One of the mini projects I’m doing will be experimenting with the whitest white paint. I’ve been following this tech since 2021. It’s been around for a bit even further back but the 2021 formula was the best at the time.

Here is the perdue research from 2021:

https://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/archive/releases/2021/Q2/the-whitest-paint-is-here-and-its-the-coolest.-literally..html

What is whitest white paint?

It’s a white paint, but it can reflect light and actually cool the surface below ambient temperature. Making a sun facing surface cooler than if it were in the shade. This is a game changer for climate change adaptation. A building or outdoor object painted with this can reduce the need for cooling! Pun intended, but how cool is that?

I don’t usually recommend products, and I can’t just yet. I just bought cryo x paint that is a formula of this kind. I’m not sure if it’s the exact formula from Purdue University that was made in 2021, but I’m fairly confident it’s a good enough version.

Why am I confident the cryo x paint is probably legit? Mostly because of the price tag of $250 a gallon. I probably would have been more skeptical if I didn’t already know about the Purdue research ongoing for years. I also learned through emailing people directly involved the biggest hurdle has been getting the price point low enough to justify commercializing it. That’s on top of sourcing suitable materials and ramping up production. Of course it’s going to have a higher initial price tag. I would have been skeptical and skipped it if cryo x made same those claims and it was a similar price to a standard bucket of white paint.

I also don’t expect the paint to be the exact Purdue formula either. Just due to supply constraints and production costs, but as long as it’s close enough that is fine for me. I also don’t expect it to do as well as it claims on the cryo X site. Those claims are assuming dry air, which in Florida with humidity that’s just not going to be as effective due to physical limitations. However if I get consistently 2F-8F below ambient air during sunlight hours that is still a success for me and for my applications. Even 2F lower can be a game changer for me.

What’s next?

Next week I’ll be running a series of tests with the $80 quart I bought. I also bought an IR gun to do a before and after test. For this round I’ll be painting my black nursery pots for my outdoor plants, mostly avocados and jalapenos. I have some painted with regular spray paint, and some not painted at all. I’ll be doing the new paint over the old plus directly painting one coat to see if it makes a difference. I’ll be also observing to see if they have noticeably less droop in the hot afternoons. If this works out I’ll be buying more to paint my outdoor HVAC condenser. The condenser is a good candidate because it sits on the south side of my property and has sun on it most of the day.

This turned into a bit of a teaser post, sorry about that. I needed a quick post to get out for this week and this was the most motivating topic for me right now. I would have done a full post this week, but the paint won’t arrive until next week. I have a lot on my plate with more larger projects ongoing too.

See you next week!

-Luna

Thankfully I was prepared and all my personal gardening equipment is still functional and runs locally with no internet. Only our internet equipment was damaged, but I had a backup router in storage to keep things running locally. Everything else in our home is ok, we have a whole house surge protector installed on our electrical box so no damage to appliances or other items. A desktop computer tied in the same outlet with the internet equipment was not damaged, it seems the surge came through the internet lines.

With minimal internet, I’m sharing with you a cookie recipe because who doesn’t like homemade cookies?

I made the mickey shape with cookie cutters. I have other Disney shapes but…eh I wasn’t feeling it with the other shapes and didn’t want to clean more than one. These are normally puffed up roundish cookies.

Here is the recipe:

1 cup butter

1 1/2 cups brown sugar

2 eggs

1/4 cup milk(I use home made oat milk)

1 ½ teaspoons vanilla

2 cups flour (add more if needed, I use 3 to 4 cups total when it’s humid. 2 cups is not enough in humidity and they turn to goop after baking)

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 Tablespoons cinnamon

11/2 teaspoons nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon allspice

1/2 teaspoon cloves

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 cups dried oats, or a mix of spent oat milk pulp+dry oats. Steel cut or quick oats. The spent oat pulp gives them a fluffy pillow consistency, dried oats give a harder and chewier consistency.

2 cups chocolate chips

Instructions:

Take butter out of fridge for a few minutes to soften slightly.

In a separate bowl mix together dry ingredients.

Cream butter with a mixer. Mix in brown sugar beat with butter until incorporated

Add in eggs then vanilla and milk.

Stir in dry ingredients.

Mix in oatmeal and chocolate chips.

For a stiffer cookie add additional flour.

Drop cookies on pans and cook at 350 degrees for 12-15 minutes

Hopefully we’ll be back to normal next week. If not there may be another quick post like this one.

-Luna Sage

Most home compost systems recycle what is already there. Which is great, it can keep things going for a fairly long time. However there is always nutrient losses year to year. Eventually no matter what your soil is stripped. It could take years or decades, but if you don’t replace what is lost, you’ll eventually run into balance problems with poor soil conditions, less lively plants and poor food yields if you grow some of your own calories.

For this post I’m going to be focusing on net inputs over time. If someone has an immediate deficiency or Ph in balance this will not help. There are other ways to correct something that is off balance quicker.

All of these processes take a year or more to fully finish, and it rebuilds each year and compounds with time. You won’t notice for a year or two until your plants are thriving with little work needed day to day.

Nitrogen(N):

This is very well recycled better than the others through compost. You can keep going for a very long time with nitrogen this way. Some nitrogen fixation can happen naturally in compost, but to add net N there are a few more steps to consider.

Like the nutrients this will be depleted with enough time and some will need to be added back in.

There is a process called nitrogen fixation. I won’t go through the full details here, but essentially it is a process to pull nitrogen that from the atmosphere so that it is usable by plants in the soil. There are a few natural processes for this, mostly through bacteria that release it back to the soil.

For my home compost system, my open pile and keeping some of the compost in place and continually adding to the same spot helps with some of this. Some of these bacteria stick around to help.

The other key part of my setup to attract the good types of bacteria, are within the chickpeas other legumes/beans I grow regularly outdoors. The bacteria will arrive naturally in the right conditions inside the root zones. This is why I grow these outdoors occasionally as a cover crop, I may harvest 50-60% of the beans for food if needed, but everything else at the end of the grow cycle including roots, pods, leftover beans etc goes into my compost. The attracted bacteria in the root zones are what adds the net N back into my system through nitrogen fixation.

The last key part is keeping the nitrogen in place, this way I don’t have to plant bean cover crops every year. I intentionally grow a local nitrogen fixer of sunshine mimosa as a lawn. I intentionally let it grow near grow spaces, my bananas, blueberries and avocados as a ground cover The sunshine mimosa keeps the nitrogen in place and makes it more available to other plants nearby. Over time I don’t need much net nitrogen added and only need to plant the bean cover crop every few years.

Potassium(K):

I covered this one in another post but I’m going to go into slight more details here.

The bananas I mentioned are being used for recycling the potassium primarily.

For adding potassium that is where my fire pit comes into play. Hardwood ash adds net potassium if sprinkled in key spots.

Potassium added this way has to be done so with care. You can’t sprinkle wood ash around you’ll raise the Ph too far for most plants to survive or thrive. I talked about why Ph is important in hydroponics and in previous posts a few times. It’s important in the soil too, but in soil the tolerance for swings is a little better than hydroponics. If Ph drifts too much either way over time you’ll run into problems.

How do I counteract Ph drift?

Through my compost system.

I clean out the firepit roughly 1-2x per year. I place the wood ash in a very specific compost pile. This is what I call my net potassium pile. I add the ash regularly otherwise to this pile along with other materials, then in the fall I stop until spring. This gives it time to ‘cook’ and process everything including the woodash.

No where else in my direct grow spaces do sprinkle wood ash except 1-2 tbsp per year on my banana mat. I also intentionally spread it occasionally around the perimeter of my home for weed control. I keep these areas clear from runoff into my grow spaces so the Ph doesn’t drift from run off over the longer term.

While the compost is decomposing over winter, I continually still add other materials to my other 1-2 piles I have going.

The other piles are more or less the same materials, they just don’t have the Ph concentration, they get some potassium from the chopped banana materials.

Around early spring I take maybe 10-20% of that net potassium pile and add it to the others in a rotation leaving the rest in place. I then start adding again as normal to my net potassium pile+ other materials. The secondary pile that is already active, gets the additional potassium from the net potassium pile, then I throw pine mulch, pine dust, or pine bark in. I let it process further for a month or two before using anywhere in grow spaces.

I have 3 piles total 1 for net potassium, two regular normal piles. I have one at minimum I can always add to. Each year I rotate in and out which one gets some from the net potassium pile to process a bit further, then use it.

I do regular Ph tests, roughly once a year, my Ph has stayed within acceptable ranges with this method.

Phosphorus(P):

This one is fairly simple. If I had chickens rabbits or guinea pigs I would just compost their waste. I may get guinea pigs down the line for this and to have as companions, but not sure. For this I just by chicken or cow manure once a year. I just bought cow compost for $2 a bag and spent $40 for my needs for the whole year. I mixed it with my primary compost piles. This will supply other net nutrients too.

Trace nutrients and minerals:

These are things like calcium, iron, manganese, magnesium, boron and many others that you may be familiar with from the periodic table. These are important too for plant health, but not needed in high quantities and take a while to notice a problem.

For these I add add net portions through composting crushed eggshells(calcium) we buy from the store. I also take a trip to the beach 1-2x per year with 2-3 5 gal buckets. We fill those buckets with dried washed up seaweed(I hand wash it before adding), crushed shells, and other beach materials we collect.

Most beach materials add back most of this along with the other inputs and recycling my compost handles.

Wrap up

Thanks for reading! I want to reiterate here, this isn’t an overnight process. If you aren’t careful with how you keep things in balance things can go sideways with time. You can always course correct with time or you can add additives that are quicker release for an immediate problem. Unless you understand the process of why things are off you will keep having the same problems with time.

My system is not perfect, I expect that something will likely be off balance eventually. I keep heavy recorded documentation over time and know my processes well enough that I know generally if something is off. I can trace back where I made a mistake. I take routine soil tests at home at least once a year, I have simple home made methods to get a good enough ballpark, but I also every few years send a sample to a lab to get finer details. This way I can see if anything is drifting too far year to year. This allows me to course correct before I notice it in plant growth the following year.

This post will remain here as a reference.

A little background about bananas:

Bananas are perennial, meaning they last multiple years and have a long lifecycle.

For bananas the main stem may die off in the cold. The stem also dies after fruiting. Once the stem is gone the main bananas structure is not permanently gone.

The main root mat will produce more young banana pups the following spring if properly cared for.

For newly potted banana pups:

After receiving the pup and transporting it home allow it to stay in the pot for 2-3 weeks.

Keep it in partial sun, 4-6 hours for the duration it is in the container.

Try to put it in a spot with minimal harsh afternoon sun for this period.

You can also keep it indoors if you have a sufficient grow light.

Water deeply every 2-4 days.

Check the soil regularly to ensure the roots don’t stay too moist, but also isn’t drying too quickly.

Hold off on water if the soil is still soggy since the last watering.

Add mulch or dried leaves to the container to retain water and lessen the frequency for water.

Transplanting and after care:

Dig a large enough hole so the pup can sit upright. Backfill with dirt around the base and ensure you pull the white part out with the trunk. (this is the corm).

Sun requirements for transplanted bananas:
Pick a sunny spot with 6-10 hours per day of direct sun.

If planting multiple pups keep them within a few feet for cross pollination.

Ensure both plants can get 8-10 hours of sun without blocking the other one.

Fertilizer requirements:

Pick a balanced citrus blend for most of the year.

For longer term especially if you want fruit it may be required to occasionally supplement with additional potash, wood ash, or another potassium supplement. This shouldn’t be needed frequently especially when newly planted.

Fertilizer frequency and application

If you want fruit in 9-18 months:

• Mid spring-Early/Mid Fall:

  • Fertilize every 4-6 weeks with a heavy application of the citrus blend

  • When flowers emerge, supplement lightly with additional potassium.

• Late fall/Winter/early spring:

  • only fertilize 8-10 weeks

  • No need for a potassium supplement

Fertilizer care If you don’t care about getting fruit:

• Apply the citrus fertilizer 2-3 times per year.

• This can be done once mid-late spring, mid-late summer, then again early-mid fall.

