Amerindian Magic, Japanese Genius, and Mother Nature.

[MrFista]

Nice tips.

Experiment with your carcasses, you can fold them in such a way 100% of the meat is converted to maggots that fall in the pond. no flies get away. Too hard to describe with words it requires cracking a couple of bones and manipulating the skin so all the meat is hanging underneath an umbrella of pelt. This keeps it from dehydration by sun and wind and ultimately yields a lot more as ALL the maggots fall into the pond system.

Daphnia cultures will BOOM with a bit of cow manure. About a large patty (grass fed cow not that grain fed bullshit) for 44 gallon drum.

 

[norichips]

nice tip on the manure and daphnia, makes sense too cos they love a good feed of bacteria! i'm planning on setting up a small culture in my apt soon so i will def give that a try!

 

[MrFista]

Rather happy with my efforts in the yard. There is a lot of food being produced now I'm giving it away, drying, freezing, having guests over...

Need to concentrate a bit more on a carb supply I've gone the whole 9 yards with nutritional goodness (vitamins, minerals, medicinals) but neglected to adress the actual calories coming from the yard. We need calories, not as much as all the fat people I'm surrounded by, but we still need them.

Definately need a good sweet potato culture. With taro, potatoes and manglewurzel as supplementary crops to this main (favourite and most nutritionally rewarding) staple crop. I have potatoes from Maori cultures before white man got here. I have taro brought over by islanders over a century ago.

Fuck the modern cultivars, go back, go way back if you can. Many of these new plants are pathetic in the face of nature, drug addicts and wimps.

 

[jaykush]

Fuck the modern cultivars, go back, go way back if you can. Many of these new plants are pathetic in the face of nature, drug addicts and wimps.

go way back, or go into the future and create your own.

sweet potatoes, i got some japanese purple sweet potatoes in storage that have sprouts, have them in the dark right now so they grow slow. but come spring ill put them in jars to take slips. then plant the slips for a delicious harvest come fall to eat for munchies from my other crop lol.

Rather happy with my efforts in the yard. There is a lot of food being produced now I'm giving it away, drying, freezing, having guests over...

isnt it great? im getting to the point where im thinking of having and annual meal in the fall called "the feast" using anything and everything from the farm only to make a super meal.

 

[catcherintheye]

Hey guys do you have any good, char methods? Also is just wood fine?

Jay elabrate on slips and potato growing. My soil is utter shit for it ,but i may do some plants in a smart pot, are seed potatoes needed? i hear store bought are sprayed with something to inhibit sprouting? best to get some from the farmers market maybe? Also you plant in early spring right? blessings, thanks. bitching thread! everytime i do search i find a new compost thread!

 

[jaykush]

catcher i was talking about sweet potatoes, not regular potatoes. sweet potatoes actually do quite well in poor soil. regular potatoes you need seed potatoes, either saved from the previous years crop or bought.

now sweet potatoes grow vines, when you buy a SP and it starts to grow you take those. root them in water and then plant those out where you want. the vines will grow fast as hell, covering a large area if you so desire, it will self root and make tons of SP. if you live in a very cold climate, you can use them to build soil. simply dont harvest them, leave them to die in the cold, rot all winter, and become organic matter for spring while loosening the soil and creating a top mulch from the leaves/vines. dont forget they are food though, even if you dont let them winterkill they still loosen even hard clay soils.

 

[catcherintheye]

its amazing how your years of exp and knowledge shine through in every post, thank you jay, blessings.

Ill try some growing sweet potatos since I cant find any other potato seed stock, theyre actually quite tasty when used like a potato in dishes that call for regular potatos.

Doyou make your own char guys or do you collect it ? thanks.

 

[jaykush]

i make it, and lately its been rice hull char. sooooo easy.

 

[MrFista]

I make my char where I can. Still need a part for making it in a BBQ set up then I'll make a whole lot more. Going to sandbox a chitting sweet potato now get it rooting for me. you use plain water Jay - how long does it take and do you change it?

And welcome catcher, glad you like the thread.

One thing I have noticed and now it is almost exponential is the difference between the garden underneath the clothesline compared to garden without an overhead perch for birds. No ferts comes at a price if you have no mulch and no animals shitting in the vicinity... That price is slower growth. Add mulch and the plants do better, add a bit of natural topdressing and you're keeping up with the neighbours except you aren't spending large sums to do it.

It's quite a remarkable difference. The tree dripline plantings are booming as well. Water runoff from the trees, shelter, mulch, and again, perching positions above the plants.

Thought I'd stress that point today, it's easy to overlook the significance of a bird perch for garden ground that needs a little help. I'll be making a T bar perch to move around other positions now, the evidence is too clear to ignore.

 

[jaykush]

I make my char where I can. Still need a part for making it in a BBQ set up then I'll make a whole lot more. Going to sandbox a chitting sweet potato now get it rooting for me. you use plain water Jay - how long does it take and do you change it?

do you mean how i grow the slips? or how i root them?

