Silver Stacking: Patience and Persistence Pays Off

I have been a “silver stacker” for many years. With money earned mowing lawns, at age 16 I started buying pre-1965 mint-date “junk”  U.S. silver dimes and quarters in 1976 at a small local coin shop in Livermore, California. It was called Bob’s Coin Corner. Bob was patient in explaining silver coins to me.  In 1979 I sold nearly half of my silver coins just after silver peaked, when spot silver was at $47.75 per Troy ounce.

I started buying some silver and gold again in June of 1987, when silver was at $8.98 per ounce.

A practical silver investor both buys and sells silver. I was warned by my Uncle Louis: “Never fall in love with any investment.” And he was right.  It is foolish to say: “I’ll never sell.”Continue reading“Silver Stacking: Patience and Persistence Pays Off”



Economics & Investing For Preppers

Here are the latest news items and commentary on current economics news, market trends, stocks, investing opportunities, and the precious metals markets. In this column, JWR also covers hedges, derivatives, and various obscura. This column emphasizes JWR’s “tangibles heavy” investing strategy and contrarian perspective. Today, we look at the planned European CBDC. (See the Forex & Cryptos section.)

Precious Metals:

At John Rubino’s substack: Accidentally Funny CNBC Grapples With Costco Gold Sales.

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At Gold-Eagle.com: Gold Stocks Strongly Outperform After Gold Breakouts. JWRs Comment: Since starting SurvivalBlog in 2005, I’ve refrained from touting gold mining stocks. In my estimation they will only do well in a confirmed secular bull market.  And we haven’t seen that situation in many moons. For now, stick with physical metals, as a hedge on inflation.

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800,000 Chinese Rush to Buy Gold in Malls at New Year, With Worsening Politico-Economic Environment.

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Video: “The Case For Silver Could Not Be Clearer” – Mike Maloney.

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Goldman Raises 2024 Gold Target To $2,300.

Economy & Finance:

Several readers mentioned this article: Home Depot makes a major expansion move.

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Over at the Whatfinger.com news site: Family Dollar to close almost 1,000 stores.

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Private credit ties to banks deepen in Europe as default risk rises.

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Robert Malone: How Did American Capitalism Mutate Into American Corporatism?

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Breitbart: Yellen on Record Credit Card Spending: We Have ‘Normalization,’ Not ‘Disturbing New Trend’.

Continue reading“Economics & Investing For Preppers”





Preparedness Notes for Thursday — March 21, 2024

On March 21, 1685, German composer Johann Sebastian Bach, who is generally considered the greatest composer of all time, was born.

March 21st, 1778: Just three days after Hessian mercenary forces assaulted the local New Jersey militia at Quinton’s Bridge, the same contingent surprised the colonial militia at Hancock’s Bridge five miles from Salem. In what became known as the Massacre at Hancock’s Bridge, at least 20 members of the militia lost their live — some after attempting to surrender. The Loyalists reputedly exclaimed “Spare no one! Give no quarter!” as they stormed the occupied house. Judge Hancock and his brother (both Loyalists) were bayoneted in the melee by the attackers even though they were both staunch supporters of the crown and were themselves non-violent Quakers.

We are pleased to welcome our newest affiliate advertiser: Bullionstar. They are a well-established precious metals company that is headquartered in Singapore. The company was founded in 2012 by Torgny Persson, of Sweden. They have quite competitive pricing and deep inventories of coins and bars. They ship worldwide, from their warehouses in Singapore, the United States, and New Zealand.  As always, I recommend taking physical delivery when buying precious metals.  I do not trust any warehousing arrangements, even from the largest companies — because you never know when governments will get grabby. As with our other affiliate advertisers,  SurvivalBlog earns a small commission whenever you follow our link to place an order. – JWR

There are several unusual new listings at our spin-off site, SurvivalRealty.com.  One is a very stout masonry-constructed former bank building in Liberty, Nebraska, and another is a former jail, near Harrisonville, Missouri.  Both of them have some inherent ballistic protection and physical security features.

Today’s feature article is a short guest post by Patrice Lewis, the Editrix of the excellent Rural Revolution blog.

