HOW TO MAKE Potato Towers Cheap!

One thing that I thought when I first saw a concept for these was HAY, where in the heck am I going to get HAY I don't live on a RANCH. I don't know these things!  Then I thought...You know...Maybe my readers thought the same things.  So I thought maybe you could benefit from this tutorial as well.

We all know potatoes are inexpensive.  But what could be more inexpensive, healthy, and REWARDING than growing your OWN right at home!    I've decided that I'm going to do Red potatoes, Yukon Gold Potatoes, and Sweet Potatoes.

Here are the basic tools that you are going to need. You can get them all from your local hardware store like Lowe's or home depot (and many of them you probably already have)

Rabbit Fencing.  Personally This is what I got, here and I already had it - so I didn't have to buy it!
Hay. You can get this at Lowe's or Home Depot.  You pay for it in the gardening department and an associate will point you the direction where to drive your car.  they will walk over and load it into your vehicle. It's like $7 bucks for an entire bale of it.
wire clippers
fertilized soil.  I used this It's $3 per cubic foot. 
sprouted potatoes, whatever kind you like
zip ties
landscape fabric (optional)
scissors
gardening gloves (optional, but recommended)

The first thing you need to do is make a circle with your wire and clip it off.  Zip tie the wire until the circle is secure.  I just used 3 zip ties one near the top, on near the middle and one at the very bottom.

Here is a closer look at the Zip Tied Wire

Once you have your circle Zip Tied you can do one of two things.  You can either.
1. Decide on the Potato Tower's forever and ever home and begin putting the dirt and hay in it
2. You can give the potato tower a fabric bottom which will allow you a bit of freedom to move the tower if you need to.  Keep in mind, once these things are filled a few times, you are NOT going to want to move them, and these fabric bottoms are not going to hold.  So you may want to decide pretty quickly where you want them.  I moved mine around a few times and they did okay.

If you want to make the fabric bottom make a square out of landscape fabric and put your wire circle in the middle of it. cut strips outward at each wire interval with scissors as seen below

Tuck the fabric up over the wire so it hangs onto the bottom of the potato tower.

It doesn't have to be perfect. In fact it won't be!  But it should look a little something like this.  

Tie the fabric in double knots (square knots, granny knots, some fancy fisherman's knot, I don't care.) until it's knotted down all the way around.  Feel free to trim off excess fabric. 

If you want to skip creating the fabric bottom, this is where you'll pick up.  Fill the bottom of the cylinder with hay.  You'll want to do this for at least 8 inches.

Make a donut hole on the inside of the hay that you just put in the tower. 

Fill the hole with dirt.

Bury your potatoes with the sprouts pointing up!  cover them with several inches of dirt.

When we see that there is green coming up out of the dirt, then I will post another blog about what to do next.  I will post the link to this blog.

April 2015 Apocabox Unwrapped

As usual each apocabox comes with a list of each box's contents. 

This box came with a Snare survival kit 

This kit has two snares 1 large, 1 small and some extra wire.  They can capture squirrel, weasel, marten, grouse, rabbits, woodchucks, etc.   They are made in the USA and they feel like they are made out of high quality materials.

 There are two sides to the snare one side is the noose (the side that is in a loop that my pinky of my left hand is touching) and the other end is what they refer to as a treelock

using the treelock.  The treelock is basic.  So you want to loop your wire around a tree or fencepost or something so your game doesn't run off with a snare choking it to death and you have to find it. simple enough.  Slide the washer to the treelock end of the cable.  loop the washer and the cable back into the tree lock mechanism (the big part of it) as seen below.

Then simply slide in down through to the smaller part of the tree lock 

You can pull the other end of the cable as taught as you need it to be and you can even tap or pinch off a "memory" or bend in the cable to keep it steady. 

Loading your snare.

This next part is pretty tricky.  I don't even fully understand it.  In fact this is the reason why my post was delayed this month.  I ended up writing the manufacturer to ask for simplified instructions or better pictures.  They wrote back and told me that loading the snare increases the efficiency of the snare but isn't a requirement. Then they recommended that I purchase one of their publications to help me with my basic snaring skills.  

While I do believe that basic snaring skills are important, and maybe I will purchase some information from them on how to use their snares.  I think that it's equally important to include instruction photos that are visually dynamic enough to allow a customer to be able to use your product to the best of it's capability.  That's all I will be saying about that. 

I will be trying to muddle through this next part to the best of my ability from what I could understand of the instructions and the postage stamp sized black and white photos that were provided as part of the instruction page that came with the snares. 

 I feel confident in posting this to my readers for 2 reasons.  #1 because the manufacturer themselves said that this step is non essential and only allows the snares to perform better.  #2 because I watched countless videos of how to snare various types of game with everything from wire snares to slipknots made of shoestring and I believe I am giving you correct information.  

However, If you are a hunter/trapper and feel that any part of this next information could be corrected or improved please let me know what could have been better interpreted in the comments and I will most certainly get right on it.

This is all about learning.  Knowledge Weighs Nothing.  :)

Now we move on to the loop (snare) part of the snare.  hold it like I'm holding it below with the teardrop loop facing outward and the end of the cable poking up.  Move the cable back and forth a bit.  You'll notice it resists a bit. 

Now bend that cable with plyers until the cable moves more smoothly. 

