The key in growing food is to remember that, on a plant-based diet, you need calories and other nutrients, such as minerals. Vegetables, for the most part, will provide minerals and vitamins, but not many calories. Only fruit will provide a diet rich in calories. So, while vegetable gardens are a cool thing to have, they will not sustain you. Fruit, on the other hand, will sustain you, during its season. There are exceptions, of course, melons are grown in a vegetable garden, and they are a fruit with many calories, but what most people think of as food from a vegetable garden, lettuce, green beans, squash, cucumbers, etc., have few calories.
The point of this message is to plant fruit trees, now, since they often take five years or more to bear fruit. Plant a variety of trees so from month to month, or season to season, there will always be new, different fruit coming on as the current fruit starts to fade. If you live in the north, erect a greenhouse in which you can grow fruit trees.
And how about nuts? (The food kind, not the Cornucopian kind, although I suppose one could make a case for using Cornucopians as a food source, but I digress)
We got most of our trees from Sonoma Antique Apples, now called Trees of Antiquity. http://www.treesofantiquity.com/ They UPS bare root trees in late winter and early spring. I thnk it's probably better to find sources with roughly the same climate as yours (is now?).
Rat
PS ...Sgage; thin the fruit. Leave only one every 4-6 inches.
Nuts are good; they're high in fat, and a healthy diet has small amounts of fat. Fat can be converted to calories, but it takes a lot more of the body's energy to make the conversion; therefore, fat isn't the preferred fuel (it's more for cell lubrication). Thus, the caloric EROI is not as good as fruits, but if that's all there is, they'll do in a pinch.
On the other hand, fruit sugar converts to muscle glycogen without much tax; it's a cleaner burning fuel.
Nuts are also valuable for their protein content. This will help maintain muscle quality and mass in lieu of animal-based proteins that may become scarcer with increasingly costly energy.
Fat can be converted to calories, but it takes a lot more of the body's energy to make the conversion; therefore, fat isn't the preferred fuel (it's more for cell lubrication). Thus, the caloric EROI is not as good as fruits, but if that's all there is, they'll do in a pinch.
That sounds like seriously flawed reasoning, can you back up that statement with some factual material?
My reading suggests that fat is one of the critical factors in surviving on a subsistence diet. Many cultures, including the those on the Korean peninsula raised animals for fat production.
There is a lot of biochemistry to this, see the textbooks for details (e.g. Lehninger or Stryer). I don't have the exact efficiency numbers at my fingertips but they don't seem to be the main thing. Fat has a much higher energy content than carbohydrates and is the preferred long-term fuel for most body tissues. However, the brain runs on glucose only, and on some weird stuff called ketone bodies in case of starvation. This is a reason for trying to have a balanced diet that has both fat and carbohydrates. In addition to the above, carbohydrates can be mobilized quickly and some energy can be extracted from them in the absence of oxygen (e.g. overworked muscle), whereas fat can only be used in the presence of oxygen. On top of this, glucose/carbohydrates can be converted into fat easily, but not the other way round. All together, "fats burn in the flame of carbohydrates" as Stryer puts it on p. 478 of the third edition...
Nuts are good; they're high in fat, and a healthy diet has small amounts of fat. Fat can be converted to calories, but it takes a lot more of the body's energy to make the conversion; therefore, fat isn't the preferred fuel (it's more for cell lubrication). Thus, the caloric EROI is not as good as fruits, but if that's all there is, they'll do in a pinch.
On the other hand, fruit sugar converts to muscle glycogen without much tax; it's a cleaner burning fuel.
Lots of stuff here to contest. My own reading leads me to believe that a healthy diet is high in fat and protein and low in veggie carbs and totally void of sugars and refined carbs. The 'cell lubrication' thing really has me scratching my head.
Meat is premium food. If one has to be a veggie, nut protein is probably the best bet for the high protein in a healthy diet. Too much fructose, IMO, can be bad, since it is matabolized by the liver into fat. Fruits are probably good in moderation.
I've got a hazel nut tree, but I've also got a squirrel (was two but the cat got one). The existing mature orchard seems to have gone into a 2+ year cycle for some reason (maybe a weather problem) and birds (blackbirds in particular), insect and disease take their toll too. The most reliable producer I've found so far are the two mature walnut trees (although storing the nuts is problematic with the door mice, although the cat dispatched one yesterday).
Any good books on organic orchard keeping BTW?
Nature's great, but when you start competing with it for food, man does it fight back. Oh! And I lost a chestnut tree to the heat two years ago. That old Climate Change can deliver a knock-out blow any time. Whatever people do, diversify as much as is practical would be my tip. Resilience, resilience, resilience!
Fruit production pulls a lot of energy from the ground. You can get back to annual cycles if you thin the fruit set and if you fertilize correctly. Fruit trees need A LOT of lime and they need trace minerals.
On the other hand... alternating year production does limit the insect and virus load.
