MorningMug o' Lettuce

Dateline: 16 July 2013

July is a great month for juicing. The garden is bursting with greens. 

It is a down-to-earth pleasure to sip a mug of fresh-juiced fruits and vegetables, while sitting in my Adirondack chair (made it myself), on the back patio, first thing in the morning.

That lovely green drink you see was made with romaine lettuce, chard, carrots, apples, lemon and ginger. Marlene made nearly a half gallon to enjoy through the day, but it is best when fresh.

As for the cat, she is Momma, a stray that showed up here a couple years ago, pregnant. We kept one of the kittens and named her Baby. Momma and Baby are great mousers (and chipmunkers), but they also catch and kill birds (which is upsetting).

Here's wishing you pleasant July mornings with a mug of some drink that you enjoy....

Weeds in Garlic, Bulbing, When To Harvest & A Whole Lot More

Dateline: 13 July 2013

A garlic "grove" in my 2013 garden 

There was a time, years ago, when I grew a lot of stiffneck garlic. I processed it into garlic powder and sold it. It was a nice little home business. But I lost the use of the land I was growing on, and I got busy with other projects, and I didn't grow any garlic—even in my garden—for a few years. Last October, however, I managed to get some garlic planted again and, as the picture above shows, it has grown very well.

The garlic I planted came from a friend. I helped him with a plumbing repair on his house and he paid me in garlic bulbs. I was very pleased to get the bulbs-for-seed from this particular friend because he has been growing his own garlic for several years, replants his own seed, and has had no disease issues. That's a good thing because in recent years a lot of mail-order garlic seed has been contaminated with crop-devastating nematodes.

I planted the garlic cloves in a wide row using a planting template (as explained in The Planet Whizbang Idea Book For Gardeners). The template allows me to plant wide rows of precisely spaced plants.  I've used the template for planting many garlic crops, and had excellent success with the technique. After planting, I mulch with straw. The straw suppresses weeds (more about weeds shortly).

The Summer 2013 issue of Maine Organic Farmer & Gardener newspaper (which I subscribe to and enjoy very much) has an article titled "Garlic, in Depth." The article is a synopsis of information presented in a MOFGA conference by David Stern, a garlic grower in the Hudson Valley of New York. Mr. Stern is also president of the Garlic Seed Foundation. I've spoken to David a couple of times on the phone. The Garlic Seed Foundation used to sell my book, Making Great Garlic Powder, when it was still in print. 

Anyway, David Stern knows a LOT about growing garlic and if you want to benefit from his knowledge, it so happens that you can read (and learn) what he shared with the MOFGA conference attendees at this link: Garlic, In Depth at MOFGA

Here's an interesting bit of garlic-growing information from the newspaper article:

David Stern said that beginning on June 22, as the days shorten, garlic puts its energy and carbohydrates into bulb formation rather than top growth. Any shade before then will limit growth. Weeds, for example, can reduce yields by 30%.

On the subject of when to harvest garlic (most people harvest way too late) the online article that I linked to above states:

After June 21 you can stop cultivating. Stern said if growers pull one garlic bulb every week between June 22 and harvest, they will see the bulb double in size each week for four weeks. If garlic is left in the ground longer, it will eventually grow out of its skin, and the bulb will bust open.

“Harvest garlic when you start to see a gap right around the stalk,” said Stern; “the second or third week in July.  

Nothing above ground – e.g., one-third of the leaves turning brown – will tell you when to harvest, said Stern, as drought, disease and other factors (cultivation damage) can affect above-ground growth.

That is the first I've heard of harvesting when you start to see a gap around the stalk. I 'm pretty sure that the "gap" he is speaking of can also be described as a split that forms above the bulb, where it joins to the stalk, and it occurs because the bulb is swelling. 

I'm checking my bulbs every day now, and will dig them when I see the gap.