• Do not add fertilizer over winter months or once the temperatures don’t keep above 60F during the day or drops 50F or below overnight regularly.

• Every few years during the normal routine applications apply additional potassium supplement to keep things healthy.

Water requirements:

• Mid spring-Mid Fall:

  • water every 2-3 days depending on rainfall.

• Late fall/winter/early spring

  • water roughly 7-14 days, check the level of moisture in the soil if unsure.

Additional tips to minimize manual watering and protect the root system:

Mulch once a year during the last fertilizer application. This will add water retention and keep roots warm over winter.

You can optionally cover the root mat with a tarp on top of the mulch if it will be really cold. This would be if it wouldn’t reach above 45F most days for over 2 weeks, this usually isn’t needed in Central FL. Once it gets to 60F during a single day you would need to remove the tarp.

Buried olla pots allow for less frequent watering over the hot summer. These buried nearby can reduce manual watering to weekly in the hot summers assuming no rain. When refilling the pots, water the main pup growth area too.

Do not overwater especially over the cold months, scale back watering heavily especially when a cold snap occurs. Water a few days before a cold front and then let it go at least a week or longer before watering again.

I also want to state here I’m open to a seed swap with others if I’m contacted. I have extras of many common heirloom store bought produce, herbs and flowers.

How do I get 5-10 years of viability and good germination?

Processing the seeds+ Vacuum sealing + Freezing are the keys to keep the seeds viable for 5-10 years.

Under normal conditions, assuming that the seeds are fully processed and dried, the max you can expect for germination in most common plant varieties is 1-2 years. In my climate with humidity, I have never gotten seeds to reliably germinate beyond a year. In less humid climates I’ve gotten them to last closer to the 2 year mark.

I wanted to preserve a rotating supply of seeds indefinitely so I could have an ongoing stash without having to buy new seeds each year. This may seem a bit prepper, but I just see it as a way to save money too. I’ll very likely never have to buy seeds again, unless I want to store a variety I don’t currently have. Even if I only get 5 years of viability out of what I have stored, I can reliably replace the ones I have on a rotation sooner than that instead of hoping after 1 year they’ll still germinate. It gives me a larger window for planning what to grow each year.

*I also want to mention here if you contact me I’m happy to do a seed swap or give packets away. I have backups and duplicates of many varieties. You can contact me and ask. I can also advise what could work in containers or different conditions and climates.

Equipment and materials:

• Vacuum chamber sealer

• 2 cu ft chest freezer

• Seeds

Vacuum Chamber sealer

This one I have an older post I need to go back and edit. I’ll just cover this topic briefly and repost that one at a later time.

If you’re doing heavy processing of seeds or other foods or anything else, especially in larger bulk project, get a Chamber Sealer. Skip the smaller counter ones or the Food Saver types.

Trust me when I say I learned my lesson on this. The front type sealers like Food Saver will not handle this kind of regular use and especially not this many seals at one time. If you’re only going to use it occasionally and only do max of 5-8 seals in each session at most 1-2x per year, then those can work. Otherwise just skip it and poney up the money for a good Chamber sealer. You’ll save yourself a lot of headaches.

One last remark on this topic make sure to buy the appropriate bags. The front style Food Saver vacuum sealer bags are different than chamber sealer bags.

2cu ft chest freezer

This item is necessary to maximize seed shelf life. I bought a second freezer because I ran out of room in my kitchen freezer. A separate chest freezer also isn’t opened and closed as often also benefits the shelf life because it isn’t opened and closed as often.

2 cu ft isn’t large, but it fits all the seeds I will ever need. There is some room and I have a few other things like a rotation of essential vitamins in there too. It’s best to not keep it fully packed for a lot of reasons.

Processing and purchasing seeds:

I bought many varieties of seeds, I can’t recall exactly how many packets but it was around $1000 worth. Over 2000+ packets if I recall. I bought duplicates as well as several different varieties in case of a failure or something wasn’t preserved right.

This initial process took over 60 hours to preserve, but it was a one time endeavor. It took me probably 2-3 weeks to get through them all.

Now each season when I get new seeds, I only spend around 20-30 minutes vacuum sealing at most 1-2x per year adding replacements back to my main stash. The bulk of that process is fully drying them properly.

Aside from vacuum sealing there is a days long or months long process. This depends on the time of year. Most of this isn’t hands on time. Most of the hands on time is the vacuum sealing.

My seed storing process:

1. Clean and rinse the harvested seeds.

2. Put them on the counter covered from light with a box fan nearby for airflow.

3. Allow to dry between 1-7 days on the counter. 1 day for counter drying in humid months with additional steps(see 3a below), longer on the counter if needed during cooler/low humidity months.

3 a. In high humidity months:

I temporarily freeze the seeds in mason jars after 1 day on the counter. These steps are necessary to combat humidity. These are the steps before putting in temporary freezer storage for later drying:

• package the seeds in a temporary lightly sealed bag or envelope

• put in a reusable silica gel packet but not touching seeds directly

• freeze outer jar with contents

• Once cooler air with lower humidity arrives put the jar on the counter to thaw fully before opening. Cover the jar to prevent light.

• Allow the seeds to dry further covered with box fan if needed. The silica packet may take care of most of this step away without further drying needed.

4. Once drying is complete vacuum seal seeds with labels and put into storage. Optionally stored in mylar.*

   *Vacuum sealing and freezing are enough by themselves unless you want longer storage than 5-10 years

I know this post was a lot. Sorry about the slightly delayed regular posting. A lot has happened this week personally, and I also went down a few rabbit holes with coding projects and a few other things.

I have a bonus post soon related to some of my Facebook marketplace offerings. It will be clearly marked and will be pinned for easy access for reference to my local buyers over there. Currently my marketplace only caters to locals that can pick-up directly. This is due to regulations on buying and selling plants and I’m only using it as a side hustle for now. The information can be useful to others if you want to grow bananas or you’re interested in how to care for them.

-Luna Sage

I’m extremely thankful for my Disney contact who has given me valuable information around this subject.

My base philosophies:

If any kind of bugs friend or foe are on my property they can stay.

This is true as long as:

• They aren’t in my house or harming our home directly.

• They aren’t near where people regularly congregate(for me this is the firepit and around my porch areas).

• They aren’t harming my edible garden plants or other key companion plants.

If the pests play nice then they can stay in the yard, otherwise that’s when I intervene. Nobody really likes bugs, but I have developed a strange appreciation. By talking with my contact over the years, and working around the pests instead of against them it isn’t difficult to support a healthy ecosystem in my yard and keep everything happy.

Prevention first then removal or extermination if required.

Remember that prevention is worth a pound of cure. This is the next key philosophy tied into the one above.

I do mostly barrier methods to prevent them in my home or around those key areas. I have other methods to keep them off key food plants. If they invade the wrong areas too often or too frequently, then they are fully removed or exterminated and prevention is put in from coming back.

What are the routine items I do for prevention around my home?

If we notice any cracks in windows or doors they immediately get sealed.

Why?

• Little cracks in windows or doorways are easy pathways for invaders.

Trees are cut back routinely by professionals.

Why?

• Tall trees touching the house are easy entry ways for critters, not just bugs but other animals on your roof and allows them to find entry ways easier.

I have a ‘dead zone’ of landscape gravel around most of the house perimeter to minimize weeds and plants.

Why?

• Similar to the regular tree trimming. No plants near the perimeter means less bug activity. Less opportunities to find entry points.

We lay down a good layer food grade Diatomaceous earth around 1-2 times per month depending on the season and rainfall. We do this at all entry points front and back inside and outside.

Why?

• DE is pet safe, non-toxic to people and pets, but cuts into bug exoskeletons like glass. If a few follow us in when we open doors they can’t easily bring in any friends to start an infestation. The few that do get in will be dead pretty soon after coming in, and don’t have time to call for reinforcements. This is helpful for roach and ant prevention especially.

What are some of the prevention methods for plant pests?

Indoor plants

My indoor plants aren’t an usually issue and not much additional prevention is needed because of the above house prevention steps. We take targeted steps if we get the tiny flying insects if needed.

Outdoor plants

Most outdoor plants I care for and prune on a regular schedule especially if they stay outdoors.

Why?

• Routine maintenance to prune off dead spots, and slight disturbance makes pests less likely to bother them. Pests are more likely to congregate on stressed or weak plants.

For flowers and other non food producing plants, I choose varieties that are adapted for this climate that are pest tolerant to have minimal need for intervention.

Why?

• This one is fairly obvious, but the pests just don’t care and leave them alone without much effort.

I only plant food producing crops and plan harvests so they are only actively growing from late summer/early fall through late spring. I usually start indoors earlier for fall planting.

Why?

• Most common food crops, such as cabbages, lettuce, broccoli, cauliflower and many others don’t like the high heat and humidity. The high heat heat causes stress which leads to poor yields, but also causes more susceptibility to pest pressures. It isn’t worth the battle.

I actively plant and maintain companion plants nearby.

Why?

• Plants such as marigolds, mints, and lemon balm and a few others attract good pollinators to help pollinate fruiting plants, but they also detract pests. They don’t like the smells. It doesn’t help with an active problem but it helps to prevent problems because they’ll find a happier spot instead of near my food. ***For some of these plants especially mints, only plant in containers and keep them pruned regularly. They are highly aggressive and will take over everything if they get out of control.

I have a bird bath and a bird feeder.

Why?

• Birds eat a lot of pests naturally.

I don’t have stagnant open water in my yard anywhere.

Why?

• Stagnant water is a breeding ground for mosquitoes. For my bird bath I have a solar fountain to keep the water flowing. For my rain collection barrels I have metal mesh covers over the water inlets. For my olla irrigation pots I have fabric mesh coverings over the mouths to prevent bugs and dirt.

All of the above methods keep things happy and healthy in key ways. The good guys, (mostly the butterflies, solitary bees, spiders, lady bugs and birds), keep the pests in check for me without causing harm otherwise.

The pests that do show up don’t like the areas where my main food crops are because of the companion plants nearby.

Staggering harvests and planting around the peak pest seasons also keeps problems minimal. All of these when combined are why I have little to no problems.

What do I do if there is a problem?

I’ll be fairly brief here, because it is very situational to what the pests are, the location among other factors. I’ll probably write up a fuller extent of things I’ve taken care of myself and fully mitigated or moved them. Mostly ants and a few others. Each one could probably be a whole article by itself.

With the prevention methods I’ve laid out, I really don’t have to do much else. I rarely have an issue, it’s been probably 1-2 years since I’ve had to take any direct actions to fix a problem, and I fired my pest control company around that time. Sometimes if I find an occasional spider in the house I scoop it in my dustpan and it happily starts spinning webs nearby.

If problems do occur there are very situational and targeted things you can do, but you don’t need to pay for monthly pest control if you do all of these things.

M main advice with this, do the small easy prevention stuff that I laid out. From there if you have an issue decide if you want to bother identifying and then dealing with it. If you don’t want to or can’t, then call a professional for a one off treatment and/or extermination. It saves money and you’re helping the environment in the process.

Thanks for the interest in reading and learning about minimal pest control. It helps the environment a lot even if it seems small.

-Luna Sage

I mentioned in previous posts I was starting a new contract gig. I technically started the Tuesday after Memorial day. The team was nice enough and we began onboarding. I come to find out last Thursday/Friday that the terms and conditions I thought were set during negotiation were not agreed upon by the manager. Sadly I had to cut the contract and I’m beyond irritated.

The good news:

I get to actually focus on the main stuff like this blog and the other longer term ambitions I have.

I will obviously be looking and applying for contracts on the side like I have been. A good chunk of my time right now will be ramping up some personal coding projects.

I mentioned in a previous post that I was actively working on some code that had to take a temporary back seat for a bit while I was on contract. Since I’m not on active contract, I now have time to work on that while finding a contract.

What am I working on?

I’m actively restarting and refining various automation projects designed to make home gardening easier. Some of these are functional or semi-functional in my setup now, some of these have been in the making for a few years at various levels.

The biggest part right now for me is monetizing them and formatting things in specific ways around learning.

