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Self Sufficient Gardening / DIY Gardening
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27-02-2012 10:17pm#1As many of you know, I enjoy a bit of GIY!
Now, I don't believe in buying every little thing from a supplier, quite the opposite, I believe in buying the bare minimum. My own personal interest isn't based specifically in the survivalism relm, but it is intended to be as self sufficient as possible.
So to get the ball rolling, I'm going to quickly detail some of the DIY things I do, I won't go into detail but if you want to know more about something, please ask and hopefully we can get a DIY gardening discussion going!
1. Here's how I analyse my land:
Squeeze test: This includes digging up some soil and squeezing it, depending on how the ball holds/ falls apart, this will indicate the type of soil.
Fertility test: Dig a small hole, look for soil helping organisms eg. worms.
Look at what grows naturally, eg.nettles indicate fertile soil which has many nutrients.
Drainage: Dig a hole, wait for rain
. You can fill the hole with water, however this does not mimic natural drainage as the quantity of water is likely much greater than rain.
2. Helper plants / other stuff!
Comfrey: I have a main plant which I grow in a large pot in the greenhouse (this is my main plant), children plants are planted at the sides of the compost bin to drink up the nutrients which are leeched from the bin. Brilliant for fertilizer, tea, compost activator etc.etc.
Nettles: I have a nettle patch growing, I grow them in an otherwise unusable patch in the garden. Brilliant for making liquid fertilizer.
Compost Bin: need I say more?!
A drying system for grass/weeds: As anyone with a compost bin will know, its hard to get enough brown material, I made a raised bed with old pallets, which I fill with grass cuttings, pulled weeds etc. This is covered by 2 old glass patio doors, this creates a drying box to dry out these things before using them as brown matter for the compost bin.
Homebrew fertilizer: Many 2lt milk bottles, brewing nettle, comfrey and tea fertilizer.
Rainwater harvesting system : In the pipeline, currently have 2 old wheelie bins which are awaiting the transformation into this. plus 1 blue barrel.
I also have a few "experiments" growing in the garden, but thats for another post!7
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baords dyslexic wrote: »I think its really quite simple if you want to be Self Sufficient in food and live in Ireland you need to grow a Sh!T load of spuds. Thats the long and short of it! Lets say you are working hard outside most of the day and need 3000 (3k) calories so thats going to require you to eat seven and a half pounds of spuds if you don't have any other calorie rich food source. At that rate in a year you'll eat your way through at least 2700 pounds of potatoes, 2700 pounds of potatoes is nearly One and a Half Tons.
OK so thats a big generalisation but if you don't grow potatoes what else are you going to eat that stores well, grows well in Ireland and provides a lot of caloires if the SHTF and you are left to grow your own?
I think choosing potatoes as a primary food/calorie source has already shown to have disasterous consequences.
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baords dyslexic wrote: »I think its really quite simple if you want to be Self Sufficient in food and live in Ireland you need to grow a Sh!T load of spuds. Thats the long and short of it! Lets say you are working hard outside most of the day and need 3000 (3k) calories so thats going to require you to eat seven and a half pounds of spuds if you don't have any other calorie rich food source. At that rate in a year you'll eat your way through at least 2700 pounds of potatoes, 2700 pounds of potatoes is nearly One and a Half Tons.
OK so thats a big generalisation but if you don't grow potatoes what else are you going to eat that stores well, grows well in Ireland and provides a lot of caloires if the SHTF and you are left to grow your own?
I think choosing potatoes as a primary food/calorie source has already shown to have disasterous consequences. 0 -
baords dyslexic wrote: »I think its really quite simple if you want to be Self Sufficient in food and live in Ireland you need to grow a Sh!T load of spuds?
You'd want to stock up on Sh!t loads of Dithane if thats the plan. I grew about that much last year an about 20% rotted in the ground because of the wet
. Been thinking of Jerusalem artichokes, planted a few last year and it went ok. 0 -
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Ophiopogon wrote: »I think choosing potatoes as a primary food/calorie source has already shown to have disasterous consequences.
So what else can you grow in Ireland that will provide you with the calorie intake?
And say you've had a while to get yourself sorted out what could you have grown yourself and be eating now at the end of February?0 -
You'd want to stock up on Sh!t loads of Dithane if thats the plan. I grew about that much last year an about 20% rotted in the ground because of the wet. Been thinking of Jerusalem artichokes, planted a few last year and it went ok.
Add that to one of the reasons for needing a gas mask
I'm only posing the question about potatoes because it gives an idea of the scale of growing thats necessary to sustain yourself and is feasable provided you have some understanding of how to minimise the effects of phytophthora infestans.0 -
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Ophiopogon wrote: »It depends on what your resources are (with a polytunnel alot could still be growing, but potatoes are not the only veg that stores esp if you add in canning etc. It does not matter what your knowledge is re blight, banking on one veg would never work.
