As I wrap up the basic gardening section, there are a few final topics I want to touch on.
Bird netting
To protect the brambles and blueberries from the birds, I installed two rows of six-foot U-posts positioned opposite each other on each side of the berry beds with the U facing in, slid a ten-foot 3/4″ PVC pipe into the two U channels across from each other, forming an arch over the bed, and kept the pipe in place with cable clamps that go around the U-posts and the pipe. Bird netting was draped over the frame. The netting comes in various weights and sizes; I have two 14×30 foot nets draped over the blueberries, for example.
Compost pile
I picked up wooden pallets from the side of the road and made a three-compartment bin. Right now, there is a section that was emptied in the fall and the compost put on the raised beds. That is where the new compost pile is forming. Kitchen parings, egg shells, coffee grounds, tea bags, weeds that haven’t gone to seed, leaves, grass clippings are all thrown into the forming bin. Another section has compost that is currently cooking, so to speak, and the third section has finished compost that will be used in the spring. When I clean out the hen house (I do this twice a year), I put the litter in the new section by creating layers with still-forming compost from another section. NEVER add any diseased plant to the compost pile (or use it for mulch, for that matter). NEVER. Burn it or put it in with bagged garbage instead.
Pruning
If you have woody-stemmed plants (my peach and plum trees and the blueberry bushes and elderberries) or brambles (raspberries or blackberries), you will need to prune them. This is done in the off-season when they are dormant. I usually do the raspberries in November. If I don’t get to it then, it will wait until late February. The fruit trees get pruned in early March before the spraying begins. Again, space does not allow a detailed description here, but there are good books and websites to walk you through the process.
Water
Since I’m on a private well, I make the most of rain water. There are four 50-gallon rain barrels attached to three down spouts around the house, two attached in tandem.
Final Thoughts
If you haven’t already begun gardening, begin now. This year. Start growing your own food, start saving seed, start recycling your scraps into compost to make healthy soil. Get started. There is no time to waste. The learning curve is steep.
Buy books or download information now while this is still available.
I believe a catastrophe of some sort is coming. It might be an EMP from a nuclear explosion in the low atmosphere or a terrorist attack that shuts down the gird, or a declaration of Marshall law for whatever reason, or a pandemic.
I lean toward a collapse of the food supply as the growing season gets shorter at each end and food shortages occur as we experience crop failures. This is already happening, by the way, although we are not hearing about it from the MSM. The USDA is fudging the numbers concerning crop losses (see www.iceagefarmer.com among other sources). For real. Our sun is sliding into a grand solar minimum as the sunspots disappear. The warming that occurred as the Little Ice Age ended is over, and we are heading back into a colder period that may last twenty or thirty or forty years.
I am not afraid of whatever is coming. I am as prepared as I can be, given my budget and other considerations over which I have no control. But I am not afraid because Almighty God, the creator and sovereign ruler of the universe, the Lord Jesus Christ, is my savior. And that is my most important preparation.
Next month, I will be talking about raising chickens: chicks and hatching, feed and water, general care, and slaughtering and butchering.
