October On The Homestead

Lost here - not being from the area of impending turbines. But have seen oil/coal energy production at it's ugliest. Where ever the power comes from it is not going to be pretty.

I have a sister, she resides in Cordovia, Alaska, when she visits here EXON is not the fuel to use (remember the Valdiez?), Now we can add BP to the list - soon there will be no place to purchase fuel for a vehicle in good con-since. Even if we can power our car to get to the store and buy our goods - what fuel was used to get them there?

I truly feel for those inversely impacted by alternative energy, but where do we go without? Your world is changing as is the planets structure.

The fact is - we will run out of oil and we need to prepare for it as soon as possible, sure someone else is making a lot of money while causing you to suffer - the best revenge you can acquire is to ensure that as little of that money as possible comes from your pockets.

Got to go - two of my granddaughters just brought me birthday cupcakes warm from the oven - ya gotta love granddaughters.

I support alternative energy, but this rush to push it is not well thought out, the technology is not ready to support major production, and the environmental damage is massive on a scale that makes solar & wind more than just a pittance of the overall amount of energy this country sucks up.

Nuclear is a viable alternative, in my book. And why is it that every home owner isn't being subsidized to put PV panels on their roofs? That ground is already impacted, the transmission lines are already in place.

For the same reason that DC bailed Wall Street & not Main Street. Let's see, could we call it Economy of Scale? Crony Capitalism? Hmmm... those CEO salaries are right back through the roof. }=0P

I am not MIA … just busy LOL I still take time to read but it’s hard to get a word in edgewise around here sometimes.

Got the nursery moved and opened in the new location but still have a lot of work to do building the furniture and putting down the ground cloth and other such things. Worst part was I had to let the fall garden go so it’s back to store bought for a while.

I’ll be lurking around.

Lizard, good to have you pop in. 8D

Hey Lizard, know what you mean... my garden wasn't much beyond chard (ack, I'm sick of chard) so it's back to store bought for me, too. Talking to the guy down at our feed store, nobody's gotten tomatoes this year. The strange weather just didn't suit'em. Sure hope next year is a tomato year... we'll definitely be out of canned tomatoes by then. But we are good for canned greens!

Think I'll be putting up pickled beets today, making some borscht. Weather has been unseasonably warm & wonderful, so taking advantage of that. Still have the stove pipe to clean out before we need heat this year, got to weather seal the new deck... oh, more chores than I've got life in me. LOL

Sending a couple of ice chests of food down to some friends in Albq today.... one of the couple has developed paranoid schizophrenia & between the emotional chaos & the huge medical bills, they've pretty well been wiped out on all levels. They're receiving food stamps now, and we're doing what we can w/food from the garden plus. Somebody gave us a couple of crate-fulls of apples, so we've converted some of that into applesauce & apple pies & they're getting some of that. And canned greens, squash, soups & bread. And a frozen chicken left from last year's butchering... almost time for this years batch. It'll be nice to have freezer space again!

Hey Robin, thanks for the welcome. With the brutal summer we’ve had and all the other stuff going on I’m usually too tired to think when I come in. LOL. Must be a sign of old age or something.

I will try to get back in here on a more regular basis in the future.

Greetings Jay, glad to hear from you. Your wit and charm has been missed, not to mention the occasional dust up. LOL.

Our spring garden did pretty good this year with an abundance of new potatoes, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, tomatoes and the like but once it turned hot the garden was history. The colder than normal winter did wonders for the fruit production though, especially the plums, we had a bumper crop. I hope to have a new garden area up and running for next spring down by the nursery where it’s a lot shadier. With luck I can position it where it will get plenty of morning and mid-day sun and dappled shade in the afternoon. That afternoon sun is a killer for us down here.

I will get back with the rest of ya’ll later.

First frost predicted for early next week. According to my records, it's right on time. Geese came early to the lake this year, so I thought perhaps we'd get an early winter, but they just hung around. They started flying this week - again, right on schedule compared to prior years' observations... going to cut down and chop up some of the more ragged looking yellow squash plants and give them to the chickens. Some that are still producing well will get a blanket and hopefully survive a few more weeks before the frost comes to stay... garlic is in the ground - although for some reason, Fireball has leaped out of the ground and is a good 6 inches tall. They are planted as deep as the other varieties (Music, German Red, Inchilium Red), but the others have barely poked their tips out, if at all (this is what I'm used to seeing - then they stop growing around Thanks Giving and the little tips get mulched and grow again in the spring). Hope they will survive. They'll get mulched soon, but not 6 inches deep - so we'll see how they survive winter. This is my first time planting Fireball.

