Black Soldier Fly Composter

Hi you guys! So, I wanted to come up with a way to turn my food scraps into a live feed to give to my chickens and in my searching I found out about Black Soldier Flies (BSF)! I found a page (link below) that lays out how to build a composter that will house your BSF's and at the same time they will break down LOTS of waste, all the while turning that waste into nice and fat, tasty larvae for your chickens! It took me like a week to make this composter because I did not have a lot of time but here it is! These BSF's will really compost your trash fast once the flies lay eggs and all the larva start really living in it. Check out all the videos I have done on this and let me know what you all think please.

Building a Mealworm Farm

As many of you know I am starting to breed mealworms to give my chickens a nice and healthy little treat. Well, as a little time has gone by I am also breeding them to feed to tropical fish that I have in my fish tank. If you would like to check out my fish tank and ideas I have for it, please join my other page called The Fish Tank!

I know some of you are also looking to subsidize the cost of feeding your chickens in the winter and this is perfect! Your chickens will go nuts for them:) Not only that, but thus far they are really easy to breed! 

I've seen lots of different ways to breed mealworms but I think the way I did it in this video is going to work the best for me. It's all about low maintenance for me because I already have lots going on in my life and I cannot give these bugs 24 hours of my attention! LoL! 

 

To get started you're going to need some very simple things that you may already have or you can buy from just about any store to get this mealworm farm started.

Mini Greenhouse!

Hey! Don't throw that empty strawberry container away!

Why not reuse them as a mini greenhouse to start your veggie seeds or grow some sprouts for your chickens? That is what I did with these three strawberry containers that my wife had got from a store in my area called Sprouts. This container came with air holes in the top and drain holes on the bottom. These holes are needed for good drainage and good air flow!

Watch the video to see how I used these containers.

DIY Solar Light Jar

If you enjoy being outside checking your garden for pest at night this project is going to be a blast! Not only that but mason jars are really cheap! Being that your somewhat of a gardener I would say you already have the jars, now that just leaves the solar lights. Around my house the $0.99 store sales solar lights for $1! 

DIY Solar Oven

I just love solar ovens! They are a huge money saver if you use it a few days a week over your oven! Not only that but if something should happen to gas and electricity you will still have the ability to cook. They can cook just about anything! Things like a loaf of bread and beef stew. Heck, I've seen people dehydrate with them! You can also use them in the dead of winter as long as the sun is out.

This site has a great DIY for making this solar oven so have a look and give it a shot:)

http://www.popularmechanics.com/_mobile/home/how-to-plans/woodworking/who-needs-a-grill-build-a-hot-box-solar-oven

Building a raised bed

This is the way you build a raise bed without having to dig up all that crabgrass:) Would you believe just putting cardboard down can kill the grass and keep it out of your raise bed completely? Go ahead and click on the link to see details on how to build this raised bed garden and kill the grass on the bottom of the raised bed naturally!

Biochar

One of my goals for this year is to make a biogas to run my propane grill, and while doing research for that goal I ran into articles about biochar. Biochar is basically defined as charcoal used for agricultural purposes. We all have probably seen or used charcoal in our BBQ grills, but most of that isn't good for the garden. In fact most of the commercial charcoal we buy at the store is made with chemicals we don't want in our garden bed. Biochar on the other hand is simple to make and is a great amendment to the garden.

Biochar isn't some new soil amendment either, to really find its start we have to go back in time to the ancient amazons. No one is really sure as to how or why the ancients started to make and add the biochar to their farmlands, but even today those farmlands are rich in fertility. What is known is that the biochar helps to retain nutrients and water in the soil, helping to prevent nutrient loss to leaching. This rich farmland is known today as Terra Preta.

Brick Rocket Stove for cheap!

As I watched (like all of you) what happened in NY when hurricane Sandy hit I thought how unprepared people are. Not that I know it all but it moved me to do something that I feel could have really come in handy in the aftermath of that hurricane.

I built this rocket stove to see if I can use it to cook with and at the same time collect the ashes of burnt wood for my garden. I don't know that this is the best way to build a rocket stove but this is how I did it. (If you have a better way of doing this please post it!)


I went down to Home Depot with my son and picked up 2 cinder blocks and 17 normal concrete bricks. With everything I picked up for this project it ended up costing around $8.50 to $9! CHEAP:)

I took the blocks and bricks home and stacked them into the pattern you can see in the video but for a little more detail I wanted to blog about it. So lets get to it!

Building organic soil & breaking up clay!

Hello everyone,

today I want to talk to you guys a little bit about building an organic soil while at the same time busting up that rock hard clay! (( I am no professional gardener so if I get something wrong, please forgive me! )) The methods I'm going to show you will save your back, and money! O, and did I mention both these methods are very easy!


So let's get to the story behind how I figured these things out, shall we?

Chicken feeder pipe!

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See Chicken Feeder Pipe article here! 

Chicken watering nipples!

Hi everyone!

When I first got my girls I wanted to make sure to keep them safe from anything that could hurt or kill them and a big part of that was keeping there water clean. I read a little about keeping chickens water clean and found that if it's not kept clean your chicks can get botulism. Me being an organic farmer/gardener I did not want to treat my chickens with antibiotics so I had to look to natural methods. Keeping water clean was at the top of the list:) You can also give your chicks some organic yogurt to build up there immunities.

All this leads to me wanting to talk to you all a little about how I am keeping my chickens water very very clean! It all started with me not wanting to have to change my chickens water everyday! I mean, these chickens sure can dirty up that water very fast as some of you may already know;) I watched them over time and noticed that my chickens beaks were getting quite dirty from the feed and whatever else was in there cage. And of course they did not care to clean up there faces before they drank out of there water dish that I was working so hard to keep clean for them! (Ingrates!! LOL!!)

Barrel Composter

Buy one here!!

Build a barrel composter or buy a barrel one. I built my own barrel composter to keep rats, mice, and other pest away from my compost pile and speed up composting time. We put food scrapes in the compost pile and naturally it will bring pest looking for foods if they can get to it. The barrel composter keeps out pest but let's in other beneficial bugs that will help the compost break down even faster then it does in the barrel. Since all my compost goes into the barrel it holds in moisture and heat. Not only that but I am able to turn the barrel a lot easier then turning a pile on the ground with a shovel or pitchfork.

Once a week I just turn the barrel and it aerates the compost. Here are some of the things you will need!

DIY lizard trap for your garden!

As some of you know I try and keep my garden as organic as I can. I quickly learned that when you garden organically that pest tend to try and take over! At that point I prayed and asked the Lord what can I do to keep pest off my plants and He gave me something I can start to build on.

I started to watch what the Lord had put in place to eat bugs. Lizards and frogs came to mind right away. I don't have an open water source that frogs could grow and breed in so I turned to lizards! I noticed there was non in my back yard so I set out to catch some to help me in the garden.

I got some by hand but I needed an easier way to catch them and that lead me to look at traps. Once you catch them you can also keep them for a few weeks to