We are living in a very different time, that is for certain. Whenever I get overwhelmed, I think about my grandmother and all of the challenging times that she lived through, and yet she managed to raise her children and keep on pushing through.
She was born at the beginning of the year 1900, she went through serious wars, recessions, a great depression, and throughout those years they had not yet connected to electricity or running water.
Because of my knowledge of her life and the history we have studied, I realize that we are looking at many possibilities that could throw us into deep trouble and challenge us because most of us are dependent on what flows into our house to keep us functioning. Affording that flow could be of concern.
Just because it is there does not mean that we must use it. How do we ever get ourselves ahead enough to be able to survive the cracks in life?
"We live a simple life with the understanding of what simple means."
We can have nice things around us as long as they are not costing us anything to be there. That cake plate (above) lives on that buffet, it is not costing anything for it to live there.
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That fan in the photo (above) is running, and that is costing money to run so I choose when to turn it on. Many people do not realize that those high electric bills are what they used not even considering the costs. Today we have so many electronics and appliances that when everyone is sleeping those kilowatts are still adding up unless you turn it off completely.
This laundry is hanging outside to dry instead of spending money to conveniently dry inside in the electric dryer. At this time it is my choice which way I do this, what if I need that money spent just for convenience ?
We can say, oh that does not cost much to run a dryer or a lamp or a fan but yes it does cost and when added together that bill can get very large. I try to run only necessary items when needed to afford to run heat and cooling when needed.
So where do we get our money for serious repairs? If we borrow or charge the bill, we then owe even more. The answer is we watch our pennies, our change, keep a budget for "Everything" and save the money not spent on letting things run with no check system. Eating out verses buying food from the grocery store. Not making purchases on just wants.
Let our hair dry naturally without a high wattage hair dryer. This is the way it was done a long time ago. I did not get my first hair dryer until the 1970's.
Know when it is time to eat those root vegetables we have been storing. Eat simple nourishing soup, we most always eat at home and cook from scratch. We simply do not have the money to eat out, that is a luxury, and the money spent on meals outside of home would buy groceries.
Sew, mend, use up, do not waste anything.
Find a way and grow our own food. Start somewhere and then get good at it.
We are at the last week of winter so things look a bit bare, but...
This year we cleared everything and re-organized our backyard. We are building a food forest around our clothesline. This will look much different by late spring and into summer. We have been working hard all winter to get this done. We have moved our clotheslines many times and many places in our backyard.
We had to move the clothesline due to growing trees, a mulberry tree that grew rapidly, another area was not ideal for an old dizzy woman. Now we have moved the clothesline to a thought out specific area and have started making the beginning of a food forest surrounding the clothesline. It should be quite interesting. I have been cleaning up our grow pots and grow bags and have a new plan to be able to hopefully grow more food this year.
If I did not have a backyard and only a balcony or a small patio, I still would max it out with plants that grow food. Also their are community garden plots in some cities and towns.
This is the new onion garden area that we are working on at this time. We have many different types of onions that I am planting this year to see what grows best in our area. The goal is a heirloom garden with many perennials. We have quite a few Nest Onions. A "Nest" onion is an old name which means a type of multiplier onion. They were very well known in the early 1900's. There are Potato onions which are a multiplying onion, a White or yellow bunching onion, an Evergreen Hardy White Bunching onion, a AkaKai Perennial Bunching onion from Hawaii and many others.
This above is an ad from 1903, I have ads and articles about Nest Onions because I like to research the things I do. Many of the old perennials are very rare now because people buy most of their food from the grocery store instead of growing a garden.
Above is 1915
above November 1940 Florence Alabama
The Nest onions seem to be popular from Georgia, Alabama, North Carolina and other areas in the south. In the past, it was very common to have a garden in towns, and there were "Many" more people that lived on farms than do now.
During the Great war and World war 2, there were victory gardens all over the place and which we might consider doing now, seems it would be a good thing to do with food prices and unsettled times. In the past, people would share, swap vegetables and seedlings with another which was a very good thing to do to keep them going. If someone had a poor or failed crop they still had hope by getting some starts from a friend or neighbor.
I am growing vegetables in anything I can use as a garden bed. This is an old rabbit cage and I have Cabbage, celery and spring onions.