Charm! {{snort}} You've already put a laugh in my day, lizard. =-D

Seems like our weather has shifted... we're having our Sept weather now... light freeze every night, warm & sunny all day. Bit weird, but the greens are still going, which is a good thing, 'cause we're helping some folks out. I think I've got a bit of a charity CSA going here; friends just being visited by hell & high water.

Can't even imagine what sort of trouble I'll get into today.... lol
Here's one of the rutagagas I grew this year... big as my head! And still tender & sweet.

Jay, that baby is huge!

Sounds like we all had challenges with our gardens this year, with weather conditions so much different than what we were used to. Our high temps weren't out of the ordinary for this hilltop, but the lack of night cooling off was definitely a problem. Tomatoes started producing like crazy when the nights finally started dipping to the 60's or less a few weeks ago, with a lot of 40's mixed in there, plus 3 frosts so far. This is our 3rd year of drought conditions. Had almost 10" of rain in May, then less than 5" total since then. About half of the crops did great, while the other half was pretty sorry.

I finally got the 2nd tunnel put up yesterday over 3 rows. It covers most of the peppers. Today I'm going to try and get the last big tunnel put up over the eggplants and other potted plants. Still may put up a couple of single row low tunnels, if those things survived the frost overnight. Still planning on making a greenhouse out of the carport frame with the ripstop vinyl, but decided to wait till Hubby was here to help me.

Had lots of big plans while DH was offsite, but have accomplished very little of the list. One major project, which turned into two, was converting a 2' deep, 7' long closet into a pantry and stocking it. Wish it could have been with mostly homegrown produce....maybe next year. That project neccessitated a second project, which was cleaning out and organizing my little 6' x 8' shed, so I could move some of the stuff from the closet out there, and then some of the stuff from the little shed to the big shed. In the little shed, I lined the walls with plastic shelves filled with clear plastic sweater boxes to hold all of my craft supplies, bird & fish food/ supplies, tools we use most often around the house & backyard, plus DH's grilling supplies. Even have a nice little 3' x 2' little desk for working on craft projects. Now I have a fully stocked pantry and a nicely organized little shed. Pic is with the sliding doors removed.

Robin Rocks! Way to go, woman... :)

Don't know what caused that blue on the previous pic. Here's another one. I have completely filled out these shelves, since these pictures were taken.

Dang, I'm all impressed. You're an inspiration!

Thanks, Darius. I love it when a plan comes together...somewhat. I think at some point, I'll use those big wire shelves, but I wanted to make sure this was going to work for us being out of the kitchen.

There's just something so very satisfying about having a well-stocked pantry... even if bad weather doesn't hit. After some years, mine is pretty decent but sometimes I find I haven't used the older stuff first. Same for the freezer. I make lists of what's IN the freezers but somehow forget to mark off what I've taken out.

I don't like having so much frozen stuff though... I just cross my fingers that we don't have an extended power outage when it's above freezing outside. (I'd put my frozen stuff out in snow if possible, just have to stand guard against the opossums and loose dogs.)

Thanks, Jay. But I was inspired by Darius's pantry.

Had to go bookmark a couple of recipes quick, while they were still fresh on the foodnetwork website. Sheesh...I'll be turning into a regular little Suzy Homemaker before long, with a fully stocked pantry and lots of new recipes I've been collecting the last few weeks.

Well, I'm off to get that last tunnel put up and covered. I'll be glad when I'm done with that.

Speaking of winter... everybody got their supplies in--batteries, warmth, water, medicine-- to survive for a week or two if/when the power goes out this year?

Now, before the last minute rush when all the stores are out of what you need. =0)

I'm getting there. I bought a free standing ventless propane gas heater yesterday. Bought it for emergency heat and DH can use it in the big shed for heat this winter. Also have 2 kerosene heaters. From a couple of years ago, I have a solar lantern and a handcrank lantern with a radio and cell phone chargers. Don't have a solar charger for the computer yet, but I do have an inverter for the truck. Going to gather up the small propane heater, camp stove and propane lantern and start buying those small propane tanks. Also need to stock up on AA batteries again, but also thinking about a solar charger for all the rechargeable AA batteries we have. Have plenty of candles and stick matches. I'm going to start buying extra meat for the freezer next week. I am planning on building my solar window heater next week. Have gathered all of my supplies for that.

