I’ve been struggling with something to type in this space. Not because I’m ignorant which if I’m honest with myself, I am ignorant on being self-sufficient. Sure I’ve helped raise chickens for a year or two. Sure we gathered their eggs and ate their meat (and, let me tell you, I miss that immensely). We didn’t stick with it. We didn’t fully rely on it like we could have started doing. I know what I’m missing.

This blog, is after all, not just a place to advertise my podcast. I want to document my journey into self-sufficiency. I want to get back to raising chickens and culling them for meat and gathering eggs. I want to document my journey into being healthy and less lazy. So let’s document.

This past summer I half-assed trying to raise some tomatoes and peppers in buckets. I failed. I didn’t know what I was doing and I failed. I harvested one puny pepper that wasn’t even a toothful and 3 puny tomatoes. Sure they tasted great, but it was a failure. I know some of why I failed. I’m going to try again next year. I may fail again, but not as badly. I hope.

How am I going to succeed? I’m working on building up my compost. I’m using this past season’s failure and the leaves falling from my trees, I’m using vegetable matter coming out of my house (if any). It’s a static pile. I’m dumping stuff on and mixing it every so often and that’s it. A bit lazy but it works. I know it works. I’ve gotten beautiful compost from it in the past, and I will again.

I also plan on building a structure to house a hydroponics setup. I bought Hydroponics: The Kratky Method: The Cheapest And Easiest Hydroponic System For Beginners Who Want To Grow Plants Without Soil to help me get started (if you’re offended by me making money, you can feel free to leave; being self-sufficient means not being afraid of making money and I need to make money so I’d rather you stay and read and if you want the book, click the link and buy the book). I don’t know the first thing about hydroponics, but we have a book for it (and this one comes recommended by Jack Spirko of The Survival Podcast, which you should be listening to if you aren’t already, Jack is the inspiration for this, at least in part).

I need to learn. I need to do. I need to be non-fragile, as Dr. Ken Berry calls it. So do you. Let’s go and get this shit done.