Take the country back! my shoulder a gun's like a woman son it's all how you hold her but I just couldn't bring myself to go inside watch that show smoking cigarettes that long white limousine that bone capping like a gift from that old from river bridge he did not drink the last drop he still retained his loose and hair away Under what's going on underneath your mulch layer And that is the tip of the day. Well, greetings everyone. This is Joe from the Carolinas. Welcome back to Grow Your Own, the budding revolution, an interactive, solution-focused, and educational gardening program. For those of you all out there interested in growing your own food, self-reliance, as well as permaculture. Now permaculture stands for permanent agriculture, as many of our regular listeners know. It's a process of functional design, functional, workable design. for a piece of property where over time you can provide for your own basic needs. In permaculture we study general principles that occur in nature and we figure out ways that we can use those principles to benefit our food growing as well as our human and animal support systems. Now these general sorts of principles, they include examining patterns in nature the various different types of climates in the world. We look at the effects of trees on our local growing environment in rainfall. And we also study the different aspects of soils. Soils are the growing medium for our food crops. and so much more. But for using the natural composting process, we can actually boost the nutrient value of the food that we're interested in growing. Now, the benefit of studying general principles for a permanent approach to taking care of ourselves is that you end up developing a really solid core foundation. And once you develop this really solid foundation of knowledge, you can then sort of branch out and get into techniques and strategies of growing food. But it's important to start with the basics. So this way you can take your permaculture experience or your food growing homesteading experience and you can put that into practice in a really productive way anywhere in the world, even if you're moving across the landscape with your 510 program, for example, here in the militia. And you really don't need to have an IQ of even 100 to learn about these general principles of permanent agriculture. I mean, five-year-old school kids can understand this stuff, folks. You know, sometimes as adults we get so focused on details. or we get so focused on problems that we almost get blinded and we can't see the overall functioning or health of the whole forest or the whole situation that we've got going on. So there's a little permaculture teaser for you here on Grow Your Own. We are coming at you live tonight from these United States. Right here it's Communications Tuesday on LTR. The 4th of November 2014 bringing us in was Bad Religion with their tune Atomic Garden. can you believe we're already in november look at your window uh... if you're in the northern hemisphere yes you can to the dark grow your own is being broadcast and archive by liberty tree radio dot four and g dot com IndianaFreedomTalkRadio.com kindly maintained by Spike who could use your donations over there at IndianaFreedomTalkRadio.com LibertyTreeTV.com militanthippies.com GYOTBR.com that stands for our show, Grow Your Own The Budding Revolution AM&FM stations, CB base stations, all points of the compass worldwide sending out those airwaves there folks as well as the fungal network of the soil itself across our republic. Big shout out to all of our local listeners right here on the Grow Your Own radio channel in the Carolinas. Our transmission begins this evening as we sweep our way across the coastal plains, hike across the Piedmont, vault over the Blue Ridge Mountains, the Smokies and then the Rockies, waving to our friends in Canada. We finally land out there on the high cascades, saluting all of our patriots, our steadfast patriots in the state of Jefferson over there from the trenches, worldreport.com. You can listen to them on this network starting at 3 p.m. Eastern. everyday during the week great show having the crew are taken at and taken names way to go so from the trenches world report dot com waving to our friends in Alaska as well as all the punk rockers in the illusions. We then bundle up and sludge across that tundra, taking off again. We drop seed bombs in the dry lands, the tropics and the subtropics, where our permaculture design teams, Earthworks Equipment Land Forces, and American Nationals Consortium are working around the clock with our general principles of nature and permaculture to turn the desert into an edible oasis, increase beyond organic food production, and drought-proof landscapes all around the world. Well folks, Grow Your Own is a live call-in program. We're interactive here tonight, it's the 4th of November, and listeners who can call in are encouraged to do so if you've got a garden or permaculture related question, a thought, a report, observation. Maybe you've been thinking about a particular topic in terms of growing food, or maybe get yourself through the winter now that the weather is getting cold. You want to share something perhaps with the rest of the class? Feel free to do so. I'm always looking to pick up new gardening tips and homesteading ideas from y'all. So I'm not omniscient. So please feel free to share. If you did want to jump on air tonight, you could just call in. It's 712-432-0900. That's 712-422-0900. The nice, polite robot lady, as always, will pick up that phone automatically. You just punch into