Freezing green onions

• 13 Aug 2009
• wade
• 2 responses

I pulled a bunch of onions this evening, sliced them up, and arranged them in the dehydrator to run through the night. A post on that will be coming soon. I thought I’d post a quick note about green onions tonight though. Just because you have more than you can eat, don’t throw the rest out. Freeze them! Green onions freeze well and they don’t even have to be blanched. The texture changes a little so you probably won’t want to each them in a salad, but besides that they do quite well. I have enough that I won’t need to buy green onions again. Really. I’ll still be pulling them out of the freezer when next year’s are ready to harvest.

Tags: Freezing, Gardening, green onions, vegetables

Freezing broccoli and cauliflower

• 19 Jun 2009
• wade
• 10 responses

One of the most significant weaknesses in my gardening has been storing my harvest. Gardens aren’t just about fresh produce. People used to live off them year round. With so many people struggling to make ends meet or struggling to establish adequate food storage, I am surprised there are so few gardens. This year I have committed to educating myself on effective storage techniques and significantly adding to the variety and quality of my food storage with the fruits of my garden.

There are many ways to preserve and store food including canning, smoking, bottling, drying, and freezing. Each has it’s own advantages and weaknesses and varies in effectiveness depending on the food. For example, I could eat canned green beans with meatloaf every night of the week but would rather eat dirt than canned peas. Of course, if it really came down to it, I would likely choose to supplement the dirt with the canned peas to avoid death. Thus, I would recommend having a variety of food stored in several different methods.

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Tags: Food Storage, Freezing, Gardening, Howto, Vacuum Sealing

Utah Garden Planning Documents

• 12 Jun 2009
• ekim
• 2 responses

A while back we posted on a series of classes that the incomparable Gordon Wells was teaching throughout the Utah Valley. Some of you may have attended and hopefully have started out on your first gardening attempts or are implementing his teachings into your existing garden.

A coworker of mine went to the same class last year and implemented it in his garden that spring. He was amazed at the results he was able to obtain just by following the simple guidelines laid out by Mr. Wells. He was so impressed that he created a series of three PDF documents that simply and quickly illustrate when and what to plant. (more…)

Tags: Document Preps, Download, garden, Gardening, reference

An attempt to build a rotating compost bin

• 10 Jun 2009
• wade
• 32 responses

I’m fascinated by compost. Watching kitchen scraps turn into dirt in just a few weeks time is exciting and anything I can do to improve my soil is worth the effort. I want the ComposTumbler, but finding $429 in the family budget (the price after you give them an email address) for a barrel that holds dirt is proving difficult. So, this past weekend I decided to build my own.

The project was not a success in my mind but I thought I would post this how-to article anyway describing what I tried and the lessons learned in the hope that it will save others of you time and money should you embark on such a project yourself. The unit is complete and in my garden cooking up a batch of compost at this very moment, but it is difficult to use, I have concerns about how long it will last, and the door doesn’t stay closed.
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Tags: Gardening, How To, Lesson learned

As my Garden Grows – So do my weeds!

• 09 Jun 2009
• phil801
• 8 responses

My new garden is nearly a quarter acre, I had forgotten just how many weeds show up in a brand new garden!

I’ve been gardening all my life – my Father got his Masters Degree in Agronomy and for as long as I can remember he has kept a very large garden, large enough to feed his family of 9.  Growing up we spent each spring building hills for the garden and planting, summers were spent weeding and maintaining and fall was always a huge harvest that the entire family participated in.

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Tags: garden, Gardening

Gardening in Beds

• 01 Jun 2009
• angela
• 17 responses

I’m a relatively new bed gardener (just got ours built last year), but have already found that there are many benefits to laying out a garden in beds rather than rows.

Garden laid out in beds. Pay no attention to the weeds--they are outside the beds!

First is the increased production in less space.  Beans don’t need 18 inches between rows like the seed packet says.  That 18 inches is for you to walk between rows. (more…)

Tags: garden, Gardening, Howto

Potato Grow Boxes

• 19 May 2009
• phil801
• 25 responses

This year I was going to plant “garbage can potatoes”.  If you haven’t heard of this method it goes like this: plant potatoes in a garbage can, add 8 inches of dirt and when the plant grows out of the dirt and is 8 inches tall, add another 8 inches of soil and so on.  This method is supposed to yield about 50 pounds of potatoes in the garbage can.  An alternate method is to use old tires, a bucket, or a large trench that you continually add soil to.