We are in need of entries for Round 111 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. More than $875,000 worth of prizes have been awarded since we started running this contest. In 2023, we polled blog readers, asking for suggested article topics. Refer to that poll if you haven’t yet chosen an article topic. Round 111 ends on March 31st, so get busy writing and e-mail us your entry. Remember that there is a 1,500-word minimum, and that articles on practical “how-to” skills for survival have an advantage in the judging.



Shortages? Why?, by Patrice Lewis

Introductory Note From JWR: This article was first posted in the excellent Rural Revolution homesteading blog.  It is reposted with permission.

I have a friend in Maine. Last week she e-mailed and said,

“I noticed in the past few weeks big gaps on shelves in the grocery store in next town. In two areas today, all the shelves – top, middle, and bottom, for 1/4 length of the aisle – were completely empty! To be honest, I don’t know what was there, but it’s not there now. And the prices!!!!!!! Eggs are $4.59, a can of SPAM is $4.39. I got a bag of Tostidos corn chips as I am making chili, $4.49! Generics or store brands are also disappearing. I wonder what is going on?”

I asked her to send me photos the next time she was in town, and she sent the following pictures, along with a note saying, “Here are the empty shelves in the grocery store I was telling you about. They are not even spacing stuff far apart like when the COVID shortages were occurring. The hardware and auto parts stores look the same way. All we hear is it’s because of supply-chain issues. I thought we worked all through that mess already!”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In our local community, we haven’t noticed much by way of shortages. I took a rare trip to the city a couple weeks ago and everything seemed fine. It makes me wonder if the shortages my friend is seeing are a regional thing … or if I’m not seeing shortages because the stores are doing a better job of hiding it.

What is everyone else seeing?

Patrice Lewis is an American Redoubt-based homesteader who blogs at Rural Revolution. She is also a novelist and she’s an editor on the staff of WorldNet Daily (WND). She and her husband Don have been friends of the Rawles family for more than a decade.



The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods

SurvivalBlog presents another edition of The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods. This column is a collection of news bits and pieces that are relevant to the modern survivalist and prepper from JWR. Our goal is to educate our readers, to help them to recognize emerging threats, and to be better prepared for both disasters and negative societal trends. You can’t mitigate a risk if you haven’t first identified a risk. In today’s column, we look at the loss of arable farmland in the United States.

Tennessee is Rapidly Losing Farmland

‘Where will we get our food?’ Tennessee on track to lose 2 million acres of farmland. (Thanks to reader A.K. for the link.) Here is a quote:

“Tennessee has lost 1.5 million acres of farmland to development, according to new data from the University of Tennessee. That figure equates to the loss of six counties’ worth of pasture and forest land completely gone.”

North Carolina Losing Farmland to Development

NC on pace to lose more farmland to development than any state by 2040, study says.

Farms and Land in Farms

USDA Statistics: Farms and Land in Farms – 2023 Summary. (Published in February, 2024.)

How to Protect Your Child Against Identity Theft

Peter sent this, from The WSJ: How to Protect Your Child Against Identity Theft.

Continue reading“The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods”



The Editors’ Quote of the Day:

“There are, of course, a few sociopaths in every town, I suppose, but in a rural population of two or three thousand, that number is very small indeed – probably no more than the cartridges contained in a single .45 magazine.” – Mel Tappan



Preparedness Notes for Wednesday — March 20, 2024

March 20th is the birthday of writer Mel Tappan. (Born 1933, died 1980.) His perennially popular survivalist books Survival Guns and Tappan on Survival have a well-deserved following. I designated March 20th National Survivalism Day, in his honor. It is also apropos that National Survivalism Day falls in March–one of the months that both Northern Europeans and Native Americans refer to as The Starving Season–when stored food runs low, but before spring bounty appears. Plan ahead. Stock up. Don’t let your family starve. I’m sure that Mel Tappan would approve.

On March 20, 1854, a meeting of Whigs, anti-Nebraska Democrats, and Free-Soilers in Ripon, Wisconsin, proposed the formation of what became the Republican Party in the United States.

