The Autoimmune Summit Starts

TODAY!!!

The on-line Autoimmune Revolution Summit starts today, January 30^th. This FREE educational program runs through February 7^th. Register at hto:/care/air

I’ve cleared my calendar and plan on listening to as many sessions as I can each day.  I have written several blog posts ahead of time and will post them through my sabbatical as I get them edited, completed and on-line.

I invite you to join me in listening to this life-altering program. The current research projects that autoimmune disease is the new cancer and that this is going to be the new health epidemic of the future. We must all work to get the word out.

Autoimmune diseases and the physical, chemical and emotional pain they create impacts millions around the world. The primary way doctors treat these diseases today is to prescribe immune suppressing drugs. Unfortunately, this approach has failed to achieve a meaningful outcome and has created an even greater health crisis — what Dr. Peter Osborne calls “The Prescription Pain Trap” — which you will learn more about during this event.

There are now toxins everywhere in our words; in the air, the water the soil and in our food. And unfortunately there is no magic pill to save our thyroid glands. We must instead take responsibility for healing ourselves and for working in partnership with specialists and fight for our own health. We must inform ourselves, empower ourselves and takes the measure necessary to stop this painful and debilitating condition before our thyroid stops working and our bodies then begin to attack our own thyroid.

Don‘t miss all the great talks and interviews that start MONDAY, January 30^th. Each talk is free for just 24 hours and after that if you like you can purchase a DVD from the program to listen to over and over and to share with your family and friends.

Here are the details for Healthtalk On-Lines site:

Each day’s talks will be available for free on demand for a 24-hour period. They begin at 10 A.M. U.S. Eastern (New York time) and end the next day at 9:59 A.M. Once a 24-hour period has ended, those talks are only available on Encore Day or by purchasing access to them.

We’ve put a countdown clock on each day’s page to tell you how much time you have left to watch.

USE THE LINK BELOW TO ACCESS EACH DAY’S TALKS* <–
(you may need to clear your browser history each day)
http://autoimmunerevolution.org/event
*NOTE: This link will not be active until the summit starts!

DAILY PRESENTATIONS Each day’s talks will be available for free on demand for a 24-hour period. They begin at 10 A.M. U.S. Eastern (New York time) and end the next day at 9:59 A.M. Once a 24-hour period has ended, those talks are only available on Encore Day or by purchasing access to them. We’ve put a countdown clock on each day’s page to tell you how much time you have left to watch. –> USE THE LINK BELOW TO ACCESS EACH DAY’S TALKS* <– (you may need to clear your browser history each day) http://autoimmunerevolution.org/event *NOTE: This link will not be active until the summit starts!

Small House Autoimmune Warrior, Donna

My DYI Chalk Painted Lampshade

I tried a little experiment today.

I had a seriously discolored lampshade on a DYI lamp that I put together a couple of decades ago from an old canning jar and stones. I was visiting a hardware shop in Shipshewana, Indiana and purchased a DYI lamp making kit.

I photographed this image so that you could see the cord set-up coming out from under the shade. That’s my handmade paper on canvas artwork on the wall behind this vignette.

I found this large quart Ball jar and added the screw on lid, added some pretty black stones I had gathered and I had a small-scale lamp. I was a young bride and I was pretty proud of myself then.

I noticed this past week that the white replacement lampshade was mottled and discolored. I automatically set it aside to go to Lowe’s with the intent of purchasing a new shape. Then it occurred to me, why not try to paint it before I discarded it? I even had the same color chalk paint that I used on the dresser turned family room storage unit that it sits on.

I have successfully used chalk paint on wood, metal, and a vintage leather top table so why not give it a try? It was incredibly easy to do. I watered the paint down very lightly, used a regular paint brush and painted it on taking care not to load too much paint on the glued edge.

I am really pleased as how the fabric took the paint. Not only does it cover the stains beautifully the finished shade has a lovely velvety look to it.

A vintage Ball Perfect Mason jar holds Petoskey stones I gathered over the years.

