Why did I grow all of this corn for cornmeal? Why would I do such a thing?
It’s just for fun, of course. I just like growing corn. It’s certainly not because I expect there to be a second wave of the pandemic that will bring down the supply chains for good, and that we’ll have only the food we have on hand to get us through the winter. And even if such a thing were to happen, I have total faith in my government’s willingness and ability to feed me and my family in such an emergency. Don’t you?
I’ve purchased 80 lbs of lump charcoal and plan to bury it or rototill it into the garden. This is my method of micro-sequestration of carbon. If everyone with access to a patch of land did this, it would make a difference.
Be that as it may, I’m also doing it to enhance the fertility of my soil. I’ve been doing this on a very small scale for years, limited by my intentional and incidental production of charcoal. I spread ashes from the wood stove in the garden (for their potassium content and to limit soil acidity) . There’s always some charcoal mixed in with the ashes, and if you clean out the ashes after every fire, you’ll often get a decent amount of charcoal. (If you don’t clean out the ashes before starting the next fire, what charcoal is present will be consumed.)
And, when I’m feeling ambitious, I make charcoal in a roasting pan in the woodstove. Between cutting up the wood and fitting it in the roasting pan and building the fire the right way, it’s a very hands-on process, and I don’t always have the time or inclination to do it.
So now I have 80 lbs of lump charcoal. Before whatever weed-suppression tillage I do, I will spread charcoal in the areas to be tilled. I will also create pockets of fertility by digging a hole and dumping in charcoal, kitchen scraps, and chicken manure.
I don’t plan to reduce the size of the lumps of charcoal. It’s too much work and unnecessary for long-term benefit, which is always my focus. Tillage and frost will, over time, do an adequate job of reducing the size of the lumps. And breaking it up into smaller pieces is time- and labor-consuming, as well as potentially hazardous to my health because of any dust produced.
I would do this even if I knew I were going to be dead in a year. Improving a patch of ground, making it more able to produce food for humans, is something that has a lot of meaning and significance to me. The long-lasting effects of burying charcoal in the garden mesh with that perfectly.
This is a picture of the buckwheat I planted on 6/22/2019:
I broadcast the seed at what I thought was a little heavier than normal rate; it turns out it was 4x what Johnny’s recommends. Another lesson learned.
I want to learn how to grow and harvest grain for people to eat. I was not successful last time I tried to grow buckwheat; I harvested too soon and there was no meat inside the husks of grain. This time around, I will let the plants die and go brown before I harvest.
If I fail to get grain again, I will till it in to increase the organic matter of the soil, and hopefully learn something. It’s not as if our surviving next winter depends on a successful grain harvest. Yet.
So I worry about basement flooding in a TEOTWAWKI scenario. If there’s no electricity to run a sump pump, you’re just going to have to wait for the water to naturally drain away.
But you wouldn’t have to worry about your furnace or your washer and drier if there’s no electricity to run them.
You would have to worry about food you have stored down there, but you can get that out when necessary. And there would be a lot of mold.
But still, you’d have a place to stay. And it may never flood again like it did in 2018. Our house has quite a few things going for it with regard to TEOTWAWKI.
Salt (of course)
Cabbage
Red Cabbage
Onions
Beets
Beet leaf stalks
Green tomatoes
Broccoli slaw
Carrots
Carraway
Whole Ginger
Kale leaf stalks
Swiss Chard leaf stalks
Garlic cloves & scapes
Radishes
Posted via blogwith
Ending and Beginning 