In honor of Elmer Keith’s birthday, I put all of my percussion revolver inventory on sale, at Elk Creek Company.  Every cataloged percussion revolver has been discounted! This sale ends at midnight on Friday, March 22nd, 2024, so order soon!

Today’s feature article was too short to qualify for the judging in the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. We are still seeking entries for Round 111 of the contest. More than $875,000 worth of prizes have been awarded since we started running this contest. In 2023, we polled blog readers, asking for suggested article topics. Refer to that poll if you haven’t yet chosen an article topic. Round 111 ends on March 31st, so get busy writing and e-mail us your entry. Remember that there is a 1,500-word minimum, and that articles on practical “how-to” skills for survival have an advantage in the judging.



Two-Ingredient Hygiene Treatments, by Mrs. Alaska

Have you ever wondered how people cleaned themselves for centuries without access to a thousand different commercial soaps, shampoos, and lotions? Several answers lie in the treatments below, which largely utilize kitchen staples, and, in many cases, only one or two ingredients.

Ancient Romans, for example, slathered olive oil on their skin and then scraped it off with a dull blade (called a strigil), removing dead skin cells and moisturizing the skin at the same time. Contemporary friends in India swear to the efficacy of coconut oil for their luxuriant hair and lovely skin. A clay tablet, from about 2200 BCE, describes medical treatments involving washing, then making a plaster of mud, and then bandaging. So it is not a surprise that many ancient people, including the Romans, Greeks, and Britons, organized public baths in locations of salubrious mud that they found healing and comforting. Evidence of soap made from animal fat and ashes date to 2600 BC.

For Christmas, I asked my husband to give me a day of spa treatments that he could make from kitchen staples. To my delight, he enthusiastically looked up recipes online and in my herbal books and gave me the best Christmas present ever, including some likely used for centuries by people in their homes.

Give some of these a try, maybe with a friend or two, and save hundreds of dollars on prepared hygiene products.

Hair and face: Mix equal portions of plain yogurt and honey. (For short hair: one tablespoon of each). Rub into the hair, scalp, and face. Leave it on until it feels dry. Rinse it off. The lactic acid in the yogurt gently exfoliates the skin, reducing any itchiness, and the honey is a humectant, that moisturizes the skin and hair. Extra: you can add pureed fruit. Strawberries or raspberries add seeds for a bit of a scrub. Peaches smell divine.

Face mask for oily skin: Mix a paste of turmeric and water. (About 1 tablespoon of each). Paint on the face or just around oily areas, like the nose. Leave it on until it dries and tightens. Note: turmeric will stain the bowl in which you mix this and any cloth you use to remove it. So if you like this treatment, you might decide to dedicate one cloth and one plastic or glass container to this treatment.

Face mask for any skin: Mix a paste of bentonite clay with water or vinegar. The clay absorbs a LOT of water, so start with 1 tablespoon of the dry clay and ¼ cup of water. Any extra can be stored in a lidded jar for future use. Slather on the face and neck, avoiding the eyes. Let the clay dry for about 10 – 15 minutes and then rub/scrub off with a washcloth. Apply a lotion (or coconut oil) afterward.

Body exfoliant: Mix sugar (or salt or coffee grounds*) and coconut oil (or an alternative oil) to a desired consistency. Add a few drops of essential oil for scent, if desired. If you do not have essential oils at home, you can add, for scent, a few drops of vanilla, almond, peppermint or other extracts from your baking supplies. Rub as gently or vigorously as you wish. Then rinse. Your feet may be slippery afterward, so wear slippers or socks. The coconut oil will be absorbed by the skin as a lotion.

* Salt can sting if you have any open cuts or sores. The coffee scent is pretty strong if used on the face. Therefore, sugar is my “go-to” ingredient for exfoliation.

A physical exfoliant is a loofah sponge. This is made from a non-edible squash. Every day above -20 F degrees, I climb into our outdoor, wood-fired, soaking tub with a loofah and scrub away. I especially like this in the winter, when my skin gets dry and itchy.