This little trick save me the cost of a new lampshade and even more important it saved me over an hour’s drive to get to the closet home improvement store. It also saved a lampshade from going into the landfill. What a win-win!

A repurposed and painted gentleman’s chest in maple wood and sea foam green chalk paint adds a bit of pop to the window wall in our family room as well as needed extra storage. This chest which is adjacent to a bathroom is filled with TP and paper towels!

This is one DYI experiment that worked!

Small House Homesteader, Donna

My Photo Optimization Challenge

My Photo Optimization Challenge

I didn’t grow up with computers as a second language. So sometimes I struggle with the technical demands of blogging. Today my challenge is to figure out how to optimize photographs for my blog.

It may be hard to believe but for the past three years I have been writing my blog without using a photo optimizer. I just did not know they existed.

It was pointed out to me recently by a friendly WordPress on-line technician that I should be optimizing my photographs to save room on my blog. I take and use a LOT of photographs. No wonder I used up all of the available room on my blog in just 6 months.

Images are a vital part of grabbing a visitor’s attention, breaking up long pieces of content, and helping your content be shared across the web. Unfortunately, images also increase the size of your pages.

Every image that you add to a page has to be downloaded by visitors from your server to their computer. This increases page loading times, which can frustrate visitors and have an adverse effect on search engine rankings as well as use up precious space unnecessarily

My on-line search yielded two good on-line options; either GIMP or Jpegmini as two cost-effective, easy to use options. Jpeg mini sound the easiest to me They even had a YouTube video for me to watch an a test program for me to play around with before I made my decision..

To optimize the Individual Photograph:

• Hit duplicate
• Run your photographs through Jpegmini

To Optimize the Whole Folder at Once:

• Drag the folder to the app.
• Jpegmini will optimize them one by one.

It sounds easy enough to me. And this only costs $19.99 for the program.

I tried a test run of my Barristers bookcase project yesterday. (And no my photographs of sick chick Anna in the laundry room completely disappeared. I still haven’t found them.)

Best of all they have n-line support for questions or concerns. For more info. go to info@ jpegmini.com or support@jpegmini.com

My next self-challenge is to learn how to improve my SEO on WordPress.

Thanks for reading!!

Small House Big Sky Donna

New Catmint Boarder Garden at the Small House Homestead

Although this plant is called Walker Low, it really isn’t low growing but it is a stunning plant.

After several years of trying to divide and transplant Walker Low catmint (Nepeta-faasseni) with very mixed results I finally gave up trying to save money and I bought 20 plants for a planned border in my turn-around bed that I have been trying to create. I used the egg sale money I have saved from the past years.

My catmint perennials are coming up nicely after the long winter. 

Catmint, if you are not familiar with it is an easy-to-grow perennial that tolerates average to dry, moist soil. Their cheery lavender blooms look good when most other perennials are done for the season. They like half sun half shade and are hardy in zones 3-8.

Most catmints prefer full sun and well-drained, not overly fertile soil, although plants in hot summer areas do well with some afternoon shade. Related to catnip but much showier its gray-green foliage remains attractive throughout the growing season as well. Established plants are quite drought tolerant.

This morning we drove to my favorite nursery, Huntree Nursery in Glenn who had them ready for me. Huntree is a family owned seasonal nursery and a favorite place for many in our area to buy trees, evergreen and shrubs. In the fifteen years we have lived here I have purchased a LOT of plants from Huntree.

 Spring has sprung at my favorite nursery, Huntree Nursery, Glen, MI. 

In 1971 Jan and David Landry came to work at the nursery after graduating from Michigan State University. Nine years later they purchased the business. And the rest as they say, is history.

Today’s purchase of catmints will be the base of my new border.

Catmint Walker’s Low is famous for its wonderful fragrance, is deer resistant, attracts hummingbirds and butterflies’ and is bee friendly. Not really a low grower, ‘Walker’s Low’ will grow 24-30 inches tall and had no serious insect or disease problems. It is used in rock gardens, border fronts, herb gardens or naturalized plantings.