Thanks will. I've been trimming the grass back from the trees and applying a horse manure mulch, cleaning away the moss etc. The trees are mature and too big, as well as too many, to look after properly. Thining the fruit is not really an option, but the birds seem to be doing a pretty good job at it.
Interesting about the lime, is that to aid mineral release in the soil or for some other reason?
If I can get them back into regular production then it might be worth giving them more time and resources. I've been meaning to study up on them at some time, but it keeps ending up on the back burner.
Be careful with the lime though. It is not appropriate for non-acid lands and should be used with parcimony after an analysis of the land is done. Too large additions release many minerals from the land in the short term but decreases your long term potential.
"Lime make the father rich and ruins the son" as the farmers say.
Hazelnuts- aka Filberts when i was a kid.
They need Boron (B) to set nuts consistently. Solubor is the product that i have but I have no idea the rate. Apply as a foliar application.
Boron is a funny element. The rates are usually in ppm (parts per million)and low(!) Too much is quickly toxic. Beware!
Good points. I just planted a new peach tree this year. I've now got 2 peaches, 2 apples (which are 15 years old and bear huge amounts of apples), blueberries, and raspberries. My established peach tree is completely encrusted with ripening peaches, and my apple trees are groaning under a full load of apples. Last year a couple of branches actually broke from the load.
I live in NH, USA, and for staple starch easy-to-grow caloric goodness, don't forget potatoes! I am expecting a great crop this Fall (I've already been stealing a few here and there...) They're Russet Burbanks, which mature later than some, but store well...
Without getting into whether grains are good for you or not, it's difficult to grow sufficient quantity in a garden to provide much benefit. So, it's ok to talk about grains in the abstract, but growing them, harvesting, processing them is different from a vegetable garden or a fruit orchard.
I agree that grains don't yield like potatoes but there are good reasons to grow them. I grow some winter wheat and quinoa. In the case of winter wheat, it provides a good rotation crop. All the work is done in the fall and it provides a huge quantity of organic material. It's not that hard to harvest and I thresh mine using a Leaf Eater although Gene Logsdon has plans for a neat thresher in his book Small Grain Raising. I winnow it in the wind o top of one of our hills.
In the case of quinoa, I grow it because it has complete proteins so you don't have to do food combining like corn and beans. It's easy to grow, comes up quickly and matures rapidly. It's easy to thresh and I winnow it like my winter wheat.
One final advantage of grains is that they store well and without processing. My wife and I did snap beans for the freezer this morning. You have a hot water to blanch them and then an ice bath to cool them whereas grains can just be stuck in a paper bag.
Quinoa is fantastic stuff. Excellent texture and it couples well with many common spices. It is quite filling and digests slowly. It makes a good accompaniment for many dishes, especially as a rice substitute. OTOH, it is satisfying enough to serve as a small meal all by itself.
I highly recommend quinoa to any TOD'ers that have yet to experience it.
A Leaf Eater is a brand name. It is essentially a weed whip in a plastic drum and is sold to shred leaves. Ours is about 18" in diameter and about as high. I set it over a 30 gallon trash can lined with a plastic trash bag.
I made one modification to the Leaf Eater, the slots were too far apart to get good threshing action so I cut out the opening adjustment channel . I can now close the opening down to about 1/8th of an inch and this works pretty well. Every now and then I'll open the slots all the up and push any accumulated stuff into the bag.
Hillbillies had little money in the Depression but they had a great grain: Hickory Cane Corn. This white corn grows well on poor soil and has large kernels that are good for hominy, corn meal, parching and moonshine. Often the kernels had to be used for food and the cobs were used to make 'corn sqeezins' for income.
Often the kernels had to be used for food and the cobs were used to make 'corn sqeezins' for income.
If by "corn sqeezins" you mean moonshine whiskey you are simply wrong. You cannot make whiskey from corn cobs. The alcohol comes from the fermentation of the starch in the corn kernels. Cobs are almost pure cellulose and cannot be fermented into ethanol alcohol. Though there is a process can turn cellulose into alcohol it involves a lot more than simple fermentation and was never used to make moonshine.
If by "corn sqeezins" you mean moonshine whiskey you are simply wrong. You cannot make whiskey from corn cobs. The alcohol comes from the fermentation of the starch in the corn kernels. Cobs are almost pure cellulose and cannot be fermented into ethanol alcohol.
Right you are Ron. My bad memory
I just asked my hillbilly friend how his father and grandfather did it. After the corn was harvested they ran the stalks thru a wringer and fermented that juice. Also, he said 'sqeezins' were for personal use. The hogs got the cobs.
I agree that fruit trees are great--one good component in a resilient food production scheme, and something than many current suburban homeowners can do now to help provide for food in tough times.
I disagree with you on the value of vegetables other than fruit trees. Various tubers represent the most calories per square foot possible. Corn, beans, millet, amaranth, quinoa, and peas are also excellent means of growing calories and nutrients beyond just fruit trees, and have the distinct advantage of being much more scalable than fruit trees (produce calories the first year).