Lip, hand, and foot lotion: Melt coconut oil. Rub a little into the skin, let it absorb, rub in some more.
Shampoo and soap: I have been nervous about making soap with lye, so I don’t. I buy Castile soap in a gallon container and mix a few tablespoons with water, vinegar, and various essential oils for their scents and properties to use for shampoo and soap. A gallon lasts more than a year for two people.

Dental hygiene

Coconut oil: I use this to brush my dog’s gums and teeth (he likes it) and I also practice oil pulling myself with a teaspoon of coconut oil. The lauric acid in the oil adjusts the pH in the mouth, and seems to deter plaque build up.

Oil pulling is an ancient dental hygiene practice. Let some coconut oil melt in your mouth and swish it back and forth through the teeth and around the tongue for several minutes. Then spit the oil out (not into your sink! It will clog!), rinse and spit with water, and then drink a cup of water. I have asked two dentists about this and neither endorses it but both say it will not hurt.

Baking soda: One of my dental hygienists was a big advocate of brushing one’s teeth with baking soda, which changes the pH of the mouth, inhibiting some bacteria for a short period. It also buffs off some teeth stains.

Hydrogen Peroxide: I make our mouthwash with ½ water and ½ 3% hydrogen peroxide, with several drops of peppermint essential oil for scent/flavor. This is supposed to gently whiten teeth, too.
If your bathroom cabinets are clogged with plastic bottles of soaps, shampoos, moisturizers, exfoliators, etc, have fun making a few with kitchen staples. In the future… you may need to.

Mrs. Alaska’s blog about living off-grid in remote Alaska is www.alaskauu1.blogspot.com



SurvivalBlog Readers’ & Editors’ Snippets

This weekly Snippets column is a collection of short items: responses to posted articles, practical self-sufficiency items, how-tos, lessons learned, tips and tricks, and news items — both from readers and from SurvivalBlog’s editors. Note that we may select some long e-mails for posting as separate letters.

I recently ran a test with Google’s publicly available AI tool, called Gemini.  I asked it: “Paint me a picture of a famous 19th-century English inventor.”  It replied: “We are working to improve Gemini’s ability to generate images of people. We expect this feature to return soon and will notify you in release updates when it does.”  Apparently, there were so many complaints that Gemini was racist in its renderings that Google’s management decided to disable generating all depictions of people. (Until last month, Gemini was cranking out nonsequitur images of people.) I’ll be curious to see how Google will solve this problem. They’ve essentially painted themselves into a corner.

With a different phrase, I did get the Gemini AI to generate an image of a chimpanzee with a paintbrush, in a corner.

OBTW, as a test of Gemini’s bias, I gave it two quite similar requests. First: “Paint a survivalist retreat”.  It created this dreary image of a decrepit shanty in a swamp with a brooding sky background:

 

 

 

 

And then I queried: “Paint a prepper’s retreat.” It generated this bright, idyllic image of a tidy house with a blue sky background:

 

 

 

 

These results obviously show a huge bias! My conclusion: We should not trust any AIs that are built to the specifications of contemporary Big Tech corporations! – JWR    (Image Credits: All from Google Gemini, March 13, 2024.)

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Some good news that illustrates that the Bruen decision is making a difference: San Diego federal judge strikes down California law limiting high-frequency gun purchases.

Continue reading“SurvivalBlog Readers’ & Editors’ Snippets”





Preparedness Notes for Tuesday — March 19, 2024

Wyatt Earp was born March 19, 1848, in Monmouth, Illinois. We was a central figure in the legendary shootout at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone. Prior to his time in Tombstone, Wyatt had moved around the western boom towns, often getting into trouble, though he served as an assistant city marshal in Dodge City, Kansas.

In 1881 Earp, along with his brothers Morgan and Virgil Earp and together with Doc Holliday faced off against cowboys the Clanton gang. Three of the Clanton gang were killed and Morgan, Virgil and Doc Holliday were injured.

The gunfight only reached public attention in 1931 when a biography was published of Wyatt Earp, two years after his death. His brother Virgil who was actually the city marshal that day may have played the more central role.

Seed for Security, LLC currently has a Spring planting sale in progress. Their Colossal Security Pack is now 25% off. This is a $115.99 value for only $87.09.  This pack is a total of 5 pounds of vegetable, grain, and herb seeds. All are open-pollinated and non-GMO.