 

[MrFista]

Well, I have a large sweet potato growing shoots and now I want it to root so it went in a wee sandbox. The slips are the shootlets with some roots?

There is a new traditional Maori garden in the city of Hamilton my neighbour saw it and was very excited. So now he's gone sweet potato bonkers. I can't wait to see it myself I spoke earlier here somewhere's about this particular plant as carbs entire sustaining the entire Maori nation, then a small ice age came and cultivation was severely limited, leading to famine, mass starvation, migrations and war, lots of tribal wars over the best cultivation sites. Fortified hilltops surrounding stone walled kumara (sweet potato) patches.

We take that shit real serious!

 

[catcherintheye]

where do you get the rice hull, and charring methods? is it any different from ash? how can i used a barbecue to make char without just burningwood? thanksss.

 

[jaykush]

Well, I have a large sweet potato growing shoots and now I want it to root so it went in a wee sandbox. The slips are the shootlets with some roots?

yea slips are just a rooted vine tip. and lol @ sweet potato wars

catcher - i get rice hulls at the feed store. people use it as animal bedding. its gotta be one of the easiest things to char, you basically get a nice flat area with a hose near by. start a small fire with sticks and such, get some coals going, then dump a bag of rice hulls on it, make it wider rather than tall, eventually youll start to see little black spots appear. cover them with more rice hulls or you will end up with a pile of ash( ash bad, were making charcoal) keep up with that for a good while. then take a peek with a pitch fork, it should be charred under all the top rice hulls. then simply spray it with the hose well and turn to put it out. or you will end up with ash. a very small percentage wont be charred but that just acts like perlite.

 

[MrFista]

Slips are rooted and now planted in the greenhouse to overwinter in there and do some soil busting and reproduction. 1/2 worm castings 1/2 sand = fast roots.

Chicken tractor almost finished. Not a cent spent once again got scrap iron, scrap timber, scrap mesh, leftover screws from a skatebowl construction. The feeder and waterer both gifted to me at christmas. About an hours work left for this evening and it's done. I'm going with bantams - why - cos they have punk rock hairdos! - why else.

Punk chickens - YEAH!

Making sauces and other preserves lately. No comparison to store bought sauces this stuff is gourmet. Gardens BOOMING - there is food for miles.

Here's an extremely simple and tasty recipe for all those spare courgettes...

Get a HOT pan, as in element around half way not full. once pan is hot add olive oil it should smoke slightly at the heat required. Add slices of courgette 1/4 inch thick. Add sea salt and cracked pepper. Cook till it browns a bit, wee blistery brown bits like you get on pita bread. Turn and repeat. Eat just like that you won't believe how good these are till you make some. tea last night was all from the garden except a few olives and some cottage cheese in the salad.

Screw the food industry - I'm eating gourmet for free.

As fruit is setting and dropping it's a good time to meet the neighbours with trees... those who don't do anything with the fruit. I offer them a bottle of home made sauce and I get dozens of pounds of fruit to use for free. I'm also offering spare trees to other gardeners. Giving away macadamia trees at present. This is a great way to meet the neighbours, and a great way to begin a community sharing situation centred around food and gardening.

 

[jaykush]

Screw the food industry - I'm eating gourmet for free.

hell yea me too its awesome. eat like kings!

As fruit is setting and dropping it's a good time to meet the neighbours with trees... those who don't do anything with the fruit. I offer them a bottle of home made sauce and I get dozens of pounds of fruit to use for free. I'm also offering spare trees to other gardeners. Giving away macadamia trees at present. This is a great way to meet the neighbours, and a great way to begin a community sharing situation centred around food and gardening.

yea last year i had a few people let me pick there trees for them, most were too old to do so themselves. i shared the harvest and some even taught me some recipes and skills on preserving them for the help. an hours work at this one house last year gave me 10 five gallon buckets full of apples for free. they were happy to see them gone as the raccoons come when the fruit is left on the tree.

 

[schwagg]

man i want a chicken tractor so bad fista! will you be able to post a pic of it finished?

 

[jaykush]

i just built one like this for someone. works amazing. of course mine looks a little better, has handles for moving it and such.

http://chickenhousesonline.com/chicken-ark-tractor.jpg

 

[mad librettist]

I was picturing something that uses chicken power to pull stuff. You know, a ckicken tractor.

 

[MrFista]

LOL

Here ya go schwagg, here's all the inspiration you'll need for making a chicken tractor (link below). My design is just a triangular design with half outdoor, half indoor - a higher shelf with nesting boxes in the indoor part, water and feeder hang suspended so I can move them with the tractor. Floor under nesting boxes is not fixed so I can remove it for a hose down. One side of the shelter is solid, one side is seethrough. In summer the solid side provides shade. in winter the opaque side provides sun to heat it up a bit. (I'll just turn it around to what side I want exposed to the sun).

http://home.centurytel.net/thecitychicken/tractors.html

 

[jaykush]

the one i built looks like this one a lot.

http://home.centurytel.net/thecitychicken/tractor21.jpg

ps: lmfao at the KFC one.