Travel Safety

Posted on March 3, 2011 by Brian Gallimore

When you are away from home, staying in a hotel: remember, everyone walking by your room during the day while you are gone might just come in and take anything they want because the door was left ajar, unlatched, and unlocked.  At least this is what happens to me when I’m staying at the Holiday Inn Express in San Angelo Texas!   A cursorily walk thru revealed that no one stole my dirty clothes.  The bed is made up all nice and neat though!

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Composting Worms

Posted on March 1, 2011 by Brian Gallimore

Heather Rinaldi, owner of the Texas Worm Ranch (www.txwormranch.com), taught a great interactive vermicomposting class this past weekend.  The event was hosted by the Dallas Backyard Vegetable Gardeners, which I’ve already learned a lot from.  Heather has been an organic gardener for many years, and uses worm castings and aerated worm compost tea to produce organic, affordable and successful vegetables and to maintain her chemical-free yard and landscaping.

Heather was a big fan of worm compost tea.  She said if you buy this product (or even bagged worm castings) in a store, you are losing much of the benefits of what the worm poop has to offer.  (the microbes die off pretty quickly when starved of oxygen)  This is her worm compost tea (worm wine) recipe:

  • 1 gallon of water (rain water, or dechlorinated tap water)
  • 3 oz of worm castings (use tea bag if you desire to spray through fine nozzle)
  • 1 tablespoon of horticulture molasses
  • brew in bucket w/ aquarium air pump/stone for 24 hours
  • apply before nightfall, avoid UV light
  • use within a day

Some other notes from her class:

  • Worm bed should be layered:  bottom 2″ to 5″ should be finished compost, with bedding (shredded, wet, newspaper, or cardboard) on top of that.
  • Placing a rabbit hutch above worm bin is excellent way to feed worms
  • apply worm wine every 10 days to plants
  • try to avoid placing worm compost out in direct sunlight, better to cover to protect from microbe-killing UV
  • use no more than 10% worm compost in with potting soil
  • feed worms every 3 days
  • avoid pineapple and papaya always
  • little bit of citrus is tolerable, but avoid in general
  • small amounts of bread, rice, oatmeal are ok
  • fruits are best – coffee/tea grounds, vegetables are good
  • add eggshells, offsets acid
  • feed one handful of food for each pound of worms
  • if ants are in worm bin, add moisture

Previous posts on my worm farm: 1 2 3 4

 

 

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Garden Update – March 1, 2011

Posted on March 1, 2011 by Brian Gallimore

I transplanted my 16 tomato seedlings into bigger pots (free pots made from newspaper)  They are all doing very well, some of them are a little bigger than others.  It looked like some of them were being shaded by nearby plants, so the bigger pots will be good for that.  I have some peas, carrots, garlic, lettuce, and spinach coming up in the dirt outdoors.  I also noticed some lettuce sprouts coming up out of my aquaponics growbed this evening.  (from the ones I just sprinkled in the gravel)  I also have one or two shoots of asparagus coming out to the ground already.

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With one of these…

Posted on February 27, 2011 by Brian Gallimore

I briefly visited a ‘preparedness 101’ fair at a LDS church in Plano earlier today.  They had several tables set up with different themes about being prepared.  As I was looking at and talking about the items on the ‘things other than food’ table, I noticed a picture of a gun.  (guess a real gun is not PC)  A woman next to me said something like “If I had one of those, I don’t need to worry about being prepared, I can just go take what I need”.  I responded by telling her everyone I know that is prepared also has one of those, and isn’t going to let you just take their stuff.  It was one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard anyone say, but for some reason it really bothered me.  I think the reasons it bothers me are:

-It represents a common attitude.

-Even at a ‘preparedness fair’ there are people who have no interest in taking care of themselves.

After thinking more about this, I’m sure this woman didn’t actually think about what she said, and I believe it was not an original thought of her own.  She probably heard this dribble from someone else and it sounded good to her, so she stored it away and repeated it at the appropriate moment.