Included are three of their most popular collections: Super Survival Collection, 4 Grain Collection, and Heirloom Herb Collection.

Each Colossal Pack comes with full planting instructions and a 4-page Seed Savings Guide. This offer is for a limited time, so order soon.

SurvivalBlog Writing Contest

Today we present another entry for Round 111 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The prizes for this round include:

First Prize:

  1. The photovoltaic power specialists at Quantum Harvest LLC  are providing a store-wide 10% off coupon. Depending on the model chosen, this could be worth more than $2,000.
  2. A Gunsite Academy Three Day Course Certificate. This can be used for any of their one, two, or three-day course (a $1,095 value),
  3. A Peak Refuel “Wasatch Pack” variety of 60 servings of premium freeze-dried breakfasts and dinners in individual meal pouches — a whopping 21,970 calories, all made and packaged in the USA — courtesy of Ready Made Resources (a $359 value),
  4. American Gunsmithing Institute (AGI) is providing a $300 certificate good towards any of their DVD training courses.
  5. Two sets of The Civil Defense Manual, (in two volumes) — a $193 value — kindly donated by the author, Jack Lawson.

Second Prize:

  1. A SIRT STIC AR-15/M4 Laser Training Package, courtesy of Next Level Training, that has a combined retail value of $679
  2. Two 1,000-foot spools of full mil-spec U.S.-made 750 paracord (in-stock colors only) from www.TOUGHGRID.com (a $240 value).
  3. Two Super Survival Pack seed collections, a $150 value, courtesy of Seed for Security, LLC.
  4. Montana Survival Seed is providing a $225 gift code for any items on its website, including organic non-GMO seeds, fossils, 1812-1964 US silver, jewelry, botany books, and Montana beeswax.
  5. A transferable $150 FRN purchase credit from Elk Creek Company, toward the purchase of any pre-1899 antique gun. There is no paperwork required for delivery of pre-1899 guns into most states, making them the last bastion of firearms purchasing privacy!

Third Prize:

  1. A Berkey Light water filter, courtesy of USA Berkey Filters (a $305 value),
  2. A $300 gift certificate from Good2Goco.com, good for any of their products: Home freeze dryers, pressure canners, Country Living grain mills, Emergency Essentials foods, and much more.
  3. Three sets each of made-in-USA regular and wide-mouth reusable canning lids. (This is a total of 300 lids and 600 gaskets.) This prize is courtesy of Harvest Guard (a $270 value)
  4. A transferable $150 FRN purchase credit from Elk Creek Company, toward the purchase of any pre-1899 antique gun.

More than $875,000 worth of prizes have been awarded since we started running this contest. In 2023, we polled blog readers, asking for suggested article topics. Refer to that poll if you haven’t yet chosen an article topic. Round 111 ends on March 31st, so get busy writing and e-mail us your entry. Remember that there is a 1,500-word minimum, and that articles on practical “how-to” skills for survival have an advantage in the judging.



Some Practical Greeenhouse Gardening Experience, by Hollyberry

People tend to think if you have a greenhouse you sprinkle some seeds, water them, and the plants magically grow. It’s not that easy! Having a greenhouse, especially in a cold weather state, like where we live, has its own challenges. My goal with this article is to speed up the decade-long learning curve that we endured. Our greenhouse in Maine extends our growing season about a month and a half on the front end and about a month and a half on the back end. This is just an estimation, anything can happen with the weather!

Before building your greenhouse, study the solar exposure of your property for a whole year, if possible. The sun in Maine shifts drastically from summer to winter. Even if we had an extremely warm winter, we do not get enough sun to grow anything in an open-air garden plot. We would have to deforest a good chunk of our property to get adequate daylight in winter and I don’t want to do that. I like our trees and only remove the necessary ones. Our houseplants barely survive the miserly winter light!