People should also consider animals in their food production schemes. Animals are not always appropriate, and I realize that some people have various objections to eating animal products, but in many situations they should be included. While animals require more calorie input than they provide to humans as output, they provide multiple benefits: ability to effectively concentrate calories that can't be efficiently consumed directly by humans, ability to produce fertilizer for soil quality, ability to effectively convert low protein/fat inputs into high protein/fat outputs, and (in some cases) the ability to offer resiliency of yields when other circumstances cause crop failures/reduced yields elsewhere.
If you're trying to maximize calories from a 500 square foot garden, then you probably shouldn't include animals, but you also shouldn't include fruit trees. If, however, you're trying to set up a system that will provide resilient yields of calories and nutrients without such a space constraint, then your system should include a diverse selection of fruit trees, nut trees, beans & grains, cruciferous vegetables, carbon crops for composting, animals (chickens, squab, bees, sheep, etc. depending on circumstances), etc.
I have to disagree with most people keeping animals - I have no problem with people eating animals.
1. You have to feed them. Unless people can buy feed and/or hay at the feed store, they are going to be out of luck. For example, a fully confined chicken will eat a bushel of grain a year. But let's say they can free range 6 months a year. That's still 1/2 bushel of grain each.
But let's go further and assume the family plans to eat a chicken a week along with eggs. Just feeding the chickens you eat equals 25 bushels of grain. Our family being smart decides to grow corn. Realistically, they will probably only get 40 bushels of corn an acre. Therefore, they will have to have about 1/2 acre devoted to grain for the chickens.
But, there's more. You can't feed chickens whole grain corn, it has to be ground. So, now or family needs to buy a grain grinder. Oh yes, they also should be prepared to grow some soybeans so they can make a high protein laying mash.
2. People need to know something about animal husbandry. I don't know how many questions I've seen on other forums asking basic questions about raising chickens. It gets far more complex as people move up in animal size. Take cows: now I realize many people aren't going to have a cow. But, if they do, they'd better know about pulling calves, mastitus, etc.
3. People who plan on eating large animals also have to know how to preserve the meat. Granted, some can be shared with others but they are still going to have to do something with the excess meat.
How many people have enough canning jars much less a pressure canner? (Well, we do along with a lot of other food preservation stuff.) Perhaps, they plan on freezing the meat. I have somewhat over 40cuft of freezer space which sounds like a lot until you think in cow-sized portions.
I would argue that people should stick to a vegan diet unless they want to invest a lot of time and energy learning appropriate skill sets.
I agree that, in many situations, it's not a good idea to keep animals in the traditional sense (chickens, pigs, goats, etc.). If you have more space than you can garden intensively, then chickens (especially for eggs) may be a wise decision IF you can sustain them on forrage. In parts of the country, this is not difficult--say if you already have a half acre of mixed orchard in Oregon, you can support a small flock on forage alone with a little planning. Other places, the feed requiremet may make it a poor choice. I agree with you on large animals--pigs, sheep, goats, cattle all require more knowledge than most people (me included) have to raise efficiently.
I think one area that people should consider animals is in a more unconventional sense. Dovecotes (for squab), beekeeping, vermiculture, or a bat box (no meat, but lots of fertilizer) might be very wise choices depending on circumstances. For the space constrained, it might not be a wise choice, but I think it's something worth considering for each unique set of conditions...
One reason I mentioned what I did is that I moderated a homemaking/homesteading sub-forum of a forum with quite a lot members for a few years. What I saw time and again were people not taking the time to: 1)Develop necessary skill sets. 2)Taking the time to gather readily available information. 3)Testing and experimenting before jumping in with both feet.
One good example was that people invariably asked what varieties of veggies others were growing; their belief being that if variety X is good for someone else, it will be good for them. I would post that they should do variety testing to determine what worked for them. I would note that, among other variety trials, I had tried well over 50 varieties of tomatoes over a period of years before selecting the three that we now grow. Further, as I noted above, I grow some winter wheat. What I didn't say is that I have spent the last nine years developing my own strain. How many people will actually do something like this? My guess is few.
One thing people need to keep in mind when they think about producing some of their own food; a good rule of thumb is that an individual needs one quart of veggies and one quart of fruit each day. Assuming a six month growing season and that veggies and fruit can be purchased for half the year, this means they have to preserve 180 quarts of veggies and 180 quarts of fruit each year. To put this into perspective, here are some canning yields: apples -48#-16 to 20 quarts, peaches-1 bushel-18 to 24 quarts, tomatoes-1 bushel-20 quarts, snap beans-1 bushel-15 to 20 quarts, potatoes-25#-3 to 5 quarts, sweet potatoes-1 bushel-18 to 22 quarts. BTW, these are from the Farm Journal's Freezing & Canning Cookbook, 1978. I highly recommend this book.
Some time back there was 'open range'. In fact in my teen years driving down into the Ozark Mtns there was still some open range areas. Coming around a gravel road curve one might run up on cows grazing alongside the shoulders. Or maybe it was just someones calves got loose but as I recall
they said that back in the more rural counties that open range was still part of life.
