Coir or Peat? Which should you use?
If you’re soil is like ours, you need added organic material in your garden to compensate for the high clay content. Organic material is also needed in sandy soil to provide a medium for holding water. Over the years, we have added many materials including peat moss (also known as sphagnum moss) to improve the garden tilth. Peat moss is harvested from bogs and there is much controversy about its sustainability.
My father found an interesting opinion on the subject by Eliot Coleman in his book for small vegetable farmers titled The New Organic Grower
In recent years, I have noticed Coir fiber advertised as a renewable, environmentally friendly alternative to peat moss. You can find it in many garden catalogs. But once again, Mr. Coleman makes a few very good points about coir:
- It is transported a great distance at great expense and using large amounts of energy, and
- This valuable organic matter is needed in the areas it is produced to maintain soil fertility.
These are excellent points that should remind us to look beyond the “renewable”, “sustainable” marketing propaganda.
How much energy is your fridge using?
Here’s a neat calculator from the U.S. Government’s Energy Star website (we can discuss whether the government should be running this type of site in some other post!). It helps you figure out how much energy your refrigerator or freezer is using and what it costs to run it each year.
You can use this calculator to determine if you’ll save money replacing your old unit and how long the payback. You can also find out if the refrigerator or freezer you have chosen is the most efficient for your solar system or if there is one that is more efficient!
We bought our Maytag refrigerator in 1999, just 9 years ago. The cost was about $1000. At the time, it was the most efficient you could buy. We determined it would be more practical and cost less money to purchase the high-efficiency fridge and an entire set of solar panel to power it rather than buy a very pricey Sunfrost-brand advertised in many solar catalogs. In addition to the high costs, the Sunfrost refrigerators needed defrosting and did not have all the nice interior features of a standard fridge. Shortly after purchasing our fridge, Home Power Magazine did an article on the very same fridge. They found it a practical and efficient alternative too!
I ran our Maytag through the calculator and there are definitely more efficient models available today. Ours is still a pretty efficient model though and should last us another few years, I’d expect.
We have friends with an old chest freezer. Not knowing the details, I guessed it was a from the 1980s and about 18 cubic feet. Running it through the calculator, it costs them an estimated $123 per year to run! That’s $10 per month just for one freezer! A new, more efficient model costs just $38/year to run. That a savings of $425 over 5 years. And a new freezer can certainly be had for that!
So go ahead and run your units through the calculator and see what you might save.
Planting Asparagus
When I was a child growing up on an old farm in New York State, we had a number of asparagus patches. These patches had been planted years before we moved to the farm and were well established. There were probably a good 50 years old at the time, maybe older!
I planted asparagus in our garden about 4 years ago and right now we are reaping the harvest of those efforts. It is asparagus time in East Tennessee! Asparagus is a perennial which means it comes back each year. It is the early spring shoots that you eat. Once the season has ended, the shoots must be allowed to grow into tall, wispy ferns so the roots have time to recover and grow.
Since asparagus is a perennial and can get rather large, I suggest you find an out-of-the-way place to plant it, say at the edge of the vegetable garden. It likes full sun but should be protected from high winds as the plants can be blown over easily. Good drainage is also important. Be sure and mark you bed well so as to avoid tilling them in early Spring. I’m speaking from experience here!
Asparagus is typically planted in early spring, as soon as you can work the soil and the soil temperature is at least 50 degrees. 20 plants per person is good rule of thumb if you like asparagus. If you really like it, plant 40 per person.
Asparagus likes a light, sandy soil with a pH between 6.5 and 7. You can add lime if your pH is too acid and peat moss and /or sand if too clayey. Dig trenches 10″ deep and 1 foot wide. Build a small mound down the center of the trench. Set the plant crowns 1-1/2 feet apart in the trench with the roots spread over the mound and the center of the plant sitting on top of the mound. Cover with 2″ of soil. Every two weeks, add another 2″ of soil until the trench is fill and the soil is slightly mounded over the bed. Cover the bed with an inch or so of compost and mulch. Asparagus are heavy feeders.
According to Elliot Coleman, author of Four-Season Harvest
Harvest very lightly the following Spring as the plants need a few years to reach full production. After the second or third year, you can harvest all the shoots for the first 4 to 6 weeks. Asparagus should be broken off at the surface of the soil and placed in a glass of cool water in the refrigerator until it is time to eat them!
A good source for asparagus plants is your favorite garden catalog. I happen to like Simmons Plant Farm. These folks are actually the growers and their site includes planting instructions. Their prices are very reasonable.
Once you have your asparagus established, you will have it for years!
What you can and can’t (practically) do with Solar Power
Living with solar power does not mean you have to sacrifice all of today’s automated gadgets. But there are certain limitations that we’ll cover in future posts.
Here are things you can do with solar power:
- Run a standard, high efficiency auto-defrost refrigerator.
- Wash clothes in a regular washing machine. Front loading high efficiency is best.
- Wash dishes with a dishwasher.
- Use a personal computer system.
- Watch TV (however, we don’t recommend this for reasons other than power use).
- Listen to music on a radio or stereo.
- Blow dry your hair.
- Iron clothes.
- Run fans for cooling and venting.
- Use electric power tools.
These things take a millionaire’s budget to power (and are therefore not practical on a solar power system for folks like us):
- Air Conditioning.
