I was feeling a bit sore and punky after my big work day last week. The blustery weather did not help with my attitude or aches and pains. I went over my seed starts and added more seeds to some of the little pots that had not germinated. I also added some small individual pots for some of the tomatoes as my Napadeno peppers have done outstanding in those little pots. I finally have some of the mini-bell peppers coming up. I’m not sure it is me, my set up or if the mini-bells have a low germination rate but I’m excited to see to little plants starting to grow. Overall I think doing the follow up on the seed starts and seeing more plants come up really helped my attitude. Plus the Christmas cactus is loving it’s new pot so much it is trying to put on some flowers!
Another fence section of grape vines, rose canes and other volunteer plants has been cleaned up. I have to take my time based on how much physical energy I have and how full I can fill my trash bins. When you have almost 2 foot thick sections of old grape vines to cleanup you will fill a big trash container quickly. My town has a “Spring Cleanup” week at the end of April. The Trash guys will pick up bundles/bags of yard debris if you keep it relatively light(60 pounds) and less than 4 feet in length. Construction grade trash bags make hitting this bundle size easy and the trash guys don’t have to deal with stickers and thorns attacking them when they pick up the trash.
I’m not planting the seed potatoes until second week in April as we have had a wet and cold spring. Now the rain/snow has been great for the drought but the cold weather sucks for planting stuff. I’m still ahead on my planting so I’m not worried about being late for planting cold weather crops. We in the USA and the EU should try and match Russia in growing 50% food on small garden plots rather than Big Agri-corps control our food supply in the west. The USA and the EU claim to want small sustainable farms yet they give tax breaks, contracts to big agri-corps for school lunches full of of processed food. You noticed junk food like soda pop, chips have not been excluded from the food stamp program in the USA. Even though there is an obesity crisis in the west.
A city less than 7 miles from me had a boil order for water because of a glitch in the water supply. Philadelphia PA had a do not drink the water because of a chemical spill and then restricted people to only 3 bottles of water. I think the idea of storing 1 gallon of water per day per person is flawed. You really need to store 3-5 gallons per day per person to keep your household going with cooking, cleaning and drinking water. Now not all of that water has to be safe to drink. You can wash clothes or take a bath in water that is not safe to drink. I think rain barrels are great but a tarp and 5 gallon bucket is workable in a pinch. I amazed that city governments that ban rain barrels as if people won’t water grass or gardens from the barrel. All a rain barrel does is store some water from the wet season and put it on a garden or yard during the dry season. All of the water still goes into the ground in time.
Actually rain barrels can help with soil erosion and drought by saving water short -term and watering plants long term. If your City bans rain barrels they are idiots and should be replaced ASAP.
My Adventures in selfreliance 