Some random thoughts and questions from an old man......

[Solus]

When I had a yard that made a garden possible, I did a garden using a technique called French Intensive Gardening.  Similar to a raised bed garden, but it is not raised but dug deeper (well, it is raised, but only to the extent that the loosened soil sits higher than the compact adjacent soil) .  Not a difficult procedure but takes some work.  The results are very good.  Plants can be much closer together because the roots grow down instead of out.  Basically it is a two foot deep by 5 foot wide by as long as you wish trench of loose dirt.  That trench will hold water and thus nutrients much longer than a traditional tilled garden.  The plant spacing is close enough that the ground between the plants is shaded and there is very little weed growth.  Further, companion planting is used so that plants that benefit each other are planted together.

If anyone is interested, I found a wiki link to the topic...and needed to correct it   , but here is the link

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_intensive_gardening#Bed_preparation

More references:

http://www.motherearthnews.com/organic-gardening/biodynamic-gardening-zmaz80jfzraw.aspx#axzz37jcHOm99

http://www.alan-chadwick.org/html%20pages/techniques/garden_plants/veg_photos.html

Well, Google  french intensive gardening if you are interested in more info.

[les snyder]

having lived most of my life in hurricane country, preparation and situational awareness has always been a priority.... learning new skills a corollary... wanting to improve my handgun skill got me started in competitive shooting, which led to hand loading, building my own pistols, and eventually 3 gun... retirement allowed me the time to fool around with solar desalination and solar oven projects... vacuum packing long term supplies in Bell/Mason jars... dehydrating, smoking fish, and pressure canning... sprouting beans for a mini vegetable bar...making bannock...cooking with skewers....

my livestock is in the Gulf of Mexico about 3 miles away... a cast net and snatch hook (not currently legal) are easily mastered... but do take some practice

bottom line...how do you know your skill level if you don't try it...and for this column, that would include shooting your first USPSA match...

[lhprop1]

Nothing tastes better than what you've raised and harvested from your own garden. 

Crusader Rabbit

A rabbit likes a garden . . . Imagine that.  I do everything I can to keep rabbits (especially the crusader types) OUT of my garden. 

A little bragging here, but I've got a rather sizeable garden.  I've got 25 tomatoes, 30 potatoes, 100' worth of green beans, beets, carrots, onions, peppers, and Brussels sprouts.  Last year, I canned 40+ quarts of tomatoes (salsa and spaghetti sauce), 40+ quarts of beans, 15 or so quarts of beets and carrots, and three 5-gallon buckets of taters.  I made my first picking of beans the other day and I got close to two 5 gallon buckets full. 

I like to make meals where everything on the plate (minus the spices and butter) is stuff that I harvested myself.  I didn't get a deer this year, so it's been lots of fish and goose. 

[tombogan03884]

A rabbit likes a garden . . . Imagine that.  I do everything I can to keep rabbits (especially the crusader types) OUT of my garden. 

A little bragging here, but I've got a rather sizeable garden.  I've got 25 tomatoes, 30 potatoes, 100' worth of green beans, beets, carrots, onions, peppers, and Brussels sprouts.  Last year, I canned 40+ quarts of tomatoes (salsa and spaghetti sauce), 40+ quarts of beans, 15 or so quarts of beets and carrots, and three 5-gallon buckets of taters.  I made my first picking of beans the other day and I got close to two 5 gallon buckets full. 

I like to make meals where everything on the plate (minus the spices and butter) is stuff that I harvested myself. I didn't get a deer this year, so it's been lots of fish and goose. 

You need to do something different with your garden.
Like maybe leave the fence open once in a while ? 

[JC5123]

We are trying to get our property as self sustaining as possible. The fact that we now live 10 miles out of town drastically reduces the amount that we go to the store, and eat out. We have finally established some good gardens and all the bushes and trees are fruiting well this year. I am expecting that in another month or so we will begin major harvesting. Around the end of September we will butcher a little over half of the chickens that we have raised this year. That will leave us with 8-10 layers and a couple of roosters for winter.

When we started this venture we did a lot of research into gardens, and livestock. I knew that they were screwing with our food, but the things that we learned really shocked me. This has reinforced our "do it self" mentality. It's really nice to know exactly where your food has come from, and how it was raised.

[Sponsor]

[lhprop1]

You need to do something different with your garden.
Like maybe leave the fence open once in a while ? 

If I didn't live in the suburbs, I wouldn't even have to get out of bed during deer season.  They walk through our front yard every morning and eat our plants.  I could sleep with my Enfield next to the bed and then just sit up and shoot one through the window when the dog starts barking.

[JC5123]

If I didn't live in the suburbs, I wouldn't even have to get out of bed during deer season.  They walk through our front yard every morning and eat our plants.  I could sleep with my Enfield next to the bed and then just sit up and shoot one through the window when the dog starts barking.

Ask MB if you can borrow his crossbow.  I've heard it doesn't count if you don't wake up the neighbors. 

[fatbaldguy]

If I didn't live in the suburbs, I wouldn't even have to get out of bed during deer season.  They walk through our front yard every morning and eat our plants.  I could sleep with my Enfield next to the bed and then just sit up and shoot one through the window when the dog starts barking.

I took one in my backyard two years ago.  Longbow from the bedroom window.   I live in a country setting suburb.  None of the neighbors reported it.  I boned and packaged the meat myself, put the carcass in the compost pile.