What has been the hold up to publishing and releasing something?

Unfortunately with the way the economics works around apps, data centers and everything else these days and the way I initially wanted to do things isn’t feasible.

My main goals were when I started thinking about monetizing:

• User friendly

• No recurring fees

• Local only except where needed

• Minimal up front costs depending on the complexity.

• Robust safety and ethics

The two common options most people go with:

Option one:

An app with an attached SAAS service

This is most common right now for apps and ideas like mine. My code would be doing most of the processing in a datacenter instead of locally. This minimizes unpredictable hardware issues, keeps things tidy and user friendly, keeps it predictable and safer from an end user abusing it.

This option would require a fairly significant upfront cost, and/or a recurring fee which goes against my goals. I would have to pay for that datacenter usage ongoing, I would also have to pay for the management of all of that or take on that ongoing work myself.

This option also goes against some of my ethics and safety guidelines. While I would use encryption and other methods to protect user privacy, inherently with data center backends, once data is transmitted to a data center it is out of my hands on some level. There are only certain things in my control. I also am tired of recurring fees for services and I get the general sense that others are too.

Option 2: Custom prebuilt hardware

This one solves the user friendly problem because I could package it on fully custom but standardized hardware and make it nice and tidy.

This option eliminates the need for ongoing fees because it could reliably eliminate the need for a datacenter. I could make it entirely local and bypass the need for a datacenter.

This option would also eliminate the problems of random hardware someone may use because it would all be variables I could control.

Where this one lacks right now is minimal upfront costs. The price of chips is insane right now, I also don’t want to get into managing supply chains, ramping up manufacturing and everything else that entails.

This is probably the most feasible of the two options for me longer term. I may head in this direction later if supply chains ever return to more normal levels. The problem I have with this option right now is mostly the hardware costs around chips, shipping and logistics.

What is my 3rd solution?

Mostly open source code and learning documentation around these pieces of code.

This one is a bit unconventional and not as common, but it has been done. It fits nicely with all of my criteria I have listed above.

These are the general items where monetization would be at play:

• Learning to work with my code specifically

• How to optimize custom AI models

• How to adjust behaviors

• Understanding what AI is

• Learning when AI should and shouldn’t be used

• Understanding the ecosystems around what I build

• Deploying and using the code safely

• Robust information around hardware I use

• Most heavy lifting solved ahead of time

• Explaining what I solved for and why

• Explaining why I chose certain logic patterns, why it fits into the overall ecosystem or architecture around it

The free layer:

• the main AI code repositories

• libraries and models I imported

• code for custom data set collection

• code for model training and updating behaviors ad-hoc

Why I’m doing it this way:

The way I see it general information should be more widely accessible to various audiences. I’m not asking anyone to pay for a broad course of general knowledge. You are paying for my expertise and a shortcut to use my workable code if you follow my hardware, OS and other guidelines. You may still run into issues and need some level of troubleshooting in some cases. This would be if you can’t obtain the same hardware, you have a different OS or version or code libraries or other factors change after I publish it. I make no guarantees you can get it to work for you, but I am providing the tools to make it easier. The rest is up to you.

The paywalled items are to make some topics easier to digest for some people and have a bit of hand holding for something specific related to my code base. I’ll have things clearly marked about what knowledge you need to know up front, which other documents you should purchase first, and where to get information about broader concepts I don’t fully cover.

Advanced users will likely need some of the paid information to understand some of the code that is intentionally obscure and not commented publicly. The paid tutorials will also act as a living knowledge base about how my specific code works and why I chose certain design principals or other things. I’m not going to mention anywhere in the public code what things do and what outcome is expected.

I’m specifically targeting people that want to learn about these topics at various levels of understanding and have the learning mindset before getting into it. If you aren’t prepared for a certain level of troubleshooting for your specific setup and expect me to help, just skip purchasing anything. You’ll likely end up frustrated.

I’m not trying to exclude anyone, but I also don’t have time to answer questions at all hours. I would gladly like to know if you think you found a bug or suggest updates, those are always welcome, but I won’t be personally on the hook to answer much beyond that.

Why wouldn’t someone steal the code then go behind my back and monetize it?

They could, but there are some guardrails to minimize that.

All the code will have a license attached stating what it can and cannot be used for.

The other part is the paid documentation. That will be fully copyrighted and protected against unauthorized distribution. Without the paid documentation it’s going to be fairly difficult to do anything useful without a significant time sink. I won’t be commenting directly in the code, naming anything explicitly, or mentioning what the code is for in the repository itself. I’ll mention broadly on the purchase description what the documentation covers, and nothing will be mentioned directly on my git page or profile.

This is perfect for learners that want a good starting baseline, but at the same time this setup deters AI vibe coders looking for a quick payday to use anything quickly.

I will be fully copywriting and actively monitoring my paid documentation items if anyone distributes those and/or uses them for commercial use.

Wrap up

This is what I’ve been thinking through for months around monetizing my home automation and garden setups. I’ll be linking my github and relevant codebases over the next few months. It will likely be a few months before something substantial happens.

Thanks for reading and sticking with me.

-Luna Sage

What does this topic have to do with the rest of this blog’s theme?

The name Seeds of Tomorrow, is heavily implying technology and science with all these ideas. The future ideas are to make home gardening more accessible, with less overall work as well as changing our collective thoughts around self reliance and community building.

If you have been reading my weekly posts for awhile you probably noticed how I never advocate or personally live without any tech or conveniences that make life easier. I’m not trying to go for a total Amish lifestyle. Technology and learning to code are useful tools to take away the burden of manual human labor if managed and deployed carefully.

I am actively channelling ideas I’ve previously developed over my career in slightly different ways for home use. I want good products that aren’t just hype or gimmicks, and to spread many ideas and concepts that can stand the test of time.

I don’t want to go into too much depth beyond this with my personal projects until I’m more grounded in how it’s going to be marketed, used and deployed. I have a few supplemental posts around that in the pipeline when the time is right.

There are a lot of logistics with everything on top of writing working code, especially since everything I’m working towards is only me right now. As I alluded to in a previous post, this type of work is quiet for the moment as I’m on an active contract. I hope to get that code base going again after the contract period.

Main topic:

What AI is, what the realities are for job loss, what the dangers are.

These are my thoughts of what I’ve actually seen in reality behind the scenes working for corporate America for most of my career in some capacity including several well known household names that are near the top of the fortune 500.

I thought AI has only been around for a few years since chatGPT became popular?

This is a common phrase I hear from internal hiring managers, as well as regular people I talk with when they find out what I do.

No, what we think of true AI has been around for a decade. It’s been longer even longer since the 60’s and earlier if you really want to get technical. Up until roughly the early 2000’s and the 2010’s it’s been mainly used in science disciplines and accelerating scientific discoveries and particularly of use in developing new drugs and medicines, but it’s been used in other scientific disciplines too.

Neil Degrasse Tyson mentions some topics about AI being used for advancing astrophysics if you watch his StarTalk podcast. It makes sense, because some of those galaxies and planet names are longer than phone numbers. Do you really think human scientists are remembering those names then typing all that manually into some database? How would that be put in accurately? I imagine it would take probably some poor grad student about the same time as the known universe has been around just to put all that in. After that laborious task, they are expected to analyze that all by hand in an excel spreadsheet? Get real.

After about the 2010’s when I started my career was when things like AI recommendation engines for products or TV shows started popping up. Recommendation systems are very good at figuring out exactly who is watching or buying, what a person’s historical preferences are, their demographics, location and many other creepy factors to keep people engaged and sell more ads and to buy more junk. Sometimes it even gets so deep into how many ads you personally are likely to accept before you click away and adjust not just the types of ads but how many you see.

Why were recommendation engines not marketed to the public as AI?

Would you have used those services as much if you had known that was feeding various systems and the cross corporation sharing that was allowed and is still allowed to happen?

Probably not. It’s sadly been like that way for quite awhile and most people are only now starting to understand how invasive and unethical it’s been. When I was aware of it I tried to inform others, everyone just laughed at what I saw in real time being built behind the curtain. Now it’s not so much of a secret that these corporations are freely sharing all of that to learn about you for their marketing and ad based purposes.

You can see the contrast between the astrophysics example and the recommendation engine example.

As you can see from these two different use cases AI can have good points, and bad points. It really depends on how it’s managed and deployed, but also the intentions of those using it, deploying it and managing it.

For the first scenario with the astrophysics example, wouldn’t you like an actual good system that could handle that crappy dataset many people manage with excel in their day jobs? Wouldn’t an actual good system that took that bullshit excel workload off of people and freed them up be useful?

If scientists have been handling data analytics and processing with AI and having to deal with much larger quantities of data, why do office employees still handle tedious annoying excel spreadsheets?

The answer is actually a bit complex due to large corporations having different and sometimes competing needs. A single narrow body of fully funded scientific research is easier in scope to design an AI system around. There usually is some level of spreadsheets or manual calculations even with scientific research, but only for double checking the AI output is accurate and making slight adjustments for errors.

When does AI become dangerous?

It only becomes dangerous not by taking jobs or because AI is conscious or even will be conscious in the future. There’s still debate about what consciousness even is or if it can ever be achieved on silicone hardware.

The real and present danger comes because under informed or uninformed humans. Humans that give these systems too much control over the wrong types of decisions. The types of decisions some AI systems are being allowed to do, they shouldn’t be in the position to make those decisions. At the very least for some of those use cases that are actively being deployed the AI system should have strict oversight control by knowledgeable humans.

Right now, it’s at a critical point while also at a moment where government and organizational controls are weak or non-existent. The bureaucracy of our corporations and the government can’t keep up with the changing rules and governance AI requires.

Do we have any of those types of safety guidelines on a robust national level in the US?

Not even close. We have no body of informed scientists or computer programmers that are unbiased by politics or money advising congress. Sadly, most information congress is given is through the tech lobbies so they can keep going as things are without restriction and strict oversights. Most of congress people are told a certain narrative and don’t know the appropriate questions to start pushing back on.

Sadly, the lobbyist themselves don’t fully understand the full ramifications and many have very little working knowledge around these subjects themselves. It’s a blind leading the blind situation, and it’s scary if you go watch some of the hearings over the last decade through youtube and other archives.

Unfortunately this is all of congress which are not informed. This includes sadly people like Bernie Sanders. I don’t fully blame any of them, because there isn’t really a way for them to recognize it themselves. I call him out because I know he has a lot of populist support, but sadly he is just as misinformed and has been doing a lot of scare mongering and attention grabbing videos with tech influencers that sound scary but at the same time some of them are real problems. The part I don’t see in any of it is actual tangible technical solutions to fix any of this at a fundamental and technical level. Most existing laws are some form of: ‘don’t do this…or else’. There is little to no technical framework for enforcement, only if someone catches it and actively report on it. This stems from a general lack of knowledge as a society level with these issues, and the experts are not around to make sensible technical guidelines and guardrails.

My main summary of the dangers we face:

My concern around AI laws in particular is because we are fundamentally handicapped in Washington to question harmful rules and are unable to create sensible direct technical and enforceable guardrails to prevent problems that come from foreign actors and domestic or foreign corporations and other actors.

If congress is old as dirt, and most of them did not grow up in the digital era, while at the same time they are not being properly informed to actually enact sensible and enforceable laws…where does this lead us?

Unfortunately our government and corporate institutions as they are right now aren’t incentivized to put in place any of those types sensible frameworks or the foundations to them.

This reality is where we are now. It’s also part of many factors as to why more complex ‘apps’ or anything else you use seem more buggy and fragile than before. I hope for the best with all of this, but I also see the realities of it regularly behind the curtain and this keeps me awake at night.

I have ideas and some expertise around all this that are way too in the weeds technically I won’t cover them here. Unfortunately, I’m only one person and it would be impossible for me alone. I talk with many people about this from time to time and they agree with my main points and it is a problem once they understand the severity of it all.

The sad reality is marketing all this to a wide audience in an easily to digest way, then implementing those technical changes on the massive scale that would be required are the real challenges. It is not the ideas themselves or the technical feasibility that are the barriers to these problems. Essentially we would have to restructure entirely how congress operates at a fundamental level around where and how they get their scientific and emerging technology information. Only after that massive restructuring we could only begin to think about laws and guardrails to implement at the technical level.