Catmint Walker’s Low is famous for its wonderful fragrance that butterflies, bees and cats love. Beautiful, lush, purple flower spikes start to appear in early summer and continue for up to 3 months. It’s a great perennial to add to your garden.

Catmint is a perfect plant for our homestead because it can tolerate our sandy soil and our on- again, off-again periods of drought. I love that it flowers throughout nearly the whole summer and into the fall season. Not only is it beautiful with it naturally rounded mounding shape and blue-green leaves, it the ideal herb to give to the chickens to eat too.

I picked them up in the morning and then I spent the day digging and planting.  They will grow for a few years into a splashy border and then I will have more plants to divide and transplant throughout my gardens.

Here are a few copyright free images if using catmint in the garden border. Isn’t this the most stunning plant when used in mass?

 

After mine fill in and grow I’ll be sharing an “after” photographs of our garden border at a later date.

Small House homesteader, Donna

 

 

 

News from the Coop-Eggs as Reward for a Job Well Done

My granddaughter loves to help collect eggs from the nest box.

I have been accused lately of pampering my chickens and I suppose that is true. If pampering them means feeding them, loving them and taking care of them as well as I feed my family… then I am definitely guilty.

Herbs and mash are a tasty chicken treat.

I do feel strongly that their health comes through in their egg production numbers as well as in the quality and taste of their eggs. And I want the healthiest chickens and eggs possible. So I feel my efforts are worth it. I want eggs with the highest quality of healthy fat, Omega 3’s possible.

My girls get fed layers feed, greens, herbs, “high-test” (a special high protein concoction I make that is intended to fill them up and keep them warm at night in colder temperatures) and some kitchen scraps. Their live greens includes sprouted barley greens and mung beans.

Wet feed and fresh greens are a hit in the coop.

Currently when many flocks have stopped laying an egg production is down my flocks egg production is going up-up-up. This tells me I must be doing something right!!

Beautiful brown eggs!

This week our 8 girls are now laying seven eggs most days. I am thrilled! After months of planning, building, growing, teaching and feeding; these eggs are our reward for a job well done.

The four-year-old Cochin/Phoenix mix’s are good layers and quite winter hardy in spite of their petite and delicate look. Fluffy Snowball, Sweet Pea, Freckles and Goldie, had a 6-week long broody this fall followed by a hard molt. At the same time we thought we might lose Freckles as her comb went gray and she acted as if she was not feeling at all well but some extra TLC and lots of extra protein brought her back around. Her comb is red again and while she is still the lowest chicken in the Cochin flock, she is happily eating, ranging and laying eggs again. She and Snowball are best buds.

The Cochin/Phoenix mixes are have quite the conversation.

The four Rhode Island Reds are teenagers now at 7-months-old and full of piss and vinegar. Named by our North Carolina granddaughters they are; Elsa, Crystal, Anna and Alice they are names of course come from the Frozen movie phenomena. What do I expect with granddaughters ages 6 and 4!!

Totally spoiled, they see me and come running and begging for food and asking to get out of the coop for supervised free range time. I try to accommodate them as often as possible. All the Rhodies are finally all laying and clamoring for scratch and peck time in the woods. These Rhodies are sturdy birds that are very serious about their free ranging….they live to dig and hunt!

Fully grown Rhode Island Reds are masterful egg layers.

All kidding aside;  I am happy to see our chickens healthy and prospering. They have glossy feathers, bright red combs and healthy bodies. They lay delicious eggs and make great fertilizer for our garden. They work the soil and keep the bugs at bay.

Working chickens on the homestead are part of our path to sustainability.

Small House homesteader, Donna

Reblogged Is a Rainwater Cistern Right for You?

Is a Rainwater Cistern Right for You?

Is a Rainwater Cistern Right for You?