your keypad there, this room number. It's 957-464 and then hit the pound sign. Once more, that room number is 957-464 and then hit that pound sign. Hitting star 6 or asterisk 6 will unmute you. So you'll come into that conference line. Once you enter your room number, you will be muted. We won't be able to hear you if you start talking. You have to hit that star 6 to unmute and then we'll hear everything that's going on on your side of the line. And then star six will meet you meet you back up We do have a flash phone link on LibertyTreeRadio.4mg.com. It's the internet flash phone link. And you can make your call in for free online using that free flash phone. So, woohoo, flash phone. Alternatively, I am checking my email. It's JOE, Joe from the Carolinas at Gmail.com throughout our live show here tonight. It's the, again, 4th of November. So that's J-O-E, Joe from the Carolinas at gmail.com. If you're bashful or you don't want to call in or can't, you feel free to email Joe from the Carolinas at gmail.com. If I see it while we're on air here tonight, as I'm multitasking like crazy, if we see it, we'll get your email read out on air and I'll share thoughts. We also do have the LTR chat room and all the wonderful folks out there. I want to say hi to I see freedom and and I believe Kentucky's in there somewhere and mobu53 and Java DR So hello to all the folks in the chat room You know, it's really cool about the LTR chat room It boosts the interaction of all of our programs here on Liberty Tree Radio. So frequently throughout our show, if you're just joining us as your first Grow Your Own Show, frequently you'll hear me cut away and cut to something that's going on in the chat room. Those folks out there are listening live just like you, so feel free to join them. Alright, so, now, before we get started and I start jumping off into all kinds of crazy topics, your favorite girl, your own topics, do we have any callers that wanted to come up? Please do feel free. I'm going to take a little sip of water here while you do that if you're there. Star6 will unmute you. Alright, not a problem. Standard policy on our show here, Grow Your Own. If you have something that you want to call in with and you don't feel like waiting for me to finish, that's fine. Go right ahead, star six, interrupt me and we'll just kind of take it from there. If you're going to call in, I'd like to give you the priority in terms of our time that we have on air. So we're going to kick it out. A little comment in the chat room. There's a follow up. I think Mark last hour was talking about stoves and heating technologies. And we do have a follow up in the chat room on that subject matter. Kentucky mentions that he wants to build a packing peanut stove, which would burn hot. And packing peanuts, that's kind of interesting. So those little Styrofoam packing peanuts, they do have a really great insulation value. Why not? As long as you can make sure that those suckers aren't going to melt, maybe put them in the outer walls of your stove or something like that, I think that would work very well. You can use the resources we have on hand to weather through the upcoming cold weather. And then Mobu53 mentions, what about just a cast iron stove? And Kentucky responded to that by saying, you've got to have fuel to get it hot. And that's true. The other thing with cast iron, I love cast iron stoves, pot belly stoves, and all that. The only thing is, you know, they get super hot. I mean, if you're someone around in the dark and burn yourself, you also do have to use a lot of resources for your sort of cast iron stoves. Stoves that really They require constant fuel sources input in order to maintain their temperature. So I like them. I think if you've got access to cast iron or you know one of those old backpacking stoves or some of the other types of things out there, they're going to do you fine especially if you're just eating a little potting shed or something like that out there on your land. Alright, let me see if we got anybody want to come up on the call-in line here. Go right ahead star six to unmute. Alright folks, when we opened up today, we had a tip of the day and that was to be sure to look underneath your mulch that's resting on your garden. Now, although this was just a tip, we can develop it out a bit further. You see this general permaculture principle, there's something at play here and it's pretty active at all times of the year across all the seasons. no matter which part of our country or planet earth you're listening from. And this general principle of what's happening underneath our soil cover, you know mulch, like what's happening underneath that, maybe you got wood chips or decomposing leaves. Well this general principle is something that's very important and it's called the Soil Food Web. The Soil Food Web. Now, it's an intricate principle, but the benefit to learning about and observing the soil food web is that over time, it's going to make you a more productive victory gardener. So by understanding the soil food web, when you're out there gardening year after year after year, you will ultimately have stronger and heartier plants that can defend better against pests and diseases. Plus, you'll have higher vegetable and fruit yields and you'll end up getting more nutritional value from the fruits of your labor. Knowing about the Soil Food Web is going to also help you manage your garden soil in a very long-term, permanent way without having to bring in a bunch of really expensive organic additives and amendments. You can if you want, but to understand the