Job loss

I want to give you some level of comfort about this aspect of AI. This is actually less scary than the dangers I mention above.

I’m not saying the AI technology to disrupt most white collar jobs at scale doesn’t exist right now.

The tech is absolutely here. The people who make the decisions, hiring managers, CEOs and others are not implementing it optimally.

Funny enough the very same structural problems, the uninformed leaders in corporate and government are actually making the job loss problem take longer than it needs to. The very structural society wide problems that are causing AI to be dangerous are also what is keeping white collar jobs viable for longer, simply due to inefficiencies with how these systems are being designed, deployed and implemented.

We are all imperfect humans. We design imperfect systems, we’re disorganized, we’re not all up to speed with the same level of information on the subject. Many managers at all levels in many companies don’t understand what AI is, what it is good for and what it’s not good for. Not many know how to manage it, not many know how to train it or get it to behave more consistently. These all cause AI to hinder productivity rather than enhance it.

The biggest limiting factor here is how do you monetize it? Sure the big tech corporations have their part figured out, rent expensive data center machines to other large corporations and charge up the ass for that usage.

Other big corporations are buying into it to optimize their internal processes with those data centers…but to what end? The AI may take jobs eventually, but it’s so inefficient as I mentioned. Other big non-tech corporations are slowly starting to realize this isn’t making their internal efficiencies better with less employees. On top of the fact that jobless people can’t afford many products and services, how does the AI make money back to pay for itself?

Most everyday people don’t want to pay for AI usage, we don’t care to. We don’t get enough utility out of AI in home for personal use to justify a regular and direct paid subscription for that.

Why do you think ChatGPT has started using ads recently? That’s a good way for them to get money. There aren’t enough paid subscribers for the paywalled features. If chatGPT or other chatbots were totally paywalled would you use it? Probably not. I wouldn’t. I don’t even use LLMs myself that often to begin with, I do for things occasionally but I heavily scrutinize most everything depending on how likely I am to act on such information.

Personally, I get most information I share here from my local library through published books and credible authors instead of the internet directly. I use the internet or LLMs to look up specific books and authors before I go, but I try to visit the library regularly when I need new information on subjects important to me.

Having said all this around corporate america’s disorganization and inability to monetize AI systems, I have seen some good but very limited useful AI systems deployed, but those are the outlier. Those projects I’ve worked on and coded around were small and one off situations and didn’t change the core trajectory of everything else. They didn’t change the overall narrative in the same organization or the teams working with them even though they were objectively useful. Some of the internal employees working with them didn’t know it was an AI except the engineers such as myself that worked on the code base. Most of the time in those small cases the AI did it’s function exceptionally well exactly as designed. Then after a few months it was quickly forgotten by upper management. I never saw progress or innovation to expand on those ideas further. Most of them there were massive opportunities for other similar cases in other parts of the organization or ways they could be utilized otherwise for similar purposes. I tried to mention my ideas a few times at 2 separate companies I worked for, but nobody seemed to care. It was mainly because it wasn’t flashy, and the ideas were for quality of life for customers and/or internal employees with no clear ROI attached. It’s a sad reality, but that’s what’s keeping AI from being really beneficial.

Unless there is a need for an innovation for a war, or a clear path to ROI most companies and governments don’t invest in very good ideas that could transform how we live and operate. That’s broadly true of most new technology or new things we could be doing better.

I personally think the AI job loss excuse right now in the US is to distract us from the overall economy while further justifying the need for money and resources for data centers.

The reality is many companies can’t afford both workers and chips for these data centers simply due to factors such as the uncertainty of on and off tariffs, and the Iran conflict causing the instability in oil supplies. Both of those situations individually have had a massive effect on chip manufacturing and the economy as a whole. AI with the way it’s being handled, is nowhere near the same economic threat factor for the moment due to massive mismanagement, only because of how most corporations internally operate.

If you’re a white collar employee in the US here is my advice:

Keep your bosses happy and regularly use the company AI LLM and keep your metrics up even if it doesn’t really help your job. Know that you’re more likely to be laid off right now due to economic disruptions I mentioned earlier, at least for the moment. The LLM being better at your job than you are is not the case right now and many people probably already realize that.

The other bright part of using the LLM for total nonsense tasks? The AI behind the scenes charges your company every time you run it and ask a question, and it isn’t cheap. It charges for datacenter usage. It depends on the contract and other factors sometimes it charges by the question, and sometimes it factors in how complex of a question and how much datacenter usage each question uses. So take advantage of the money pit and get a potential bonus and waste some company time, money and resources while getting paid.*

*As a side note to the above paragraph, do you see why I don’t fit in well with traditional corporate America? Thinking like that has never gotten me promoted or praised.

Beyond that type of daily fun activity, look for a longer term move you can make to keep your finances in order. Assuming you’re younger and have some good cash flow that you can redirect I would do the following:

• priotize paying off debt, including your primary residence if you own.

• live relatively modestly and manage your cash flow wisely

• temper expectations on what it truly means to be happy and live well

• Think through what you would actually like to be doing in 5-10 years from now

Slowly get the funds together as you can to make your dream happen.

I’m sure for most white collar workers, their long term vision for making some money and having purpose doesn’t include sitting in a stuffy office and doing meaningless bullshit work. It’s hard, but it is still doable for many even though the window to change course is tight. There isn’t one answer for everyone on what that story looks like.

Wrap Up:

I have many more thoughts on all this that are more technical than needed. I wrote this after I was fully hired for my current contract, and I thought it would be fitting to post now since this is my first week on the new contract. The corporate bullshit is already showing its ugly side around all of this and it hasn’t been a full week since I started.

I have some more thoughts on some of this from slightly different aspects, from the datacenter environmental impacts, to how to use it for some cool personal projects, and teaching about other uses beyond prompting a shitty LLM.

I’ll be posting on this subject here and there but I’ll probably jump into other topics too. I’ll likely go back to the homemade fertilizers next week that I was touching on before.

To summarize the main points of this post:

• AI adoption is here, yes it’s quickly ramping up.

• We also need better safety protocols in in place sooner rather than later.

• There is still time before AI fully replaces most white collar jobs, but that window is getting smaller.

• I believe it would be 5-10 years before most workers in the US are impacted by AI at minimum. That could be longer.

• Right now the job loss is short term noise because of other factors, most of it being not AI related(even if we’re lead to believe that by the main narrative).

Until next week,

-Luna Sage

Fair warning this specific idea for using the bananas only works in my climate where banana trees are able to grow. Other people in different climates may be able to think of another plant for your area that can give similar results for other potassium or other nutrients.

You can refer back to my previous post regarding overall soil health and key nutrients to better understand some of the points I’m making in this post.

You can read here first: Basics of soil nutrients and health

Background for what started this project for me:

First factor for this idea:

Last year I started banana trees because I wanted the fruit. I took extremely good care of 3 of them for almost a year. I went through the entire spring, summer, fall and most of winter. I named them because I wanted to keep them long term.

Last winter we had a really bad set of back to back cold spells. It got cold, then warmed up, then got too cold again over just 2-3 weeks. I did everything by the book and everything I could to save them. I had spent almost a year cultivating and anticipating a banana harvest the season after they died. Sadly all 3 banana trees were lost. If it was one of them, or two it wouldn’t have been nearly as devastating.

Everyday through last winter, I checked the weather, I tarped them if it got too cold, I checked the weather the next morning and untarped if the weather was too warm. I tried to keep as much cold off them. Thankfully I tarped and mulched the root zones before winter started. The trunks were okish after the first cold snap, I had lost the fruit by that point, but the trunks were still there. Then another cold snap came through around 1-2 weeks later and again. With not a long enough recovery window that was it for the fruit and the trunks.

I stood in the yard and cried for a solid day looking at the dead trunks in my yard. All that work felt like a complete waste. Not only taking the tarps on and off constantly, I also added fertilizer every single month over the summer, and watered them multiple times a week. After all that to be left with basically nothing was a low blow. Losing the fruit was devastating enough but having to wait for another 2-3 years for more fruit to grow back made me pause on growing more fruit.

Thankfully the corm(the biomass and root system underground), survived because of the tarps and mulch. I started seeing baby bananas pop up in early spring. I left them go not sure what to do. I was debating until a month ago if I should just rip up the roots.

The second factor for this project:

We all know about the oil crisis that is affecting worldwide oil and particularly fertilizers for food. I talked about that in another post. I’m not going to cover more about that for the moment.

The fertilizer problem got me thinking: how can I reasonably get nutrients without as many external inputs provided by fertilizers? What I can source locally or ideally on my own?

Then the idea hit me:

Compost the baby banana trees and harvest the recycled potassium instead of worrying about direct banana fruit each year!

There are multiple layers to this thinking and multiple steps each year. This process I’m walking through below is centered on potassium mostly, there are other means I have to source other key nutrients and the banana composting alone won’t achieve net positive potassium.

How does this help with the care problem I mentioned?

Fruiting trees or anything that flowers or produces fruit for consumption needs heavy nutrients. That’s why I had to fertilize them often last summer.

By using the banana biomass(stalks, leaves trunks etc) for compost and for quick potassium boosts specifically, it efficiently recycles that potassium for use in other areas of my garden. With no expectation of fruit, the existing root systems needs little maintenance by itself to keep reliably producing new materials rich in recycled potassium. WIth this solution I don’t have to worry about monthly fertilizer infusions, less manual watering, and no removing and putting up tarps over winter to protect the trunks since everything will be cut down for compost.

These are the high level tasks for my compost each year:

• Sprinkle hard wood ash once or twice a year. ( at least 1/2 cup of ash each year and Only in key areas. Please read this entire piece to fully understand before trying this yourself)

• Add mulch once a year to the banana root zone.

• Add back in some amount of other nutrient compost from other piles

• Chop and cut down the baby banana shoots, leaves and stalks that sprout each year before winter.

• Move some of the banana materials to the main potassium generation pile nearby

• Add some banana materials to other compost piles

• Tarp the potassium generation pile with stakes over winter for additional heat trapping to speed up the compost process.

• Tarp the banana root zone, if needed for additional insulation over winter, leaving gaps for rainwater and easy manual watering occasionally over winter.

The banana compost process broken down by season:

Winter:

There isn’t much maintenance over winter. Most of the maintenance will be occasionally checking the compost pile to make sure it’s moving along and if it needs a bit of moisture or if it needs turned if the nitrogen green materials are getting a bit stinky and adding more brown material. Likely less than once a month or for anything and most tasks should take less than 10 minutes.

Spring, Summer and first half of Fall:

This is the season we’re in now. I’m doing occasional weekly waterings of some buried olla pots i have nearby to keep the roots happy. I have enough pots and have an intentional soil structure around them I created where I only have to water every other week depending on the rainfall. The baby bananas that have emerged are doing fine overall and I don’t have to do much else for now until fall. I check once in awhile when I do the manual watering for pests, disease and leaf stress to stay ahead of problems.

Late Fall:

This is when most of the work in the bullet points will be done. This is maybe a day or two set of tasks at most and the tasks can be spread out before winter if I don’t have time to do all at one=ce. This will be when I chop the stalks, leaves and trunks, move the materials to various compost piles, adding mulch, and sprinkle the ash in the main potassium compost and over my banana roots then tarping the compost and around the root zones.

What is potassium used for in plants?

Generally many flowering plants and food crops such as cucumbers, tomatoes, and peppers all require abundant potassium for flowering, larger harvests as well as bigger and more uniform fruits. Potassium is used for other processes in plants and is needed to an extent in every stage of plant growth but it is highly important in the fruit/flowering stage for food production.

Over time despite careful compost management and nutrient recycling, without additional fertilizer inputs you are creating a nutrient deficit in your grow space. This is why new fertilizer inputs are important for healthy soil long term. Without fertilizers and regular nutrient inputs to replace what is lost through we don’t eat after a few years and get less crop production each year.

How do I achieve net positive potassium each year from all this?