Two questions...do you think if we lost power during the winter, sleeping in a small tent in the house would help keep us warmer? I'm a little nervous about running fire producing heaters when we're sleeping. Our place is really small and there isn't much storage space in here, so I was thinking of storing store bought gallons of water in an unused fridge in a lean-to shelter. Think that would work? The shelf life would lbe onger I think. Plus if it froze, no big deal, I could just bring them in to thaw.

I agree, Darius. It's very comforting to have a stockpile. After I first started really working on stocking a couple of years, I find it really takes a lot of pressure off when DH is in-between jobs and money is tight. SInce we've been here in the country (8 years), we haven't been home whenever the weather has been really bad or during any power outages.

I got lucky with stocking this pantry. I have a salvage grocery nearby that I used for almost all of the dry goods and some of the bottled stuff that had only recently gone out of date. All of the canned goods and most of the bottled and jarred products I bought on sale.

Robin, I don't see why a tent wouldn't work... the idea is to enclose/contain heat, body or other (like the dogs) in a small-er space. If you don't have down sleeping bags, invest a few dollars in 2-3 mylar reflective sheets. They're only a $ or 2 each, and work great over blankets or bags.

Tent might be a good idea, but you can't heat them... all those sources you mention will asphyxiate you. Might think about making a warm room instead... rig up a way to hang an old blanket over the door & just heat the one room, kitchen is my preference. Remember to keep a window cracked when those heaters are running.

A warm room will help w/the mind, too. You'll still be able to move around, sit & read, stretch.

Those solar landscape lights make for good AA battery rechargers, just cycle your batteries through them, some inside being used, some outside getting recharged.

AS for the outside storage... seems like it would work, but drain a little of the water out of each container... remember, water expands as it freezes.

I'd suggest a kerosene lantern, I've been happier w/them than a candle, safer & burn longer. Even the cheapos at your local box store will work. I got one of the round burner ones from Lehman's last year & we love it. It's the light we wake up to in the winter. Puts out more light than a candle or basic lantern, but w/out the risk of the flare-ups that Alladin lanterns can have.

How are you planning on cooking? With the camp stove? Does it carry any warnings about using it in an enclosed space? They can be very dangerous if they do... like the old Coleman stoves, like I have.

Is your medicine cabinet ready?

Sounds like you're really thinking ahead... keep that up & you'll be so cozy come the power outage, you'll resent it when the power comes back! LOL

OH! And don't forget the critters... I have a bad tendency to let their food run down, but I try to stay a month ahead during the worst of winter.

Finally! 6 pints of pickled beets in the water bath. You know, it sure takes a lot of beets to make 6 pints! I had to go pull more & cook them up this morning to make a full load. I'll have to plant more next year; I don't think this batch will see us through a full year.

Think I'll tackle cleaning up the wood stove next... ugh.

Darius, I have the Mylar blankets already, but it's great you mentioned them, for those who haven't thought of them.

For cooking and using a propane camp stove, we have a counter right under an exhaust fan in the kitchen that we can open. It wouldn't run without power, but I think the fumes would probably draw out. So I'm not concern about cooking.

For heating, we don't run those kinds of heaters while sleeping. When we do use them, they sit in front of a window that is cracked open a bit. That's something people tend to not think about. We just threw extra blankets on the bed. The first winter here, we heated exclusively with a kerosene heater and it warmed the whole trailer (it's only 12' x 50'). Our trailer is set up so that every room has a big picture window facing south, so between them, the propane heater and if I make a couple of solar window heaters, we'll be in great shape for daytime heating. I've already made insulated curtains for half of our windows. Will be working on the other half soon.

For lighting, using the solar lights for charging is a great idea. Have to buy some new ones. Those rechargeable batteries I mentioned needing a charger for are from old solar lights that ceased to work. I need to bring the batteries in and charge them, to make sure they are still good. Have a kerosene lamp already.

Forgot dog food and the medicine cabinet.

Water...forgot about having to empty a bit out in case they freeze. Guess I need to find a place in the house to store them. I want to use purchased sealed gallons of water. Even using a filter pitcher, our water will turn green in less than a week.

I'm not totally prepared, but I'm getting there. I really appreciate all of the ideas and suggestions.

Way to go on the beets!

You could still get bottled water, just open & pour off a bit. My water goes green, too, but we don't drink it; it's so high in calcium, we'd get kidney stones in a week. LOL Propane stove shouldn't be a hazard... that's what my house stove is.