That said...the way to do open range (for the future let's say) is to put a cow bell on your stock. Pick the most tame cow/mule or horse. Bell that one and the rest will always be in earshot of it.
Follow the bell tinkling to find your stock. Or lead the belled animal into your feed lot, tie it up and leave the gate open. Next morning your stock are there in the lot.
Lots of 'mast' used to fall in the woods and the animals would thrive on it. Most of that is gone now since the good nut trees have been harvested long ago however they can still browse somewhat. You also
earmarked your stock to be able to tell them from your neighbors.
Of course all this supposes that after the dieoff that people can become more neighborly than now.
I used to have to bring the milk cows home if they didn't come up at milking time and no one was there to call them that they would recognize. The cows and horses/mules would learn to recognize their owners calls and come running.
Long about milking time I could hear folks all around calling their cows. One can also call hogs. Or send the dogs after them.
So back then everyone would fence their gardens. Here many let stock run on river islands as well. Or kept small pens for them down where they used to work them daily, like in the bottoms.
don't get me wrong... i always see the negative first...
if one can run a 40cu ft freezer... seems there wouldn't be such scarcity of food requiring one to be 100% food independent...
if food is so scarce that one needs to be fully self sufficient... my guess is the surrounding infrastructure would also be so devoid as to make 40cuft freezers impossible...
then you get into protecting it...
now... i love this discussion... unfortunately i live in a semi-urban area... SE Fla... in a condo... and have been bugging the condo board to stop buying palm trees and plant banana trees... and anything else that favors this clime... we have the space and the water system already...
so i'll glean what i can... there are 4-6 million in population in the immediate area who live either in multi-family or lots too small for any plantings to be of any value... and unless everyone started doing it... we got plenty on no-gooders who'd just come over and take it...
Many, many palms are ideal for Florida's climate. SE Florida should be pretty close to that of Bangkok, where I live. I have about 60 varieties of palm around my house, most just love the water. It's rainy season now and they are just taking off.
Bananas are fine too, but for condo landscaping much more difficult to maintain. My bananas are also taking off and there is nothing wrong with them.
There are a lot of tropical fruit trees that can do well in a landscaped environment; mangos, oranges, etc.
But condo landscaping is probably not the ideal environment for fruit cultivation. You would have to agree on how to harvest and share. Otherwise people tend to pick things too early because they are afraid if they wait until they are ready, someone else will.
Jerusalem artichokes are very hardy indeed - around here, they're a weed. The tubers when boiled, mashed with butter, salt & pepper, are not too bad, but they do cause horrendous gas!
I've heard that Jerusalem artichokes got the Pilgrims through some very tough times...
You sound like a guy who hasn't tended too many fruit trees.
The big problem is dealing with the insects that attack fruit trees.
Most folks will spray the hell out of their fruit trees or lose them totally to insects most seasons.
This season for the first I can remember in a very long time I have lots of fruit and almost zero destroyed by insects,primarily worms.
You have to be very very good to raise fruit trees meaningfully and tackle the problem without insecticides,miscible sprays,etc. Not just once but prebloom,last fall,bloom fall and so forth. You must be very proactive for once the infestation starts its usually too late.
What I prefer is vine bearing fruit. Blueberries,strawberries and blackberries. This year I am hoping to put up wild elderberry.
So to each his own. I am just telling you what I have seen with my small orchard. Pears,apples and peaches.
Or is this something you just pulled off via Googleville?
Airdale-as information doubles,knowledge halves and wisdom quarters
I have never sprayed my apples or peaches. Some of the apples are blemished (or inhabited by undesirable elements), but then, I'm not growing for market. I get more apples than I can possibly use. The peaches have never had any insect problems, but oddly enough, porcupines like to get into the trees and can cause great damage. A simple low wire fence keeps them out.
Berries are great, if you can keep the cedar waxwings off of 'em - around here you need to throw something over 'em. Seems like a pretty good berry year up here in NH. Strawberries were awesome, and the blueberries starting to come on strong...
One thing people don't seem to know about wormy fruit - botulism can develop in the wormy area of the fruit. This is why commercial juicers, whether organic or standard, refuse to accept wormy fruit.
Todd
PS - I have really good codling moth control using pheromone traps.
I have good scab control on apples and peach leaf curl on peaches
using not only copper sprays but also colloidal silver or a weak
Pine-Sol solution.
I think the bug problem with fruit varies from region to region. Here in east texas the plum curiculo bug will infest every plum or peach unless a heavy spraying schedule is adhered to. I lived in Amarillo, Texas, which is up in the panhandle at 3500ft. elevation, for a couple of years and had a nectarine tree in the yard. I never sprayed it and had heavy crops of totally worm free fruit. Amarillo doesn't have mosquitos either now that I recall.
A word to the wise:
The key in growing food is to remember that, on a plant-based diet, you need calories and other nutrients, such as minerals. Vegetables, for the most part, will provide minerals and vitamins, but not many calories. Only fruit will provide a diet rich in calories. So, while vegetable gardens are a cool thing to have, they will not sustain you. Fruit, on the other hand, will sustain you, during its season. There are exceptions, of course, melons are grown in a vegetable garden, and they are a fruit with many calories, but what most people think of as food from a vegetable garden, lettuce, green beans, squash, cucumbers, etc., have few calories.