Once you have figured out your greenhouse placement, remove any small trees around it. Small trees grow into big trees. That little sapling may seem insignificant now but just wait ten years. You also don’t want branches or the whole tree falling through your greenhouse. Determine the size, style, and materials you would like. Do your homework and research the pros and cons of different greenhouses, including buying a kit versus doing it yourself, or hiring someone. The plastic that we used for the first time lasted more than seven years. It was an opaque, reinforced plastic from Johnny Seeds of Maine. That plastic held up under serious amounts of snow and ice. We then used plastic from Farm Tek. It was not reinforced and only lasted three years. We were unable to get the reinforced plastic due to the COVID-19 pandemic shortages and had settled for what was available at the time.

We settled on a 12×25 foot hoop house. It looks like a giant caterpillar. It was cheaper to hire our reliable, local carpenter whom we have used for years. He has pipe benders specially designed for greenhouses and can assemble them in a day. The area is cleared and the ground is made level. Some heavy beams make the base. We used hemlock beams to form the base. The ends are T1-11. The back end has two windows and the front has two windows, plus a door. Watching it go up was the easy part, now the hard work for me starts. The whole area inside is covered with weed cloth. This is just temporary as the cloth will break down after several years and the weeds will poke through. Weeds always find a way to get in!

Next, lay down more hemlock beams to form the beds. Make sure to secure the beams at the corners and then drill a hole and pound a spike into the ground to secure them even further. A lot of pressure from the dirt is against those beams. Then you get to start filling the beds. This is much more labor intensive and requires much more dirt than you realize! Make sure to get good-quality soil. Don’t even try to purchase bags of topsoil, you need a dump truck full and have them dump the soil as close to your greenhouse as possible. Wheelbarrow upon wheelbarrow load of dirt will eventually fill those beds. Over-fill the beds, since you will be surprised how much dirt settles.

Next comes the shelving and potting area. We used 2x4s and cinder blocks for shelving and use the top for re-potting. A word of caution: hornets and yellow jackets really like to nest in those cinder blocks so we filled them with spray foam. One year of flying, stinging insects was enough for me. Pots, seed cells and trays are all neatly organized on the shelves. I have a 5 gallon bucket that is filled with a bag or 2 of potting soil from the store. This I use when I need to re-pot a house plant. Hand tools are hung inside under one of the windows on hooks. An old plastic clothes hamper stores gardening stakes. Big coffee cans hold gloves, hand clippers, and razor knives and keeps them dry. Get a thermometer and you are ready to plant!

Make sure you plant taller plants towards the middle. Obviously, I am not going to plant corn inside a greenhouse. Plant like you would in a raised bed or row garden. We do not have a drip irrigation but they are available. We use a rainwater collection system uphill from the greenhouse so gravity does the work of watering for us. Just turn on the faucet and it trickles down. Temperatures inside get hot, I mean seriously hot, so ventilation is critical. With four windows and a door open we still felt more airflow was needed. A solar attic fan was installed over one of the windows and this produced more air flow. When the fan finally died after a few years, we purchased a big cheap box fan and an extension cord. Air flow problem solved and it uses very little electricity. It is not used every day.

The windows do have screens in them and during the day when I am growing stuff, the door stays propped open. This allows the pollinators free access the plants. Keep a butterfly net handy for the periodic bird which flies in but can’t seem to find its way out. In ten years I have had one rabbit inside chomping away on a kale plant. You can block the lower portion of the door with a screen or baby gate to keep out critters like this. Depending on the temperatures, I keep the windows open at night. Try to leave at least one window open to let out excessive moisture. I always shut the door because we have way too many vegetable eating critters wandering about at night.

The middle of the greenhouse is the warmest area, away from windows and doors. I set up a cold frame with an old storm window here. I can start lettuce very early and replant to a bigger bed as the temperatures warm up. I have also kept some sad-looking tomato, pepper and eggplant seedlings in the cold frame until they looked hardier and the temperatures came up. The cold frame is again used in fall and greens can be grown until the beginning of November. I restart the green within the first week or two of Match depending on the temperatures and snowfall.

It is still crucial that you monitor temperatures at the beginning and end of the growing season. It the temperature is below 50 degrees, I shut the windows. If a last-minute frost warning is posted, I shut the windows and door while there is still some daylight to raise the temperature inside warmer than usual. The ground will stay warm for quite a while into the evening. I have also had to use frost blankets inside on tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants. Those three vegetables really do well in Maine in greenhouses. I do have some tomatoes in a raised bed but most are in the greenhouse.

