Comments

Episode-229- Do You Have a Home or a Homestead — 12 Comments

  1. Canadian dollars are reasonably sound. While our central bank is minting money, it’s doing less of it than other central banks. The economy will rebound shortly, once demand for resources takes off again. Canadian dollars are a good hedge, but if you want to invest long term, I’d go buy agriculture (maybe hold off this year due to severe droughts). As food shortages grow globally, Canada’s food production will increase in value, and you’ll earn Canadian dollars in the process.

  2. Great show today Jack. It really got me motivated. Time to kill some plants……

  3. Good show. I have a dumb clarification about mulching over grass – I\’m sure this has been covered in a past show, but will ask anyway – what do you mulch with? When I think of mulch I think mostly of hardwood mulch used in planting beds – it\’s usually ground up bark, etc. and I would think it would be too acidic for most plants.

    Also, does anybody else worry about protecting the hard work you do transforming a suburban property should things go south? I have just under 2 acres and am converting large parts of it to produce. Currently we have 13 raised beds, this year started another 30×50 \"traditional\" garden area, have planted blueberries, red raspberries, black berries, and strawberries (as an aside, three 4×8 raised beds full of strawberries produced enough berries for all the fresh eating we could stand, numerous strawberry breads/muffins, frozen whole berries to be used in smoothies, and full year\’s supply of strawberry jam for a family of four!!!). I\’m making plans now to convert more lawn to dedicated areas on which I can start a crop rotation program. Also, we are planning on starting a mini orchard and planting some nut trees (thanks for the idea Jack). My concern is that this is a whole lot of time, effort, and money spent on resources that could easily be taken or looted? Anybody else worry about this sort of thing?

  4. timfromohio asked, “what do you mulch with?”
    In reference to grass.
    Here’s what I do (and I’m in Ohio, BTW)
    I purchased a large delivery of mulch from a landscaper when I began gardening. I’m not against that, I just wouldn’t do it again. I have also purchased bags of mulch from Home Depot. Effective but expensive. I prefer using leaves. In the fall, all the people in my neighborhood rake up their leaves and put them in bags on the curb for the trash man. That’s free mulch. Before Fall arrives, scope out the yards with black walnut trees and avoid them, their leaves are mildly poison. Go for the maples, ash, and oaks.

    Also grass clippings are just fine. Its a bit ironic, but let your grass grow until it really needs to be cut real bad. Cut it very short and bag all the clippings into a big pile. Put down card board and news papers, junk mail or even private papers that you would normally burn or shred, just no plastic. Cover the grass you plan to kill with the paper. Then spread the lawn trimmings on top of the paper.

  5. I download using juice, and today it doesnt list the new show (ep 229). I just grabbed it from the site, but just wanted to let Jack know.

  6. I just found out about the feed embed error which caused both the iTunes and Juice problems, it is now corrected. Refreshing iTunes or your feed reader should get you the show now.

  7. Wildhare – thanks for the suggestions. I routinely used grass clippings around plants as a mulch and shred leaves in the fall for the compost pile. My question is regarding Jack’s suggestion of covering a grassy area with newspaper, mulching the heck out of it, and then planting as an alternative to tilling. What mulch would be suitable as a “ready right now” planting medium?

    Thanks.

  8. Awesome show. We are big believers in biodiversity in our yard. You are so right. We have a friend who has a \"perfect\" lawn with no weeds, no dandilions, no clover.. etc. He would frown at our yard, but what he didn\’t understand was that we love the white clover! It feeds our bees, it fixes the nitrogen in our pecan orchard.

  9. Jack,

    A great episode. What really got to me was your suggestions/call to have 2 million people (going from memory) return to farming the land to improve both food security and local availability (as well, by extension, biodiversity of the food planted). I think Canada should do something as well like that. Thank you for suggesting it!

  10. Love the podcasts, but don’t often have time to just sit and listen. (ADD prevents me from listening while otherwise engaged)

    Any plans to maybe provide transcripts, or show notes in the future?

    Most folks can read 3-4 times faster than they speak.

    Keep up the good work. I’ll catch you when I can.

  11. painless – if you have an ipod or mp3 player, you could set audiobook/podcast playback speed to double speed and listen to Jack sound like a chipmunk! You’d only have to find 20 mins spare a day then…

    TBH, I can not only find 40 mins a day for it but I go out of my way to make sure I can! Sometimes (like today) I have genuinely had no free time so that means a double dose for tomorrow or I can save one for the weekend.