So I can sit and swing while the world burns too.

WTF?

Hey guys, just wanted to give you a update. It’s been 2 weeks since my injury. The issue of swelling has been keeping the surgeon from being able to operate and rebuild the foot, ankle and lower leg. That has finally been resolved and I will be operated on late this morning or early afternoon. I know one thing and that is I’ll be glad to have this rack removed from the leg. It sounds like I’ll be in for a long recovery. Eight weeks before I will be allowed to start putting any weight on it. I’m going to spend a couple weeks here in Fairbanks in a motel before finally heading back home. When I am done having to see the surgeon for at least a month. My dad will fly up from Florida and stay with me to help me out for awhile. Will be nice to see him. 
Kevin, I’m glad to see that you managed to make your move safely. Phil, your wife is dead on with her dying bread statement. 
In closing this, I want to add, Phil, to mention the kindness of the blogs readers. I want to add to that list. This fellow that answered Kevin’s call for my assistance, Paul, guys this man has come to see me every day but one. He works on these air ambulances up here and is talented in my areas. I just find it amazing that he like so many others look at the blog daily and never say a word. They come for the information and the stories, but also for the comments. I’m telling you this because I don’t think he’s a one off. I think the blogosphere is probably full of many people like him. I can’t say enough about how much I appreciate him. 
I’ll get back in touch with another update after the surgery as soon as I’m able. You guys take care and stay safe. Oh yeah, thank you both for being who and what you are and, for your caring and the blog. 

He called me a little bit ago.

He had made it to his destination a half an hour earlier and was on his way with a friend to get some much needed food.

He sounded beat but was happy to have made it.

I am very glad.

Now I can quit worrying about the asshole like a Catholic Grandmother.

Once again I am stunned and humbled.

An extremely nice guy got a hold of me last week and offered to give me another little John Deere riding mower almost exactly like the one I had given to me a couple weeks ago.

The really amazing part is that the gentleman lives hundreds of miles away and he showed up with it today. That and a few other goodies too!

This one is actually in better condition overall, the engine is half tore apart though.

If you know me, you know what that means.

ENGINE SWAP!

If you look closely, the newer one even came with a bagger set up!

WOO HOO!

That alone is a hell of a score!

I also got another starter to replace the cracked one .

Even though the gentleman came almost all the way from freaking Canada, he has a daughter down here close by so he got to visit her. I tried to give him some money just for the fuel he burned but he wasn’t having any of that, he merely told me to Pay It Forward.

He also gave me some old Monkey Wrenches and most of a Walk Behing Push Seed Planter.

I had to Google it to find out what it looked like when it was complete. Even though it is missing the front wheel, this little cutie pie is in excellent condition.

Did I say cutie pie?

Why yes I did. This thing is just cute as hell!

A quick Image search and this is what it looked like when it was complete.

At first I thought it might be part of an Allen Bradley set up.

I actually have the frame and rear wheel for one of those too.

I am still trying to get over the generosity and this mower and feel very blessed to have someone think enough of me to go to such trouble.

We had a real nice visit, the guy has some fascinating background that I would love to expound on but I am going to keep that to myself to protect his privacy.

I can tell you that I learned quite a few things today talking to him about what it is he does.

Quite a few.

Heck of a nice guy.

I consider it a privilege and an honor to have met him.

I still have another project that I need to kick myself in the butt for and get done, I haven’t forgotten another example o EXTREME generosity, that 220 volt, 3 phase motor and brand new VFD project that I need to get finished up.

It’s just that this mower deal is kind of a priority at this point. It’s Mowing Season and I need to get one of these put together and working so I can drag it over to my Father In Law’s place and get his lawn under control.

He is 80 years old, has Old Timers and has a yard big enough to throw an apartment building up on.

He is no longer able to take care of it and there is no damn way I am going to do it even with a self powered walk behind.

So stay tuned, as I get time I am going to have a little Thrash Session and get these engines swapped out ASAP.

That’s what my wife said about me earlier today.

It’s been a busy one at that.

First thing I had to drive over to the Farher In Laws 35 miles away because he had told one of her sisters that it felt like one of the front wheels on his car was “wobbling”.

He isn’t even supposed to be driving for starters.

Then of course the Sister In Law is to scared to try and test drive it around the block so I can either confirm that there is an issue or at least get some kind of idea of what I’m supposed to be looking for.

Did he hit a curb?

Can you grab the wheel and see if it wiggles?

Oh fuck no.

So I drive all the way over there, take a look, take it and him out and thrash on it out on the highway because he never gets over 25 miles an hour or more than a mile and a half away from the house.