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P.S. If you haven't seen my homemade garlic bulb dryer yet, Click Here

My dryer idea is similar to the dryer idea David Stern mentioned at the MOFGA conference....

Stern showed a rough design for a tulip-garlic bulb dryer: Garlic is put in bushel crates on a pallet, and the sides of the setup are wrapped in plastic. A fan blows air in through the bottom pallet, and another fan blows air across the top of the crates, drying the crop in two days. This could be a portable set-up, moved from farm to farm. In humid, wet summers, a little heat could be added to help drying.

Chard Celery

Dateline: 12 July 2013

Fresh chard from my garden

I wrote about how I like beet celery earlier this month. Now it's time for chard celery. 

Those of you who may have been hesitant about eating fresh-picked, raw beet stalks should feel less hesitant about eating chard stalks. That's because they are big and green—just like real celery. And you can fill the stalks with homemade peanut butter. Try it sometime......

Fresh chard celery from my garden

Stop On Over To"Thy Hand Hath Provided"(a blog recommendation)

Dateline: 10 July 2013

(click for larger view)

I'm pleased to announce that Jane Bryan, over at Thy Hand Hath Provided, has recommended my newest book to her readers. She is also doing a give-away of the book this week. You can read all about it here: Idea Book For Gardeners Giveaway!

Even if you already have a copy of my book, you'll still want to visit Thy Hand Hath Provided, and stop back often. That's because it's a wonderful blog. It's a wonderful blog because Jane writes about her Christian faith, her family, and the active, home-based, hands-on rural lifestyle they pursue on their little 1.5 acre homestead (I think I have that acreage right). Jane and her husband, Jamey, remind me a lot of my wife and I fifteen to twenty years ago, when our kids were much younger. Those were great times as a family (and they have passed by way too quickly).

Some shiitake mushrooms that the Bryan family recently grew. (photo link)

Thy Hand Hath Provided is inspiring and instructive. Take, for example two posts about raising shiitake mushrooms...

Growing Shiitake Mushrooms

And We Finally Have....Mushrooms

Jamey, tending the bees (photo link)

If you have any interest in keeping bees, I'm sure you will find the continuing series of photo-essays at Thy Hand Hath Provided to be interesting and inspiring too. The Bryan family is new to beekeeping and are learning a lot. I think Jamey must be something of a natural-born beekeeper because, as you can see in the picture above, he is wearing shorts while working an active hive.  Here, for your instruction and reading pleasure, are the beekeeping links (thus far) from Thy Hand Hath Provided...

Beekeeping Preparations: Emotional

Further Preparations & Why Top Bar Hives

Transferring Langstroth Nucs to Top Bar Hives

Hive Inspection #1

Into The Hives! (Inspections 2 and 3)

Bearding & Marking The Queen

Dividing A Hive & Grafting A Queen

Small Hive Beetles & A Homemade Trap

The Week of The Swarms

To be continued (at Thy Hand Hath Provided)...

The Bryan family grows and sells sunflowers at a roadside stand (photo link)

There is also a down-to-earth entrepreneurial side to Thy Hand Hath Provided. Check out How to Plant & Grow Cut Sunflowers To Sell

And it so happens that Jane has self-published a cookbook! I'll have more to say about that at a later date. For now, suffice it to say that it's my pleasure to add Thy Hand Hath Provided to the list of other fine, agrarian-themed blogs on my sidebar!

The AbandonedUrban Chicken Problem...And My Solution

Dateline: 9 July 2013

They probably got sick and tired of changing the diapers (picture/article link)

I received an e-mail from a reporter at The Daily Caller yesterday asking for my thoughts concerning the problem of abandoned chickens in urban areas, as reported in This Article.

I replied to the query, and my solution to this problem made it into today's article at The Daily Caller. Here's the link: Urban Chickens Increasingly Abandoned by Hipster Owners.

My solution is, I think, pretty obvious to any "rural blogger" such as  myself. And the whole matter is actually kind of comical.