Also,you wouldn't only be eating veg to make your calories...milk, eggs,meat etc.
Sorry I wouldn't make the same point in the gardening forum but because this is the Survivalism and Self Sufficiency forum I'm making a more extreme point than I might otherwise. I'm trying to see what alternatives there are and people think they have when many would start out with nothing and then have to grow something to survive.
btw I didn't mean to sound clever saying phytophthora infestans instead of potato blight, I was trying to find a refernce to the type of blight that destroyed the potato crops in the famine to have died out itself but couldn't find the refernce I was looking for (so I was probably wrong) and editing what I started to write left me with phytophthora infestans 0 -
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baords dyslexic wrote: »Sorry I wouldn't make the same point in the gardening forum but because this is the Survivalism and Self Sufficiency forum I'm making a more extreme point than I might otherwise. I'm trying to see what alternatives there are and people think they have when many would start out with nothing and then have to grow something to survive.
TBH I don't really get where your coming from, you seem to be saying the only way to surrvive is to grow potatoes. I'm saying this would not work.
If you have the resources to grow potatoes you prob have the resources to grow something else as well.
I thought the point of this thread was to share self sufficient tips.0 -
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I'm not a particularly knowledgeable gardener myself to be honest, lets say I wanted to get seeds and start preparing now, what types of seeds and what proportions of them would you recommend?
Depends on what area you have and how many people you have to feed.
At the moment I'm very short on space but I also only have two people to grow for. There are a number of plants you can grow successionally so for instance for us I sow 10/12 lettuce seeds every two weeks so I should have a consent supply. I've started broad beans but I've only sown 6 seeds as it's a new variety, I sown a load of basil as well. I will be sowing a large amount of tomatoes this year as I want to try canning.This year I think I will only grow carrots,beetroot, chilli, courgettes, broad beans, a number of herbs and salads.
I'm hoping to get my hands on some land and build my own polytunnel and when this happens I will increase my veg output.
If you have enough land than all you have to do is work out exactly how much you would eat. I actually don't like potatoes so even if I have the land I would prob only have a few token plants. Or in the case of carrots, you could say one seed produces one carrot but at the same time if you sow 10 seeds, you may have to thin out 4/5 leaving you with 5/6 carrots.
If you really do want to grow something these year you may need to get started on it now...would you know what you want to grow?
I actually focus more on flowers as I want to increase the biodiversity of my urban area esp as I have no bloody room.0 -
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Here is a question for those in the know with growing.
If I plant an acre of the humble spud to be prepared, would I have to harvest the whole crop or could it be planted and left for a period of time? In other words would a potato crop self sustain for a few years?
How about carrots, swede, turnip etc?
For about ten years I grew at least half a tonne of main crop spuds and up to a quarter tonne of earlies.
While its bl00dy difficult to get rid of volunteer spuds (those that come up in the following year in another crop) they don't last well left over winter in the soil. So if you planted an acre left it and came back 2 years later you'd might not have much and you'd be compounding any pest and disease problems, so even any you rescued might not even be good for seed. You'd be better off planting just a few and digging them up each year and keeping them all for seed the following year. If you want to plant something edible and almost indestructible then the already mentioned Jerusalem artichoke is to my mind a bomb proof weed that you can leave in the soil but still better if regulary dug and replanted - Chinese artichokes are good but not seen them in years. The effects of Jerusalem artichokes on the human body are well known, one place I worked they were often refered to as fartichokes.
I think I mentioned in another thread that you should be using fresh seed potatoes as they are grown in conditions that mean they should be virus free and pest free, just like tomatoes potatoes pick up viruses transfered by aphids very easily. That said I grew King Edwards (the worst for Blight) from our own seed many years. Potato Cyst Nematode (eelworm) will also become a problem over time, fresh certified seed potatoes should be eelworm free.
Crop rotation is good but I'd be doing it with most crops to reduce the pest (eelworms for one) and disease problems and not so much because the soil gets nutrient deficient (still a good reason). Living by the sea and keeping chickens makes putting something back quite easy (seaweed and chicken **** and a composted mix of the two). I'd go as far and try and have a 4 year crop rotation as it will help deal with eelworms and many other crop specific pests but that needs quite an area. Lime isn't good for potatoes so I used follow with brassicas after potatoes in the rotation and pump the soil (which was acid in the garden I grew all the spuds in) full of lime, then it would be another 3 or more years before potatoes were grow in the same spot.
