Freedom From The Grid & Alternate Energy…

So you want to grow some of your own food? Good! You should. We all should. But where do we start?

With this in mind, I’ve been researching this some, and this is some of what I have found. I’ll summarize it for you, and then let you see some of the links I used to figure this stuff out.

Of all the food groups that our bodies need, fruits and vegetables will keep us the healthiest, the longest, if we are limited to surviving on just one group. So in a disaster scenario, or when foodstuff isn’t available anywhere else, or maybe you just want to be self-sufficient and relish the pride and joy that comes from growing and eating the fruit of your own labor, this is what I suggest.

Start with Vegetables. Supplement with meat/dairy proteins when and where possible, but focus on the veggies. Fortunately, vegetables are also the easiest of the food groups to grow. And within that group, start with two in particular: potatoes and tomatoes.

And since space is always an issue, the trick is to maximize our space usage when growing these two vegetables, especially if you are limited to an apartment or very small flat. Let’s look at potatoes first.

With potatoes, the secret is to grow them vertically instead of in the ground. Here’s how.

On top of a sheet of plastic (if indoors), plant three or four of your initial seed potatoes or sprout sections in good dirt/compost in a wide tub, planter, or shallow basin (about a foot apart each is ideal, if your planting basin is large enough). Then wrap a three or four feet tall section of chicken wire, hog wire, or some other container around it, about two and a half feet in diameter (which means you could actually have several small containers instead of just one large one). Then cover the potato sprout with straw, filling up the enclosure several inches about the sprout. Then keep it watered it enough to keep the straw moist (but the planter/pot/basin at the bottom not water logged).

Once the sprout has grown six inches or so above the straw, add straw to the container, leaving about an inch of plant showing. Keep the straw moistly watered. And every time the plant reaches six inches tall or so, do this again, until you have several feet of straw stacked in the container above the original pot. The potato plants that you have planted will send out roots all through this straw, loaded with hundreds of potatoes.

Once the plant begins to flower, you have potatoes growing. To harvest as you go, simply cut holes at various heights in the wire container, big enough for your hand to fit through, so you can gently lift the straw apart and snap off clean, dirt free potatoes to eat. Lay the straw back down, and the plant will continue to grow and produce potatoes. One such set up like this I’m told can produce up to a bushel or more of tubers, PER CONTAINER. If you have several of these going at once, even indoors during the winter under grow lights, you’ll have a constant supply of fresh potatoes to eat, that are full of carbohydrates and essential minerals.

Next we look at tomatoes. We can grow these vertically too, but not quite in the way you might expect. For this project, we use hanging 5-gallon buckets, and then plant the tomatoes in the top, sides, AND bottom of the bucket.

To start this one, get a dark colored (or paint one black-tomato roots apparently love heat and grow better with it) 5-gallon bucket with a lid, and make sure the handle is VERY secure (or reinforce it with rope around the top of the bucket)- these planters can weigh in excess of 40 pounds or more, and if either your handle, or hanging hook are chintzy, you will have an epic failure on your hands.

Suspend this bucket somehow, and then start your work. Using rich dirt mixed with good compost, a little peat moss if available, miracle grotm, and a crushed eggshell or two (for calcium) plant four or five tomato plants total (per bucket) in one two-inch-diameter hole in the bottom of the container, several holes midway up and equidistant around the side of the bucket, and one hole in the lid of the container. Then hang it where you want it to grow, either indoors or preferably on a sunny patio or balcony.

These plants need lots of sunlight (or grow-light if indoors) each day, and lots of watering. Always keep the dirt inside moist, but not waterlogged. You may need to pollinate the flowers yourself too if indoors (some people simply jiggle the bucket to accomplish this- but only if the handle and hanging hook are strong). But overall, you should expect a bumper crop of tomatoes that are rich in vitamins and minerals. And if indoors, these plants can apparently live and produce well into the winter months as well. Keep them below 75 degrees at night, and below 95 in the daytime. Indoors, as long as they have good, direct sunlight and/or grow-light six or seven hours a day, should be perfect for them.

Keep in mind that not every variety of tomato is well suited to this style of gardening, but several are, including my personal favorite, the cherry tomato.

Now taking this hanging garden idea one step further, I have seen pictures (and I included one link below) of where people have installed large mesh hog wire fence over a living area, hung pots of many varied vegetables under it, then trained the plants and vines to spread out across the mesh as they grew. The advantage of this method is that the fruits and vegetables hang down below the mesh into your living space for easy picking. This works extremely well where ground space is limited.

There are several other vegetables as well that can be adapted for apartment and/or small space gardening, but do your research, check out the links below, and have fun! There’s just nothing quite like the taste of vegetables that you grew yourself…

Come back and share your success stories sometime, after you have tried out some of these ideas!

Random links from Google about growing potatoes in straw and vertically, in no particular order:
http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles2/salloum100.html#
http://www.homesteadgarden.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-852.html
http://www.ehow.com/how_2240028_grow-potatoes-wire-cage.html#
http://thegardenersrake.com/straw-bale-gardening-potatoes
http://www.gardeningtipsnideas.com/2008/11/how_to_grow_potatoes.html
http://www.hillgardens.com/potatoes.htm

Random links from Google about growing tomatoes upside down and/or in hanging pots, in no particular order:
http://oldfashionedliving.com/tomato2.html
http://www.instructables.com/id/how-to-plant-hanging-upsidedown-tomatoes/
http://www.minifarmhomestead.com/gardening/tomato.htm
http://howtogardenguide.com/2009/03/08/best-tomato-varieties-for-hanging-baskets-and-upside-down-planters/
http://howtogardenguide.com/2009/03/18/growing-tomatoes-upside-down-good-idea-or-just-a-fad/
http://www.curbly.com/DIY-Maven/posts/1620-how-to-make-an-upside-down-tomato-planter
http://www.oklahomahistory.net/tomatos.html

A cool hanging garden link:
http://www.autopot.com.au/default.aspx?PageID=7145423c-0ab9-481e-84e4-b3ea660bf13a

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Everyone wishes that their utility bills weren’t so high. Everyone wishes that they could have power when the electricity goes out due to weather or ??? Everyone hates being caught in the dark (literally) with no options for light or heat either. No one likes rising food prices, and every one agrees that both medical care and gasoline cost too much. Hence, you need to read this article, just to get a basic understanding of the basics of living green, self-sufficiently, and/or completely off the grid.

The best “living off the grid” equation can be broken down into six parts, rather than just five as previously thought by us and others: Power, Water, Food, Heat, Medicine, and Transportation. Let’s take a quick look at each one in order to get a better understanding of how they each function, working together to let you live in a self-sufficient way.

1. Power. The most obvious thing about living off the grid is the need to generate your own electricity and power.
2. The second most critical component of living off the grid is to procure and insure a stable water source or supply for yourself.
3. Then comes food needs. Did you know that even an apartment dweller can grow some of their own food in order to cut down on food bills? And how do you cook it?
4. Heating and Cooling. Depending on what time of year it is, and your geographic location, this one can be a lifesaver too. If your power goes out in the middle of the winter, as it sometimes does, do you know how you are going to supply heat for yourself?
5. Medicines and Medical Supplies. And though we don’t claim to be doctors, there are far more home treatment remedies and processes available to the average person than what the profit driven medical establishment would have you believe.
6. Transportation. Face it, we’re a mobile society, and we need to get around. But how do we do it cheaply, and without tying ourselves to the grid through gasoline?

Let’s look quickly at each of these in more detail.

For Power off the grid, you can use get into solar (by far the most common), hydroelectric, fuel cells, generators, or one of several other technologies being developed at http://www.EvergreenMountainLabs.com (EML). You will also need a bank of storage batteries, a charger to fill them, and an inverter to convert their power to usable house current.

For water, your options are slightly more limited. A good, high quality water filter (with backup filters available on hand) is must, so that you can make use of any water supply you find. Rain and snow water can also be good sources of drinking water, but not if in heavily polluted/smoggy areas. A distiller takes power, but if you have power, by all means, get one.

Sewer needs have even fewer basic options, though within those options, many varieties exist. Basically you need to get a self-composting toilet, and then learn to operate it safely and satisfactorily.

For food, you need basic access to the six primary food groups at least occasionally (as well as a way to cook them): Grains, Fruits, Vegetables, Lean Meats, Diary, and Nuts. A more basic breakdown of these groups might be: carbohydrates, proteins, and vitamins/minerals. Either way, the vegetable group will keep you the healthiest, the longest, if you are limited to just one of them. And that’s lucky for us because it’s also the one that is easiest to address. And the two foundational vegetables that I tend to recommend and focus on are tomatoes and potatoes. Both can be grown in high volumes in small spaces, and will give you tons of vitamins/minerals, and lots of daily carbohydrates. Your protein intake can be meat supplemented into your diet from whatever the source. If you live in the country, goats for milk, and chickens for eggs is also a ard combination to beat. Find out more about growing your own food at the http://www.FreedomFromTheGrid.com blog site.

As for cooking this food, a wood stove is hard to beat when it comes to being self-sufficient. But even here, there are options. A creative person can generate their own methane or hydrogen for cooking on a gas stove, and solar reflectors and reflector ovens, though they CAN take longer to cook, also provide effective cooking methods if you have access to good sunlight. Fortunately, tomotoes and many fruits don’t need to be cooked to be enjoyed (though potatos and other veggies do).

As for heating and cooling, heating is the more critical issue, and needs more attention. What is unfortunate in today’s world is that most heat sources depend on electricity. Fortunately, propane, natural gas, wood, hydrogen, and several other technologies being developed at EML aim to get around this. But the oldest and most time tested heat source technology is still simply a wood-burning stove. Get one if you can, or a derivative thereof like wood pellet stoves, corn stoves, etc.

As for medical care, start by getting and committing to memory a good, thorough, high quality first aid manual and then procure a good store of some basic field supplies.

Then we focus on medicines. There are two very old technologies, and at least one very new one, which can both help anyone living to live in a self-sufficient way.

The metal Silver, when made into a solution through basic electrolysis or some other method, is one of nature’s best antibiotics. People have known this for a long time, and it works, both internally and topically. It has a hidden danger though, in that overdoses of it can turn your skin a permanent shade of zombie gray-blue, so be careful. But in moderation, it seems to work wonders. Do your research.

The second old technology is based more on common sense, and is currently practiced under the name of naturopathic medicine. And basically it aims to help your own body fight off diseases and conditions by first eliminating any vitamin or mineral deficiencies that your body might be experiencing, and then strengthening your body’s own immune system.

A much newer technology still being developed underground even today depends on the simple fact that any object will shatter if you hit it with the right note and enough power, like an opera singer shattering crystal goblets. It works with pathogens of all sorts as well. To get started studying this technology and some of its derivatives, explore “rife machines” on Google.

Of lesser importance to some people, but still worth mentioning, is taking care of transportation needs. At http://www.EvergreenGasLabs.com, they sell lots of items to make your gasoline stretch as far as it can, but barring that, if gasoline isn’t an option, look into bicycles, horses, and even some of the home generated hydrogen fuel technologies being developed at EMP and various other places around the net.

As for clothing, I’m going to have to simply tell you that it’s not economically feasible for you to develop your own fabric mill and learn to sew. Instead, stock up, and then learn to barter with people who do have access to clothing and/or fabric.

By focusing your attention on the six areas above (Power, Water, Food, Heat, Medicine, and Transportation), you can indeed learn to limit your dependence on the grid, cut your bills down, and live in a self-sufficient way. With that said, go to it, be careful, and have fun!

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