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My only gripe with the article is the comment that "A nationwide salmonella outbreak in 2012 was spread in part by chickens raised in backyard coops."  I don't believe that at all.

Birth Of AChristian-Agrarian Nation

Dateline: 5 July 2013

America is a nation that was established by God-fearing men. Most who signed the Declaration of Independence and hammered out the details of our Constitution were devout Christians. Some were not as devout as others but, to a man, they believed in Biblical standards of right and wrong, and they established a new republic based on God's law as revealed in scripture.

Thus it is that America was established by Christians, and we were a Christian nation.

What I just stated is clearly supported by the historical writings. It is indisputable. Yet, in the post-Christian (or, more specifically, apostate) America we now live in, the historical facts of our founding are disputed. Worse yet, many of the original intentions of the founders have been twisted to mean things that they were never meant to mean.

America's new religion is secular humanism, which is the faith-based belief that mankind alone, without any faithfulness to the unwavering, transcendental standards of truth as given in scripture, is capable of defining morality by itself. Secular humanists rely on evolving attitudes about what is right and wrong. Secular humanism believes that mankind is fully capable of being its own god.

I dare say that the founders (including the least pious among them) would have immediately recognized that secular humanism is the religion of fools, and a certain recipe for national self-destruction. 

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As a result of the research and teaching of men like David Barton, the late Peter Marshall, and Marshall Foster, many Americans are well aware of the Christian foundations of our nation, but they are not aware that a great many of our founders also believed that the nation they birthed should be an agrarian civilization. They saw the combination of Christianity and agrarianism (Christian-agrarianism) as the surest support the republic could have; a strong bulwark against all kinds of problems.

This fact of the matter is surely born out in Thomas Jefferson's writings (and I touched on it in My New York Times Editorial). But I have recently come across a discussion of the Christian-agrarian civic beliefs of our founders in a delightful book titled Founding Gardeners, by Andrea Wulf. If you love Revolutionary-era American history and gardening, you will appreciate this unique book.

On page 115 there is this insightful passage:

"...[F]or the founding fathers, free husbandmen with small self-sufficient farms would be the foot soldiers of the infant nation.

This was not a new idea—Aristotle had claimed that for a republic "an Agrarian people is the best" and the Romans had elevated the farmer as the most virtuous kind of citizen, imbuing the hardworking peasant at his plough with patriotic pride. Virgil's poem Georgics had been admired as a celebration of virtuous country life, while Cicero had written that "of all the occupations by which gain is secured, none is better than agriculture, none more profitable, none more delightful, none more becoming to a freeman."

This emphasis on farmers as the foundation of a free society had its origin in the belief that republics were the most fragile form of government. With the removal of the monarchy, the traditional control mechanisms of society—which were based on fear and force—had to be replaced by self-control, moral integrity and industry. "Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom," Franklin had written, "as nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters." As such, the strength of a republic—the people—was also its weakness. People's selfishness, ambition, avarice and vanity in America posed such a threat that Adams worried "whether there is public virtue enough to support a republic."

Closely linked to the concept of "public virtue" was that of "private virtue," described as being frugal, temperate and uncorrupted—traits that the founding fathers ascribed to farmers. "Cultivators of the earth," Jefferson wrote, "are the most vigorous, the most independent, the most virtuous." They elevated the independent yeoman to an elemental place in American life. Hardworking and independent farmers were the pillars of American society because only a virtuous and industrious people would be able to hold together the republic."

###

As God-fearing, Bible-believing men, America's founders envisioned, and laid the groundwork for, a Christian-agrarian republic.

The virtue they spoke of, virtue that was so necessary for the survival of the republic, coming from a nation of independent farmers, were not Muslim virtues, or Buddhist virtues, or Hindu virtues. And in no way, shape, or form were they the virtues of secular humanism. They were Christian virtues.

