevation. Be sure to get an old variety mandarins since some are better than others and the "coldest hardy" ones can be a bit dry. Auburn, CA has a Mandrarin Festival in Nov where you can check them all out and buy saplings. All can of course grow in pots and be brought in mid winter... Avocados need a male and a female! 
I found a nice meadow in Northern California foothills with a year round spring up the hill. The meadow itself is a surprise when you come upon it. There is a fairly inconspicuous road uphill through some scrub off a secondary road. It looks like you are on an old lumber road and heading into a mountian ravine, and then you cross a creek turn a corner and you come onto the meadow. There are no roads behind us or on etiher side. It can be defended... but the goal will be to hide the main driveway in a pinch and wait things out. We are 5 miiles from a small town and at about 2500 foot elevation.
