VegHead
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Post by VegHead on May 18, 2015 18:12:40 GMT 10
Two simple pics of our BOV. I have since sold the HF radio and the plates are from another State I lived in for a number of years. It's a Carry Me Camper on the tray which we use almost every 4-6 weeks. This rig has held us in good stead since 2007. Veg.
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VegHead
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Post by VegHead on May 15, 2015 11:32:11 GMT 10
I have the following seedlings in the hothouse up and running ready for planting out when the Moon Calendar date aligns for them (starting on the 20th).
Celery, cabbage, kale, cauliflower, brown onion, silverbeet, and strawberry.
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VegHead
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Post by VegHead on May 12, 2015 8:26:52 GMT 10
Picked these yesterday so these are what are currently growing very nicely
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VegHead
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Post by VegHead on May 5, 2015 16:33:02 GMT 10
Helped her out by completing the survey. Very benign.
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VegHead
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Post by VegHead on May 4, 2015 19:05:48 GMT 10
Sounds good from us as well.
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VegHead
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Post by VegHead on Apr 30, 2015 8:05:45 GMT 10
Bilycart pig manure is okay just not as rich as other choices. If you can, put the pigs onto the new beds and let them root and turn it all over .... that's how we do our large beds. In fact, our three pigs have just come off the main patch and are now in the maize patch and when they've finished there that maize patch will become this seasons potato growing area. Always try and use animals to do the labour!!
Seasol is a conditioner/tonic not a fertiliser, but great for its intended purpose.
Collecting seaweed here (SW Vic) is not a problem and many farmers pick up the odd ute loads for their veg patches.
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VegHead
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Post by VegHead on Apr 29, 2015 19:46:22 GMT 10
Hi Jay, no need to wash seaweed from the beach, believe it or not, just get it onto/into the soil. I tend to place it on top of the soil and let it 'mature', maybe six months, and then dig it in. Great stuff. A bit of a tip, make sure what you collect is fairly dry first, above the high tide mark if possible would be best.
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VegHead
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Post by VegHead on Apr 29, 2015 16:44:18 GMT 10
Absolutely ... seaweed is the missing ingredient
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VegHead
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Post by VegHead on Apr 29, 2015 16:05:48 GMT 10
Hi bilycart.
Animal manures: pigeon poo is the best of them all but hard to get unless you know a fancier. I use sheep poo, well aged from under shearing sheds, for my veg. I also make actively aerated compost teas and use liquid manures, from sheep or cattle, but not chicken. The teas are foliar sprayed and the liquid manure is just thrown on willy-nilly every week. I do use chicken litter as well, however I pass this through a shredder/mulcher and the place in a composting cycle which seems to work very well.
For the veg bed preparation it's a follows. After a full season of growing I use a 27" broad fork and break up all compaction. I add amendments such as dolomite lime, manures, etc. whatever is needed for the proceeding crops. I water heavily and deeply for a few days and then lay a very deep covering of bean straw mulch over the top. Liquid manure is applied every two weeks thereafter. At planting time I remove ALL the mulch and gently till over the surface to two inches and no more, adding any further amendments as required. Then I plant. Once the seedlings are well established I may replace some of the mulch, by which time has aged really well and has a abundant microbes and fungi already present. Any vacant, non-growing areas are always, always heavily, mulched. My friends are incredulous as to how little we water, too, due to this method.
I plant by the Moon Calendar as I find it works well for me. Please PM me for any further info as I'd be only too glad to pass on specific crop tips. Grow lots of comfrey and use that to make your liquid manures - the stuff is pure gold!!!
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VegHead
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Post by VegHead on Apr 28, 2015 16:29:52 GMT 10
Hi Shiny, yes we do grow our own cereal crops. We are about to put in an acre of cereal oats this week, rain depending. Red wheat later in the year and barley too.
bilycart, give me five and I'll answer you q's. We are moving pigs and burning of at the mo.
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VegHead
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Post by VegHead on Apr 28, 2015 7:37:15 GMT 10
The simple answer is much less than you think.
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VegHead
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Post by VegHead on Apr 11, 2015 20:48:32 GMT 10
+1 Frosty!
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Post by VegHead on Apr 10, 2015 16:14:38 GMT 10
This week planted out two cultivars of garlic (enough for two years supply), carrots, turnips.
In the hothouse in soil blocks/seed trays are onion, kale, beetroot, mizuna, Swiss chard, silverbeet, and Kohl Rabi.
In the ground are peas, broad beans, carrots, celery, potato, spring onion, french beans, capsicum and chilli.
StepfordRenegade: I plant my potatoes late August through to late September her in southern Vic using either the traditional trench method or buy just 'dibbling' a deep hole and dropping the tuber in. I do not cut my seed into pieces nor do I chit them. I always plant into ground that has had a green manure crop grown then chopped, dropped and dug in with the ground rested for about one to two months. I use no fertiliser nor do I water the rows once they seed is in the ground. As for sun, I often grow patches of spuds in full shade to no detriment. Hope that all helps.
Veg.
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VegHead
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Post by VegHead on Mar 26, 2015 12:07:09 GMT 10
Well said Gaz.