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Tags: Food Storage, Gardening, Howto

Survival Seeds in a Can-9 Years Later

• 12 May 2009
• angela
• 19 responses

"Vintage" 2000 Nitro Pak Survival Garden Seed Can

I, like some of you, have in the past purchased canned or packed “survival seeds” that are advertised as if they can be saved and planted when disaster hits.  Mine came from Nitro Pak Preparedness Center and were packed for 2000 (yep, that’s 9 years ago).  We didn’t get into the Y2K scare, so it’s really just coincidence that that is the year they were packed for, but I’m guessing I’m not the only one that has a can or two of these seeds sitting on the food room shelf waiting to plant them until I ”need” them.  They are non-hybrid seeds, meaning they produce seed that will grow the same plant it came from when it is planted, so you are supposed to be able to harvest your seeds and grow more food next year with it.

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Tags: Education, Experience, Food, Gardening

Skills as a prep

• 30 Apr 2009
• wade
• 4 responses

A few weeks ago a guest author on a popular preparation blog discussed the value of gardening as a resource. He put forth the opinion that while he enjoys gardening as a pastime, the decision as to whether to engage in it should be based solely around time and cost. Citing the inability to move a garden in an emergency and the amount of labor required to get to harvest, he concluded that it is better to save your seeds for a bug-out and expend today’s efforts and money on a trip to the grocery store. “It’s all about time,” he says, “not a skill or desire.” (more…)

Tags: Food Storage, Gardening, Practice, Rotation, Skills

Self Reliance Class April 7th in Spanish Fork

• 25 Mar 2009
• ekim
• 12 responses

Self Reliance Class “On the Road to Preparedness”

Taught by Debbie Kent who is a preparedness/food storage specialist in her stake in California. Debbie has taught numerous classes on every aspect of preparedness and has consented to share the latest up to date methods and ideas on how we can each secure what we need for the future.

Tuesday April 7th at 7:00 p.m.

Spanish Fork South Stake House
1240 South 1158 East
Spanish Fork, UT

Here is the PDF handout for the class. On the path to preparedness handout (1154)

Tags: Education, Event, Food Storage, Howto, meetup

Gardening resources (local and mail-order)

• 10 Mar 2009
• wade
• 14 responses

Gardening in Utah can be a wonderfully enjoyable and productive experience. Knowing how to get started however can be a major deterrent for many people. Fortunately, there are a number of local resources we can rely upon in order to help us to get started on the path to productive, self-sufficient gardening.

After doing some research myself, here’s my garden fertilized and tilled, ready for the first planting next week:

If you are interested in getting started, keep reading for some recommendations on local resources.
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Tags: Gardening, Links, Seeds

Starts for the Spring garden

• 05 Mar 2009
• wade
• 4 responses

Ten days and counting. Boy do I have spring-fever. We planted lettuce, broccoli, carrots and two kinds of peas Monday night in our starter trays and by this morning they had already sprouted and pushed their heads up through the soil. I will be moving them outside on the fourteenth. I tried two approaches to see which would perform better. Half the seeds went in a 72 cup Jiffy Greenhouse Kit and the other half went in biodegradable peat pots filled with seed-starting potting soil and covered with cellophane.

I found the Jiffy Greenhouse Kit cumbersome, but it does appear to be performing better than the pots I filled with soil by hand. The peat pellets in the kit are compressed and dehydrated and come as small wafers. Before use, you must rehydrate them with an eighth a cup of water and slice open the top of the fabric that holds them together so that you can get the seed inside. The raised plastic lid also appears to be regulating the humidity better than the cellophane on the others. The cellophane is also going to have to be removed once shoots get much higher than the edge of the peat pots.

The only real obstacle that I foresee is distinguishing between each of the plants while they are young as my toddler has removed my markers.

Tags: garden, planting, spring, starts