Working toward food self sufficiency

Yes, what I am aiming for is to remove those favourable conditions by spacing out a bit. Our potatoes are spaced the same as yours Kristijan so perhaps there was not much to do. It is nice to have them a foot apart too to keep weeds down.

Carrots, parsnips and swedes didn’t happen for us this year unfortunately, we decided not to and have regretted that decision the whole summer.
And yes, it is hard to change what you like. It does work but it is hard.

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Ah. There you go: carrots, parsnips, “swedes” (beets, yes?) and potatoes would have made Four.
All four make it and glorious. Three of the four make it and still great. Only two make it and you will carry through. Barely good-enough.
One? If you do not starve, you will have severe nutrient trace lacks heath problems within three months.

I am infamous for insisting on alway having three of anything really needed. I actually work hard and live this. To always have at least one come bad times. My only exception is having one wife.
Good times . . . always then one for me; one for you, one available for social-charity.

One of my most important books is “Passport To Survival”. It is an L.D.S./Morman all-families food basic recipes food book. Their four insisted-on basics years long storage are: whole kernel wheat; bees honey; dried powered milk; and salt.
From these with year around foraged supplementing an LDS family could carry through for years.

Marcus Norman and family visiting told me we did not have to just depend on our chickens, and local lakes and streams fish. With a supplemental quietly poached deer.
Go for the local beaver, raccoons too! Makes Four!

JohanM. that vehicle wheel or industrial big wheel/flywheel held on by one-nut . . . ??? Crazy.
The older French and German Smart cars with their only three wheel lug nuts? Lose the use of one and you will loose that wheel soon, guaranteed.
Some things three is not enough spread out security. Lose one and you have more than a 33% loss. Undistributed force inbalances will wipe you out.
All wheels should have at least four lugs and nuts. Lose one and it actually is only a 25% loss.
Basic calories foods need to be done in fours also.
S.U.

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Tom, I have the same problem with your climate, I tried a tomato plant outside, it didn’t do so well here, carrots and swedes are growing quite well, and the compost seems to be working, it’s warm inside, thanks Marcus.




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Swedes are called rutabaga in america, I could have written that instead but it slipped my mind.

I skimmed through LDS very very thick end of days/self sufficience book (I can’t think of the name of it right now) listed the things you should have at home at all times and it was an astonishing amount of different food supplies to manage a normal family for at least a year.

Hunting is also a way of getting a lot of protein fast as you/Marcus say

I like the analogy with the wheel nuts, always have your risks spread out. The more varietys the better.

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I saw your garden when me and J-O visited you and it is beautiful and well taken care of :blush:

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Apologies. My memory served me wrong this time. I edit corrected above. The book is:
“Passport To Survival” by Esther Dickey; copyright 1969; Bookcraft/Random House publishers.
S.U.

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I’m feeling a little targeted there Steve :rofl:

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Wider spacing between rows also makes them more resistant to drought. This is true for any plant. I space my plants about 3 feet between minimum for the rows in areas I can’t set up a sprinkler. The corn and other wind pollinated plants don’t enjoy it as much because it lowers chances to pollinate.

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Steve, and all,
That book is available to read and/or download in the internet archives.

I am starting to read it, having downloaded the pdf. also available in text only. (much smaller file size).

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I looked it up and read reviews and people are happy with the book and amazed how much to do with those four staples.

Thank you Mike, free is hard to resist even though I do like to physically hold a book when reading. :smiley:

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Have any of you made apple cider?
Is it easy and tastes good, can I make an apple press?

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Jan I think it would be fairly easy to make an apple press.
Matthias Wandel on YouTube known as Woodgears has an apple shredder to chunk down the apples before pressing.

I would core out the apples before pressing or shredding, and you could make apple cider vinegar from the cores.

https://woodgears.ca/cider/apple_grinder.html

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Jan, I believe @KristijanL has made quite a bit of apple cider if I remember correctly. I read it in the all about brewing thread
All About Brewing

However, there was not much said about cider making more than the mentioning that it was made.

Edit: I have also been wanting to make cider but as I understand it most cider is made from tart apples and I don’t have any of those. My grandfather was grafting some appletrees here on the farm and I am also keeping up that tradition so we are starting to have many appletrees here so perhaps I should graft some tart ciderapples too.

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Don’t you get more weed pressure with more space between the rows?

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My wife thinks I’m weird (well not just her) but I don’t like the fact that so many apples go to waste every fall.
As far as I understand, you can make cider from all apples.

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Yes this true any apple will make cider, the sweeter the Apple the sweeter the cider. Here where I live we have lots of apple, pear, cherry, apricot, peach, orchards and grapes. Making pear cider is good one too.

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Well, then I don’t know what is keeping me from that anymore, I like both the tart ciders and the sweet ones too.

It seems I got myself yet another project :smile:

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I have been summoned :smile: yes, we used to make a lot, over 1000l a year if the harvest was good.
Indeed, tart, even wild ungrafted (crabaples) ones make best cider. The acids and tannins are preservatives and make clear, stable cider.
Sweet apples will not make sweeter cider, the sugar just turns to more alcohol. We did this but this cider has a shorter life span and once the sugar is fermented, since they are low on acid, the flavour is kinda empty. Also it turns brown in air fast (like an apple) because the lack of preserving acids.

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Oh you guys are talking about hard cider, not just apple juice cider. Well then a more tart apples are better for this kind of cider. Here we call fresh pressed unfiltered a cider also.

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Yes, hard cider is what I was talking about Bob. I did not know that you guys in the US said cider about applejuice.

Would you mind telling us your procedure Kristijan, if you add things, timings, your steps essentially? And anyone else that wants to share of course.
I understand if you don’t want to write it down as in being a hassle (or perhaps even a secret :grinning:).

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