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VegHead
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Post by VegHead on Mar 21, 2015 19:43:56 GMT 10
Woo Hoo, I sense then the 'enterprise' is well on it's way. Well done to you
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VegHead
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Post by VegHead on Mar 7, 2015 11:47:31 GMT 10
In the ground we have celery, tomatoes, cucumber, zucchini, cabbage, broccoli, leeks, beans (French and broad), Jerusalem artichokes, banana, banana passionfruit, chillies, radish, carrot, spring onions, and summer squash. This morning I did up a number of seed trays in the hothouse using home-made soil blocks and seeded the following: Rainbow Swiss chard, Fordhook Giant silver beet, Detroit Beetroot, Mizuna asian lettuce, cauliflower and two varieties of kohl rabi. This afternoon I will be pickling our pickling onions, yay, all 14 kgs of them And after fractus's post on purslane then that's now on my radar!!
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VegHead
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Post by VegHead on Mar 7, 2015 9:48:38 GMT 10
I would like to add support to peter1942's post.
Firstly, we too would have not called ourselves preppers. When we decided that our lives were not going in any direction that was favourable to us we left paid employment forever and moved to the country to begin a life of subsistence farming, our 'resilient life'. It has taken us a few years to get to where we are now but the journey still leaves us speechless at times. We have no plans to bug out per se, but we do have a major bushfire evac plan in place. Our very small farm supports us in vegetables, fruits, and meats (we do our own butchering, too) all year round with weekly surplus for neighbours and Legacy people. We preserve the harvests, save the seed, grow our own stock feeds, cut wood for the wood stove, harvest all our water, nourish the soils, care for our environment ... but most importantly reliance on outside sources is very, very small.
All our meat futures have their own sustainability inherently built in. That is, the chickens are supported by a rooster or two, the sheep by their ram, the ducks and geese similar (piglets are supplied by a local farm, but that was to theme of an earlier post). The bees live in Top Bar bee hives and as such these are a simple DIY build and swarms are mostly present when required. We try and model our lives around closed-loop systems: nothing leaves the property (if possible) and the farm is supported with very minimal inputs from outside. Our food and our life support systems (shelter, cooking, etc) are already in place, supporting us (and others) with the skills already gained (and gaining) to support such an existence.
Petroleum issues would cause us problems in the short term, but we have back-ups in place. For example, I have a tractor with a rotary hoe. No fuel? Get the broad fork out and do the same work by hand. Sure it's hard work but that work is not insurmountable once the skill in using such tools is attained. Water pumps need electricity (fresh and bore) so we get out the hand pumps or use gravity. The bore supplies the sewage flushing water so we would go to the composting toilet (which is in the planning stage to be built btw). Transport? Still have a pair of legs plus an electric assisted bicycle, plus the means to make bio diesel and ethanol although truly I wouldn't bother as both require electricity to make!
Although I no longer have a paid job we do not have our hand out to the government, but this creates a new paradigm in that I do not pay much tax so many would say that I am a burden on society. I say phooey to this, I've paid my dues don't you worry about that. I do live off a very small pension, however, but this was earned through the DFRDB system and I do pay a small amount of tax on this also.
If the grid goes down we can get around that too. No, we are not off-grid but our home is supplied by grid-connected PV arrays and our hot water is also solar. I the grid goes down we move over to our Aladdin lamps and wind-up torches for lighting, hot water would be supplied by the wood stove as would all our heating and cooking needs (plus there's always the fire pit option outside).
Most people in our area know how we live and why, and in a SHTF scenario the old joke of “we’d be coming to you” is actually a comfort to hear: these other rural people also have valuable skills, labour, and contacts that can all be utilised post-SHTF and still one of the best ways to network out here is to simply ask .... many contacts and life-long friends have come out of this.
peter1942 said ”I will not back down from a comment that I have made on more than one occasion on this site and that is I believe that if you are serious about surviving any situation that involves a failure of the system as we know it you should already be living where, and the lifestyle, you believe you have the best chance of surviving that situation.”
So thanks for that statement peter and we’re glad you won’t back down from it ... as it sums up quite simply why we gave away our consumer-addicted world, moved to where we now reside and venture forth on the life path that we have chosen to lead.
Good cheer,
Veg.
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VegHead
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Post by VegHead on Mar 6, 2015 21:12:35 GMT 10
My major concern is of Economic Collapse and I therefore prep by:
growing our own plant (vegetables, fruits and cereal crops) and meat (chicken, duck, goose, pig, and sheep) futures; preserving the harvest (both plant and animal including honey from our hive); hunting for food both land, sea and river based and having ready access to areas that support that hunting thereof; learning (and having acquired) skills required to keep our small-holding running (fencing, electrical, plumbing, mechanical, animal husbandry, etc) maintaining the 'village' network at all times (bartering and friendship - access to raw milk, beef meat - and skills we haven't yet acquired).
Cheers,
Veg.
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VegHead
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Post by VegHead on Feb 28, 2015 16:51:17 GMT 10
Well that sounds like a grand plan fractus. Are you going to pursue this as an enterprise?
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VegHead
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Post by VegHead on Feb 28, 2015 12:16:59 GMT 10
Hi mate, did have a look at Wagners, but a long way to travel to get them, even at 70cents (which is a bargain btw).
Forgot to add to your earlier email re the ducks. We are building our ducks stocks up, too; Indian Runners, Khaki Campbells and bantam Appleyards. All are destined for the table.
We would like to breed up our own chicken stocks, but would like to get a few dozen on the ground as well as our Light Sussex and Australorps are slow to mature.
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