These extra-large containers reduce runoff and save on the use of potable water for the landscape

Falon Mihalic More Info 

October 12, 2015

Houzz Contributor. Landscape architect licensed in Texas, Florida and Illinois. Owner of Falon Land Studio LLC. Through landscape design, I create spaces for quiet reflection and lush gardens using native plant palettes and sustainable stormwater techniques. I’m a contributing writer to Houzz so that I can be active in the conversation about sustainable design for residential projects. Learn more about my company’s work at http://www.falonland.com

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Rainwater harvesting does two great things at once: It reduces the amount of stormwater runoff sent downstream and simultaneously reduces your potable water demand. Essentially, you collect rainwater from an impervious (also called nonpervious) surface — most often a rooftop — to use for watering your garden later.

It’s a win for everyone, because you can save money on your water bill and also allow water to infiltrate your property instead of heading offsite through storm drains. Read on to learn more about rainwater catchment systems and decide if you’re ready to take the plunge.

Matt Elkan Architect

Cistern versus rain barrel. There are two types of rainwater catchment systems for homeowners: the cistern and the rain barrel. Cisterns are large tanks that can hold up to 20,000 gallons of water in residential settings, while a standard rain barrel is smaller, usually holding about 55 gallons.

Because of their size, cisterns are more of an undertaking than rain barrels and benefit from professional advice and help with installation. Everyone can install a rain barrel. They take up very little space and are quite affordable. The barrels are always placed above ground, while a cistern can go above or below.

Read more about the benefits of rain barrels

B. Jane Gardens

Why use a cistern? One advantage of choosing a super-sized cistern over a rain barrel is that it lets you store more water, resulting in a greater benefit to watershed health. Cisterns and rain barrels can be used in conjunction with other sustainable stormwater techniques in the landscape, such as rain gardens and swales. When evaluating whether to choose a cistern over a rain barrel, consider the following:

Pros

• Cisterns store more water for longer periods
• Potential to add additional cisterns later if space and budget allow
• Potentially eliminate the use of potable water irrigation for your entire landscape
• Can be integrated with greywater reuse systems to reduce your home’s overall water use
• Can be installed underground or above ground

Cons

• Require a large amount of space
• Large initial investment
• Require professional installation help because of their size
• Cisterns over 5,000 gallons in capacity also need structural support at their base
• Prohibited in Colorado; instead you can redirect roof rainwater to a rain garden for infiltration

six b design

How much does it cost? On the low end, an 800-gallon cistern can cost anywhere from $500 to $1,000, depending on the material you choose. On the high end, an extra-large cistern with a 20,000-gallon capacity and structural concrete foundation can cost up to $20,000, not including the labor to install it.

Large-scale, high-end cisterns are usually used for offsetting the amount of potable water used inside the home and for the landscape and need to be designed in consultation with an architect and engineer.

An underground cistern requires excavation, which also adds to the cost. Underground cisterns are designed on a case-by-case basis and in consultation with an engineer and landscape architect.

Tim Cuppett Architects

Sizing your cistern. The size of your cistern depends on how much rainwater you want to harvest, how much space you have and how much money you want to invest.

Sizing a cistern can be done with a rainwater harvesting tool, like this one from Texas A&M University. Have someone double-check your calculations, and talk with the company selling you the cistern; it will likely confirm the calculations for you.

You can also hire a design professional or green building professional to help you choose the cistern that’s best for you. Among the types of professionals who can help: master plumbers, green builders, LEED-certified professionals, landscape architects and building architects. Look for professionals who specialize in green, sustainable building and design.

A.GRUPPO Architects – San Marcos

Key components of a cistern. Companies that sell cisterns usually also sell kits that include the system components you need to get fully up and running. Here are the main components of a cistern system:

• Water holding tank (cistern): Collects and stores the rainwater for later use
• Cover or lid: Keeps tank airtight, but can be removed for maintenance
• Leaf and mosquito screen: Placed at the water inlet to keep leaves and bugs out of the tank
• Overflow mechanism: Allows water to overflow through a directed pipe; consider sending your overflow to a rain garden

Feldman Architecture, Inc.

