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Showing posts with the label self sufficient

Self-sufficient-farm diary #5: Basil processing

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Since we are in our infancy of beeing self-sufficient, we feed ourselfs with kinda basic foodstuff. Which in itself is not the worst thing to happen. I mean at least we are not hungry but our longterm goal deffinitly is being able to diversify our eating habbits . Because we are living in Costa Rica in a area, which could not get any more rural it is not only healthier, better for the enviroment and cheaper, but also necessary to produce a variety of products our own. The reason for that is, that the country does not produce many products themselves and because they are not a rich country by any means, they are also not able to import much. the result beeing, that there are not much of a selection in the local shops. So toady we harvested all the basil we had growing in the greenhouse.. Make shure to not only harvest the leaves put also the stalks. That way, the plant can better redevelop itself. We planted a lot of it in between the other plants because we read, that it is supposed t...

Self-sufficient-farm diary #4: Sugarcane

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Todays topic will be how I planted sugarcane . Another really easy-to-cultivate plant with a great variety of usages. A few weeks ago, we tried growing fodder beet but we did not have any success with those. They did not even germinate. I figuered the best way the reuse it was by planting sugarcane. It truly is an amazing plant ! The most common use probably is making sugar , which we definitly look forward to doing. But it also has other uses. We will use it secondary for feeding animals . They will absolutely love it. Also it is a nice snack in between while working. You can just jew on a bit of a stalk and it will taste sweet. It has other benefits, like making paper , which we probably will not use. But if you are interested, I advice you to do your research on sugarcane. It is a great ecological plant . Sugarcane likes loads and loads of water , but also a good drainage for best yields. But my neighbor, who has some experience in growing sugarcane, told me, that it is really easy...

Self-sufficient-farm diary #2: Bananas

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In the last post I described the base situation that we are in. So today contributed my first bigger addition to the finca. I expanded the already existing banana plantages with a new kind . They were a gift from our neighbors, who are cultivating a lot of fruits. This variety is characterized by a really sweet taste within a really tiny fruit . They grow exactly like all other varieties, which is as follows: Banana plants create babies at the very bottom of the "trunk" , that will become their own palm shortly. It is not very hard cutting those babies of and relocating them, so that is exactly what we did. We got gifted six plants. Tip:  Plant or relocate your plants about three days after a full moon. Like raising the oceans creating tides the moon also affects the fluids within a plant, resulting in better growth and making it easier for the migrated plants to get build up a sufficient water supply. First I mowed the lawn and kept the cut grass on the side and dug holes ...