The point of this message is to plant fruit trees, now, since they often take five years or more to bear fruit. Plant a variety of trees so from month to month, or season to season, there will always be new, different fruit coming on as the current fruit starts to fade. If you live in the north, erect a greenhouse in which you can grow fruit trees.
rawguy
And how about nuts? (The food kind, not the Cornucopian kind, although I suppose one could make a case for using Cornucopians as a food source, but I digress)
Both.
And, if you can, learn how to graft and to prune. You can find out how from books, but it is better to take a class, if one is offered near you.
http://www.amazon.com/Western-Fruit-Horticultural-Publishers/dp/08958607...
http://www.biblio.com/details.php?dcx=29471339&aid=frg2
We got most of our trees from Sonoma Antique Apples, now called Trees of Antiquity.
http://www.treesofantiquity.com/ They UPS bare root trees in late winter and early spring. I thnk it's probably better to find sources with roughly the same climate as yours (is now?).
Rat
PS ...Sgage; thin the fruit. Leave only one every 4-6 inches.
Nuts are good; they're high in fat, and a healthy diet has small amounts of fat. Fat can be converted to calories, but it takes a lot more of the body's energy to make the conversion; therefore, fat isn't the preferred fuel (it's more for cell lubrication). Thus, the caloric EROI is not as good as fruits, but if that's all there is, they'll do in a pinch.
On the other hand, fruit sugar converts to muscle glycogen without much tax; it's a cleaner burning fuel.
rawguy
Nuts are also valuable for their protein content. This will help maintain muscle quality and mass in lieu of animal-based proteins that may become scarcer with increasingly costly energy.
Fat can be converted to calories, but it takes a lot more of the body's energy to make the conversion; therefore, fat isn't the preferred fuel (it's more for cell lubrication). Thus, the caloric EROI is not as good as fruits, but if that's all there is, they'll do in a pinch.
That sounds like seriously flawed reasoning, can you back up that statement with some factual material?
My reading suggests that fat is one of the critical factors in surviving on a subsistence diet. Many cultures, including the those on the Korean peninsula raised animals for fat production.
There is a lot of biochemistry to this, see the textbooks for details (e.g. Lehninger or Stryer). I don't have the exact efficiency numbers at my fingertips but they don't seem to be the main thing. Fat has a much higher energy content than carbohydrates and is the preferred long-term fuel for most body tissues. However, the brain runs on glucose only, and on some weird stuff called ketone bodies in case of starvation. This is a reason for trying to have a balanced diet that has both fat and carbohydrates. In addition to the above, carbohydrates can be mobilized quickly and some energy can be extracted from them in the absence of oxygen (e.g. overworked muscle), whereas fat can only be used in the presence of oxygen. On top of this, glucose/carbohydrates can be converted into fat easily, but not the other way round. All together, "fats burn in the flame of carbohydrates" as Stryer puts it on p. 478 of the third edition...
Lots of stuff here to contest. My own reading leads me to believe that a healthy diet is high in fat and protein and low in veggie carbs and totally void of sugars and refined carbs. The 'cell lubrication' thing really has me scratching my head.
Meat is premium food. If one has to be a veggie, nut protein is probably the best bet for the high protein in a healthy diet. Too much fructose, IMO, can be bad, since it is matabolized by the liver into fat. Fruits are probably good in moderation.
Read 'Good Calories, Bad Calories'
I've got a hazel nut tree, but I've also got a squirrel (was two but the cat got one). The existing mature orchard seems to have gone into a 2+ year cycle for some reason (maybe a weather problem) and birds (blackbirds in particular), insect and disease take their toll too. The most reliable producer I've found so far are the two mature walnut trees (although storing the nuts is problematic with the door mice, although the cat dispatched one yesterday).
Any good books on organic orchard keeping BTW?
Nature's great, but when you start competing with it for food, man does it fight back. Oh! And I lost a chestnut tree to the heat two years ago. That old Climate Change can deliver a knock-out blow any time. Whatever people do, diversify as much as is practical would be my tip. Resilience, resilience, resilience!
Fruit production pulls a lot of energy from the ground. You can get back to annual cycles if you thin the fruit set and if you fertilize correctly. Fruit trees need A LOT of lime and they need trace minerals.
On the other hand... alternating year production does limit the insect and virus load.
Thanks will. I've been trimming the grass back from the trees and applying a horse manure mulch, cleaning away the moss etc. The trees are mature and too big, as well as too many, to look after properly. Thining the fruit is not really an option, but the birds seem to be doing a pretty good job at it.
Interesting about the lime, is that to aid mineral release in the soil or for some other reason?
If I can get them back into regular production then it might be worth giving them more time and resources. I've been meaning to study up on them at some time, but it keeps ending up on the back burner.