Don't forget the hot water bottles! I sleep much better w/warm feet... in fact, I need to get one myself. Can't bake a potato every night. LOL

I've been working on insulated curtains myself... well, thick fleece curtains, anyway. Makes a huge difference. =0)

I put plastic up the east face of the porch today. We use a kerosene heater and a small electric for all the heat in this apartment. Even with the plastic the porch is not tight enough to worry about fumes from the kerosene. A couple more pices of plastic & we will be ready for the impeding cold.

Darius - please drop me a d-mail. Need to talk to you about another project.

I'm making all of my curtains out of off-white sheets and blankets. Yes, it really helps. Even made one for the front door. In a thread a year or two ago, we discussed using the mylar blankets cut to fit in-between the 2 layers and maybe securing with double sided tape or velcro.

Good idea on the hot water bottles.

Dyson, it's too late now to mention this after you already started, but I found crystal clear plastic 7' x 15' for $10 or so. It was at least 6 mil, don't remember for sure. I'm going to cover the open front of the lean-to with it.

I finally got the 3rd big tunnel up. WhooHoo!

Using some 6 mil plastic I picked up at Walmart - not totally clear but will give us some privacy on the porch - it was around 20.00 for 10' x 20'. The screen I am covering is 4' x 36' so is working well for the area.

Fortunately we don’t have the extreme cold and snow that ya’ll do, so we don’t have to prepare as much for winter where we are. Hurricane season is when we prepare.

My granny, who lived in west Texas, didn’t have heat in her house. During the winter the only room that was kept warm was a large kitchen. Body heat and the heat form the cook stove kept it toasty all day. For sleeping she had feather beds and quilts on all the beds. These would keep you nice and comfortable even when the temperature was below freezing inside the house. As a kid I remember putting the cloths you planned to wear the next day under the covers at the foot of your bed so they would be warm when you got up in the morning. The trick was to jump out of bed, get your pants on and then make a dash for the kitchen to finish dressing. The bathroom was a nightmare. During the day wasn’t too bad because the toilet was used often enough or the temperature was above freezing in the house that it wouldn’t freeze solid. At night the water was turned off and drained so the bowl wouldn’t freeze and break. You just prayed that you didn’t have to go during the night. This is how I was introduced to the mysteries of a chamber pot at a very early age LOL. For reasons my dad and I still don’t understand, granny refused to put a heater in there. She thought that was the most bizarre thing she had ever heard of.
When the power was out, usually during an ice storm, lighting wasn’t a problem since everyone went to bed with the chickens anyway. It was always an adventure to go visit her winter or summer.

My dad went to Sears one especially cold winter and bought her a gas heater for the living room, hooked it up, and showed her how to light it. I think that was the only time it was ever used. She died in 1979 at 104 years old and never changed the way she lived.

As to all the suggestions made in the previous posts on keeping warm and cooking, I would suggest making or buying good deep feather beds and some good quilts for sleeping. For heating I would seal up the kitchen except for one window that must be cracked open a minimum of ½ to ¾ of an inch so you don’t use all the oxygen in the room and suffocate. She had a natural gas cook stove so cooking and heating the kitchen was never a problem. If you cook with electricity, a small propane heater and camp stove should serve you well when the power fails. Propane is safe to use inside the house as long as a window is cracked to allow the oxygen consumed by breathing and the fire of the heater/cook stove to be replaced. For the bathroom a small propane heater, with a cracked open window, should make things pleasant.

Sorry for the long post but I thought I would give ya’ll something else to think about.

Y'all have covered lots of ground here! Preparedness is a favorite subject of mine and there have been lots of good ideas suggested. I grew up in the frozen tundra of MN and the one thing that helped in the winter was flannel sheets on the beds. We had a wood burning cookstove and would heat bricks on the stove. We would wrap the bricks in newpaper at bedtime and tuck them in for foot warmers. They would usually still be warm in the morning.

The suggestion to cover the windows is excellent as that is obviously a point that radiates cold. In normal use, if you place bookshelves on outside walls, that will add insulation and in house design, closets on north walls provide added temperature barriers. If you have access to recycled bubblewrap, the windows could be covered with that or the curtains lined with it to be more enery efficient.

