Pass It Along

No, not whispering down the lane. And not gossip either. 

How to grow your own food. 

A funny thing about me is that I've always wanted to grow my own food. Combining that with my innate nature to teach, then it goes hand in hand that I would teach others how to grow food too.  And to tell you, it's been some fun along the way. Not to belittle others, but it's been amusing to see that other gardeners are capable of making not just the same errors I have along the way, but have managed to come up with some more dandies that I never thought of. What's good about that is that I learn from each and every one of those flubs, thus I'm constantly getting better at this "growing food" effort. 

I've never kept records, so I can't say exactly how many people I've taught something about gardening or livestock keeping. But I keep finding more people who want to try this or that, so I give them help, hints, or lessons. Via this blog, I hope that there are people out there who will also give growing food a try. 

Building pallet grow boxes is the most common lesson I give to people around here. Because of the lava, people can't plow, rototill, or even hand dig the soil to build gardens. Often the best approach is to build raised beds of some sort. The pallet boxes are simple, quick and easy to assemble, and cost almost nothing to make. They can then be filled with an assortment of organic debris and soil amendments, again only costing one's time not cash. 

Just about everyone who I've shown these pallet boxes to comes away pleased with the results. And just about all are surprised just how much material it takes to fill one of these boxes. But ultimately, they end up harvesting a crop plus 1/2 yard of soil/compost mix. Not bad. 

The second most common food growing lessons are about chickens. Right now there are dozens and dozens of families around here with two laying hens in a small backyard coop. This is a project that just about everyone can be successful with. I use to build a simple 4x4x6 foot coop and then let the person customize it from there. But now I see that Costco is selling a small backyard coop that is cute and ready to use. So now I recommend that one. It may be pricy for sone people around here, but they can go take a look in order to get ideas. Then they can fashion their own coop. 

The third most common food growing lesson is non-circulating hydroponics for lettuce. I've even gotten the senior center involved and set up numerous seniors with homemade kits. Heck, my own mother was successful in growing lettuce this way, and was pleased and proud to go out into her porch and pluck lettuce leaves for her sandwich. Pretty cool! 

I'm a firm believer in education. Thus I'm a firm believer in passing knowledge along. And for some reason I get satisfaction in doing just that.