###

As men who, by and large, had a biblically-informed worldview, the founders fully understood that men are, by nature, not good. The Bible teaches that men (or mankind) are fundamentally depraved (a.k.a., sinful) and capable of all kinds of self-serving mischief and wickedness. That's why the founders established a decentralized government (decentralization is a basic agrarian concept). They limited the size and power of government, and they integrated all manner of checks and balances into the Constitution.

###

I believe the Christian-agrarian republic, as established by the Christian-agrarian founders, disappeared many years ago. The rise of industrialism and corporate capitalism ripped apart the fabric of agrarian culture in this nation. It was then that families (traditional families)—the backbone of any nation—were fractured and weakened. 

Families in agrarian America were once strong, self-reliant and interdependent within their rural communities. But industrialized America is now a nation of broken, government-and-corporate-dependent families.

With the loss of Christian-agrarian values, the republic succumbed to a greater democracy (a.k.a., mob rule), and after Lincoln's war against the agrarian South, greater political power became centralized in Washington, D.C. Now Americans are faced with the reality of various destructive political ideologies—Statism, Socialism, Fascism. Such ideologies are, of course, the fruit of the secular humanist faith.

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It's a sad story. We are a nation in decline. Some people have suggested that apostate America is inviting God's judgement. I don't think God's judgement is coming. I think it is already here. 

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There is, however, always hope. There is always hope in the only place where there has always been hope—in the mercy and grace of God (not government programs or political promises). It's there in the scriptures. It's there for those who look for it. It's there for people who humble themselves, and repent. Seek and you shall find.  

I've been a follower of Jesus Christ since I was around 14 years old. After all these years I tend to think that everyone knows that God's word (the Bible) is where hope can be found—that it is the only place where true hope (and the peace that comes with such hope) can be found. But that is, of course, a mistake on my part, especially in post-Christian America.

That said, if you are looking for hope and peace that transcends your personal problems, and the serious problems of this world, I suggest that you begin your quest by reading the book of John in the New Testament.

###

So there is always hope for men (and women and children) who put their faith in Jesus Christ, no matter how wayward the path of their life has been. But I'm not so sure about nations which have rejected God's standards of righteousness. Such nations usually end up in the ash bin of history.

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I'm a praying man. Scripture tells me that, by faith in Christ, my sins are forgiven, and that I have access to the sovereign God of the universe through my prayers. So I pray. And when it comes to my country, I pray that God's judgement will lead not to the total destruction of proud, apostate America, but to the restoration of a godly and moral republic. 

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In the meantime, I endeavor to live a life that is as agrarian as I can manage. Which is to say, as separate from the mainstream neo-Babylonian cultural expectations, and the industrial-system dependencies as I can reasonably be. In other words, I endeavor to be the kind of Christian-agrarian citizen that the founders once envisioned as the surest support of the Christian-agrarian republic they originally established.

I have little (to no) control over the course of apostate America, but I have a measure of control over how I endeavor to live my life and lead my family in these increasingly desperate days. I believe that Christianity, lived within the agrarian paradigm, is the wisest course for God's people, as it has always been.

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7 July 2013—Update: After so many years of blogging here I have a tendency to repeat myself, and not realize it. It turns out I posted an essay much like this one (but more thoughtfully written) back in 2008. You can read it here: Hope For A Troubled America

Lovely Romaine Lettuce

Dateline: 4 July 2013

Romaine lettuce in my garden on Independence Day, 2013

As I've noted here in the past, folks who purchase a copy of The Planet Whizbang Idea Book For Gardeners, also learn how to access the "hidden" online Resources web site for the book. The web site is an added value. It has lots of photos and further details about the things discussed in the book. I will be adding more information (more value) to the Resources web site in the weeks and months to come. 

With that in mind, I have just sent out Update Newsletter #3, informing readers that I have posted a new photo-essay showing how I start romaine lettuce in nursery tire beds, then transplant and grow them into my main garden (as pictured above).