Not a damn thing wrong with it as far as I can tell.

Tell him such and to quit worrying about it.

Jumped the Sister In Law’s ass for being so lazy and came home.

Then I started in on the wheel bearings on that little trailer.

Jumpin’ Jehosephat it was way worse than I thought.

Real bad.

As bad as it was, it could have actually been worse!

At least the inner bearing race wasn’t heat welded onto the spindle.

Not that it came off easy mind you.

But I did get it off finally.

Then over an hour up at the parts store .

No numbers left on anything except one bearing race and a freakin’ Newbie behind the counter.

A more experience guy that I usually deal with finally had mercy on us and found sets of bearings and races instead of trying to find them individually.

Of course the spindle was messed up and I had to clean that up before I could put it back together.

I got almost all of that really bad side back together and discovered that the grease cap on the end didn’t fit this side anymore.

Apparently dragging the thing God only knows how many miles without an inner bearing had caused the hub to tilt on the spindle and had basically turned the inside of the hub like a lathe against the nut and opened the hole up.

I was screwing around with that when The Wifely Unit came out to see what was going on.

I stopped and explained what I was trying to do when the thought occurred to me that there just aren’t that many people around anymore who have my particular skills.

You know how you are doing something that you have done so many times before that you don’t even really think about how you are actually doing it?

Like that.

If you really stop and think about it, there aren’t that many of us left and it’s getting fewer and fewer by the day it seems.

She must have picked up on what I was thinking because she looked at me and told me that I was part of a dying breed.

She went on to say that she was really glad that she was married to a guy who could do things.

Fix broken stuff, make things work that nobody else she knows would have the slightest idea of where to even start.

I told her it felt good to be appreciated once in a while but that what she said was true.

Just to drive the point home I guess, The Universe yanked my chain a half hour later.

Just for fun.

My Brother called me and said his daughter, my Niece, was stranded at the local Sonic Burger joint with the new to her 2018 Subaru Something Or Other that wouldn’t start.

Even better, HER daughter was with her.

Unfortunately My Wifely Unit had run to the store so I called the Niece and told her I would get there as soon as she came home.

My Brother is a Finish Carpenter, with a life long history of not knowing shit about cars.

So he called me, of course.

I snagged up some tools and shit and ran up there.

Turn the key, clicky clicky.

Dead Battry.

Got some stuff out, checked the voltage, 11.8 volts. No Bueno.Hoked up the cables and let it sit for a while and yakked with the Niece.

Finally told her to crank it while I reached in and revved the old Small Block.

Vroom.

Unhooked the cables, checked the voltage again, 14.3.

You needs a new Battry dear.

Told her to expect to pay at least $150, asked if she could afford that and was told yes.

OK then.

Said hello to the Grand Niece who had her face buried in a phone the whole time and sent them on their way.

She stopped at an Auto Zone on the way home and they swapped it out for her.

Come to find out, her Fiance had been sitting at home on his ass this whole time, ten minutes closer to her than I was.

Because he don’t know shit about cars either.

There is absolutely no need for me to tell anyone that this country is fucked, just on the premise that nobody knows how to do Jack Shit anymore.

Oh sure, there will always be someone in the comments who will tell us that they have Kick Ass kids who know all kinds of stuff and how to take care of them.

What’s that, One, Two, Three maybe?

Out of HOW MANY?

It isn’t just “The Kids” either. I couldn’t even begin to count how many full grown adults who don’t know Fuck All about what used to be Basic Knowledge back in the day and that goes for Women and the Art of taking care of shit that women used to do every freaking day.

Baking, sewing, shopping, food preservation, none of it.

Yep ,

The Last of a Dying Breed.

Seen a few minutes ago leaving Sandy Oregon

At least forty cents a gallon cheaper than anything I have seen in Vancouver.

There’s a whole lotta truth right there.

I found this at My Patriot Supply Blog via a link from Mathew at BACON TIME!!!!!!

It’s dang near 7 A.M. here on the Left Coast.

That would be 9 in South Freakin’ Dakota.

Cederq was supposed to hit the highway this morning headed to Idaho.

Say a little prayer for our Road Warrior.

If anything comes up he is supposed to get in touch with me.

I will let you know if he does.

In the mean time, here is a little traveling music for him.

Heh.

Lock them in a round room and tell them to pee in the corner.

It’s like they are wearing the Official Outfit of Grandmothers.

Between the lies being shoved in our face on a daily basis by the Legacy Media, and the absolute Shit Show Circus Clown government we currently have, I have no idea what to believe anymore until I actually see something happen.