Humidity levels can run very high. Blight can be a big problem on tomato plants so I try to water only at the base of the plants. Remove any runner branches that don’t produce fruit. Squash and cukes do not do well in my greenhouse due to blight. I get them started in the greenhouse and move them out to a raised bed as soon as weather permits. Ground cherries grown beautifully in a greenhouse as do a lot of herbs. Ground cherries are a delicious little fruit and they grow in abundance on a small shrub-like plant. My chives and mint are poking their heads up by end of February usually. The mint has to be kept under control as it grows like crazy. Basil, cilantro and dill thrive in the extra warmth. The dill constantly reseeds itself also. The past two years I have experimented with growing ginger in a flower pot in the coldframe. Ginger is tropical and likes it hot. I dig up the ginger in late August. You can move the whole potted ginger into your house as soon as the temperatures start cooling down if you have room. Celery also does very well and I always have at least 2 kale plants inside the greenhouse. Kale is a cold hardy plant so I do grow some outdoors as well but the 2 indoor kale plants will produce well past the outside growing season.

Grasshoppers have been an issue in the past. It took many years to get rid of them. I wait for a cloudy, rainy stretch when I won’t need to water for a few days. I water the base of the plants and after a few hours liberally sprinkle diatomaceous earth all over the plants. It kills grasshoppers, cucumber beetles, squash beetles, and probably some other bugs I am not aware of, but it does not harm the plants and it is non-toxic. If I find little garden snakes on my property and relocate them. They seem to like living in the greenhouse. Keep a journal of your successes and failures and the weather for future reference.

Some seed catalogs offer seeds that are best suited for greenhouse growing. Starting seedlings requires some attention. Seedlings are flaky, too hot, too cold, too wet, or too dry and now you have dead seedlings. After many years of trial and error, I start my seedlings in my loft, where it is warm but not too hot. I give them a couple of weeks up there and use a grow light to keep them from getting too leggy, then they get moved to the greenhouse. If they are hardy enough, I plant them directly into the beds. They might look a little scraggly for the first week but then they take off. The weaker seedlings may sit in a cold frame for an additional week to strengthen up a bit.

Composting is important, as with any garden bed. I usually do direct composting of egg shells, coffee grinds and some chicken poop in late winter. The greenhouse is warm enough on a 35 degree sunny day to defrost some of the soil and I start mixing it in. I do this as soon as weather permits. The warmer temperatures inside help the composting process so I can safely plant in two months. I must be patient and wait!

So like any gardening, greenhouse growing is trial and error but it’s fun. Sitting inside the greenhouse on a cooler day in late winter will do wonders for your attitude. If you can afford a greenhouse, go for it. If you can’t please garden anyway. There is nothing in this world like homegrown tomatoes!



SurvivalBlog’s News From The American Redoubt

This weekly column features news stories and event announcements from around the American Redoubt region. (Idaho, Montana, eastern Oregon, eastern Washington, and Wyoming.) Much of the region is also more commonly known as The Inland Northwest. We also mention companies of interest to preppers and survivalists that are located in the American Redoubt region. Today, an article on some creative genetic engineering to create game farm sheep that are a sort of Jumbo Bighorn Sheep. (See the Montana section.)

Idaho

Porcupine Problems: Reminder issued to pet owners after dog arrives at shelter in a ‘sticky’ situation.

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Caught on camera: Idaho trooper runs for his life as semitruck comes barreling toward him.

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Idaho former Mormon bishop, dentist arrested in Virginia on felony child sex abuse charges.

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This looks quite warm and cozy, for a celebrity home: Inside Aaron Paul’s Rustic Riverside Home In Idaho  –Open Door — Architectural Digest.

Continue reading“SurvivalBlog’s News From The American Redoubt”



The Editors’ Quote of the Day:

“I think we should be very careful about artificial intelligence. If I had to guess at what our biggest existential threat is, it’s probably that. So we need to be very careful.” – Elon Musk