Cistern materials. Because cisterns are quite large, they can make a statement in the yard. You could tuck a smaller cistern behind a wall or lush hedge. For an extra-large cistern, however, you’ll want to coordinate the material with your home’s landscape and architecture. It’s not that the cistern needs to match the home, but it should be chosen and placed in a way that complements the house and landscape. All cisterns should be completely opaque to prohibit algae growth.

Popular materials for cisterns include:

• Concrete: Can be pre-cast or cast in place; a major advantage is that concrete reduces the water’s acidity over time
• Metal: Strong and lightweight; needs to be galvanized and contain a plastic liner
• Polyethylene: Most affordable and most readily available cistern material; not particularly attractive
• Plastic: Affordable but has only a 25-year life span in most cases
• Wood (with a plastic liner): More aesthetically pleasing but also more expensive and not as readily available

Jim Boles Custom Homes

The wood barrel-style cistern shown here has coordinated materials and colors. Notice how the red metal bands on the cistern play nicely with the red shed door and mini-shutters.

Innovative Water Solutions LLC

Rainwater Harvesting Systems

This home has a metal roof with a natural stone facade, and the extra-large cistern is designed to have a similar style with a corrugated metal top and natural stone facade on the low wall surround.

Where to place your cistern. Placement should be done in consultation with your architect or in consultation with your landscape architect if the cistern is for storing roof runoff. Some general guidelines are as follows:

• Check with your local building code on setbacks and regulations. A cistern will probably be treated as a “landscape structure” and may require a permit.
• The most cost-effective location will be closest to the source point for the water to be stored — for example, next to a downspout that collects roof runoff.
• It’s easiest to place the cistern uphill from where the water will be used. This eliminates the need for pumping the water, allowing gravity to do the work for you.

B. Jane Gardens

Uses for collected water. Collected roof runoff is best used on nonedible landscape plants. You can use the water to irrigate your lawn, trees, flower beds and more.

Show us: Have you incorporated a cistern into your landscape? Upload pictures in the Comments.

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Decorating the Yard for Halloween

We took a few minutes this week to make our pole barn driveway a bit more welcoming for friends and family. We put out our painted scarecrow to give our yard a bid of seasonal piazza.

This guy always gives me a boost!

This is the flower bed at our driveway that greets our visitors.

I love to decorate for the season but this year I have been so busy that it has just not happened. A few colorful mum’s, a vintage rusty wheel barrel and our scarecrow will be it for this year.

 

Our small house under a big sky…

Small House Homesteader, Donna

The Joys and the Struggles of Homesteading

Gene and I have been homesteaders now for 15 years. I can say without a doubt from our in-depth, first-hand experience; homesteading brings both tremendous joys and struggles. This is a definitely a life-style choice that is not for the faint of heart.

Our homesteads mailbox in summer.

There is often a thick vein of “romance” running through the many practical needs associated with homesteading. People think most often of the being their own boss; the freedom of no more 9 to 5 grind, sleeping in everyday and no commute or punching the clock to make it to work in the morning.

Another summer view of our pole barn, gravel drive way and barn garden.

The prevalent view is that homesteading is about “simple living” but there is nothing remotely simple or romantic about homesteading. The hard truth is, homesteading, like farming, has never been easy.

Not a simple life; there is a seasonal rhythm and an order to this life that I love.

A November view of the homestead after the White Oak leaves have fallen.

We work harder here than we ever did in our city jobs. This is hard physical labor that causes our joints and our muscles to hurt as well as our feet. We rise earlier and work later. We earn no paid vacation, no insurance or traditional benefits and yet, for now, I cannot see us doing anything else.

Because we are aging, I know that in the near future we will turn the stewardship of this place over to another family. I pray that is a young couple who desire to homestead and who value the accomplishments we have made here during our tenure. It is my hope that their youth and skills can take our home and property to the next level. There is room to building a sturdy shed and fencing in the empty meadow which would be perfect for miniature goats. There is land for more fruit trees too and more home-grown food.