Burgundy,
i think you live in France, no?
I do too; 6mo/12. In the Cevennes.
In France I've found the "back burner" provides a lot
of extra heat ..... many of my projects smolder there.
We have very old fruit trees which are apparently "fini".
They produce the hardest pears imaginable ....never ripen
tho they get loads of sun.
if you want to talk about Fr. i'm emailable
dadco (at) valley (dot) net
sydney
Be careful with the lime though. It is not appropriate for non-acid lands and should be used with parcimony after an analysis of the land is done. Too large additions release many minerals from the land in the short term but decreases your long term potential.
"Lime make the father rich and ruins the son" as the farmers say.
Hazelnuts- aka Filberts when i was a kid.
They need Boron (B) to set nuts consistently. Solubor is the product that i have but I have no idea the rate. Apply as a foliar application.
Boron is a funny element. The rates are usually in ppm (parts per million)and low(!) Too much is quickly toxic. Beware!
Good points. I just planted a new peach tree this year. I've now got 2 peaches, 2 apples (which are 15 years old and bear huge amounts of apples), blueberries, and raspberries. My established peach tree is completely encrusted with ripening peaches, and my apple trees are groaning under a full load of apples. Last year a couple of branches actually broke from the load.
I live in NH, USA, and for staple starch easy-to-grow caloric goodness, don't forget potatoes! I am expecting a great crop this Fall (I've already been stealing a few here and there...) They're Russet Burbanks, which mature later than some, but store well...
Actually, grains provide the most calories.
(Most nuts are fruits. Melons are fruit)
"We are all fruit"
From: "My big fat Greek Wedding"
Without getting into whether grains are good for you or not, it's difficult to grow sufficient quantity in a garden to provide much benefit. So, it's ok to talk about grains in the abstract, but growing them, harvesting, processing them is different from a vegetable garden or a fruit orchard.
Agreed, which is why I mentioned potatoes.
I agree that grains don't yield like potatoes but there are good reasons to grow them. I grow some winter wheat and quinoa. In the case of winter wheat, it provides a good rotation crop. All the work is done in the fall and it provides a huge quantity of organic material. It's not that hard to harvest and I thresh mine using a Leaf Eater although Gene Logsdon has plans for a neat thresher in his book Small Grain Raising. I winnow it in the wind o top of one of our hills.
In the case of quinoa, I grow it because it has complete proteins so you don't have to do food combining like corn and beans. It's easy to grow, comes up quickly and matures rapidly. It's easy to thresh and I winnow it like my winter wheat.
One final advantage of grains is that they store well and without processing. My wife and I did snap beans for the freezer this morning. You have a hot water to blanch them and then an ice bath to cool them whereas grains can just be stuck in a paper bag.
Todd
Quinoa is fantastic stuff. Excellent texture and it couples well with many common spices. It is quite filling and digests slowly. It makes a good accompaniment for many dishes, especially as a rice substitute. OTOH, it is satisfying enough to serve as a small meal all by itself.
I highly recommend quinoa to any TOD'ers that have yet to experience it.
Thank you Todd for a technique I am definitely going to use!
Leaf Eater?
Burgundy,
A Leaf Eater is a brand name. It is essentially a weed whip in a plastic drum and is sold to shred leaves. Ours is about 18" in diameter and about as high. I set it over a 30 gallon trash can lined with a plastic trash bag.
I made one modification to the Leaf Eater, the slots were too far apart to get good threshing action so I cut out the opening adjustment channel . I can now close the opening down to about 1/8th of an inch and this works pretty well. Every now and then I'll open the slots all the up and push any accumulated stuff into the bag.
Todd
Hillbillies had little money in the Depression but they had a great grain: Hickory Cane Corn. This white corn grows well on poor soil and has large kernels that are good for hominy, corn meal, parching and moonshine. Often the kernels had to be used for food and the cobs were used to make 'corn sqeezins' for income.
If by "corn sqeezins" you mean moonshine whiskey you are simply wrong. You cannot make whiskey from corn cobs. The alcohol comes from the fermentation of the starch in the corn kernels. Cobs are almost pure cellulose and cannot be fermented into ethanol alcohol. Though there is a process can turn cellulose into alcohol it involves a lot more than simple fermentation and was never used to make moonshine.
Ron Patterson
Right you are Ron. My bad memory
I just asked my hillbilly friend how his father and grandfather did it. After the corn was harvested they ran the stalks thru a wringer and fermented that juice. Also, he said 'sqeezins' were for personal use. The hogs got the cobs.
I agree that fruit trees are great--one good component in a resilient food production scheme, and something than many current suburban homeowners can do now to help provide for food in tough times.
I disagree with you on the value of vegetables other than fruit trees. Various tubers represent the most calories per square foot possible. Corn, beans, millet, amaranth, quinoa, and peas are also excellent means of growing calories and nutrients beyond just fruit trees, and have the distinct advantage of being much more scalable than fruit trees (produce calories the first year).