The key to achieving net positive potassium each year is our firepit. Hardwood ash is a good concentration of rich potassium. We have hardwood trees in our yard and regularly buy hardwood for a bonfires. We have plenty for a potassium that can be used as an input source, I collect it in plastic buckets for storage when I clean out the fire pit.

Why is the wood ash needed?

This goes back to my previous educational post. Potassium is one of those nutrients that must be replenished through external inputs at least once in awhile unlike nitrogen which can be indefinitely recycled through compost. Hardwood(and softwoods to a lesser extent) when burned create potassium. The burning process is what creates new potassium.

Why can’t I achieve net positive by adding wood ash alone without the additional banana compost steps?

Wood ash is a double edged sword, it raises potassium fairly substantially with relatively small amounts infrequently, however wood ash also raises the Ph substantially in the surrounding soil or compost

The compost process will help absorb some of those Ph imbalances from wood ash but it’s not enough for the wood ash quantity needed for net positive potassium levels each year.

Why does soil Ph matter?

I mentioned this in another post talking about Ph in hydroponics systems, but similar principles apply with soil. Ph for soil or hydroponics is what determines if the plant can use the nutrients available efficiently, or if they can be used at all. All the needed nutrients and minerals could be present, if the Ph in the soil or water is too high or low the plant will still suffer and may die from insufficient nutrients.

How does my banana compost solution help counteract Ph drift while adding back overall net potassium?

Sprinkling a relatively small part of the ash around the banana roots and majority of the ash in a nearby but separate potassium compost pile buffers Ph swings for the rest of my grow areas. Think of the main potassium pile+other materials + some banana materials as a potassium factory. The main roots and biomass that is grown ear year is the potassium pump in my setup to extract what is already there for re-use. The banana materials that are released through the main potassium factory and the other regular compost piles are in a form immediately useable by other plants. The separate piles when combined later and further composted for a month or two together flatten out the Ph swings to not disrupt my main growing areas.

Sprinkling of the wood ash around the banana roots and stalks is ok for them in extreme moderation, but I sprinkle no more than a tablespoon or less each year and only 1-2x per year max. Banana roots can handle a little higher Ph from wood ash better than most other plants, but Ph can drift too high over enough time for that area if I were to keep adding the full amount of ash for net positive potassium.

The potassium factory is intentionally not directly on top of the banana root zone or anywhere near my grow areas or the main compost pile. This potassium factory created by the heavier application of wood ash and some other materials will be mixed with my other composts separately. The mixing of the separate composts will happen before I add anything directly to grow areas or use in homemade fertilizers. The combined mixture of separate piles is also composted for a month or two additionally to further flatten the Ph curve. The potassium factory materials is also used in relatively small ratios each year and may not be added to every mixture. Some of the potassium factory materials will be left behind to keep the process steady, and is in the ground for multiple reasons to promote fungal and microscopic activity too.

In my setup, each year most of the immediate potassium supplied is the recycled potassium that was left behind from the recycling and composting system I have mostly coming from the composted banana materials. A tiny fraction coming from potassium factory will supply new potassium created. The potassium factory pile keeps the potassium steam engine going overall long term. The banana materials I actively add to all my compost piles will give enough for the year in addition of slight introduction of the net new potassium and will be more than enough for each year’s needs going forward.

The main goal I’m trying to achieve is protecting long term soil health and quality. None of this will fix immediate plant problems, but will likely prevent future problems.

What do I do for an immediate nutrient boost?

Many fruit and vegetable plants like slightly different nutrient levels of potassium in particular and other nutrients at different stages of growth. For potassium, many plants like a boost right before or during flowering and fruiting stages. For those situations to boost production I create aerated compost teas for some of my garden when a temporary boost is warranted to help them along. My compost ‘tea’ process is what is more directly correlated with replacing traditional commercial fertilizers. This will be further detailed in a future tutorial post.

How do I keep tabs on soil health?

I have a few electronic tools to take measurements once in awhile if needed, I check once a year or less to stay on top of it. Unless I notice an overall problem with plants in a particular area it’s not needed and I don’t bother unless I’m curious. If it’s severe and many plants aren’t doing well in an area and my tools aren’t giving me a clue I would pay for a soil test. I haven’t had any problems like this only because I’ve been doing all of this on some level since I’ve moved into this house for years. It doesn’t mean I won’t have problems longer term, but by being proactive I’m making it less likely and if I create a problem it’s likely less severe and I may know how to correct it.

For right now my yard grow space is overall well balanced. Normally I make simple observations of overall plant and leaf health on my intentionally grown produce, as well as observing the weeds that are popping up nearby. All of that gives me a good indication of what nutrients the soil has or what it may be lacking. Depending on how many plants seem to be affected in nearby areas, this gives me an indication if I need to adjust my compost additives next year or amend the soil with something sooner.

Wrap up

I know that was a lot. It has been a lot to think through fully over the past year or two and this particular set of ideas with the banana biomass and separate composts was only formed and fully implemented in the last month or two.

As I mentioned this is just one layer of my overall plan for replacing commercial fertilizers. I’m doing more this idea but several overlapping changes in parallel. The next post will be a step by step for creating potassium compost ‘tea’ and how I make it. (it’s fairly simple)

I have a lot more content beyond these few posts around composting and adding and reducing overall nutrient inputs.

Thanks for reading!

See you next week!

-Luna Sage

I quickly realized writing those articles that it was getting into the weeds in a technical way. I wanted to make this post before those to get everyone up to speed in case they haven’t thought about these topics since 8th grade science class. I’m hoping to keep a common baseline for everyone.

The key lesson with this post is, none of these methods will help immediate plant growth. For that you need to do some level of additional processing for some of these materials. That will be another post.

f you have a nutrient stripped space already all of this will take months or longer. There are processing steps that need to happen to get the nutrients in useable forms.

The lesson I’m trying to convey is to show you ways to enrich your local soil naturally with time and in some cases with a bit of manual processing. This will result in less overall inputs needed.

Lets break down the common nutrients all plant life needs to survive that are abundant on earth:

NPK.

Do you remember the periodic table?

N is nitrogen,

P is phosphorus,

K is potassium

Nitrogen sources:

grass clippings, kitchen scraps, weeds through compost.

Nitrogen is arguably the most abundant and easiest one to maintain for plants. As long as you keep a compost pile steady and active with browns(carbon), and the ‘greens’ some form of listed you can have an indefinite nitrogen factory going if properly managed.

Phosphorus and Potassium

These are the tricker two to keep going without traditional external fertilizer inputs, and why I’m sort of lumping them together. They perform slightly different functions biologically for plants, but they are similar in how to replenish them in any home gardens.

Unlike Nitrogen, For P and K as well as other trace minerals, these cannot be recycled indefinitely through compost forever. They must be replenished once in awhile and once they’re gone, they’re gone until additional inputs are introduced again. This is why losing modern fertilizer production is devastating with less overall crop production until modern farmlands become wasteland until nature takes over. These key elements and minerals can be recycled for many years in some cases through compost, but it will always have a net loss of total nutrients over time even with tight compost methods and minimal losses. Eventually your recycle system will run out of steam. There are other ways to get them though through organic means to keep soil healthy.

Phosphorus organic sources:

Basalt, animal bones, animal manures, volcanic rocks.

Potassium organic sources:

Potassium: hardwood ash, seaweed, kelp, potash, and volcanic rocks(not much for K one only ~1%).

Some ideas to get around this with fertilizer shortages.

If you have any kind of vegetarian loving animal especially small ones, like rabbits, guinea pigs or chickens you’re set for phosphorus as long as you can keep their food sources supplied. For those animals their manures don’t require much compost processing time.

If you hunt or fish you can bury the bones in the ground in key areas or grind them to dust to sprinkle around or in your compost to keep Phosphorus going.

Potassium:

If you have access to wood ash such from a hardwood tree and have a fire pit you’re fairly set.

Ideally if using wood ash it should be hard wood. Although soft woods like pine have some potassium it isn’t as concentrated. The tricky thing about processing ash, isn’t creating it, it’s making sure it doesn’t throw the Ph of your surrounding soil off. This is why hardwood is best, you get more potassium for the same volume. If you don’t have something like bananas or comfrey growing in an area, don’t place wood ash directly in your soil where you want something to grow. Compost the wood ash once in awhile, but use sparingly in compost or in the soil. For most compost piles depending on the size of the pile, a tablespoon or less of hardwood ash should be sufficient to keep the potassium charged while keeping the Ph balanced.

Seaweed and kelp:

Don’t gather live seaweed in the ocean. It’s illegal in most places in the US without a license. You can gather the brown washed up stuff on the beach including sea shells for extra trace minerals. If collecting brown seaweed wash it thoroughly with clean water before composting to remove excess salts so you don’t ruin your soil with added salts.

Longer term ‘battery’ for P and K as well additional trace minerals:

You can buy decorative volcanic rocks and basalt landscape rocks from big box stores. While these aren’t direct and immediate sources of nutrients, these can be used as ‘batteries’ to improve overall nutrient content long term, sometimes up to 10-20 years even with heavier food production. With time and weather through rain, these types of landscape rocks will enrich and replenish the soil around them and under them with Phosphorus, Potassium and other trace minerals. These won’t improve your soil health immediately or improve plants directly overnight if there is an immediate deficiency. Any immediate needs will have to come from compost teas or direct fertilizers fully processed with the nutrients plants are ready to absorb.

With these rocks, you can create your own river Nile delta to replenish what’s used semi automatically over time. Every year you can scoop some of the enriched soil surrounding landscape rocks or under them into your compost or mix with the soils in other heavily used areas. This will add the additional minerals of Phosporus and Potassium that was stored in the rocks.

This about as closed loop as you can get with home gardening.

I want to emphasize this post only covers inputs and how to get them if fertilizers fail and supply chains break down long term. Compost and most other methods people use at home only recycle key nutrients but don’t fully replenish them. The main pain points being K and P plus trace minerals such as iron, magnesium, calcium and others. Those must be replenished over time or future harvests will be less or nonexistent with time.

I have future posts to talk through my compost methods and processes in detail to efficiently recycle and unlock these nutrients. I have additional content around the different processes and what I use them for as well as blending my own hydroponics nutrients.

Thanks for reading!

See you next week,

-Luna Sage

I don’t have much time this week for a full post. This one will be fairly short, but I’ll have a more lengthy post for next week.

The problem:

Seeds fall through my seed tray holes.

I have a dozen or more seed trays for starting new plants. Some of the seeds I plant regularly are very tiny. The seed trays I have are too wide at the bottom for drainage, and in the past I have had many seeds fall to the bottom and get drowned in the sludge in the catch tray below.

What do I do to get around this?

I have a mesh screen roll for windows or patio screens. I bought a few rolls at one of the big box hardware stores. It’s fairly large and can be easily cut for scissors. I have it on hand for a few other projects too. I simply cut a square for each slot in one tray and put in the bottom of each mini cube.

Fairly simple right?

The best part as long as there aren’t any tears in the cut mesh, I can wash with a small drop of dish soap and water rinse. I do this while scrubbing the trays and reuse the without having to cut a full new set each time. Even though it’s a thin mesh it holds up to the water well since it’s designed for patio screens or windows and designed for rainfall.

It’s a neat little hack I’ve been doing for a couple of years. I was tired of many of the slot not germinating because most of the seeds fell through the soil and ultimately fell to the bottom.

Below are two photos of what I’m describing for reference:

This is a picture of the mesh after I put it in the tray but before seeds or soil were put on top:

They don’t have to be a perfect fit as mine absolutely isn’t in this picture.

Picture of some of the roll and a cut square for the tray squares.

This simple DIY project might seem trivial but it does help prevent most seeds from sinking and I get noticeably better germination overall.

On a personal note and wrap up:

Apologies for the short post this week. Everything was chaotic and I’m writing this later in the week than normal and lost track of everything. I have a bunch of posts semi written in the backlog with content for a few months and will continue to post weekly for the foreseeable future.

