Thriving Community News – Without the Noise
Extend your growing season with a greenhouse and start new seedlings earlier in the spring The first frost in NE Kansas averages around Oct-20. The last frost around Apr-20. That is 6 months of no growing season. I had setup grow lights in my basement to start plants earlier, but it was starting to take … Read more
Step by Step – From Seed to Garden Bed You want to grow chestnuts from seed, but don’t know where to start? You have come to the right place. This will give you a step by step guide to grow chestnuts from seed – from foraging the seed, to sprouting, to transplanting. Cross posted from … Read more
How to grow your own persimmon trees The wild American persimmon is a puzzling fruit. If you pick it when it looks ripe, it will taste like alum – weirdly bitter and chalky. Your mouth puckers up, but not like from a lemon. Yet if you wait until your senses are telling you that they … Read more
How to Use Foraged Veggies to Extend Your Oatmeal – Without the Blood Sugar Spike This year I have been more mobile than usual. I am very close to location-independent. I am extremely thankful to friends and family that have let me stay with or house-sit for them while I work through this time of … Read more
Determining the sex of a chick by the feathers doesn’t always work in the 2nd and 3rd generation. It is Year 2 of trying to determine the sex of my newly hatched chicks by their feather shape. Year 1 was a success, as you can read here. Now it is Year 2 (with 2 generations … Read more
The Myths of Creativity “Sing in me, O Muse, and through me tell the story of that man skilled in all ways of contending, the wanderer, harried for years on end” – Homer’s “Odyssey”. People want to be inspired. We have an entire myth around creativity that anything artistic in our lives is the “creative spark”, … Read more
Permaculture Orchard from Design to Delivery Chestnuts, apples, hazelnuts, asparagus, herbs like Wormwood and mint, comfrey, blackberries, Milpa garden beds, and annual beds. In Spring 2021, I extended my homestead/permaculture orchard by 80 feet. This was the initial design: Initial rough design. Bet you can’t read my handwriting! This was a section at the edge … Read more
Editor’s Note: As Perpend related in Ep. 14 of Thriving the Future Podcast, his Perfect Day looks like a fairly average day that many would not see as anything special. But it has space, it has room to think, to relax, to breathe, while still Getting Stuff Done. “The whole point is living a life … Read more
Mixing different kinds of seeds in one garden plot Milpa is a warm season cover crop mix that includes greens, squash, beans, corn, pumpkins, cucumbers, and annual and wildflowers. It is designed to grow as much food as possible in a space without weeding, tilling, and planning. In addition, it also adds nitrogen to the … Read more
How to tell a chick’s sex – is it a pullet (female) or a cockerel (male) You just hatched a bunch of chicks. Perhaps you are only allowed to keep females (NO roosters). Or you only want egg laying hens. How do you tell their sex? On a Wing and a Prayer? If you do … Read more
