Category: Self reliance

what’s growing, maglite led conversion

Unlike July which was hot and dry, August has been tempered with rain showers and cloudy days.  My property 50 miles north of Atlanta has received a lot of rain while Atlanta very little - could this be the heat island effect?  The rain has filled out my muscadine, including the golden scuppernong, shown above and throughout the day they are visited by yellow jackets, wasps and hornets, and me in the earlier morning. With the exception of the Parks Whopper, most of my tomatoes are done.  The Read more [...]

what’s growing and recent reads

Recent good rains have juiced my crops.  We thought by now the tomatoes would be done, and some are, but others keep producing.  Most everyone complimented the taste of the small tomatoes.  We feel the larger tomatoes are less tasty probably from too much rain. Muscadine season has almost arrived and the black ones above although sweet, will be sweeter still when they roll into my hand and do not have to be tugged.  But then there will be many yellow jackets at the smorgasbord and M. developed Read more [...]

a gratifying electronic repair

You may well ask - " I thought this site was about organic growing and permaculture, why so much electronics?"  I want some control over my life and surroundings.  Perhaps I could work and pay others to maintain the yard; repair my house, car and everything else that fails; administer to my health; and grow my food.  But, I like self reliance and making effective inputs to what goes on around me provides satisfaction.  Which brings me to the treadmill which failed. My usual caveat - working Read more [...]

quick fix with a farm jack

We always access the house through the kitchen door since this is most convenient to the carport.  The steps to the porch to the front door are neglected and have sagged miserably as the concrete base on which they rest settled into the ground. My neighbor is a builder and his suggestion was to remove the stairs and then level the concrete base and then re-attach the stairs.  I notice  professionals prefer to remove what is defective and begin from the beginning, which is logical since Read more [...]

Sears Scroll Saw circuit board repair

I have an old Sears Scroll Saw: The manual is dated October '92 so I must have purchased the scroll saw in the early 90's.  It worked fine though I did not use it much.  Recently I had need for it but there was no response when I plugged it in. Notice: If you are not competent with electricity do no attempt anything mentioned below - serious harm or death can result - instead seek professional assistance for your electrical problem. I removed the base plate to expose the circuit board Read more [...]

yellowing blueberry leaves

I showed M. the berry laden blueberry plants and ventured they would be ready for picking within a few weeks.  But why are the leaves yellow? she asked and drew my attention, as she usually does, to what I had missed.  Yellow leaves with green veins can indicate the plant is not receiving enough iron (iron chlorosis) since iron produces cholorphyll which makes the leaves green which enables photosynthesis, sugar production and growth.  Blueberries thrive on acid soil (between 4 and 5) and if the Read more [...]

measuring soil pH – not that easy

The pH (acidity/alkilinity) is an important must know for growing vegetables, fruits and berries.  Blueberries notoriously love acid conditions.  Tomatoes like a pH range between 5.5 to 7.5.  Since pH can range from 1 (very acid) to 14 (very alkaline) it follows that 7 is neutral.  I have tried over the years to independently determine my soil's pH, with little success.  I have sent samples to the extension service for general soil analysis but have always wanted to determine pH myself. The Read more [...]

BJC (the Beauty and Joy of Computing) online course completed – Tower of Hanoi

I just completed the 4th and final semester of BJC MOOC via edX hosted by Berkeley, San Francisco.  What a great course!  And I learned so much about basic programming, computer science and technology trends.  All for free if you wish, though I contributed some.  For teaching purposes it uses blocks which you re-arrange called Snap! which is based on Scratch developed by MIT.  A fun exercise was the Tower of Hanoi puzzle. The rules are simple.  There are 3 pegs labelled left to right "From", Read more [...]

quick water pump repair; seedlings doing well

With the beginning of winter I now always ensure that I have disconnected my water pumps and drained the water.  My carport pump (moves 2,400 storage gals) started fine, but my 1hp Water Ace (moves 2,800 storage gals) just made a humming sound when I tried pumping today.  Another challenge! Probably bad brushes I thought but usually there is warning - a lot of spluttering and starting in fits.  Not this time and why should it fail to start after the winter break? I moved it to the workshop Read more [...]

my Irrigation Adviser

Recent bad weather discouraged outdoor activity.  So I used my time indoors to tackle a BJC.3 (Beauty and Joy of Computing - Berkeley, CA) project.  We were recently instructed on web scraping which means using Snap! (a block programming language derived from Scratch) to go to the internet and scrape selected data from websites. From Spring to Fall a daily decision is whether to water my crops and, if so, how much.  To make this analysis I need to know current soil moisture, expected precipitation Read more [...]