Firewood is our main source of heat if power goes out and I have a pair of Aladdin lamps we have used for 20 years or more. I had ordered spare mantles last Feb and after a lengthy backorder just received them. I also stock an ample supply of strike anywhere kitchen matches. The Aladdin lamps add an amazing amount of heat as well as the brilliance of a 60 watt light bulb to read by. The flare ups Jayryunen mentioned can be avoided by watching the Aladdin closely while the mantle heats and then adjusting the flame accordingly. The practicality of it is minimal kero use as the flame can be very low while still providing a brighter usable light. Although I admit I love all kerosene lamps. I do hate to use them when it is warm (like hurricane outages) because of the heat and then, the solar lights will provide adequate ambient lighting. I do keep a solar battery charger too providing the sun shines.

MsRobin ~ I like your pantry. There is such a feeling of security in a well stocked pantry. You have reminded me that I need to clean mine out and inventory it. The depth of the shelves in mine allow things to be pushed to the back and forgotten. That is a job I dread. Yours is an excellent design.

I would not be scared to drink green water as long as I knew the source was safe. It grows algae when exposed to light so if you store them on shelves, hang a dark sheet or blanket across the shelving to protect from sunlight. If needed, the water can be treated safely for consumption using clorox in this dosage.

I had forgotten about using bubble-wrap on windows. The windows in the house where I lived in Asheville were single-pane windows, and every winter, I'd tape on bubble-wrap. I recently read somewhere you can cut the bubble-wrap to the exact size and apply it with a film of water, just like the reflective films.

I love feather comforters/blankets; even the cheapo ones work well. I put mine in duvet covers, easier to wash than the comforter itself! I also have a very old Hudson Bay 4 point blanket. A real one, not thin like the ones made today! It is too thick and warm to use unless it's nearly freezing inside. I bought it at a yard sale for $5 because it had 5-6 tiny moth holes!

I still think the best 'survival tool' to have on hand is a water filter capable of filtering potable water even from a mud puddle. I bought 2 Black Berkey filters and made mine out of 2 food-grade buckets that once held icing at a deli.

Robin... are you making solar window collectors something like this? I've seen them in action back in the 1970's... pretty nifty!

Great links, Darius. And I've added your blog to my bookmarks... yummy!
Today I tackle the woodstove... dang, there's a cold breeze out there! Gonna let it warm up a bit before I climb on the roof.

Dyson, I thought about the need for some privacy after I posted. Nice size porch you have there!

Lizard's_Keep, love the story about your Granny.

Podster, thanks for posting those directions. I now have it in a folder of stuff to print.

When I started on the pantry, I was working with things I already had around here, since I didn't know exactly what I needed for our needs. The shelves and crates on their sides are only 11" deep, which seems to be enough depth, so as not to lose stuff in the back, but there's still a number of other items that I would like to stock if I had more space. I have 2 of those little wire carts (approximately 10" x 14" x 30" high) that will easily roll across the front of the closet to make the shelves behind them easily accessible. I think there's enough space to use 3 or 4 of them. Ultimately, I want to replace the sliding doors with doors that open out, so that I can use those vinyl shoe pockets on the inside of the doors to hold small things, or products that I only need 2-3 of each.

This is a favorite subject of mine, too. Not only preparing for emergencies, but just having the option that if we have to cut back on our expenses for whatever reason, that we could still be reasonably comfortable. We have a lot of the things that we would need, I just have to find a place to keep it all together and easily accessible.

I've been thinking of places in the house, where I could store gallons of water. Since I moved all of the surplus food out of the kitchen, I could rearrange things and be able to store 6-8 milk crates (4 gals each) under the sink counter on an outside north wall and 4-6 crates in the bottom of the front interior entry closet.

I really want a woodstove, and one is planned for the large room addition, if and when we ever get it built. I'm trying to convince DH of the advantages of having a greenhouse addition built onto the south side of our place, not only for growing and harvesting winter produce, but for the massive daytime heat generator. Starting with the solar window heater...baby steps. LOL

Darius, that's it. The plans I found from builditsolar.com looked to be the easiest for me to build and I think those plans came from Mother Earth News online. I already had the plywood and corragated metal (for the heat absorber).

Need to go catch up on your blog.

Jay, I really admire everything you do around your place.

This message was edited Oct 17, 2010 10:02 AM

Oops, the previous plans are from Maine Solar Energy Association. Here is the link to MEN's version: http://www.motherearthnews.com/Do-It-Yourself/1977-09-01/Mothers-Heat-Grabber.aspx

Somewhere I saw a diagram where the bottom of one of these was screwed to wooden stakes in the ground at the bottom sides, high enough to protect the bottom wood from rotting.