basic foundation of this Soil Food Web, It's going to help you essentially grow your own organic soil that's in your garden. It's going to last and last and last. I did hear a ping. Do we have anybody that wanted to come up on the call-in line? Star6 will unmute you. I do too. It's Mark. I'm just hanging, but... Hey, man. How are you? I'm doing okay. I just got off a long vacation. I'm back in the truck and, you know, doing the same old same old. So I'm glad to hear that you had a little chance to get away. Did you have anything for us tonight at the moment or did you just want to hang out and maybe pipe in later? There's really nothing of any meat to talk about, so I'll just go ahead and listen for a while. Cool. Well, you're always welcome to come out, Mark. It's so good to hear your voice. Welcome back from vacation. I guess sitting at work when you're... I guess all of us, we're working, then we go away on vacation. We're like, all right, we're back. There wasn't really much of a vacation. It was just a lousy vacation, actually. I didn't really do anything. I couldn't afford to do anything. It was just nice to get out of the truck, you know. Yeah, even if you don't have much money, sometimes just time away, clear your head out a little bit, you know, take stock of your emotional resources. That's right. Cool deal. Well, I'm glad to hear you, Mark, and like I said, feel free to jump in. I did hear another ping. Did somebody else come up while we're just out here tonight? Go ahead. Go behind enemy lines. Hello, sir. Good evening. Good to hear your voice. Hey, likewise Jump on in there. I'm sorry to interrupt you. Well, I was just hoping that you would follow on with any of the discussion as far as Proper seed preparation. I'm trying to get some south of France Non-gmo organic corn seed over to you along with some very, very nice winter squash seeds for your seed bank. But at proper drying and preparation for corn off the ear, it's late and I didn't know. The only thing that I have as far as a bulk drying would be underneath the refrigerator, you know, that evaporator heat in a quiet and dark area and that, but I, you know, down low underneath the refrigerator with that kind of low, slow heat, I'm worried about, you know, mold or, you know. I'm not being able to get the seed dried properly as late as it is. We don't have any more sunlight to speak of up here. What a great... It's out-fanched, French, non-GMO, wonderful, highly productive corn seed. What an awesome topic and offer and I would certainly be glad to trade you some seeds. You could just hit my email address, joejo from the Carolinas at gmail.com and we can correspond more privately that way about those sorts of things or if you had somebody that would prefer to email for you. I appreciate that. On your topic of drying corn seeds, for example, are they on the cob? Yes, they are. That's the problem as late as it is. You know what I mean? Yeah. About your 10 years is a little bit I got to dry, but it'll turn into a substantial sack of little seeds. But I want them to be proper so that I don't know how small a seed carries the germ that's worth trying to dry and process. You know what I mean? Yes, I do. So the quick answer to your question there, and it's a great question. I had that same question when I was getting started out in saving my own corn seeds. So basically, it doesn't matter how small the kernel is that you're harvesting. It can be all the way from the end of the cob. where you eat the cob, you put your fingers, it can be from all the way from that end where the smaller kernels are. The thing is, if you plant those kernels, you're just not going to get larger kernels in the next year's crop of corn, especially the non-GMO and nice and organic. So we want to harvest the largest kernels from that cob. But you asked a very important question that gets us even prior to harvesting the seed, which is, how the heck do you save seeds from corn? And you were talking about being concerned that underneath the refrigerator, for example, that would be maybe introducing mold and fungus into the seed saving process. We certainly don't want to do that. Now, there is an old-timey technique of drying corn for seed harvest while it's still on the cob. Okay, and the way that we do this, and I'm not going to ask you too many personal questions, so I'm just going to go right off the top of my head and, you know, I haven't interacted with you on previous shows. I know you can find a workaround to this, but here's your general principle. What we want to do is we want to lay out our corn cobs so we see how many we have. And then we'll do is we'll take a board, just your standard piece of lumber that we can hammer a nail through and have some of that nail sticking out the other end. We'll hammer the nails along the length-wise part of that board. And then what we'll do is so that those nails will be sticking out. You know, if we put it on the ground and the federal troops and Communists come in the door, they're going to get some little surprises on their feet. Well, we'll take that board. that spiky board and we're going to put the fat cob side, the large cob side, the woody part of that corn cob that we're going to dry out to harvest and receive. We're going to put that right on each nail. So one corn cob goes down on each nail. So we'll have this line of corn cobs that just kind of held into position. Then what we'll do is we want to take that whole board And we don't want to put it in a moist environment. We actually want to put that in a very airy, protected environment, like for example