- Electric Clothes drying.
- Electric resistance heat.
- Crock Pot cooking.
- Electric stove cooking.
Save and produce, not borrow and consume
For all those experiencing tough times due to the rising costs of fuel, food, and feed, here’s an interview with Peter Schiff by the Ludwid Von Mises Institute. Mr. Schiff adeptly explains the causes of our economic problems and provides much needed solutions.
How to shear a sheep (or not)
We’ve got one wooly ewe in our little flock and she really needed a shearing. I’ve never sheared before and never seen it done save in a YouTube video. I figured I’d try and shear her a bit with some kitchen scissors just to see if it could be done and before I invested in a nice set of shears. If that didn’t work, I would bribe my friend Kasey’s dad with some homemade butter.
Well, I was able to trim up her back end with the regular scissors although I cut her 3 times! The poor dear. So I went ahead a bought some hand shears from Premier1Supply. The cost with shipping was under $45. Electric clippers are out of our budget right now. The shears I purchased have rubber bumpers that prevent the knife-like blades from crossing so as to minimize my ability to cut her further.
Yesterday morning, my daughter informed me that she had Spot (named by the same daughter for the white spot on top of her head) in the hoop house and was ready for shearing. So I grabbed my new shears and went to it.
I was surprised how difficult it was to get the shears through the wool but started to get the hang of it a bit when I used my left hand. I found that sliding the blade like a knife into smaller sections of the wool then cutting worked better than trying to snip the wool.
Here are a couple shots of me shearing. That’s our 8-year-old assisting. She’s the shepherdess of the family.
As you can see, I had an audience.
We gave Spot a break a few times. Here she is with a bustle of wool on her back!
It took about an hour to finish her and I never really got her belly sheared. My back & legs were aching and still are this morning. The wool wasn’t good for much with all the second cuts I took. The bucket of wool promptly disappeared as the children wanted to “clean” and “spin” it. I suspect it will end up as mulch in the garden. There’s probably a good inch of wool still on her. Fortunately, I didn’t cut her! The other sheep were wondering who she was when all was done. Spot’s not too thrilled with me either.
Spot before and after her first shearing.
I think I need a few more wool sheep to practice on. I’ll get the hang of it. And one of these days we’ll have our own wool to wash, card, and spin!
Now tell us about your first sheep shearing experience! How did you learn? What worked for you? We would love to hear your stories, tips, and techniques.
Alternate Energy Sources: More than Solar & Wind
If you are looking for alternate energy options for your home, there are many. Here are some options:
- Solar Electric. Photovoltaic panels (a.k.a. Solar Panels) convert sunshine into electricity. Even under some cloudy conditions, some electricity is created.
- Thermal Solar. There are many options here. The main one is hot water heating using a thermal solar collector. Some folks get this type of collector confused with photovoltaic solar collectors. The former heats water. The latter generates DC electric current. This category also includes solar cooking & solar drying of food or clothing.
- Wind Power. Wind causes a prop (like an airplane propeller) to turn an electric generator. Alternately a crank arm can be rotated to pull a sucker rod up and down to pump water.
- Passive Solar. This term typically refers to your home dessign. A passive solar design uses the sun for heating and ventilation and shade for cooling. Design considerations include placement & type of windows, orientation of the exterior walls, construction materials selection, and shading.
- Hydro Electric. Falling water can be used to rotate a turbine, which in turn rotates a generator. This is water power. There are small systems available. If you have a combination of flow and vertical drop, hydropower is an option.
- Methane Generation. That’s right! You can make your own natural gas. All you need is a methane digester and lots of manure.
- Ethanol Generation. Think moonshine! You can build your own ethanol still and make your own fuel for ethanol burning autos! You’ll need fuel for the still and a starchy substance for the ethanol, like corn, switch grass, or sorghum. The permit from the Department of Revenue (BATF) is free and allows you to make up to 10,000 gallons per year for your automobile. However, you waive your Fourth Amendment rights in the application. Go figure.
- Food oil fuel. If you’ve got diesel motors and a source for used cooking oil, you can clean it up and make fuel for your tractor, truck, or diesel burning car.
- Wood. Yes, this can be a renewable source and is definitely an alternative. You can use wood for heating you home, cooking, and even heating your hot water.
- Rankine Cycle Heat Engine. Commonly known as a “steam engine,” this work process can also use other working fluids besides water. Butane is an excellent candidate, as the lower pressure of operation and greater efficiency, when compared to water, make for economic heat engines. Sources of heat can be solar thermal collectors or firewood.
- Animal Power. Mules, horses, oxen, and other animals have been trained to perform work. Feed them grass and grains, and they drag logs, plow, pull wagons, rotate pumps, and fertilize your pasture!
What do we use? Wood for heating and hot water if we need it, Solar for electricity, and Passive Solar for heating and cooling the house. We would like to incorporate Thermal Solar collectors to preheat our hot water and a wood cook stove for outdoor summer cooking. Both of these options would reduce our need for propane. And an ethanol still would also be a nice addition.
Eating Local is not Elitist!
Jennifer Wilkins of Cornell University has written an excellent article challenging the idea that local food is elitist.
You can read her article here.
And if you are trying to eat good quality meats on a budget, here’s a link to our post on going grassfed on a budget.
