clothing in the sun

so what you wear when gardening will change lots,
I had what seemed like hot days about once a week, but it did not match weather patterns from the news,
I figured out that it was when I had one shirt on,
here is a picture of 2 of my shirts, and they are black

but when I took the same picture in infrared

one shirt is still black and the other looks white,
what is going on is that one reflects the infrared and the other one absorbs it,
and the sun has lots of  infrared light,
plenty enough to warm you up lots, 
and it was only the one shirt that did that, and 2 jeans absorbed it as well,
it is just the dye they use,  or what it is made of,
my hats ended up about the same,

but I already know that the one with the vented section is way cooler.

then I wondered what kitty is cooler out in the sun,

ok, here they are in regular colors

barter

so the entire point to a survival garden is to survive,
but that assumes that you have bad enough conditions to need to do that 
barter is a neat way to get things that you had not planned on needing,
but for it to work you (and everyone else in your community) need to have something to trade,
this use to work because most people made something they could trade,
but almost no one makes anything anymore, and this is a big problem, 
you could just trade what you have stored, but that will run out, and just is not a good long term solution,
just like storing food up, you will run out at some point, so that is why you need to grow it,

so the easy thing to trade for a farmer is seeds,
it often costs you very little to get them if you are growing things anyway, and they tend to have high value,
food is likely secondary because you will likely want most of that, and it tends to be less valuable than the seeds.
but something like making rakes from wood, and you grow the trees,
or mining something,
you could take raw materials you don't have and craft them into something useful as well, but then you are trusting a supplier.
I like the idea of making beer and wine to trade, or maybe making rope...
most of the things you could be making can be done inside on bad weather days,
so it is not like it is going to cost you time you needed badly for other things,
these 2 websites might have some neat ideas for you,
http://www.notechmagazine.com/
http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/


also related to this,
the advantage of a city is manufacturing,
you likely have big roads and ports,
and lots of people,
it is easy to get lots of people in one place to make things,
so if you are in a city and can't escape, then get to know your farmer,
and find out what they want manufactured, and then figure out how to trade that for the food you want.
and remember that you don't need power tools to do it if you set things up correct.
even in a horrible bad economy you can build way more in a city in a garage with just a few friends than I could ever hope to build out here, and yes, I will trade you food or seeds for farm hardware I need.

and yay, this is my 100th post on this blog  ^_^

food fatigue

food fatigue can be an issue,
and it is one that is getting to me at the moment,
I should be eating the food I grew (by the way, they should be stored without touching each other, so if one gets mold, it will not spread to the others, and they make great fall decorations as well)

and it is great, and pretty

but I wanted something else,
really bad,
so I stopped at the store

and I got something  I can't grow here

or at least something that would be very hard to grow here,
and plan on using it with sugar to make hot chocolate !


just mix sugar in with it and it, and you can use water or milk,
I like it with about half the glass filled in with chocolate, and a quarter the glass with sugar,
then mix in boiling water and stir well,
that makes very thick dark chocolate drink, it is like drinking a dark chocolate bar....
good luck all in making your own hot chocolate (hint, just play with the sugar amount till you like it,

sweet potatoes and yams

sweet potatoes and yams are great
(will add picture here sometime tonight), edit: here it is

they are 2 families of plants, but are grown almost the same,
they have a better carbohydrate profile than regular potatoes,
and they seem to be doing well here this year,
(imagine picture here that I may or may not add later)
edit: ok, fine here it is

to bad I did not plant more of them,
so the logic is that they grow what they don't have,
so if they have only vines they will grow tubers,
if they have only tubers then they grow vines,

so what that means is that you plant the tubers usually inside before winter is over
and then you harvest the vines it grows and you root them in water with rooting compound if you have any, and then put them in to soil later,
then when you put them out in the garden in spring the vines will make tubers.

it is really not that hard once you get the logic.

(imagine a cute picture here as well)

soil types and bacteria

so the kind of soil you have will change lots
if you have decomposed granite it is likely going to drain water before the roots of the plant can absorb the water,

if you have clay soil it will hold water nearly forever and it might be easy to rot the roots our from your plants, or not absorb water fast, you might have to soak things for an hour to get any water into it.

if you have hardpan, not much of anything will grow

it is compacted with no organic matter at all,

most of my dirt looks like this

I added wood chips and leaves trying to fix it, and it is fixed to a large degree,

here are radishes that I just planted growing out of it

but remember that soil science is kind of old now, and sadly most of the info seems to be unused anymore,
so lets find out the why of it all, 
the biggest part of it is the soil bacteria,
first question is usually "why do I need soil bacteria ?"
and the answer is that cell walls and membranes leak.
so the roots of the plants can absorb things from the bacteria,
but for this to happen you need a good place for the bacteria to grow,
so compacted dirt with no food (organic matter), or air, or water is not a good place
the best example of the symbiotic bacteria is with orchids,
they don't have the fine hairs on the roots and will die with out the bacteria that collects things for them.

so soil bacteria are very critical,
and you can make them grow in any soil type if you know how,
and here is likely how
http://www.soilandhealth.org/01aglibrary/010120albrecht.usdayrbk/lsom.html
from 1938, and unlike modern studies, it has tests and data to show what is going on.


feeding time

what now

so what now ?
I wanted to start a garden seed company,
but there is way to little room here to grow the plants, or to package the seeds,
but I did get a very good start on my corn breeding project,
only part of the squash breeding project happened, the other half failed from lack of good seeds,
and I can't seem to eat what I grew,
the first thing to do is to plant things I can eat,
radishes, spinach, turnips, parsnips, beets are all coming up on time to plant anyway
I already planted new potatoes in the correct conditions to do well,
I could get chickens to convert the squash I can't eat to something I can eat...
homesteads of the past loved animals as all you have to do is keep them fed and you have food,
a few milking goats will get you all the calories you need to live.
and animals can eat many things we can't, some dairy goats will eat oak leaves like they are candy...
and oak leaves are everywhere here.
but I would need a good fence for them, not sure I can afford that right now, but the chickens are still an option,

so the question is "what now"
just have to think about it for a while

allergies

so allergies are annoying
if you have ever planned for long term food storage, then you have likely seen the food allergy issue,

you will not find out that you are allergic to something till you try to start living on it,
also you never know when you will have to have food with someone that can't have wheat or any other food
and if you think that no one you care about has that issue, remember that it could be a new person (baby)
or something that you did not spot till you tried living on it,

now this happened to me with wheat,
I had 4 kinds of wheat stored and was making bread daily with it.
I had lots saved up and not much of anything else,
then I found out that I could not eat it anymore or I would die...
and nearly did one day before I quit totally

so you would think I would have learned my lesson then,
but apparently not, 
I tried to grow enough potatoes and corn and squash so that each one would feed me for the year,
but the corn failed due to me changing varieties (I should not have taken the risk )
and the potatoes failed from doing something I knew was not a good idea, but I was pushed hard by someone else to do it the wrong way (and I did not want to make waves).

but the squash seems to have done well enough to come up with much of my yearly food
the issue is that I seem to be allergic to it when I try to have it every day,
it is kind of funny, and I am sure I will be laughing about it for a long time,
but I will be testing it more to be sure that is what it is,
I should have grown 5 to 7 things that would get all my yearly food....