a Maybe along the molding of a wall where it intersects with the ceiling inside somewhere. Now that could be in a barn. So the higher to the roof, the higher up you can get, the better. Because what happens? Our general principle, right? Hot air rises. Well, we want that hot air to be used naturally to dry out those corn cobs and leave the corn right on the cob. And over the course of a week to a week and a half, what's going to happen as long as there's no moisture there, those corn cobs are going to dry off. Now, you'll know that the corn is ready to be be kernel or taken off and saved for seed. You'll know if it's ready to be harvested for seed if there are these little teeny tiny individual pits that are in the center of each kernel. Now, you don't have to get obsessive compulsive about it. You can just kind of look at the kernels and if there's a little divot, a little teeny tiny divot, not a hole, in several of your kernels, you can just harvest them right off. Another test to make sure it's time to harvest those corn cobs when they're up on that nally board, up in sort of a drafty area. Another way you can tell is you take off the end, the fat or bottom side where it intersects with your board that we're using to dry them out. Take one kernel off and if you can kind of break that kernel in half, or snap it, that's when it's ready to harvest for seed. If that kernel is still bendable just a little bit, you can bend it. you leave it up there longer. So, and that actually, that principle of being able to snap a seed in half, that goes for the squash that you mentioned, it goes for a lot of other things like cucumbers. So we want to make sure our seeds are relatively dry enough so when the outsides of them, the thing that holds that seed together, the binder if you will, the outer part of the cell wall, we want to snap it in half. If we could snap it, it's going to be dry enough to store over the course of the winter and maybe in part of the spring until we're ready to start germinating those seeds. Now, best way to remove corn from that cob. once it's ready for harvest for seed. And if it's non-GMO, my goodness gracious, we need to baby the heck out of these seeds when we're taking them off these cobs to harvest the corn seeds. So what we'll do is they have all kinds of fancy contraptions. They have little things that you can run the corn cob through and you'll spend 20 or 30 bucks for it. But if you're only dealing with 5 or 10 or 15, 20 corn cobs, really easy way to do it, it's called your hand. So what you do is you get yourself a nice basket or even better if you got one of them big, huge Ziploc freezer baggies or whatever brand freezer bag, plastic bag you want to use. What you do is you put your corn cob in there, you take both of your hands holding the corn cob sort of one hand facing This is kind of hard to explain on air. See, you take one hand upright, so facing up, your fingers are facing up. You grasp the other hand on the other side of that corn cob with your fingers facing down, almost like you're given that corn cob an Indian burn, like they did in grade school, you know, in the communist public fool system. So what you do is you give that corn cob a nice Indian burn by twisting both of your hands to Indian burn it. and very lightly you can do this and what you'll notice is slowly your kernels, your corn seed is going to start flaking off and going into that bag and it gets easier once you can get the end, so the fat end of that corn cob, it'll get easier once those kernels start breaking off and then what will happen is the center as well as like sort of maybe two or three inches left and right of center respectively. Those will be probably the last corn kernels that will be coming off. We don't want to force them off. So when we're using our Indian burn technology to harvest these non-GMO corn seeds, we want to be gentle. We want to be very gentle. We don't want to crush it and try to just smash it. We want to be really gentle. Because once we start doing that, we get into the possibility of snapping seeds and breaking seeds. And we don't want to do that. We'll preserve the biggest seeds that we possibly can for that corn so that we can plant them next time around. Now for storing corn seeds and other sorts of seeds, as you mentioned, we do want to store them in a very dry, dark environment. Preferably, I know a lot of people in colder climates will do this. What they'll do is they'll take a mason jar and they'll take some of that desiccant, some of that silica gel. You know those little packets of things that you get when you can find them in the trash or whatever. And they say, do not eat. Well, you could take one or two of those and put them in your mason jar and then seal it up. Then you can either put that in a root cellar in a colder climate or you can take that sealed up mason jar That's full of seed It's got to be glass now and you could put that actually in your refrigerator And that'll save those seeds for years if you don't get around to planting them. It's a lot better more long-term method than Planting seeds, you know year after year and then you're using all your seeds. I always advocate If you're going to save seeds and you're going to start trying to save seeds, make sure you save enough seeds and hold some back. So in case you have a crop failure for your next harvest, so this coming spring, for example, if you have a crop failure, maybe the goops, spray kentrails or spray Roundup all over the place, bug spray. We want to make sure we're holding some seeds back. We want to have our own victory.