Side view of our fenced in vegetable garden and raspberry patch/chicken run.

We have experienced multiple challenges while living here. We had the serious challenge of flooding that killed our original fruit orchard, removed our soil from the vegetable gardens and took its toll on our belongings. But no matter what life or the weather throws at us life on the homestead goes on.

We have had several unplanned set-backs and jaw-dropping expenses like the failing septic and drain field just three months after we moved in. Or the stressful and unplanned $10,000 flood extension assessment that forced us to leave retirement and take minimum wage city jobs for the years it took us to earn the cash we needed.

Injuries too are always a fear because then I know then we could not manage the daily or seasonal work. At our advancing age surgery and illness are always in the back of our minds. We have to bring in the harvest in spite of being laid up and no matter what happens to us, there are animals to feed and we have to get the work done.

Flood water surrounded the Small House.

 

Flooding on the gravel road behind our property.

Unless you are wealthy and can pay hired help, homesteading is in reality a long 12-hour day with very few days off to play. Homesteading can be lonely, isolating and means never-ending work. Homesteading is also a labor of love that takes strength, stamina, perseverance and guts. We have learned there is a feeling of pride in our capacity for survival even through the hardest of times.

Our chicken coop and run in dryer more recent days.

Then why did we choose this life?

The beauty of our meadow edge.

On the flip side of the struggle, there is being the master of your own fate and the joys that brings. No office job can satisfy in the same way the growing of your own wholesome food or managing your land in positive ways. These are satisfactions that do not have to translate into money.

There is a great fulfillment in starting with basically nothing but the land and making something of that. We get to work outside, with our hands, to watch the birds, the trees and the sky as the seasons change. There is a daily beauty in a  life of non-monetary abundance that is hard to put into words.

We choose homesteading because we wanted to have more control over the food we eat. We wanted outdoors work, to create with our hands and to keep chickens and large dogs. Gene wanted to blacksmith and I wanted create works of art from the handmade paper that I fashioned from the plants I grew. I wanted to live a life of conservation, to be more sustainable and provide a first-hand example to my children and grandchildren that they might not otherwise see I this modern and material world.

The bottom line is that in homesteading you learn new skills and you learn to rely on your wits and your own grit and no one but you are responsible for your success or your failure.

I hear from many people who tell me this is what they want to have. Knowing the hardships… is this still the life for you?

Small House homesteader, Donna

Update on the Small House Fruit Tree Inoculation

If you have been reading this blog for very long you probably know that our fruit orchard was all but wiped out by the 2009-2012 high ground water flooding we experienced. After getting over the stress and shock of those terrible four springs when we thought we were going to lose our home to either flooding or mold. And we did lose much of our painstakingly built up soil and then like many farmers who have experienced such loss, we set about shaking off the crisis and replanting.

Our peach tree with its comfrey guild below.

We replanted in the spring of 2015 using a mix of three nursery bought pears and peaches trees and three grafted heirloom apples from South meadow Fruit Gardens located in Benton Harbor about an hour’s drive from us.

Email smfruit@aol.com

I had never used grafted stock before and I wanted to hedge my success by planting three years old Jonkers Garden Center bought trees as well and the one-year-old specialty grafted tree stock from Southmeadow Fruit Gardens.

The large triangle bed in the very early spring after we dug up the sod.

Following the advice of Michael Phillips, author of The Holistic Orchard: Tree Fruit and Berries the Biological Way. At his recommendation we dug up a large section of grass in a large triangle shape and planted the trees 8 ft. apart.

I worked hard to improve my lean oak savannah forest soil by adding well composted horse manure mixed in with hay and covered in bark chips. his is the secret recipe to growing anything here.

Sterile Russian comfrey, native lupines and ramial bark chips as mulch.