The semi good news that came out of this chaotic week:

I will be starting a new contract gig in a few weeks. It’s a good time especially because it’s been almost a year since my last contract. I have had countless interviews, lot of annoyances with several almosts and rug pulls due to budget cuts last minute. The tech market in particular is absolute trash in the US and this was the first reasonable offer that can actually pay me for 6 months.

I’m overall happy even though it takes me away from all this which is what really want to focus on. At the same time, I’m ready to get to work for 6 months then probably take another ‘break’ to focus more on everything else again. Of course I will do actual fun activities too like I did over the past year. I do in fact build in time for my spouse and friends and don’t just grind all the time. Of course some priorities I’ve been working towards such as my future Etsy shop items, and long term code projects will have to take a backseat for about ~6 months.

What does that mean for this blog?

At minimum this blog will continue to be updated weekly. I have about 2-3 months worth of semi prewritten material in various states of edit and draft that can be posted fairly easily depending on how much time and energy I have each week. I’ll do more brain dumps to keep this going during the contract period. I just have to do the brain dumping when the creative juices flow naturally. It should come well before that 2-3 month mark even while on contract.

What other project will keep going while on contract?

Maker faire Orlando. I have some really cool ideas for a demo booth at Maker Faire Orlando centered on many ideas I talk about in this blog. It’s going to be a lot of logistics and take up a lot of focus and time outside of my contract hours. My spouse has graciously stepped in to help with a lot of it, along with some friends that are familiar with those types of events and logistics. I’ll still be doing the majority of the work to make it happen. A maker faire demo booth has been a goal for me for many years, even before creating my current LLC. I have absolute determination to make it happen in November even though this contract will end at roughly the time when maker faire rolls around.

Wrap up and personal note to my readers:

I always appreciate any readers that stumble here and care about what I have to say around gardening, self sustainability, and DIY projects etc. I have enough regular readers that it makes writing worth the time investment even if I’ll be spread a little thin. As I mentioned a long while ago I won’t post a subscribe button on most of my pages, I don’t like the look and I don’t like being pushy with it. If you care enough you can go find where to subscribe to get notified. It would be an even bigger help if you care to cross linking my page of specific posts in places such as small niche reddit subs(if the rules allow for these sorts of links) or other places online that aren’t fully taken over by bots.

See you next week!

-Luna Sage

I’m not going to get into recipe specifics, troubleshooting or anything that might cause safety issues if done improperly.

My goal here is to condense where to get reliable information and general information to decide if you want to start home canning to begin with. I want to help inform people of safety problems, why you should think about doing this yourself, and just general principals to look for when finding information.

Why should you can food yourself?

This is one of the best longer term food storage methods. I already mentioned in other articles my perspectives on why this is probably a good idea right now with rising food prices. It also reduces waste. This is especially true if you’re home gardening. Canning the the best left over excess produce can spread out timings of plantings to keep yourself sane while keeping variety and food options available if you get a bad year or harvest.

Where can you get reliable information?

Get a reliable cookbook.

My go to is The ball complete Book of Home Preserving.

This book is good for beginners(such as myself). This is a robust book with different recipes for different tastes and preferences. I have the 2024 edition, there may be a newer one. It has step by step instructions for every recipe. There are finer details about the ‘why’ behind things and troubleshooting steps if something goes wrong. It provides a clear list of all tools and add ons you should get.

Any canning cookbook you decide on, ensure it is up to date within at least the last 5 years. Older information, while technically reliable and should still hold up, it’s best with newer information. This is a science that has been refined over decades of research to minimize safety risks and keep food preserved for longer durations.

My heavily emphasized advice when finding information:

DO NOT TRUST AI FOR THIS INFORMATION. PROCEED WITH CAUTION AND CONSIDER THE SOURCE IF USING INFORMATION OUTSIDE OF A VERIFIED COOKBOOK. AI can be and likely will be wrong enough to cause problems and you could get really sick badly if you trust AI to give you reliable information on this.

Ditch any old canning books from the 80’s to 2000’s(or older). It was sad day a few years ago when I started learning about this, but I had to ditch my grandma’s canning books I was given. I just tossed them and composted/burned the pages since they aren’t usable to a library or much anyone else. My grandma did use those books reliably when I was a kid and I ‘helped’ while she did most of the work. Obviously we never had a problem, and they worked for the time but it’s more reliable and less chance of a catastrophic errors with new information.

Some general information I learned from my ball canning book and other resources.

This section is to help you determine if this rabbit hole is right for you. I’m keeping this intentionally broad and a bit vague because I want you to read a good canning book yourself for more details. I’m trying to go through common pitfalls and caveats to give you an idea if this rabbit hole is worth buying a book. It’s a lot. I won’t be covering any recipes directly.

*I want to specify the information I share below is regarding water bath canning.

Water bath canning is a type of canning for only some types of foods. Usually items such as tomatoes, fruits, some vegetables like cucumbers for pickles, or fruits for jams etc. These foods require certain acid levels to be safe for canning.

If you’re interested in different foods, such as meats or other vegetables, the ball guide I mentioned above does cover pressure canning too. Pressure canning is an entirely different process than the water bath process, but the ball guide is a good startpoint for that too.

Jars:

Identifying canning jars:

You want to buy glass canning jars and only canning jars.

Ball or Kerr are standard household names that make canning jars. You can get them at any big box store, hardware stores and grocery stores. They aren’t hard to find. They usually come in cases of 6, 8 or 12 and come with lids and bands.

The pitfall to watch for when shopping for canning jars:

Ball and Kerr and some other off brands make glass mason jars too. Some of these glass jars may even have the word ‘mason’ etched on the side. The word mason alone on the jar does not mean it is safe for canning. You have to verify they are canning jars not just standard glass mason jars.

How do you identify a canning jar before purchase?

• They come in a bulk box of 6, 8 or 12 and clearly labeled for canning on the box.

• They come with two-piece flat metal lids and a screw on metal band. If it only uses a single lid with one piece then it is not good for canning.

• They come in standard sizes of pint, quart etc. Some are wide mouth or standard either one is fine for canning.

Any other jar especially off brands should be heavily scrutinized with one or two of these verification methods to ensure they are intended for canning use. Ball or Kerr also make jars for non-canning purposes too, so always double check.

Any other mason type glass jars not for canning purposes will not reliably hold up to the temperature swings required and are not safe to use. The most foolproof way to know is by the two piece lid, if those fit with no gaps, and easily screws on it’s usually what you want. Ideally you want to have 2 or all of that list to be extra sure, but if you throw the box away and know you bought canning jars that’s an indicator they are canning jars.

It is not a good idea to buy older individual jars from an antique store for canning.

While some of these old jars may be cool for other purposes, and may be technically safe. It isn’t worth the risk. There are newer standards for modern canning jars to increase safety plus used jars are more likely to have cracks and defects from unknown conditions.

If you aren’t sure about a jars purpose, donate it or reuse it. Non-canning and antique jars can be used for storing dried goods or use as additional fridge storage as tupperware style containers, storing decorative items, planting flowers or use them for kratky hydroponics.

Jar safety:

While modern jars can be reliably used and reused for canning for a long time, make sure they are in good condition before using.

Before each use check for any cracks or obvious noticeable defects. In which case do not use for canning. If it’s still shape enough for other purposes keep it, otherwise toss it.

There is a difference between cracks and manufacturing rings or when they constructed the glass.

Standard mason jars will have some lines on the sides, slightly rough edges here and there, and usually a non-centered ring on the bottom. Those are all manufacturing imperfections and are ok. If your jars aren’t noticeably cracked or chipped otherwise they should be ok.

The main place to look for defects is around the mouth. A mouth that cannot hold the seal is the worst part if a defect is present. Any noticeable chips or cracks is a dealbreaker. The mouth may have etching or uneven coating, it’s ok as long as it’s 100% free of chips or cracks. You also want to check that the lids and bands fit snug over the mouth before using them. Look for noticeable gaps in the bands between the mouth and and check visually for an imperfect seal.

Canning Bands:

Safety:

Ensure no warping, rust of bends. Ensure they screw tightly on the mouth of the jar with the lid on

Care:

Hand wash only with soap and water and allow to air dry.

Flat canning lids:

Safety:

Lids should be for canning purposes and similarly stated on the box. Keep them with the original packaging before use and storing. Canning lids are a single piece and simple to identify and only work with the bands.

Flat canning lids should be used exactly once for canning.

The jars you buy initially come with starting lids and bands. The lids the jars come with are fine use for canning once. Flat metal canning lids are one time use only for safety purposes. The seal is likely not good enough for subsequent uses.

Wash thoroughly with warm soapy water before using. Do not place in a dishwasher.

Do not use canning lids for any other purpose before canning. If you use them for other purposes get a new set of lids.

Optional Ideas for what to do with used canning lids after use:

• Bug or ant traps:

  • They are perfect to spread peanut butter or sugar/honey on and give them an easy way to crawl on and off. Mix with a pinch of borax. It may take awhile but it’s effective.

  • For other bugs you can put a bait and glue or another sticky substance to trap flies or other critters causing problems.

• Krakty hydroponics setups.

  • I cut a hole in them to put a plant and fill a mason jar part way with water/nutrients. It’s limited to what you can grow but it’s a fun science experiment.

• Sealing jars in the fridge instead of tupperware.

  • I put pre-made sauces, marinades, dressing and other things for the week using old canning lids.

• Storing dried goods.

  • As long as there is no visible rust or any defects they can be used for other food storage such as dried beans or rice.

Reusable lids:
There are reusable lid options. Tattler being the main brand. I’m not confident enough just yet and want to have a few more harvests and successful storage situations succeed for different foods before I try them.

From my understanding the reusable lids require slightly different canning processes that aren’t covered in my ball guide and other standard cookbooks. Supposedly there is enough variance that you should use standard lids when just starting until you get the hang of the flat one use lids. I’ll probably write a post about these in the future when I get to using these.

Wrap up

I know this was a lot of information thrown at you. I hope you have a good idea if you want to bother further with canning before you buy all the equipment and a cookbook.

Until next week,

-Luna Sage

If stored properly you can take these straight from your freezer, put it on the stove, oven or air fryer for a quick filling meal. It’s excellent for storage and not having to think about it ahead of time. No plans for dinner? These are the perfect prep so you’re less reliant on take out last minute.

Most ingredients for these burgers I grow myself(except egg, quinoa and oats). Some of the spices I have stocked otherwise or bought locally since I’m not actively growing some of them.

Base recipe:

Yield: ~12 burgers

time to make: 2-3 hours

lasts in storage: 3-4 months (can last longer but the texture and nutrition will degrade after this)

The yield stated above highly depends on how big you make the patties.

Notes:

I usually triple these ingredients in one large batch. We make them 2-3 times per year, freeze what we won’t eat that week and have enough to last until we are ready to make more.

Ingredients:

2 to 3 sweet potatoes(depending how large) roughly 1 1/2 pounds.

1/2 cup quinoa(uncooked)

1 /2 cup dried black beans uncooked(or one can).

1 chopped white or yellow onion

1/3 cup chopped cilantro(optional)

2 cloves fresh garlic chopped(or 1 tsp garlic powder)

2 tsp smoked(or regular) paprika

2 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp red chili powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 1/4 cup oats(quick oats, or rolled are fine, just not steel cut)

1 scrambled egg(optional for keeping them stiff without breaking apart too easily)

Extra virgin olive oil for frying/baking

burger buns, bread, or lettuce for wraps

Usual burger toppings such as mustard, mayo, avocado, tomato, lettuce, pickles etc

Main Instructions:

Preheat oven to 400.

Wash sweet potatoes and stab sweet potatoes with a fork.

Bake the sweet potatoes in the oven for 30-40 minutes. You may have to bake for longer. Test with a fork to see how tender they are. You want them fairly tender that they are easily pierced by a fork and soft.

While the sweet potatoes are baking, cook the black beans in a pressure cooker. (you can also used canned, or cook them stove top for 1-2 hours). Instructions for cooking dried black beans with a pressure cooker are towards the bottom. If using canned no need to pre-cook the beans and they can be used in a later step as-is.

Once beans are cooked or if using canned set aside. (For safety don’t leave cooked beans on the counter for more than 2 hours at room temprature).