Wanna see my shocked face?

“Surprised and Concerned”: Poison Control Issues Nationwide “Toxic” Warning About Covid-19 Rapid Antigen Tests – Kit Includes Poisonous “Liquid Substance” Used Commonly in “Pest Control”

For months, there have been many people sounding the alarm over the at-home Covid-19 rapid test, saying that the kits include toxic substances that pose health risks – something that has been widely condemned by the establishment as a wild conspiracy theory.

Well, just like with most everything else these days, the difference between wild right wing conspiracy and fact simply comes down to a matter of time.

Now, even public health officials can’t ignore the dangers posed by these tests.

Earlier this month, the Ohio Poison Control Center issued a nationwide warning about Covid-19 rapid antigen tests after toxicology experts found the kits include a dangerous and toxic substance that is used most commonly in car airbags and pest control chemicals.

The poisonous substance in these test kits is called Sodium Azide, which has a “high” acute toxicity and can be fatal to humans in cases of overexposure, according to Stanford Medical. The presence of this toxic substance was apparently only found by Poison Control researchers after the winter wave of Omicron, which saw many Americans testing at home with the kits.

Following this uptick in at-home testing, according to WHIO TV7, drug and poison centers across the country experienced a large increase in cases involving Sodium Azide, which prompted the Ohio Poison Control to issue their warning.

The liquid Sodium Azide is located within the extraction tube inside the kits and the substance is colorless tasteless and odorless.

Cincinnati Children’s Hospital toxicologist Dr. Sheila Goertemoeller, who is a member of the Ohio Poison Control Center, spoke with WHIO7 about the agency’s decision to issue the nationwide warning. She explained that the other 54 Poison Centers in America have seen a similar upswing in Sodium Azide poisonings, amounting to “more than a couple hundred” across the country as of late.

Goertemoeller also admitted that her colleagues were “surprised” and “concerned” that such a highly toxic substance is being used in the test kits.

Nearly 60 million people have already received a free at-home Covid test from the Biden administration, most of which were passed out this winter, according to WHIO7 News.

https://foxmetronews.com/news/surprised-and-concerned-poison-control-issues-nationwide-toxic-warning-about-covid-19-rapid-antigen-tests-kit-includes-poisonous-liquid-substance-used-commonly-in-pest-control-video/

At this point, the fact that why every prison in this country isn’t full to capacity with the fiendish bastards doing all this as they await trial on Mass Murder charges is my biggest question.

My next question is just exactly who among us hasn’t quite figured out that these fuckers are trying to kill you yet?

You gotta be one stupid sonofabitch if you haven’t by now.

There are links to the previous installments at the bottom of the post along with a download button.

This is an important aspect of successful gardening that is often overlooked.

Eye of newt, blood of bat
please remind me
where I planted at

Caveat Lector
This article started going the way of the last one in becoming way too long. I decided to break it up into sections. Some of the information may not make complete sense until you put together the info from all the sections. The sections will be –
– General propagation information (this article)
– Inbreeding Depression
– Collecting and storing seeds
– Cuttings, suckering, layering and grafting
– Specific practices for specific plant species
– Infrastructure considerations (planning and how to avoid the mistakes I’ve made over the years)

Also, in an effort to do my best avoiding getting overly technical in them, I’m going to knowingly cut some corners. What that means is while some of the following is not completely technically accurate, it will suffice for our discussion purposes.

And, all these articles are predicated on the growing of plants commonly used as a food source. So while, according to Euell Gibbons, “many parts of a pine tree are edible” and there are a lot of plants that grow in water, this information is directed at plants normally grown as garden foods in soil.

Finally, while I strive to provide you with sound information it is beyond my ability to completely explore every topic I touch on. Ideally it is my hope that exposing an idea or concept will provide you a launch point in your own exploration and research. Considering as the intent of these articles is to get you thinking about growing food AFTER TEOTWAWKI, you should be looking at the plants you intend to grow and researching them now, rather than when you have limited resources to perform your research.

Just to remove the question of what my corner cutting might look like, an example would be – 

expressing a flower may have both a stamen and pistil when in actuality it would have a stamen and carpels which when partially or totally joined (the carpels) form the pistil. A stamen produces pollen grains, each of which contains a male gametophyte and the carpel at maturity houses the ovule which contains a female gametophyte. This female gametophyte, when fertilized with a male gametophyte becomes a seed. Pollination may occur as a result of self pollination or cross pollination. The preceding ignores completely the discussion of double fertilization, which is what actually happens during the fertilization process.

Contrast the above with the following.