People should also consider animals in their food production schemes. Animals are not always appropriate, and I realize that some people have various objections to eating animal products, but in many situations they should be included. While animals require more calorie input than they provide to humans as output, they provide multiple benefits: ability to effectively concentrate calories that can't be efficiently consumed directly by humans, ability to produce fertilizer for soil quality, ability to effectively convert low protein/fat inputs into high protein/fat outputs, and (in some cases) the ability to offer resiliency of yields when other circumstances cause crop failures/reduced yields elsewhere.
If you're trying to maximize calories from a 500 square foot garden, then you probably shouldn't include animals, but you also shouldn't include fruit trees. If, however, you're trying to set up a system that will provide resilient yields of calories and nutrients without such a space constraint, then your system should include a diverse selection of fruit trees, nut trees, beans & grains, cruciferous vegetables, carbon crops for composting, animals (chickens, squab, bees, sheep, etc. depending on circumstances), etc.
Jeff,
I have to disagree with most people keeping animals - I have no problem with people eating animals.
1. You have to feed them. Unless people can buy feed and/or hay at the feed store, they are going to be out of luck. For example, a fully confined chicken will eat a bushel of grain a year. But let's say they can free range 6 months a year. That's still 1/2 bushel of grain each.
But let's go further and assume the family plans to eat a chicken a week along with eggs. Just feeding the chickens you eat equals 25 bushels of grain. Our family being smart decides to grow corn. Realistically, they will probably only get 40 bushels of corn an acre. Therefore, they will have to have about 1/2 acre devoted to grain for the chickens.
But, there's more. You can't feed chickens whole grain corn, it has to be ground. So, now or family needs to buy a grain grinder. Oh yes, they also should be prepared to grow some soybeans so they can make a high protein laying mash.
2. People need to know something about animal husbandry. I don't know how many questions I've seen on other forums asking basic questions about raising chickens. It gets far more complex as people move up in animal size. Take cows: now I realize many people aren't going to have a cow. But, if they do, they'd better know about pulling calves, mastitus, etc.
3. People who plan on eating large animals also have to know how to preserve the meat. Granted, some can be shared with others but they are still going to have to do something with the excess meat.
How many people have enough canning jars much less a pressure canner? (Well, we do along with a lot of other food preservation stuff.) Perhaps, they plan on freezing the meat. I have somewhat over 40cuft of freezer space which sounds like a lot until you think in cow-sized portions.
I would argue that people should stick to a vegan diet unless they want to invest a lot of time and energy learning appropriate skill sets.
Todd
Todd-
I agree that, in many situations, it's not a good idea to keep animals in the traditional sense (chickens, pigs, goats, etc.). If you have more space than you can garden intensively, then chickens (especially for eggs) may be a wise decision IF you can sustain them on forrage. In parts of the country, this is not difficult--say if you already have a half acre of mixed orchard in Oregon, you can support a small flock on forage alone with a little planning. Other places, the feed requiremet may make it a poor choice. I agree with you on large animals--pigs, sheep, goats, cattle all require more knowledge than most people (me included) have to raise efficiently.
I think one area that people should consider animals is in a more unconventional sense. Dovecotes (for squab), beekeeping, vermiculture, or a bat box (no meat, but lots of fertilizer) might be very wise choices depending on circumstances. For the space constrained, it might not be a wise choice, but I think it's something worth considering for each unique set of conditions...
Jeff,
One reason I mentioned what I did is that I moderated a homemaking/homesteading sub-forum of a forum with quite a lot members for a few years. What I saw time and again were people not taking the time to: 1)Develop necessary skill sets. 2)Taking the time to gather readily available information. 3)Testing and experimenting before jumping in with both feet.
One good example was that people invariably asked what varieties of veggies others were growing; their belief being that if variety X is good for someone else, it will be good for them. I would post that they should do variety testing to determine what worked for them. I would note that, among other variety trials, I had tried well over 50 varieties of tomatoes over a period of years before selecting the three that we now grow. Further, as I noted above, I grow some winter wheat. What I didn't say is that I have spent the last nine years developing my own strain. How many people will actually do something like this? My guess is few.
One thing people need to keep in mind when they think about producing some of their own food; a good rule of thumb is that an individual needs one quart of veggies and one quart of fruit each day. Assuming a six month growing season and that veggies and fruit can be purchased for half the year, this means they have to preserve 180 quarts of veggies and 180 quarts of fruit each year. To put this into perspective, here are some canning yields: apples -48#-16 to 20 quarts, peaches-1 bushel-18 to 24 quarts, tomatoes-1 bushel-20 quarts, snap beans-1 bushel-15 to 20 quarts, potatoes-25#-3 to 5 quarts, sweet potatoes-1 bushel-18 to 22 quarts. BTW, these are from the Farm Journal's Freezing & Canning Cookbook, 1978. I highly recommend this book.
Todd
Some time back there was 'open range'. In fact in my teen years driving down into the Ozark Mtns there was still some open range areas. Coming around a gravel road curve one might run up on cows grazing alongside the shoulders. Or maybe it was just someones calves got loose but as I recall
they said that back in the more rural counties that open range was still part of life.