Cook the quinoa. Follow directions on the package for cooking on the stove.

Set quinoa aside.

Once the sweet potatoes are done, let them cool off enough to handle.

While the sweet potatoes are cooling:

Chop the onion

Mix the spices: cilantro, cumin, salt, paprika, chili powder, garlic(fresh or powder).

Slice the sweet potatoes with a knife. Pull off the skins(you can compost the skins).

In a large bowl:

mix everything together: cooked black beans: sweet potato ‘meat’, pre-mixed spice mixture, onion, 1 raw egg(optional for binding), pre-cooked quinoa.

You can store this mixture in the fridge for a few days if you don’t want to cook them right away.

I just made these today. Here is the mixture put together after the steps above.

I separated the mix into multiple bowls because I don’t have a large enough bowl for the quantities I make. This is roughly how much you can expect if you’re following the ingredient quantities I listed above. I had two bowls to double it.

Final cooking methods:

Form patties by hand, or use a tool for making regular burger patties. Make them as big or small as you like.

Oven:

Preheat oven to 400F.

Place patties on a baking mat or cookie sheet with tin foil.

Brush tops and bottoms of patties with olive oil.

Bake for 25-40 minutes depending on how crispy you like.

Pan fry:

Heat oil in pan over medium heat. When hot place several burgers in the pan leaving room to flip them. Cook each patty until browned and heated, around 3-4 minutes per side. Add roughly 1 tbsp of oil for each burger. Turn down the heat as needed to prevent them from burning.

Grilling:

Don’t use oil if grilling. (the oil may stick and mess up your grill). Grill on medium heat turning once and allowing grill marks to develop. Repeat after flipping.

Place whatever toppings and hamburger buns you wish.

We put them in the oven for this batch. (the burgers below were a little light on the beans because I didn’t divide the beans evenly when I mixed everything).

Final preservation(optional for keeping these for 3-4 months)

This is optional, but this is where it ties into the rest of the theme of food preservation, self reliance and other ideas.

Let the burgers fully cool after cooking. You can put them in the fridge for 20-30 minutes to put them away sooner.

Once the burgers are cool, simply vacuum seal them. I mentioned my workhorse chamber sealer I bought, but any sealer will do with the right bags for the type of sealer you have. With a foodsaver just make sure you take breaks for longer between sealing, and if you’re not doing more than 5-10 bags at one time you’ll be ok.

You can put parchment paper or tin foil between the burgers if you put more than one burger in each bag.

These will last 3-4 months with full nutrition and similar texture assuming stored properly in the freezer if fully cooled.

After 3-4 months they will probably be good even up to 6 months, but the texture may change, and some of the nutrients in them will be degraded, but they can still be safely eaten. Double check with a smell test after that.

What are these useful for besides burgers?

We throw them in chili and tacos when we want a meaty texture.

How do I dethaw these if I do the longer preservation method?

You can pull them straight from the freezer put them on a pan, pop in the oven or air fryer. They take about 10-15 minutes to reheat on the stove from the freezer.

What are the advantages to preserving and vacuuming these for longer shelf life?

They’re perfect for camping or being off grid for awhile in an emergency. If you have access to a firepit, grill, or a less fuel hog of an appliance you can reheat these. They’re perfect for emergency prep assuming you can keep a freezer running in a grid outage.

*Optional Instructions for cooking black beans with a pressure cooker:

Cooking black beans in pressure cooker: ~1 hr.

Cooking beans with the pressure cooker is mostly hands off after you measure the beans/water and set the timer.

Steps:

• Measure 1 to 1 1/2 cups of water for every 1/2 cup of beans.

• Put measured water and measured beans in pressure cooker.

• Seal the lid.

• Set pressure to high.

• Set timer for 25-30 minutes.

• Make sure sealing vent is in the up position.

Once cooker is up to pressure the timer will count down. Once the time is up, leave lid and venting button in the up position. (this is a slow release the whole process may take up to an hour depending on how long it takes to get to pressure). Once the 15-20 minutes is up push the vent button to release any remaining pressure.

For this burger recipe fully drain the beans before using them.

If making beans ahead of time or for another purpose you can leave the beans in the cooking liquid and store them in an airtight container for up to 5-6 days in the fridge. Fridge storage is one of my main weekly food preps to have cooked beans ready to go for salads, soups, tacos and other dishes through the week. I make beans every single week for regular weekly meals.

Wrap up:

I just made my batch for the next few months as I am writing this to get ahead of food price increases in addition to being stocked up before hurricane season. This recipe is part of my yearly routine for hurricane prep.

I’ll be doing more food prep and storage most likely in the next few posts.

See you next week!

-Luna Sage

I mentioned in another post about seeds at room temp lasting 1-2 years at most. There is a tried and true method to make them last 10+ years. I went down this rabbit hole myself about a year ago. I’m happy to say my methods have worked out so far. I replanted a few sets of my long storage seeds and got a very good germination rate, similar to fresh seeds. We’ll see how they hold up longer than 1 year.

This is general information for most food variety seeds. There may be some caveats depending on variety and conditions you have. This will work for most, if you’re unsure about your specific seeds double check this information with another source.

Methods for drying:

• a dehydrator

• open air drying

• an oven at low temperature with the door slightly open

• a solar oven

optional but recommended equipment(especially for humid climates)

• dehumidifier

• box fan

Where I live it’s very humid especially in the summer, so getting seeds or anything else fully dried for preserving is a pain. I try to watch the weather forecast when it will be less humid to time when I’ll do this. I also try to do most of my seed or herb drying if possible, in the winter or spring.

If I need to preserve something and there is a lot of humidity, I use a box fan and a dehumidifier to keep the moisture off.

My central a/c is a new model and very efficient and keeps the temp and humidity in check for normal living conditions. It’s not enough on a lot of Florida days to get things like herbs and seeds fully dry. As a bonus I use collected water from the dehumidifier to use on my plants when the tank gets full. (Wouldn’t recommend using a dehumidifier for drinking water)

Methods of drying in more detail:

For a dehydrator

follow the directions per the manufacturer guidelines.

For counter/open air drying

Place the seeds spread out on a shallow cookie tray and place in a cool dark place.

If using one have the dehumidifier on nearby while they are drying. I put them in a dark spot in my cabinet. Sometimes I’ll have a box fan on them to further speed up the process This may take a few days to a week depending on humidity levels. Keeping them in a dark cabinet while drying keeps them viable for longer than sitting out in any kind of light.

Sun oven/solar oven

If it is a nice sunny day, and the humidity outside isn’t terrible, I have a sun oven brand solar oven that I use as a dehydrator. I have a good amount of southern sunlight in my yard. If I start it early in the day and there is low humidity, usually my seeds are pretty close to dry by sunset. It also saves energy from having to run my regular oven and add heat from the regular oven. I’ll sometimes pop them in my solar oven and then continue the drying process overnight in the cabinet with the dehumidifier indoors.

Oven drying

This really depends on humidity and how big the seeds you want to dry and how many trays. Place them in the oven on the lowest heat possible, then crack the oven. Again a good idea to have the dehumidifier on nearby to speed things along.

Also for any method especially for this one since ovens arein the kitchen to speed up the process and control humidity, it’s a good idea to minimize doing dishes, washing hands, cooking and boiling water on the stove while you are drying. Those little things add enough moisture it could make the drying process take longer.

Put the dried seeds in vacuum sealed bags

Yes, vacuum sealed bags create plastic waste, there isn’t really a way around that. There are ways to reuse them for other purposes later, I talked about that to an extent in another post.

Types of vacuum sealers and why a chamber sealer may be worth it

You can maybe get away with a food saver vacuum sealer for this, I couldn’t. I had one and it repeatedly burned out. After the second burn out I gave up on those. Food savers can be good if you’re not doing it often, or if you aren’t doing too much at once. The problem I found out was if you do too many things at one time you’ll burn the motor fairly quickly and won’t get a proper seal. Doesn’t matter if you give it a proper rest either. Anything above probably 10-15 bags per session and you’ll probably have a ruined sealer that isn’t usable.

Because of the amount of seeds I was preserving for a full catalog and when I realized that, I broke down and invested a chamber sealer. The bags go inside the unit instead of the front like food savers. Chamber sealers use specific chamber sealer bags, food saver type bags will not work with chamber sealers. The sealer I bought is holding up quite nicely and I’ve used it for other things outside of seed preservation too. You do have to pause for about ~20 seconds on my unit between sealing each bag, but it’s a workhorse and I consider it money well spent.

Freezing or not freezing for the final step:

You can store the seeds at room temperature vacuum sealed. They will have a bit longer shelf life if kept at room temperature without sealing and if they are kept in a cabinet or dark place.

Or

For maximum preservation to get the 10+ years and long term viability, you have to freeze them ideally in a chest freezer that isn’t opened often.

Why do I recommend a separate chest freezer?

Going in and out of your regular freezer causes light exposure each time you open the door. This will cause faster degradation vs a separate chest freezer that isn’t open and closed often. You could store them with other items, but you want a freezer that you only do a quick in and out occasionally for the maximum storage viability. It’s ideal if you have a backup chest freezer that you put the preserved seeds at the bottom to minimize light exposure when you dig for something else.

You can still technically store them in your regular kitchen freezer. You might get a bit longer from not freezing and just keeping them at room temps. I’m not sure and haven’t tested, but from what I’ve read people have mixed results even after 4-5 years but it probably again depends on the seed variety and other factors too and how often you really open your kitchen freezer.

Some word of warnings from personal experience:

This all sounds fairly simple, but keep in mind this is a longish process overall. You have to take into account drying the seeds which can take days to a week depending on humidity. Plus the vacuum sealing time, especially if you have a large amount of seeds.

And finally you should take time to label them so you know what you’re planting and can organize them.

For reference and why I heavily emphasized the vacuum sealing time above. This project was a slog for me I’m amazed I got through it fully.

When I was doing all this it took me a solid 2 weeks to get through all my seeds even without the drying process I just mentioned. I bought bulk seeds from suppliers such as burpee, lowe’s, various etsy shops, etc.

I was doing at minimum 2-3 hours every day of sealing alone. The seeds I preserved so I didn’t have to do the drying process above for the ones I have stored long term.

Admittedly I probably sealed 1000+ bags for this but the time needed adds up quick. My chamber sealer takes roughly 40s-1 min to seal, plus a cool down period of ~20 seconds before you can start the next one.

This is just the math I did on how long this actually took me(you can skip this if you don’t care, it was ~22hrs of work)

If you’re curious what that adds up to I did the math manually because I’m a math nerd. Assuming that it takes a full minute to finish a seal, and then in that ~20 second cool off period I was able to put another full bag of seeds in place and close the lid and then immediately start right when the 20 second cool off period was up. That would be ~80 seconds for each bag. Then I had to do that 1000 times, which again I think I did well over 1000 bags. Using 1000 bags as an estimate that would still take 22 hours of straight sealing alone. Which I absolutely did not seal for 22 hours straight.

I ended up spacing things out after I realized how much I committed to.

After I realized the daunting task I had committed to, I did sealing each day for a minimum of 1 hour, but I tried to squeeze in 2-3 hours each day. I think it also took longer at first because I didn’t always have another bag ready to go filled with the next seed packet, and I didn’t know what I was doing with my new sealer. Later I also was able to speed the process by having my spouse fill the bags during the seal process so they had a pile ready for me, then I could take a bag out of the chamber, pull a ready one from the pile and be ready to go when the 20 seconds was up to immediately keep going.

Needless to say I hated my life for a good two weeks and it was a grueling process, and I’m giving fair warning before you decide to bulk seal seeds. Thankfully I shouldn’t have to go through it to that extent again, since my collection has been done for almost a year and any seeds I harvest from now on I likely won’t be doing 1000+ bags at one time.

Report after a year

I’m happy to report those seeds are fully viable after almost a year, and I got some good germination from them the last few weeks when I pulled them out. I will be keeping my stock in check and replacing and dating new seeds going forward. Any old seeds I’ll be testing them at routine intervals to see how long they really last.