The plan was to plant comfrey under each tree at the root line which we did. I ordered 58 slips of Russian comfrey at $1.00 each and they have grown beautifully and flowered quite well their first summer. The delicate blue comfrey flowers call out to the bumble bees who come and take home their yellow pollen.

Using permaculture terms, we planted a “fruit guild” with our White Oak trees for the top layer, the fruit trees for the middle layer and nitrogen-fixing plants like comfrey, native lupines, daffodils and chives below. And then I added the best material of all; ramial wood chips as the main course for feeding mycorrhizal and saprophytic fungi in an orchard food web that in turn supports our fruit trees.

This is a terrific book and one I highly recommend for anyone who wishes to grow fruit organically. You can locate this book by using this ISBN number; ISBN 978-1-933392-13-4.

I watered our fruit trees and comfrey faithfully all summer and they have gotten off to a good start. We plan to stake and fence in the triangle beds this fall to protect the tender fruit trees from deer, rabbit and any other browsers who might come along and decide they are a good-looking treat! We also feel that fencing and staking them will give us a good visual to work around this first year so we can avoid them in winter playtime, dog ball kicking and snow blowing paths to and from the pole barn.

A few weeks ago, at Phillips recommendation we drove into the state-owned Todd Farm Preserve located about 10 miles from the Small House homestead. We located the sight of several wild apple trees we have visited, and picked from in previous years. We dug up a couple of buckets of soil from under these trees and brought that soil home and “inoculated” our own fruit trees with that soil.

According to Phillips the purpose of inoculation is to both create an orchard soil that ideally contains a fungal presence ten time higher than that of bacteria and because the key to tree vitality is this nutrient exchange between the roots via these fungal helpers and the soil.

In a few weeks I will do a chop and drop of the comfrey leaves so they too can work their magic on the soil around the beds.

We are trying to be as biological as possible with our fruit trees and not spray or use chemicals in any way.

Small House Homesteader, Donna

Wood Prairie Farm Organic Potatoes Review

I dug up our potato crop this morning. The stems had died down several weeks ago so I knew they were ready. I hate to say it but I was very disappointed with the less than expected productivity of these expensive seeds potatoes I bought from Wood Prairie Farm in Bridgewater, Maine.

I purchased what they call the “Experimenters Special” for $19.99. This is a kind of sampler box with four different potato varieties, four of each variety a way to experiment and to test to see which variety works best in your zone and your soil type.

I was so excited about finding organic seed potatoes as I have not found them easy to locate. I had no luck at all locally or regionally. Then when I discovered this sampler box, I though what fun that could be. I remember thinking that $19.95 for 12 tubers was a bit high but I reminded myself that these were certified organic and I would have to pay more for that certification. And, I was supporting a small, family owned business so I decided to order them.

But when the charge card bill came for the $52.00 total, I was in shock. The tax, shipping and handling on this one small box of 12 seed potatoes was over $32.00. The was one of those very rare times that I did not ask for shipping costs ahead of time and I certainly should have – my mistake and a hard lesson learned.

I carefully planted the tubers in different areas of my garden and marked each variety with a paint stick with the variety name written on it as well as the date of planting. Because I was testing these potatoes I wanted to be sure I could at dig up time tell exactly what was what. They were planted in my Zone 5b garden, in shallow raised beds with our sandy soil that has been amended over the years with compost and bark chips. After they sprouted I put bark chips over the top to keep the moisture in. These potatoes were in the full sun and were well watered throughout the season.

Today when I dug them up I was quite disappointed. The least amount of potatoes in an area from three tubers was two potatoes and the most potatoes in another area were seven small ones. I had planted 12 tubers and I dig up a total of 23 small potatoes. Good grief! That was certainly not what I expected or had hoped for.

Can you imagine my distress? Ultimately I paid $52.00 and some change for 23 small organic potatoes… I guess I will be buying organic potatoes from here on out at the grocery store.

For the record these tubers were planted on 4-10-15 and dug up on 9-25-15.

Small House Homesteader, Donna