Personal responsibility.  It is a really big deal to me.  The lack of personal responsibility is the source of a large number of our problems today.  Don’t want to take care of your family?  That’s all right, we have social security and Medicaid.  It is someone else’s responsibility now.  Don’t want to seek out your own medical care?  That’s OK, Healthcare is a basic human right, so everyone is guaranteed that, for ‘free’.  Send your kid off to public school to get a good education, because we pay people for that with tax money, let the professionals do their job, why bother being personally responsible for your child’s education yourself?  Your neighbor bothering you?  Just call the police, or the city, or someone else to take care of that problem for you.  (you really shouldn’t have to deal with your neighbor should you?) Personal responsibility is the other side of freedom. Most people I know will GLADLY trade freedom if it means they don’t have to be responsible.  Very interesting.

Not only will this person refuse to take responsibility for themselves and their family, but they advocate using force and violence and stealing from others in times of crises. People like this scare the hell out of me.

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Finishing up the Aquaponics Install

Posted on February 25, 2011 by Brian Gallimore

I love drilling holes in nice things.  This was my first time to use an abrasive hole saw, and it was an impressive experience, went right through the brick and mortar wall.  I installed a large waterproof junction box with some cable clamps on the bottom edge, then ran a power cord and the air line through the box.  It cleaned up the install, I had the cable and hose running underneath the garage door.

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First Seedlings Planted

Posted on February 20, 2011 by Brian Gallimore

I spent $5 at Home depot on 12 seedlings this afternoon.  (4 broccoli and 8 lettuce)  I planted half of them in the aquaponics growbed and the other half a raised bed.  I added some seaweed based liquid fertilizer to the aquaponics system.  It is a pain to get the soil out of the roots when transplanting seedlings.  I’ll probably be doing lots of comparisons between aquaponics and dirt gardening this year.  At this point, I have no fish producing any nutrient, so I don’t expect them to do very well.  I also broadcast some lettuce and spinach seed in the growbed, just to see if they will sprout.

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Aquaponics Drain Version 2

Posted on February 19, 2011 by Brian Gallimore

I made lots of progress on the aquaponics system today.  I found some native gravel that I think will work OK.  It has lots of different shapes, some smooth, some rough, and in general the size is between 1/2″ and 1″.  ($50/yard)  It is very dirty, with lots of the river sand/mud still in the rock.  I tried to wash it out as I shoveled it from the pickup, but there is still lots of mud in with it.  I read that someone else left their gravel dirty because they didn’t like the idea of wasting all the water, and that it cleared up in a few weeks after the growbed settled down.  My original drain leaked, and I dropped a rock down the drain.  I took it all apart and made a few changes.  I replaced the metal close nipple with a plastic PVC piece, so now there are no metal parts anywhere.  I also drilled out the slow drain holes to 3/8″.  I also added a debris trap so that other rocks dropped into the drain should not make their way into the main drainpipe.  (you can unscrew the plug in the bottom periodically to clean it out)  I plumbed in the pump with a union for easy removal and a bypass valve I can use to lower the flow going to the growbed if I need to.

Trench to locate pipes underground

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Progress of Seedlings

Posted on February 19, 2011 by Brian Gallimore

Most of the seedlings are doing great.  A handful of them are questionable from the last batch of pepper seeds.  I was wondering if they were going to live in the freezing cold garage, but they did.  Since today was sunny most of the day, I set them outside for real sun and some wind.

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Aquaponics Growbed is ready for rocks

Posted on February 18, 2011 by Brian Gallimore

The growbed is ready to be moved into position and filled with rock.  Tuesday night, I installed 1″ foam insulation board on the inside surfaces.  This changed the dimensions to 36″ x 91″ x 12″.  (area: 22.75 square feet or 2.1 square meters; volume: 22.75 cubic feet or 170 gallons or 644 liters).  Tonight, I installed the pond liner and the drain.  Turns out the pond liner is cut a few inches bigger, so I had enough material to fold over the top edge of the growbed sides.

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Red Green taught me how to use duct tape

Posted on February 18, 2011 by Brian Gallimore

Bryson used duct tape for the first time tonight. It was a beautiful moment.  I hope he understands the importance of Red Green when he meets him tomorrow.

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