That said...the way to do open range (for the future let's say) is to put a cow bell on your stock. Pick the most tame cow/mule or horse. Bell that one and the rest will always be in earshot of it.
Follow the bell tinkling to find your stock. Or lead the belled animal into your feed lot, tie it up and leave the gate open. Next morning your stock are there in the lot.
Lots of 'mast' used to fall in the woods and the animals would thrive on it. Most of that is gone now since the good nut trees have been harvested long ago however they can still browse somewhat. You also
earmarked your stock to be able to tell them from your neighbors.
Of course all this supposes that after the dieoff that people can become more neighborly than now.
I used to have to bring the milk cows home if they didn't come up at milking time and no one was there to call them that they would recognize. The cows and horses/mules would learn to recognize their owners calls and come running.
Long about milking time I could hear folks all around calling their cows. One can also call hogs. Or send the dogs after them.
So back then everyone would fence their gardens. Here many let stock run on river islands as well. Or kept small pens for them down where they used to work them daily, like in the bottoms.
Airdale
Airdale
don't get me wrong... i always see the negative first...
if one can run a 40cu ft freezer... seems there wouldn't be such scarcity of food requiring one to be 100% food independent...
if food is so scarce that one needs to be fully self sufficient... my guess is the surrounding infrastructure would also be so devoid as to make 40cuft freezers impossible...
then you get into protecting it...
now... i love this discussion... unfortunately i live in a semi-urban area... SE Fla... in a condo... and have been bugging the condo board to stop buying palm trees and plant banana trees... and anything else that favors this clime... we have the space and the water system already...
so i'll glean what i can... there are 4-6 million in population in the immediate area who live either in multi-family or lots too small for any plantings to be of any value... and unless everyone started doing it... we got plenty on no-gooders who'd just come over and take it...
Many, many palms are ideal for Florida's climate. SE Florida should be pretty close to that of Bangkok, where I live. I have about 60 varieties of palm around my house, most just love the water. It's rainy season now and they are just taking off.
Bananas are fine too, but for condo landscaping much more difficult to maintain. My bananas are also taking off and there is nothing wrong with them.
There are a lot of tropical fruit trees that can do well in a landscaped environment; mangos, oranges, etc.
But condo landscaping is probably not the ideal environment for fruit cultivation. You would have to agree on how to harvest and share. Otherwise people tend to pick things too early because they are afraid if they wait until they are ready, someone else will.
What! no spuds or rutabagas, or Jerusalem artichokes( these are much hardier than potatoes, but rather tasteless.
Jerusalem artichokes are very hardy indeed - around here, they're a weed. The tubers when boiled, mashed with butter, salt & pepper, are not too bad, but they do cause horrendous gas!
I've heard that Jerusalem artichokes got the Pilgrims through some very tough times...
I sorta have a problem with this take.
You sound like a guy who hasn't tended too many fruit trees.
The big problem is dealing with the insects that attack fruit trees.
Most folks will spray the hell out of their fruit trees or lose them totally to insects most seasons.
This season for the first I can remember in a very long time I have lots of fruit and almost zero destroyed by insects,primarily worms.
You have to be very very good to raise fruit trees meaningfully and tackle the problem without insecticides,miscible sprays,etc. Not just once but prebloom,last fall,bloom fall and so forth. You must be very proactive for once the infestation starts its usually too late.
What I prefer is vine bearing fruit. Blueberries,strawberries and blackberries. This year I am hoping to put up wild elderberry.
So to each his own. I am just telling you what I have seen with my small orchard. Pears,apples and peaches.
Or is this something you just pulled off via Googleville?
Airdale-as information doubles,knowledge halves and wisdom quarters
I have never sprayed my apples or peaches. Some of the apples are blemished (or inhabited by undesirable elements), but then, I'm not growing for market. I get more apples than I can possibly use. The peaches have never had any insect problems, but oddly enough, porcupines like to get into the trees and can cause great damage. A simple low wire fence keeps them out.
Berries are great, if you can keep the cedar waxwings off of 'em - around here you need to throw something over 'em. Seems like a pretty good berry year up here in NH. Strawberries were awesome, and the blueberries starting to come on strong...
One thing people don't seem to know about wormy fruit - botulism can develop in the wormy area of the fruit. This is why commercial juicers, whether organic or standard, refuse to accept wormy fruit.
Todd
PS - I have really good codling moth control using pheromone traps.
I have good scab control on apples and peach leaf curl on peaches
using not only copper sprays but also colloidal silver or a weak
Pine-Sol solution.
I think the bug problem with fruit varies from region to region. Here in east texas the plum curiculo bug will infest every plum or peach unless a heavy spraying schedule is adhered to. I lived in Amarillo, Texas, which is up in the panhandle at 3500ft. elevation, for a couple of years and had a nectarine tree in the yard. I never sprayed it and had heavy crops of totally worm free fruit. Amarillo doesn't have mosquitos either now that I recall.