Carrots suede turnips parsnips or almost any root crop will rot away over winter, be eaten by pests and if they get to flowering in the second year will then die right off. Scorzerona is sometimes grown on for a second year or more and that might also apply to Salsify.
btw I said the long and short of it is you need to grow a sh!t load of spuds not that you shouldn't grow anything else.
I've not grow a lot of potatoes for a few years as its easier to buy them in Lidl but this year I'm going to try and grow some first earlies in wire cages full of just fresh seaweed to see how it goes - thats if the seaweed I've got my eye on on the beach doesn't wash away before the weekend . Might be a total failure but I'd like to see if it works or not. 0 -
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baords dyslexic wrote: »I've not grow a lot of potatoes for a few years as its easier to buy them in Lidl
This is the challenge for modern prepping, with a full time job and small family growing anything but a small crop for a bit of fun and experience is impossible given the effort involved.
I guess stocking up on seeds and having 12 months of stored food is the only real option. However our best source of food the humble spud from a quick google seams a challenge to store as a seed long term.0 -
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the wheelie bin water but is brill.evilmonkee wrote: »As many of you know, I enjoy a bit of GIY!
Now, I don't believe in buying every little thing from a supplier, quite the opposite, I believe in buying the bare minimum. My own personal interest isn't based specifically in the survivalism relm, but it is intended to be as self sufficient as possible.
So to get the ball rolling, I'm going to quickly detail some of the DIY things I do, I won't go into detail but if you want to know more about something, please ask and hopefully we can get a DIY gardening discussion going!
1. Here's how I analyse my land:
Squeeze test: This includes digging up some soil and squeezing it, depending on how the ball holds/ falls apart, this will indicate the type of soil.
Fertility test: Dig a small hole, look for soil helping organisms eg. worms.
Look at what grows naturally, eg.nettles indicate fertile soil which has many nutrients.
Drainage: Dig a hole, wait for rain . You can fill the hole with water, however this does not mimic natural drainage as the quantity of water is likely much greater than rain.
2. Helper plants / other stuff!
Comfrey: I have a main plant which I grow in a large pot in the greenhouse (this is my main plant), children plants are planted at the sides of the compost bin to drink up the nutrients which are leeched from the bin. Brilliant for fertilizer, tea, compost activator etc.etc.
Nettles: I have a nettle patch growing, I grow them in an otherwise unusable patch in the garden. Brilliant for making liquid fertilizer.
Compost Bin: need I say more?!
A drying system for grass/weeds: As anyone with a compost bin will know, its hard to get enough brown material, I made a raised bed with old pallets, which I fill with grass cuttings, pulled weeds etc. This is covered by 2 old glass patio doors, this creates a drying box to dry out these things before using them as brown matter for the compost bin.
Homebrew fertilizer: Many 2lt milk bottles, brewing nettle, comfrey and tea fertilizer.
Rainwater harvesting system : In the pipeline, currently have 2 old wheelie bins which are awaiting the transformation into this. plus 1 blue barrel.
I also have a few "experiments" growing in the garden, but thats for another post!0 -
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the drifter wrote: »How suitable is a conservatory for growing some salads such as lettuce indoors?
Very, you need to try it out to get it right though. Main problems can be excessive heat in a locked up conservatory and you may need use some shading after about April 1st (fools day for those that don't). If you have automatic blinds then that might be really good.
Also depends on which way the conservatory faces? I'd have one on the north side of a house for growing stuff for the garden but most are on the south side and get too hot in the summer.0 -
baords dyslexic wrote: »Very, you need to try it out to get it right though. Main problems can be excessive heat in a locked up conservatory and you may need use some shading after about April 1st (fools day for those that don't). If you have automatic blinds then that might be really good.
Also depends on which way the conservatory faces? I'd have one on the north side of a house for growing stuff for the garden but most are on the south side and get too hot in the summer.
Thanks for the reply...mine faces south east it gets a lot of sun and can be very warm in the summer time.
My other option is an attic room which gets warm but its well shaded.0 -
the drifter wrote: »Thanks for the reply...mine faces south east it gets a lot of sun and can be very warm in the summer time.
My other option is an attic room which gets warm but its well shaded.
I'd go for the conservatory but remember that lettuce seed won't germinate when its too hot so put them somewhere not in full sun to start with then you could improve the conditions by growing your pots/trays.growbags on a large tray (no holes) full of pea gravel or sand and keep it very wet so you get a more humid enviroment around the plants, you can even get growbag and larger sized trays. Other advice is to water the carpet when it gets hot
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Obviously watering might also be a more of a problem in a hot conservatory and where I'd expect to water only once a day you might need to water at least 2 or twice. Again obvious if you've gardened for a bit but you water the compost not the plants and if you have to water from overhead then you don't do that in full sun.0 -
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