Having things written down and portable helps us to manage the mammoth task of planting.Grow Planner iPad App Tutorial (from Mother Earth News) We also grow a huge garden (currently 80x95 feet, plus beds up along the east and south sides of the house, as well as strawberry beds in the front lawn we're in the process of migrating into several smaller plots in a better location) with no irrigation (though the tomatoes and strawberries get watered from rain barrels when it gets really dry), so our conditions are pretty challenging. Having an actual hard-copy 'garden map' when he goes out to plant is important to my husband. We're in a bit of a different position, in that I do the majority of the research, ordering, and seed starting, but my husband does the majority of the planting, weeding, and harvesting, so communication in our case is pretty crucial. We go through seed catalogs, and each of us picks any "fun" or novel plants we want to try, as well as going over what worked well last year. Nice things about the paper and pencil method (for my family, at least): it's fun to sit around the kitchen table and dream together about the garden on some crappy January day. Once we've done that, and know we need, say, eighty feet of carrot plantings, we decide where we're going to put them, and how many actual rows that will equal. We work out how much of any given vegetable we want, then figure out my row-feet (like board-feet only different.) based on yields we have gotten here in previous years. We have a "farm" calendar that we use to track due dates on the goats, who was bred to whom, vaccination, worming, and hoof trimming dates, when the day-old chicks are scheduled to arrive, which seeds to start when, and tentative planting dates for the various crops. I just use a paper and pencil and calendar method. Having said that, I've never used them, so maybe they are much more useful than I know, and I am missing out ) Also, the free programs I looked at did not include Canadian growing zones and frost free dates. I think those programs would tend to be more useful for folks who are getting more than one crop per season from the same space, and/or who know exactly how much they want of something (like, say, they want a yield of 20 lbs of broccoli) and are working backwards from there. Thanks for stoping by and happy homesteading! Zone Maps of Asia provided by /u/encogneeto.No shaming to vegans or for animal processing.This will help keep things organized among other things. Please try and use reddit tags like, ,, , or homestead specific like, ,, etc.Be respectful and we will ban people for being icky.Try and keep post on topic, self post and blog links are okay as long as they're related to homesteading.ponds, barns, livestock, gardens, food preservation, outdoor kitchens, fishing, hunting, shop projects, tractors, bush hogs, pigs, raising chickens, cattle, worms, 4H, permaculture, organic practices, cast iron skillet, neighbor relations, frugality, 5 gallon buckets, crops, grazing, fences, lumber, canning, aquaculture, trees, woodland, diatomaceous earth, farmers, root cellars, smoke houses, mason jars, agriculture, agronomy, horticulture, critter shelter, farm interns, wwoofers, bees, honey, wildcrafting, dairy, goats, raised garden beds, paddock shift systems, nuts, berries, vegetables, growing sweet potatoes, self sufficiency, permaculture design course, off grid, alternative building, alternative energy, wood stoves, chainsaws, wood heat, tools, welding, woodworking, green woodworking, joel salatin, red worms, sepp holzer, masanobu fukuoka, ianto evans, art ludwig, farmers markets, animal husbandry, cottage industry, outhouses, composting toilets, septic tanks, ferro cement, straw bale construction, cob building. It is characterized by subsistence agriculture, home preservation of foodstuffs, and it may or may not also involve the small scale production of textiles, clothing, and craftwork for household use or sale. Homesteading - From Wikipediaīroadly defined, homesteading is a lifestyle of self-sufficiency. Message the mods please include links to any posts you are referencing.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |