Small out building projects?

[~gd]

Lupin means "water bath canning" for jam or jelly, not pressure canning.I must have slept through that part of jams and jelly, we just cooked them on the stovetop and poured them in sterilized jelly jars and sealed them with a layer of melted paraffin wax (I just checked my 'bible' and indeed it does now say to use mason jars, waterbath for 5 or 10 minutes, rev 2009) What do I do with my colection of old jelly jars? I mean I have been using them for every day drinking glasses because they are more rugged than the 'good' glasses.~gd


I also highly doubt her mother leaves the seeds in the crab apples before making pies.

I am also assuming a homestead type tree is an "heirloom" apple tree which is what I have. They are fantastic trees (full of delicious apples) that require little maintenance in the form of pestisides etc.

Do you know of any name for your heirloom type apple? It is a little known fact that most apple trees known today are actually old hybrids that do not reproduce themselves 'true' from seeds. They are usually reproduced from cutings or grafts. If you have 7-9 years you can plant the seeds from one fruit and get quite different plants from different seeds.~gd

 

[k0xxx]

If you would like to send me a PM with your e-mail, I can e-mail you plans for building a couple of small smokehouses. I downloaded these from a cooperative extensions.

 

[Lady Henevere]

I learned a lot about apples from this nursery , which I bought some trees from last year. Their catalog and website discuss both heirlooms and hybrids, and which types are good for eating fresh, storing, cooking, cider, etc.

 

[rty007]

I was setting up our small quite shaded garden behind our house. So was just lurking around, and I still have a few things in the orchard topic to finish up translating for you folks. But let me tell you this, there are basically two ways to go about the orchard. One would be what I am pretty sure lupin was taking about. a high, on a fast growing rootstock tree which will allow you, to plant something under them trees. and the other option would be planting a normal/dwarfing rootstock and using poles and 3 wires to guide the branches at the hight of about 1m/3ft 1,4m/4,5ft 1,8m/6ft this option would mean a little bit tinkering around while establishing it, but means a lot less labour intensive pruning on the ladder later. Also makes the harvesting process a LOT easier, looks pretty awesome, like a vineyard. BUT that keeps the trunk and the branches quite thin, so they are more prone to some diseases and harsh atmospheric conditions. There are many things to consider while setting up, water level, if it is high it might be best to go with dwarfing rootstock. And those heirloom apples are all grafted, you may however some modern apple couse the polish old timers have a tendency to produce every second year, not annually.

 

[big brown horse]

Hey rty!

I love that site Lady Henevere!

I have gravensteins, cox orange pippins, golden delicious, d'arcy spice, red golds, spitzenburgs, fugis and winesaps. I also have hosuis, shinsuis, nijussikis which are really asian pears...and oh mama do they taste good!! (Not to mention a crabby, crab apple tree , cherry trees and plum trees.)

I prune everything so the fruit can be reached easily.

Now back to the op...

I have a "root cellar" of sorts, it comes in very handy...and I think you could make one yourself very easily. I think it was Beekissed's parents that dug a nice sized hole and covered it with plywood and hay bales.

Good luck.

 

[lupinfarm]

holy attitude ~gd!

Dolgo's are known best for their use in crabapple spreads and jellys as well as used in apple pies. We lived on a small homestead in North Eastern Saskatchewan where it was impossible to grow traditional apple trees due to the climate. The Dolgo trees were the only things to survive a winter there. Dolgo crabapples actually get to be the size of a small apple and are easy to core and peel.

You are totally right BBH, thats exactly what I meant. Maybe It's just me, but I prefer the nice upright orchards. I also prefer the ease of not having to plant all new trees and wait 5 years before having a decent harvest.

 

[hwillm1977]

hwillm, we have a dirt floor "basement" too, except we have no access from inside. Well, we would if we could keep the hatch that is currently screwed shut but its in the middle of the bathroom floor lol. Has to go. Ours doesn't have potato bins, but we could probably put them in. Ours mainly houses utilities, furnace, pump, ect.

Yep... that's similar to ours, but the hatch is in the living room, under the couch... so we move the coffee table to the hallway, slide the couch out and down the hatch you go... it's not somewhere to keep something you'd want to be getting every day, but it works for long term storage.

Jaxom, because I'm still in the dreaming stages of building a homestead most of what I've learned has come from books and life with my parents when I was younger... Someday I'll have my own place to do all kinds of projects like what you are planning, but for now we live on one acre with some chickens and a garden because that's all we could afford... we bought our house without running water or electricity and have done a ton of work ourselves... but it means we'll be mortgage free before I turn 34 years old, and hopefully moving to our dream farm shortly after that.

I LOVE 'The Backyard Homestead', 'The Self Sufficient Life and how to Live It', and 'Back to Basics' from Reader's Digest... those three are great sort of overview books with a little bit about each thing you might want to know. From there you can decide what you want to focus on doing with your property.

 

[Beekissed]

Isn't all this pipe-dreaming kind of diverting energy away from CONSTRUCTIVE pursuits and attitudes? I.e. putting 110% of your energy into GETTING some money to buy or rent a property, as opposed to figuring out how to spend it if it should magically appear?

Dreaming is where constructive pursuits are born! Keep dreaming and planning that homestead...everyone should have a plan and talk about it and get positive feedback, which is constructive, in my point of view.

Lupin, I agree with trying to find property with established trees..this a real plus and half the battle. I know exactly what you meant my "homestead" trees....a well-established, strong tree that can withstand various diseases and blights and has proven so by living to a ripe old age.

 

[Jaxom]

Beekissed,

You are so right! If we as a speices didn't dream, we'd still be sitting half naked in some jungle somewhere. We wouldn't have invented the wheel or harnessed fire. Having said that, you also have to balence dreaming with reality. In order to see one's dreams come true, you must have solid foundation or plan in order to achieve this goal or dream.

Where do I come up with some of my questions. It's usually while I'm working on my goals for that day. Whether it be mowing the lawn or sorting through stuff for my estate sale. I just so happens I was moving some books around a few days back and I seen another foxfire book mixed in with the ones I was selling. I put it aside because I want to keep those. Later while flipping through it I seen something on root cellers.

As an avid cook and hunter, I love the taste of smoked meats and fish. As I mentioned earlier in this thread, I seen an episode of "Good Eats" on the Food Network, hosted by Alton Brown. He made himself a small, inexpensive smoker/cooker for doing pulled pork, ribs, salmon...ect.

So being the curious sort that I am I thought these would be applicable things to inquire about here. When I think of a root celler for example I think back to watching Little house on the Prairie or Grizzly Adams where they had a root celler dug into the side of a hill made out of rock and with a grass roof. Probably not practial in these days and times. But still I like the concept.

As far as the smoke house goes, it's both for personal and perhaps for profitablity interests. I've been inquiring both on here and through my state about becoming a licenced commerical fisherman. The spieces of fish that I would be after takes well to being smoked. Even if I didn't become a commercial fisherman, it would be very easy to harvest quite a bit of these fish, smoke them, and then use them for barter or trade for things I cannot grow or such that I may need.


Orchard.... Wow you folks really know your stuff! Way in advance as to where I am now. I have a general concept of where I'd like to be, but beyond that I wouldn't know which apple spieces is good for pies vs one for cider, I just know I LOVE apples! I do know, whatever "orchard" I plant I would like to keep the tree smaller, but not nessarily trained to an arbor like grapes are. You see, I have this major aversion to ladders and rapid impacts with the ground when falling from them.

 

[SKR8PN]

You see, I have this major aversion to ladders and rapid impacts with the ground when falling from them.

Like my father used to say......."One step will get you all the way to ground"