Top products from r/UrbanHomestead

>far alone

I am often far alone in my garden, happy just to be in the midst of so many green lives. :>D Particularly this year.

After a long stretch of crises that interfered with my growing obsession, I have been able to return to it at last. I am pleasantly surprised to see what a great collection of lights, warmer pad, shelves, and seed starting stuff, etc. I have amassed.

I have been working on my winter garden since the 4th of July, and by now should have all the seeds I want, but dropped another $40 with JLHudson this weekend. All I wanted was some Portungese Kale, but.... When we had the bulk of our yard landscaped a few years ago, the landscaper used plants that were commonly available in local nurseries. Boring stuff. I went wild with ordering seeds for zone-appropriate replacement perennials that will attract pollinators.

When it comes to vegetables, I am a Zone 8b, Sunset 18, high desert container gardener.. I have SIPS (sub-irrigated planters) just waiting to revitalized and planted, and everything not in an Earthbox or facsimile, will actually be in a real pot or planter, not in a Homer bucket or a free pickle bucket!. I feel like I have arrived at last!

On to the actual garden report:

We've been eating young broccoli raab for a while, pulling and are now replacing the plants with Icicle radish seeds as we do. We have also been eating Fordhook chard, and I just made another succession planting of it, of the Orient Wonder beans, and the Golden Detroit beets.

A Little Prince eggplant seed has finally popped, Spigariello (Sprouting Broccoli, Seeds from Italy) is up, as is the Pixie Cabbage. They all live on the windowsill right now, but will eventually become Earthbox neighbors to the collards, which, along with the Lebanese marrow squash, is getting ready to take off.

My summer Roma is producing again, many varieties of micro dwarfs are in bloom and several compact dwarf seedlings are ready for their first transplant. Basil is busting out all over, tarragon and dill are sharing a big pot. Thyme, oregano, marjoram, and parsley have been all been moved to one large bowl and seem happy about it.

ETA, just took a walk around the garden and see that I forgot a box of Tom Thumb lettuce which has sprouted, Thumbelina carrots (new this year) which have not, and a Corneor di Capra pepper waiting for its final pot home.

So now that I have the vegetables in hand, I have been thinking about the various ways I can protect them through the winter beyond moving all of the planters onto the cement patio to take advantage of thermal mass.

I used to set up a portable hog panel hoop house in the backyard, but recently had a brainstorm about a way to put it on the patio, using cement blocks as kneewalls, and anchors, so I may well do that, and grow and sell some seedlings next year, to cover my gardening costs. If I don't put up the hoophouse, I will have a lot of seed trays to be protected, but I can always pull clear trashbags (Amazon) down over utility shelves of trays (of course, I would never let the plastic touch the leaves, as that transfers the outside temperature to them, a lesson learned the hard way.)

I also recently saw a raft of large translucent storage bins on sale at our local charity's last chance thrift shop. They will eventually crack and fracture and end up in the dump, but one could turn them upside down and give them a last life before they go, as a portable cold frame.

Alternately, binder clips are incredibly useful for making quick shelters and I could wrap my taller Wal-mart stack shelves with green house plastic and clip it together.

I also have a permanent "appliance" (Eliot Coleman's term for season extenders) built along the southern wall of the house, basically a 2' high box wrapped in a green tarp faced over with white lathe fencing. The inside frame has C-clamps bolted to it to hold PVC bent into hoops. Over the seasons, the hoops have alternately been covered with green house plastic, or shadecloth. It once held a half-dozen earthboxes, but since a family of formerly feral felines has moved in (and yes, have all been neutered and spayed), I gave it to them as their winter kitty condo.. In return they chase away rabbits and ground squirrels, so it's a fair trade.

If I were going to buy a portable green house, It would probably be a lean-to or the largest cloche style that I could find.

I borrowed a dehydrator from a friend and it had an on/off switch and that was it. I had no idea how warm the thing got or anything. I tried dehydrating a few different things with it but the results always varied and sometimes cooked/burned more than dehydrated. So I would definitely recommend one with adjustable temperatures.

One temp definitely doesn't fit all purposes. I ended up getting a Nesco off Amazon. I got this one. It's a little pricy than a thrifted one but I haven't regretted it and have made perfectly dehydrated mushrooms, fruit leather, and herbs. I still want to try an onion (outdoors!) and jerky.

Depending on your location and situation, different books might be more helpful than others.

I assume you are wanting to start homesteading because you are trying to be more self-sufficient, even if it means just growing one thing you use to buy.

 

If you are fortunate enough to own land, there is essentially only one book I can recommend (owning it myself)

• The New Complete Book of Self Sufficiency by John Seymour
  
  
  If you don't want to be a real prepper, ie. go completely off-grid
  
  
• Practical Self Sufficiency by Dick Strawbridge
  
   
  
  Also, @StolidSentinel 's list is a very good start. Even if you rent you can still grow food.
  
  There a million other books out there, but these ones should provide you with enough knowledge to hopefully make a success of your homesteading dreams.

Disclaimer: I haven't read these books, but the term I see used in this context a lot is "Veganic" gardening or farming so that may help you while searching for things.

Searching that I found this:

The Vegan Book of Permaculture: Recipes for Healthy Eating and Earthright Living https://www.amazon.com/dp/1856232018/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_FmwMBbXAVBB7X

And this:

Growing Green: Animal-Free Organic Techniques https://www.amazon.com/dp/1933392495/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_tmwMBb1XR1G0X

Once again, I haven't read either of these but I might check them out since this is also something I've wanted to do for some time too.

The Urban Homestead is great. Check out their blog as well. http://urbanhomestead.org/

I highly recommend Gaia's Garden a guide to home scale scale permaculture. It's not specifically homesteading, it's permaculture, but it is a way to supercharge the efficiency of your food production with the leist inputs.
https://www.amazon.com/Gaias-Garden-Guide-Home-Scale-Permaculture/dp/1603580298

Supposedly it smells like death to animals, therefore they fuck right off. Bonide makes it. I'm on mobile but I'll see if I can't find a link.

EDIT: here you go!

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B002ITKVKU?pc_redir=1408802289&robot_redir=1

My boyfriend's mom has been using it on squirrels with great results.

Fermentation and pickling are basically a race against rot. An interesting book that I've been listening to on my commute is "Salt, a world history"

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0142001619?pc_redir=1410432388&robot_redir=1
Lots of stuff about history of salt and preserving with it.

Not a silage tarp but I purchased this tarp last year to kill off the grass in my yard to create raised beds. I've used it several times and it works well.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B071NLXMMM/