Building a sustainable life style
No matter how many skills you have, they can never be enough! But if you don’t start somewhere, you get nowhere.
Preparedness
It’s better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it.
Sustainability
Gain a better understanding of the skills that built our nation. These skills are essential to our survival.
We are just on the cusp of gardening season again and I’m getting excited! With each year of gardening comes the rebirth of the earth, planning for what vegetables and herbs I’m going to plant and hope in the bounty that the summer brings. I look to what is left in my pantry, what needs to be replenished and what new food do I want to try to grow or preserve.
Over the winter, I have been getting my soil ready for the spring planting season. Each time I clean out the chicken coop, I take the waste to my garden and scatter it around my garden to increase the nitrogen content of my soil. Vegetables need a lot of nitrogen as that nutrient in particular is very imprtant in supporting growth of the plant and helping new leaves to grow. Nitrogen is very high in animal waste, and that’s what makes it a good organic fertilizer.
My chickens are mostly in the coop at night and they sleep on the roosts. So they drop most of their waste when they are perched on the roosts. This makes it pretty easy to clean their coop as the waste is all in one place. I bought boot trays to sit under the roosts to catch the waste which adds to the ease of this job. I pull them out every week or two and carry them over to the garden. I use a wide paint scraper to remove the waste and drop it in the garden. It’s working! I’ve got a good bit of the garden covered so far with organic fertilizer, thanks to the girls!
By the way, the girls have been laying well all winter which is as expected since they are so young. Next winter they will lay less through the winter as they age. I’ve been blessed with lots of eggs which after keeping as many as I need, I’m able to bless others with fresh eggs.
In about a month or so I will be starting my seeds that I collected last year from my own plants as well as the seeds I bought. I’m excited to see how they germinate and grow. For the amount of plants I am starting, I will have to get at least one more grow light. I only bought one last year because I wanted to make sure I got one that was effective. It is! I like it! And I’ll be adding to that so I can light up more surface area.
I’m hoping to be able to get my cabbage, brussel sprouts and broccoli in the ground early this year so I can plant a second crop of it. Last year, I got the second round of plants to grow, but the days got too short so I didn’t get any veggies from the second crop. It’s okay though! I learned a lot! And everything is an experiment today. And the chickens got to eat the immature plants as a snack. They loved that!
Are you planning a garden this year? If you don’t have a plot of land, how about planting a few things in pots? Tomatoes and green pepper can be grown this way. So can lettuces, green beans and potatoes. It’s important to do what you can with what you have!
Here is a link to a homesteading Youtube channel that I really like. They are down to earth and teach in a way that shows they understand we come from all knowledge levels and resources. This particular one talks about lots of details about starting your own garden plants seeds, how to germinate, grow and harden. Enjoy!