We have our many cattle troughs we use for raised beds, we have purchased these over the years now. The way we pay for our garden containers is they are budgeted in our budget. We have all the troughs we planned to get so that money will grow in the garden fund. We planned the garden this way because of our age, we need raised beds, pots and grow bags because of the difficulty of getting down on the ground. If we were younger I could plow and plant straight into the ground
I am learning that grow bags are helpful for me because I can sit the grow bag on a short table and put in soil and plant the seeds or plants into that soil at a much better height and I get the grow bags with handles and this way I can lift and set them on the ground easier. You can buy grow bags today most anywhere but if there is no money for these things most anything can be used to grow a plant.
We have five containers of Bok Choy growing under a rose bush arbor. I am staggering the seed. I have some in the greenhouse that are up a couple of inches. I will plant some more seeds in a few days so those will be coming up when I put the others out. I do not pay for nursery plants anymore, I buy seed or purchase bulb starts. I am trying to get things to where I can save my own seed and bulbs by having only heirloom varieties.
Bottom left is garlic chives, across from the chives is a pot of oregano, a small pot with a Cherokee Purple tomato I have just moved out of the greenhouse with a petunia with it for protection to the tomato. The countyline tank is Monique shallots and a herb coneflower and the tank to the left is Ginger, Turmeric and carrots that should start emerging soon.
I keep a close eye on the weather and I will have to go around and gather up the pots with tomatoes and cucumber seeds before Thursday because we will have another cold snap. The other tanks and cages I will once again put on the frost covers until it warms back up. We are really binging around in temperatures now, it can be 80+ degrees and then we are in the thirties. This time of year is why people normally wait to plant a spring garden but it gets hot so early now that it is too difficult to work in the garden and the plants do not like the heat as well. Just like many things we have to keep adjusting.
The frost covers have been a game changer this winter for growing food. They seem to do very well under cover with the white frost covers. For where I live, the thicker green frost cover seems to be too much for our area here in southeast Alabama.
Another mention is that some of the veggies grow under the frost covers as sun protection. I have grown celery year around using frost covers for shade that filters light instead of the shade cloth. That was an accidental discovery one year when I neglected some celery growing due to a emergency situation.
Far upper right (hard to see) is another old cage we built for growing is a second container of French Cabbage, celery and spring onions. Next to that are white multiplier onions, lower down and over are large pots of oregano.
Some of you may wonder about our camper we call the Shabby Cabby. We had a leak several years ago and had to tear out the floor and then got busy with life. It went through hurricane Michael and then the hail storm last year where we had to replace our house roof for the second time. The hail hit the camper and broke holes in two of the windows.
The new plans are for it to be a carving shop for Charles. I cannot wait until he can do this so he can look out the windows back into the garden all the way down the house and backyard while he works. I am thinking we might need to put rubber seal all over the top so things can bounce off.
So another hail storm last week (shown above) was much smaller compared to the hail storm we had last year which was close to tennis ball size. Thankfully this new hail that we had last week seems to have not damaged the roof but it did put holes in the greenhouse.
I use wire fencing as a dome shape over the grow tanks and frost covers to go over everything in the garden to deflect hail and wind now. It is hard work to make covers, but to be able to have a productive garden these days, extra garden protection seems to be what it takes. I am still making covers for the plants and I will keep adjusting as needed..jpg)
I decided last week to make permanent wire covers and I adjusted the thicker frost covers for easier to manage and clamp over. Everything is very strange now.
My winter garden has been through a lot, with a freak snow storm, then a high wind storm, a pretty significant electrical, wind, flooding rain storm and last week a hail storm and severe weather tornado outbreak, I am thankful that we were spared from this weekends tornadoes. There was so much terrible damage all over the states.
Home is more important than ever, we should use every square inch of our home to make a comfortable and practical refuge from the outside world where we feel safe.
Keep it clean and do repairs needed as our home needs care, the same as we do.
Find ways to cut out expenses, such as dropping some things entirely if it is not completely necessary and put that money aside, we all need to have at least some savings.
learn to grow food, plant the seed, eat homegrown food, stay informed and then do things that keeps our family safe. Learn food preservation so you can "can", dehydrate or freeze your harvest. If you cannot grow a garden you can still preserve food from the grocery store or produce markets. We are losing many skills that our generations before us had and we do not need to let that happen.
Has anyone ever heard of the Nest onion? What types of Multiplying or perennial onions do you know of or grow? Do you grow any perennial vegetables? Are you preserving food this year? Pop up in the forum up there, I would love to read what you are doing at your home.
I know it is difficult because it is for me too, but please no politics.
Grandma Donna