If you are already a reader of the book, you can go to the web site now and find the essay at "A Primer On Gardening In Tires."

And while you're there, if you haven't yet signed up for newsletter updates, now is a great time to do so.

Looking Back...Eight Years OfThe Delibarate Agrarian

Dateline: 3 July 2013

This book of essays, published in 2006, contains many of my first Christian-agrarian writings, which were originally posted to this blog (but they are no longer online).

I try to remember the yearly anniversary of this blog, but I usually forget, and this year is no exception. It was June 18, 2005 when I created The Deliberate Agrarian and published my first post. Eight years have now passed and I can tell you that it has been a life-changing experience, to say the least.

I figure that this blog has had over three million page views. There are 2.3 million on my current site meter and I think there were almost a million on my first site meter, which I mistakenly deleted several years ago. 

But this blog has never been about racking up numbers. In fact, I've purposely not done various things that would help spike my numbers. For example, I have declined numerous interview and speaking requests over the years. I'm a low-key kind of person—not comfortable with crowds and speaking in public. I might even be introverted. I'm not looking for mainstream attention. But I am driven to write. I believe I was born to write.

I started The Deliberate Agrarian because I felt powerfully compelled to share my life and espouse my distinctly contra-industrial, Christian-agrarian worldview. I have stuck to that theme ever since.

When I first started writing on the internet, a lot of readers wondered what an agrarian was. And the term, "Christian-agrarian," was looked at with suspicion by some Christians who came here. Like, maybe it was a new cult, and I wanted to be the grand leader. Some expressed concern that it was not right to attach the word "agrarian" to Christian.

I've never argued about or defended Christian-agrarianism. I've been content to simply explain it as best I could, give examples, and celebrate it in my writings.

My first year of blog posts helped set the stage for defining and celebrating Christian-agrarian life and thought, and I decided to compile several of those essays into a book titled, Writings of a Deliberate Agrarian. 

The book has not been a money maker, but I didn't write it to make money. God blessed me with profits from other books I wrote, and I believe He impressed upon me that I should use some of those profits to publish Writings of a Deliberate Agrarian.  The book would serve to inspire other Christians to escape the dependency of modern Babylonian industrialism—to live a life more in accord with how God intended for His people to live. 

I might sell 50 copies of that book in a year. But the feedback from readers has been endearing. I like to say it's the least-known, best-loved book I've ever written.

The name of "Deliberate" Agrarian came from, "Simple, separate and deliberate," part of a mission statement coined by R.C. Sproule, Jr. of the Highlands Study Center (now Highlands Ministries).

I also wrote that book to chronicle my Christian and agrarian convictions so that my children and grandchildren would, at different times of their life, read it and be edified by it.

Blog readers come, and blog readers go, but there are a few of you out there who have been regular readers of this blog from the beginning, or very near the beginning. And you read The Desperate Agrarian? (published 5 days after my first post) wherein I introduced my Agrarian Vision to own more land (debt free) and work at home.

That was eight years ago, and the vision was a 100% impossibility at that time. Some remarkable things needed to happen if the vision were to ever become a reality. But remarkable things did happen.

No, I didn't win the lottery. No, I didn't inherit a lot of money. No, a reader of this blog did not gift me a large sum or money (though a few people along the way have graciously sent me little gifts of money). 

What happened is that I chose to be content and thankful for God's provision, never basing my joy in life on the attainment of my vision—but I worked hard at my little home business, and I marketed my products on the internet (often mentioning them here on this blog), and God saw fit to prosper me. He prospered me enough to buy land (debt free) about a year ago, and leave the wage-slave job six months ago.. 

The realization of the vision is not exactly as I had pictured it eight years ago, but it is an ongoing reality, and I marvel at it every day.

To a very large degree, all of this started when I started writing this blog. So, you see, it really has been a life-changing experience. 

My thanks to so many readers who have encouraged and blessed me over the past eight years. I hope I can continue to write here for many years to come!