Cool! I'd consider those window collectors for this house except the windows where they would work are shaded by the long porch. No windows on either end except mine... which is in the pantry where I don't want heat.

I must have 50+ OOP books from the 1970's on all kinds of DIY solar, everything from beadwall, bottle walls, window augments, breadbasket (batch) water heaters... and more. Too bad we chucked all that knowledge when gas became cheap and available again... and solar credits went bye-bye.

Our house is well enough insulated, that the windows do a good job keeping it warm while the sun is hitting them. Unfortunately, the window side of the house is facing SE, so though it warms up nicely in the morning, we don't get much help in the afternoon. No windows at all on the SW end.

This year I'm working towards creating "windows" between each room. We've got a pitched ceiling in our house, so all the heat hangs out up there. We do have a ceiling fan that moves it around a bit, but as it's one way through the doors, it's not that efficient at moving the heat into the rooms off the main room. I'm hoping to get better circulation of the heat by putting small openings up high towards the ceiling. Then there'll be the possibility of 2-way air movement.

I got the stovepipe cleaned this am; what a messy job. Had to take the fire brick out of the wood stove to get it really clean & that entailed kinking my whole body in unnatural & unpleasant positions. Ah, DIY... yoga for the cheap. LOL My arms ended up blackened by soot to the shoulder. But it's done, and we can light a fire w/out the SO driving me nutz w/her worrying. Now to hang the laundry & get a few more blows in on that wood pile!

OH, and drying potatoes... think I'll do that after the laundry.

I want to do something like this on the back (south facing) wall of the big shed. http://www.michiganenergyoptions.org/component/content/article/79-sustainableeducationhandbook/180-build-your-own-solar-air-collector

This picture shows a more elaborate solar window heater. It's also from builditsolar.com

Photo didn't enlarge.

The link shows what is called a Trombe Wall, only that one is not part of the house, but it's the same principle.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trombe_wall
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.multiwallsystems.com/Princeton%2520Trombe%2520Wall.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.multiwallsystems.com/&h=749&w=1053&sz=87&tbnid=aBBtAu3ukQV4-M:&tbnh=107&tbnw=150&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dtrombe%2Bwall&zoom=1&q=trombe+wall&usg=__lID1N4Fa3GokRxLnEH6byiaaiL8=&sa=X&ei=oke7TPStCIH7lwed88HLDQ&ved=0CCIQ9QEwAg

One form of passive solar heating that has always fascinated me is phase change materials, i.e. eutetic salt like Glauber's Salt, or even water.

Phase change materials give off heat as they change their phase. For example, at the moment water turns to ice, it also gives off heat. Water also gives off heat as it changes to steam (not including the heat of the steam itself).

I saw a photo of a room that had tall black plastic tubes about 6-8" in diameter and tall as the room on a wall opposite the windows so they didn't block the view. They were nicely trimmed between them with an attractive wood, making a wall of nearly hemispherical shapes framed in wood. When the sun hit them (mostly the lower portion), it heated the materials inside which stored the heat. Eventually the salts gained enough heat to change phase, giving off heat much of the night until they cooled and changes phase again.

There are (or were) rooms heated by water in larger, clear tubes but the heat gained and given off was small compared to the Glauber's Salts.

I just added a bucket of smashed charcoal from the wood stove to my compost tumbler...
Is there any more info on biochar in alkaline soils? And what are the general guidelines for amount to add per square foot of garden (or something like that). I read the articles on your blog & here, but didn't see that (which doesn't mean it's not there... %- )

And have you noticed that as your brix goes up, you get more varmints 'sharing' your garden? I already have a heck of a time w/gophers. I don't need 'em tweeting their friends to "come on down!" LOL

Jay, I'm developing an expanded theory on Brix... not there yet. Somewhere I mentioned application/coverage but no one really knows. I just add a bunch every spring, sifted from my fireplace ashes collected all winter. This year I haven't done that task yet and spring is long past... but I need to do it before I start using the stove daily.... I need the galvanized trash can empty!

I don't have many critter problems because I generally work with the Nature Spirits and allow 10% to them... NOT 10% of each fruit, but 10% of the total. The Stink Bugs apparently didn't get the message this year and got my tomatoes instead! (Machelle Small Wright has written a lot on the subject of working with Nature over the last 30 years... her website is Perelandra Ltd., don't have the URL handy.)