Posts
No Cannery Date Until September
Spiritual Goal: Add journaling to your daily personal devotions. "A man is saved no faster than he gets knowledge; for if he does not get knowledge, he will be brought into captivity by some evil power...as evil spirits will have more knowledge...than men who are on the earth." Joseph Smith; "Women who can hear the voice of the Lord and who respond to these promptings become valuable instruments in His hands." M. Russel Ballard, Ensign April 2002
Financial Goal: Invest for retirement and your family’s well being after your passing. Begin saving an additional 5% or more for this purpose. "In spite of the teachings of the Church from its earliest days until today, members sometimes fall victim to many unwise and foolish financial practices. Some continue to spend, thinking that somehow the money will become available. Somehow they will survive. Far too often, the money hoped for does not appear. Remember this: debt is a form of bondage. It is a financial termite. When we make purchases on credit, they give us only an illusion of prosperity. We think we own things, but the reality is, our things own us...Never should we enter into financial bondage through consumer debt without carefully weighing the costs." Joseph B. Wirthlin, April 2004
Physical Goal: Continue walking, stretching, breathing, and strengthening your body. Add gardening. "The condition of the body limits, largely, the expression of the spirit." John A. Widtsoe, A Rational Theology, p. 17
Provident Living Goal: Learn to sew a simple skirt. If you need help, ask Ginger to teach you. On the first of June, plant tomato seedlings along a trellis. Install empty 1 gallon water bottles buried up to their shoulders between plants with a pinhole in the side facing each plant to consistently fertilize with compost tea or kelp water. Place a tall stick in each jug, its top tied with a red bow, which will aid in finding the openings to the jugs once the foliage hides them from view. Fill this once a week. Once the jugs and plants are in place, make a collar of one or two sheets of wet newspaper, place it around the stem, and cover the paper with mulch. Also, plant asparagus roots, jicama, flowers, eggplant, hot peppers, and bell pepper seedlings as well as zucchini seeds. During the second week of June, plant melon, cucumber, sweet potato, and squash seedlings. Begin harvesting spinach and lettuce, replanting in the shade. In those places, plant bush beans. Whenever one crop reaches maturity and is harvested, add compost, sand (or top soil), peat moss, Azomite, alfalfa meal, and kelp mixture and re-plant to that crop or a fall/winter one. Peas will be finished by June or July and are replaced by leeks. “We will see the day, when we will live on what we produce…” Marian G. Romney
Storage Goal: First Aid Kit and extra supplies, a case of candles, matches, and hurricane holders for safety
72 Hour Kit: Real backpack pack for each family member over 5. Day pack for littles
Pantry Box Goal: Rubbermaid containers with or without wheels
Increase Self-Sufficiency: Ruth Stout’s no-work, deep-mulch potato planting technique is the ultimate goal. However, most soil is poor and unimproved, when the novice gardener begins working on it. Potatoes are heavy feeders, meaning they need good fertility and humus. The deep mulching technique grows the soil and conserves water at the same time it allows growing beautiful vegetables. However, until beautiful, fertile soil is achieved, adding compost, sand (or top soil), peat moss, Azomite, alfalfa meal, and kelp allows for success in growing potatoes Ruth's no-work way.
What is Ruth’s way? Instead of digging trenches, Ruth learned to lay the seed pieces on top of the ground and cover them gradually with mulch. Since most gardeners haven’t spent 30 years building soil like Ruth, it is wise to cover the seed pieces with a 2-inch mixture of compost, sand, peat moss, Azomite, alfalfa meal, and kelp the first few years. Gradually build up deep mulch over the little sprouts, as they stick up their tiny heads. It is more work than Ruth advocates, but will result in a better yield. After a few years, the compost layer will be unnecessary. Also, remember to mulch lightly instead of packing mulch densely, allowing potato plants to reach sunlight. Add the light mulch an inch or so at a time until it is about 8 inches deep.
Companion planting is always a good idea. Surprisingly, buckwheat is a great companion to most vegetable and berry crops, including: strawberries, broccoli, potatoes and green beans. It attracts beneficial insects, feeds the world’s honeybees, suppresses weeds, and adds nicely to a growing compost pile or mulch. Additionally, to grow indoor greens in the winter, harvest triangular buckwheat seeds.
In addition to attracting honeybees and other pollinators, research indicates growing buckwheat deters pests. How? Adult hover fly like buckwheat nectar, but their larvae eat aphids and other small, soft-bodied insects. If your potato patch is in the middle of your garden, and you sow buckwheat seeds among them, protective effects should be enough for anything within 20 feet. With an upright, shallow rooted habit and pretty little white flowers, buckwheat plants become the perfect mulch for all vegetables. Just yank and drop, where it stands. Additionally, it looks great in a mixed flowerbed that includes strawberries. Since it can go from seed to bloom in about a month, it is good to seed it every couple of weeks.
If the heavy mulching method isn’t desired, buckwheat is a great cover crop for smothering weeds and building the green layer in the compost pile. Although plants need about 50 different minerals, phosphorous is among the most important. Similar to beans fixing nitrogen, buckwheat is a star at taking up phosphorus from the soil and making the phosphorus more easily absorbed by other plants. Whether buckwheat is growing next to a garden plant, left to make mulch, or decomposing in the compost pile, it will send its phosphorus gift.
On June 1, plant a square foot of buckwheat in the middle of the garden and interspersed among potatoes. It will do the job whether left to seed or pull up before then. If volunteer buckwheat is found in the garden, treat the tender shoots as bonus salad vegetables before the second set of leaves form. Otherwise, it can be left as a blessed, garden guardian.
Buy organic buckwheat seeds (unhulled) at the health food store in the sprouting seed section or from most organic gardening or seed companies.