Contributing ToAn IndependentChristian-Agrarian Movie

Dateline: 2 July 2013

Sean Tounn filming a scene for his documentary, "Beyond Off Grid." (click here for the photo link and a good article about the movie)

"Beyond Off Grid is a documentary that explores why one should strive to live independently of the modern control grid, and how this can be accomplished. The modern way of living, with all its conveniences and comforts, is not resilient to calamity and not conducive to spiritual blessings. True freedom is found in seeking the old paths. By exposing the weaknesses of the modern financial, transportation, and food production systems, and bringing to light the solutions that are available by learning the older way of doing things, this film seeks to inspire folks to a greater degree of self sufficiency while trusting God."

(from the Beyond Off Grid web site)

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That sounds like a Christian-agrarian film project to me and I'm kind of excited to see how this movie turns out. Fact is, yesterday I perused the film's web site at length and decided to help support its production costs with a donation. 

A donation of $25 or more gets you a DVD copy of the film when it's done. It also gives you the fine feeling that comes with supporting a worthwhile project. 

Please take a few minutes to check out this independent film project and consider supporting it with a donation.

HomemadePeanut Butter

Dateline: 2 July 2013

Marlene has been using our Champion juicer to make peanut butter. We've owned the machine for 19 years and she has used it to juice a LOT of fruits and vegetables in that time. It has also been used to process tomatoes when canning tomato juice and soup. But making our own peanut butter is something we've never done before.

We bought a 30-pound box of "Roasted Blanched Splits- #1R" from Dutch Valley Foods, through a local co-op. The peanuts were "Packed by Hampton Farms in Edenton, North Carolina." It cost us $32 for 30 pounds of peanuts. They are not certified organic peanuts. A 30-pound box of organic peanuts would have cost $108.

The texture of the homemade peanut butter is creamy with a very fine "crunch." The flavor is excellent. No salt. Nothing but peanuts. Everyone in this family is in agreement that it is remarkably good peanut butter.

Cleaning Sap Buckets inAlmost-July

Dateline: 30 June 2013

Tomorrow is July! It's high time I scrubbed out the maple sap buckets from last spring. I took the buckets down and pulled the sap spiles out of the trees as soon as we stopped boiling syrup, but the buckets have been outdoors under our wood shed since then, waiting for me to wash them out and put them away properly. I'm not usually such a procrastinator, but with my new book and other demands, I've let this little task go undone too long!

I heat water up in our makeshift evaporator pan, add some detergent, and scrub inside and outside with a green Scotch-brite pad. Then I stack the buckets on a pallet in the sun to dry...

All 25 sap buckets are accounted for. And 25 covers are in the evaporator pan, yet to be scrubbed. Unfortunately, I have only 23 sap spikes. The two missing ones are not in the trees. I'm sure of that. Maybe they'll turn up. 

Once thoroughly air-dried, the buckets and covers will be stacked up on a shelf in a shed, ready to use come next spring.

That's a good job done!

StrawberriesOn Oatmeal

Dateline: 29 June 2013

It was exactly one week ago that I posted an essay here titled Strawberries of The Largest & Finest Quality (The E.P. Roe Way). I have been picking strawberries, grown the "E.P. Roe way" from my experimental hugelkultur tire beds every day since then. I am amazed at the amount of berries that I'm getting each day from only a few plants. And the berries continue to be mostly of a large size.

E.P. Roe really did know how to grow strawberries of the largest and finest quality, and I think he would be pleased to see his methods combined with the hugelkultur concept.

You can learn all about E.P. Roe's methods for growing strawberries of the largest and finest quality from The Planet Whizbang Idea Book For Gardeners. And once you have a copy, you'll find out how to get to the "hidden" online Resources web site for the book, where I show and tell more about my remarkably productive little hugelkultur tire beds.

Oh, and by the way, there really is some oatmeal under those strawberries.