Now push on the bottom part of where the cable (that you just bent) enters that small hole.  Do this until your teardrop is more like a circle. 

Setting up a snare.  

I could talk ALL day long about how to set up snares for different animals.  I will have to make that a whole different blog post.  But for now, just google it!  :)

A signed copy of Back Woodsman Magazine. By Creek himself. 

20+ Sugar Ann Pea

20+ Blue Lake Bush Bean

20+ Early Golden Bantam

20+ California Wonder Pepper

10+ Brandywine Tomato

10+ Muncher Cucumber

If you are interested in Gardening, Check out my Container Gardening Project.  All done on a BUDGET! 

Also I came up with this amazing way to grow beans, Peas, and Tomatoes that has just revolutionized the way that I garden :)

This knife looked kinda dinky when I first pulled it out, but WOW it is my favorite in the boxes so far.  It's got a great blade, it's lightweight. It's durable, it's got a convenient clip.

I have already used it several times.  It is remarkably functional and repels water like a champ!  It came incredibly sharp.  My husband is what can only be described as a knife connoisseur and he even gave it the 2 thumbs up.  That's a feat!  

The blade on this is a hardness of 56-57.  It's carbon Steel, and it's very durable.  good blade. 

The blade also came with a certificate of origin. 

This little device is called a light cube extreme.  It's a small plastic device that fits on the end of a 9 volt battery. 

It's very compact.  It has three settings, low, high, and off. 

It pops onto and off of the end of a 9 volt battery with ease. 

Man is that thing bright!  I have never seen something so small put out that much light.  Even the low setting is nothing short of astounding. 

These are Apocabands.  The box comes with six.  They can be used for anything. I plan to use them for organizing my gear in my bug out bags. 

Make your own luck Badge.  :)  I like! 

The next item in the Apocabox is the Mustache Char Cloth Kit.  This is the companion for the skills challenge this month. 

You can use the moustache to throw sparks from a small stone or flint.  It is a fire striker.  The skills challenge is to make char cloth. 

This month came with a gorgeous scarf.  Word to the wise though, Creek says to wash it by itself a few times. Or else suffer the consequences (pink tighty whities are no joke) 

The last item in this months Apocabox is the paracord wrapped fishing kit.  It contains a keyring and blade, cotton swabs, a firestarter, fishing line and hooks, plummets, additional hooks, and a buoy.  While I didn't open it for neatness' sake.  There is a photo of what's inside in the Apocabox contents list on the bottom right hand corner.

Container Gardening Together - Week 9

These are my beets, looking about atrocious.  :)  Wonder how they'll turn out. 

Both Eggplant Plants

Black Eyed Peas.  One is Still really Giant for some reason. 

Blue Lake Beans.

Cabbages

Cayenne Pepper (Left) and Jalapeno Pepper (right)

My celery Is finally coming Up

My collards are filling back in after the thinning out.

My Cucumbers are looking good.  I may need to stake them soon. 

My eggplants are doing lovely. Not much change.

 Fennel is coming up nicely.

My Goji still hasn't produced anything. 

My grapevine has a blossom.  I suppose I better figure out where I want to put it permanently. 

Here you can see I have some corsican mint!  It's nice!   You can also so my oregano and rosemary in the top tier.  Followed by my garlic chives in the next tier.  and you can see my cilantro in the bottom left and my basil in the bottom right. 

You can see the Corsican Mint, rosemary and Oregano from this shot as well. You can Also see The cilantro and the garlic Chives, but from this shot you can see my creeping thyme from the left. 

In this final weeks shot of the herb tower you can see the top tier with the Corsican mint, oregano and rosemary, followed by he second tier of cilantro. and you can see the basil on the bottom left and the lovely sage on the bottom right. 

Kidney Beans

Lemon Balm. Don't mind the recycling. Funny Story.  My pug hates this stuff.  I think finds it disturbing that it smells like fruits (lemon) and it looks like green.

This is butter crunch lettuce.  I thinned it out last week and had the most delicious salad.  Once I thinned it out some, it stated growing it quite well.  I'm very pleased with it. 

My Lima Beans Actually accumulated too much water and I had to re-pot them.  I When I did the beans I put water in.  That's a good idea if you live in a drought torn place like California.  But if you don't then you need to leave nothing in the bottle and leave it as a reservoir in case of too much water.  Which is what I did with the peas and tomatoes.  Lesson Learned!  :)

Lincoln Green Peas

Yellow Squash

Pinto Beans

My radishes are looking particularly poor right now.  The neighborhood has a large dog that likes to go trampling through them! #seriouslyannoyed

My raspberries are nothing spectacular either

 roma tomatoes

tomatoes

more tomatoes

Sage and Lavender

Snow Peas

Spinach - Still Underwhelming.

Strawberries. Not doing a thing!

This is a new addition this week!  Muskmelon!  But you might know it as Cantaloupe!

Tomatoes  - again.

Thankfully, my family likes tomatoes.

ON A FINAL NOTE!

I just wanted to take a second and show you guys how i do the totes.  You can't just throw dirt in a tote and expect it to work.  It will collect water and fill up and get gross in a hurry.  I just drilled holes in the bottom of mine and then put landscaping fabric in the bottom so it will lose water, but not soil. 

 that way these yellow squash don't get water logged.

or these yellow squash.

or this zucchini squash!

Happy Prepping!