Many, perhaps even most, flowers have both a stamen and pistil. The stamen fertilizes the pistil. Many plants can either self pollinate or cross pollinate.

Though not technically accurate the second example is more than sufficient for most of our needs. Just remember though, that when we generalize, we run the risk of overlooking the exceptions to the rule and I am certainly vulnerable to falling into that trap.

Enough of that and on with this article.

…..

Preamble
In order to successfully grow food year after year we have to understand plants reproductive processes, whether they are an annual or perennial, how to maintain genetic purity and variability of our stock and what we need to do to manage this process to our advantage.

Summarizing the above we have two broad topics of exploration. On the one hand we need to understand our plants and their reproductive cycle and on the other we need to understand the mechanics of the act of propagating plants.

Propagation
It is beyond our scope here to cover every plant that is grown for food. You will need to do your homework and research the specific varieties you grow.

Most naturally occurring plant propagation resolves down to two basic types, sexual and asexual.

Sexual reproduction consists of the fertilization of a blossom by pollen (pollination). Examples are just about every plant you can purchase seeds for. Don’t overlook the non obvious ones like onions (included because most people don’t start their onions from seeds, but from sets or transplants.). Many plants have both male and female reproductive organs, whether male and female flowers or both gender parts being contained in the same blossom. Some plants, like kiwi, actually have gender based plants so if you plant three kiwi and they’re all male or all female plants you just have an ornamental. Again, you need to do your research on the plants you intend to grow.

Asexual reproduction (also referred to as vegetative reproduction) takes several forms which include tubers, bulbing, rhizomes, runners, sporlation, buds, layering and suckering. Some examples of these are potatoes (tubers), raspberries (suckering) strawberries (runners) and marionberries (layering).

Artificial propagation consists of methods such as grafting, cuttings and tissue cultures among others. A common grafting example is fruit trees (apple, peach, pear). Rhubarb, potatoes and blueberries are examples of cuttings. Tissue culturing is going to be beyond the means of most individuals post collapse and unless there is a huge demand for more info this is probably the last time I will mention it. The biggest benefits to tissue culturing is the ability to obtain a genetic clone of the parent (completely sidestepping concerns of inbreeding depression) and providing initially disease free plant stocks.

Ok, now that we know some means of plant propagation our next step is to understand plant reproductive cycles. This is another one of those areas where I’m going to generalize.

Most annuals are plants that have a complete life cycle from seed to seed in one year. Examples are corn, tomatoes, peppers, lettuce and pole beans. Some of these break the rules. In the case of lettuce, it grows so fast and goes to seed so quickly you could probably grow a few generations over the course of one growing season. Peppers are actually a perennial but they usually don’t survive the winter season where most of us grow them so we treat them as annuals. I have begun overwintering super hot chili pepper plants to get a jump on a growing season that is usually too short to see them reach maturity, even when starting seed as early as the first of February.

Biennials are plants that grow one season and seed the next season. Carrots, beets and common onions are an example. They grow one year, produce a bulb, go dormant and then the next year grow again producing flowers and seed. Actually onions are kind of an exception to a lot of rules because it’s not really years they go by but cold cycles. This is why if you put out your onion transplants early and then after awhile have a cold snap you may have some of your first year onions go to seed. The cold snap tricks the onion into thinking it has gone through a winter and fools its biological clock.

Perennials are plants that live and produce for more than one year, often for several or more years. Rhubarb, asparagus, garlic, horseradish and collard greens are some examples, so are many herbs. Some other perennials are many soft fruits, strawberries, raspberries and marionberries to name a few. Raspberries and marionberries break the rules too, because while they are a perennial, their fruiting cycle is biennial (well most raspberries are, there are some exceptions here as well).

Ok, now that we have a small grasp of plant propagation and reproductive cycles we need to go back up several paragraphs to where I mentioned pollination. Pollination either occurs abiotically, without insect involvement, or biotically utilizing insects (actually there are other pollinators than insects). A common abiotic pollination method is wind and a common example is corn. Biotic pollination examples are most flowering plants. Biotic pollination accounts for nearly ninety percent of all pollination.

Both of these methods of pollination are very susceptible to cross pollination. Though I’ve dealt with cross pollination to a degree in a previous article we’re going to examine it again here. Cross pollination can be a great boon to your efforts in maintaining genetic variability in your plants and seed stocks. It can also be the cross you bear when similar plant species cross pollinate leading to an undesirable result. Most of the time, especially right now today when we can purchase all the seed we want, cross pollination for the most part is not an issue. It does become an issue when you begin to collect your own seed. Corn, onions, sweet and chili peppers and tomatoes all easily cross pollinate with others of their species. Did you know your zucchini and pumpkins can cross pollinate? How about this one, your carrots and a non crop plant, Queen Anne’s lace? Those will be some nasty carrots let me tell you. If you are counting on that great sweet pepper remaining sweet over the years you don’t want it cross pollinating with a chili pepper.

To maintain the integrity of your seed stocks you need to practice methodologies that ensures the genetic pureness of your plants. As far as I am concerned from a practical standpoint you have two means of insuring the integrity of your seed, monoculture planting or isolation (either distance or physical).

Monoculture, though effective, suffers from the severe problem of greatly limiting what you are going to grow. I can not envision only growing one variety of anything in my garden.

Distance isolation is just that, planting easily cross pollinated varieties far enough apart they can’t cross pollinate. This methods limitation is spelled out in its name, distance or more appropriately minimum distance. Here’s something that will bend your mind a little. The minimum planting distance for isolation of heirloom tomatoes is greater than that of hybrid tomatoes. Why? Answer, because the flower structure of heirloom varieties is different in a way that encourages cross pollination. Humpf, who woulda thought it.

It can be very difficult to come up with the safe minimum planting distance to avoid undesirable cross pollination. The USDA tells us for OP (open pollinated) corn the safe distance is one mile. Tomatoes is thirty feet, peppers is thirty feet, honeydew melon is a quarter mile. Did you know honey bees can fly up three to five miles to forage? Guess distance isn’t going to work so well for most of us if we want to be sure our seed plants don’t cross pollinate. Don’t overlook the impact your neighbors gardening efforts can have on your efforts, especially if you decide to monoculture and then find out he is growing a different variety of the same species.

That leaves physical isolation. You can make physical isolation as simple or complex as you like and it can vary from an isolation bag over one blossom to positive pressure structures utilizing air filtration and air locks on the entry ways and having their own group of biotic pollinators.

I like simple and cheap so lets look as using isolation bags. These are open weave bags allowing light, air and water to pass through but blocking insects and drifting pollen from doing their job. With some plants like chili peppers you can put an isolation bag over a blossom and forget about it. It will self pollinate as the blossom opens. That is not to say that chili peppers don’t cross pollinate they do, very easily I might add.

With other plants you will need to help the process along by capturing some pollen from some of your plants and transferring it to your other plant blossoms. For smaller blossoms we use small natural bristle paint brushes. Each species of plant has its own brush kept in a zip lock bag. In some cases even an individual plant will have its own brush. It all depends on the degree of control you want in maintaining isolation. We also wear latex gloves that are changed for each plant or species group, again depending on the degree of isolation we want. We will lightly twirl the paint brush in several blossoms (source plants) and then move over to the blossoms we want to pollinate (destination plant). Another light twirl in the blossom and we’ve just knocked mother nature out of the process.

On larger plants (think corn) we employ a shaker bag to collect the pollen and then move this bag over to the plant we want to pollinate and close the bag around the ear and silk and shake it like mad to get the job done.

We make our own isolation bags out of summer weight floating row cover material. Basically they are shaped like pillow cases with a tie loop on the open end. They are sized from an individual blossom all the way up to a whole plant. Once we pollinate we leave the isolation bags in place for awhile then we remove them. We do flag the individual blossom, stem or plant that we have pollinated so we know what we are going to collect for seed.

There is a procedure we follow when doing the above process. We place isolation and shaker bags before the blossoms begin to open or pollen forms. This is done on both our source and destination plants. Once we have blossoms and pollen we will perform the pollination. The isolation bags are left in place until fruit begins to form. After that we’ll pull the bags. We tag the bags so if we reuse them in the future we know which plants pollen was previously in the bag. We attempted to clean and sterilize the bags but it was more effort than just making new bags each year.

Yes the above is a lot of extra work but if it ever goes to hell in a hand basket, several years down the road, if you are still alive, you’ll thank me for this info.

So to wrap up this weeks installment, you need to know what you are going to grow, its reproductive cycle, how it reproduces, how you are going to isolate your future seed stock plants and the methodologies you are going to employ to maintain the integrity of your seed stock plants.

Links to previous articles

A food growing primer https://bustednuckles.net/a-special-treat-food-grower-articles-resurrected/

The foundation of it all -this thing called dirt https://bustednuckles.net/food-grower-article-2/

Starting Seeds https://bustednuckles.net/the-food-grower-series-continues-seed-starting/

Seriously, why freaking bother?

The stupid things are front wheel drive and have a damn straight axles under the ass.