I hope this post gave some good information for keeping a robust seed catalog for the future.

Thanks for reading!

-Luna Sage

Since you’re here, I’m assuming you’re interested enough to read further. Once you’re done with this article feel free to take a look around at the rest of this blog for tips on cooking, hydroponic gardening, home organic gardening, my Etsy shop for DIY hydroponics tutorials(more of those coming soon), and other topics around self sustainability, climate change and tech related to some of that. I have some links to more in depth important articles I’ve already posted below.

Many of the topics in this post and many of my previous posts will probably be helpful to most everyone in some form. I post regularly every Friday at 9 AM Est, I will start doing more frequent posts temporarily to help more people with information more in depth information to prepare their food stocks and cooking topics and more. You can read my about page if you care about my background and where my knowledge of tech in general and gardening subjects come from.

Why a food crisis now? I thought only gas prices were affected? Gas prices yes, for now.

There are bigger issues ahead. Fertilizer plants were completely destroyed in the last few weeks that were produced from natural gas facilities. Some reports indicate that some of the natural gas infrastructure completely destroyed produced fairly significant amounts of the world’s agricultural fertilizer supply. I couldn’t find any reliable sources on the exact amounts destroyed, but every source seems to indicate that level of fertilizer production won’t be back anytime soon, if ever. Whatever the situation is, at minimum we will see large prices in food spikes in the US, potentially shortages of produce and other goods, and worst case we may have a famine on our hands in the US and/or abroad.

Timing of this crisis?

Nobody can say for sure. The food supply can take awhile due to harvest times, and in the US we have backup stock of foods to buffer us,as well as warehouses corporations keep of non perishables and canned goods. So it may take awhile for people in the US to see actual shortages.

The main point I’m stressing, the food supply is already fragile due to increased natural disasters, and tariffs, but this ongoing Iran conflict has opened a whole new can of worms. Previously since we have had a pretty good distributed world system, we’ve been able to compensate globally when one region had a bad season and import from other places. With tariff policies and now a fertilizer shortage on the table we’ll be seeing more and more food problems on top of bad crop seasons from more frequent natural disasters and soil problems.

Another issue with oil in particular, not just fertilizer is produced with natural gas and oil, but oil is used heavily in farming equipment, and the trucking and the trains to move that food around are all diesel based. Oil is a large part of industrial agriculture and pricing.

We won’t be going back to normal, ever.

I hate to tell you this part out loud, but this is going to have to be a huge mindset shift for everyone, and every person in the US and abroad will have to adapt if they want to survive. We cannot keep consuming like we have been. Sorry. We will never be going back to ‘normal’, doesn’t matter which party is in power in the US. If you noticed nothing seemed ‘normal’ since the pandemic, you weren’t imaging things. It doesn’t have to be all doom and gloom here, and we can live sustainably and reasonably and still get all our needs met, it just will have to be completely rethought how we do things.

Why can’t corporate farms keep up anymore?

Beyond fertilizer being unavailable, there are organic methods that have been tried and true since humans have been farming. Organic methods are awesome and what we should strive collectively for going forward. The unfortunate reality is, many corporate farms, especially US farms are not sustainable right now longer term and haven’t been for awhile. Soil degradation has been a real concern for decades, but the can keeps getting kicked down the road. The good news is soil degradation can absolutely be reversed. The bad news is, you can’t repair the soil overnight while keeping the same level of food production. Depending on how contaminated the soil is it could take up to a DECADE or more to get the soil fully restored, we don’t have that kind of time anymore.

The other issue in the US, corporate farms don’t produce what is always immediately needed due to how government subsidies work. The government gives subsidies to farmers, which is controversial, but in some cases in the past like the great depression it was absolutely needed to maintain social order and prevent starvation. However now, farmers are incentivized for economic reasons to produce more of some crops, even if we don’t have a use for it, since it’s more economically viable for them at the time they produce excess of one thing, while ignoring needs in another category. A good recent example is soy beans. We messed up trade relations with key partners such as China, and now they won’t buy our soybeans. So now what? Oh right, all that land that could have went to other foods and supplies for the US but it went to waste instead. The government has a heavy hand in what gets produced and when and they have levers to control some pricing but not all of it.

Another problem(if true and I admit I haven’t fully verified this claim) there were rumors about the US government thinking about diluting our gasoline with more ethanol to ease gasoline prices. They did that in the 70’s and it is why we still have 10% ethanol today at gas pumps and it worked for that time and that particular crisis. The problem right now is we’re already low on corn production in general, that corn could be going to feed livestock, and/or the land could be used to produce other crops to feed people directly. If this proposal is true, that sudden shift for corn to ethanol is going to keep our gas tanks full today, but not our bellies full tomorrow.

Are you scared yet?

I’m not trying to scare you, just share real information you can verify elsewhere. Some of this I don’t know the whole picture, and some of it I don’t have exact numbers, I just know this isn’t good long term.

Some good news if we think ahead a little bit for ourselves and as an overall system.

The good news with organic gardening and suburban/urban homesteading in general, most organic fertilizers we can source from our own backyards or local supply stores without relying heavily on those same commercial fertilizers. It’s much easier for us as individuals to spread the load out than rely on corporate farms to change practices and keep pace with food demand. This can be done with careful planning and a bit of technology if you know how to use it to automate some of what I’m talking about, so this doesn’t have to be insane manual labor with today’s technology either. If even some of us are even a tiny bit more self reliant today than we were yesterday we can prevent a lot of really bad outcomes.

Organic options for fertilizer.

I want to touch briefly on organic options for fertilizers a little more in depth that you can source fairly easily on your own. Many organic inputs to feed food plants can be sourced in your own backyard, or your home. Simple things such as a home compost pile, compost tea, composting weeds(safely), herbivore animal’s waste(guinea pigs, chickens, rabbits are all small and work well), fish waste water from an indoor tank or a small pond, algae cultivation, eggshells, many many others options may be available if you can’t get regular commercial fertilizers.

Practical information for the future and growing food.

You can grow a lot in only a 100x100ft outdoor space especially in a warm climate, with almost a year around crop rotation depending on the season. That smallish amount space could reliably feed 2 people if planned appropriately and you do practical preservation methods and smart planning. It also helps if you have indoor systems to help insulate against pests and weather. This varies significantly depending how much outdoor space you have and your climate. It is doable to control at least some calories for everyone in any kind of space constraints.

Securing calories in almost any space with hydroponics:

I mentioned securing calories in any space? Hydroponics can be a large help with this aspect. Many DIY or bought gardens can be utilized in any space and produce high yields in not much space.

The downside? Hydroponics is more susceptible to fertilizer shortages due to the nature of how the chemistry works. There are ways to still work around this limitation, stocking up on fertilizers for it is a good idea, they last a longer time than other soil fertilizers usually.

Another option is a fish tank and/or aquaponics. In those systems, there is no need to add manual nutrient mixes, the fish feed the plants directly. The tricky part is keeping them balanced to keep the fish and plants happy.

The other method I’m personally looking at for the future is doing a hybrid design with a seperate fish pond, then pumping the water into a seperate hydroponics system after filtering solids out. That’s a work in progress, and nowhere near being deployed personally yet, just thoughts for longer term fertilizer shortages when I eventually run out of stock. I have a good amount right now now to keep me going for a good long while, so this is more longer term ideas when it’s needed.

The main point is, a lot of these ideas are doable living in a regular urban or suburban areas if you don’t have a lot of space and don’t want to live in the middle of nowhere. They just require a bit of strategic planning so you get enough calories and don’t overwork yourself.

You’re concerned but you can’t grow all of your own calories reliably, what’s the next option?

This is where local farms and farmers markets can fill gaps if the grocery stores can’t. In my area there are several farmers markets year around every weekend. Fresh breads, cookbooks, local honey, produce, snacks, and many staples can be found at farmers markets.

Option of last resort if absolute desperation hits, food banks.

Yes I know some of you may never think you will need food banks. They’re a real lifeline for many, and they are under more strain due to SNAP cuts, and other reasons mentioned above. I would suggest if you’re able to setup a regular donation to your local food bank it will not only to help others direclty with food, but it also can help maintain our overall food supply stability. It may not be much to you, but even $10 a month goes a long way.

Feeding America and the Second Harvest food bank where I live do a lot of excellent work. Second Harvest in particular is one of the most efficient food banks in the US and is one of the top food banks getting food directly to people and minimizing food waste. I don’t have much personal time to volunteer, but I have a regular recurring monthly donation I give every month. As long as I’m able to keep my own ship afloat that money will keep going to them. Monthly donations are better so they can plan in advance for more logistics such as refrigeration, sourcing, and moving the food, but any donation greatly helps even one time donations.

More in depth guides about supplying your own food in your space:

Hydroponics FAQs

Regrowing dried grocery store beans

I have a lot more information to share as time goes on, but I also have a life and a garden to take care of outside of this blog. I will start doing more frequent weekly posts beyond my normal Fridays temporarily due to the need for this information at the moment. It’s up to you if you take any advice I’m giving, you can think for yourselves. If you think I’m just panicking for no reason and fear mongering, that’s your prerogative.

Once last suggestion, if I don’t have enough in depth information for a particular topic you need more information on, check out your local library for books about organic gardening, and/or hydroponics.

I’ll have my regular post on Friday on top of this bonus post. It will likely be something more in depth related to fortifying your own food supply.

-Luna Sage

My main motto is keep things flexible. I’ve found if the plan is too rigid then I won’t be as consistent overall. Sometimes I have fully sets of meals ready to serve every night. Some weeks our plans change or I just don’t have as much time on my dedicated prep day, sometimes I have to move it around. I allow for changes every week in my schedule.

Usually I dedicate sundays to meal prep day. My spouse does other activities without me so it’s usually a good day for me to get ahead of it for the week. I’ve been able to consistently meal prep in some form every single week for almost 2 years now. Some exceptions have been if we go away on vacation, but that’s far and few between. If we’ll be home I’ve been able to consistently put food on the table and not relied on take out.

Some weeks I’m a super star and have meals fully ready to go for most nights. That isn’t the case for most weeks, If I don’t have time or energy at the bare minimum I have some things pre-cooked(usually beans/rice), pre-chopped, and I pre-mix some level of dry ingredients or pre make some sauces/marinades for later. Some combination of those bare minimums can take an hour or less of hands on time, and then allow for quick 10-20 minutes for a meal later in the week.

Again I want to emphasize my plan remains flexible week to week with whatever my needs are, what I feel like that week, how much energy/time I have to dedicate on the prep day vs later in the week. Remaining flexible with my plan week to week has been the key for me to be consistent with this.

On top of doing those things, I have backup options in replace of takeout. My version of quick no-effort takeout is a stash of frozen vacuum packed options. I keep tabs on my homemade quick frozen options to know when they are low. I also regularly make a large batch of chili, veggie burgers, or soups during my regular prep day and will freeze what we don’t use that week and label it. This simple step doesn’t add time to my regular prep efforts and is what has kept us from eating take out regularly. We only eat out on very rare occasions maybe every 2-3 months as a special occasion.

Doing all this we feel better since most of my meal preps come from my home garden veggies and we don’t use crappy oils or other junk most chains use. I also find when I do eat at a restaurant especially chains my versions are usually way better tasting because I season everything for our liking.

What I prep for each week depends on the time I have and level of effort I want to put in on my prep day vs later in the week.

Here is what the bare minimum preps look like for me:

Cook multiple types of beans in a pressure cooker

My usual go tos are black beans, garbanzos and pinto beans.

I make these in the pressure cooker. Once I measure the water and the beans, it’s very a set it and forget it friendly. I can do other prep tasks or something else entirely in the ~hour it takes without having to watch them like I would on the stove.

*I want to note the pressure cooker is the key here for me. If I had to remember to pre-soak them the day before, and stand over the stove for an hour or two, this whole part of my prep would fall apart.

Uses for beans through the week:

Sandwich filling

• Salads

• Tacos

• chili

• soups

• veggie burgers

pre-cook Rice in a pressure cooker:

This one is similar to beans, I make it with the pressure cooker like I do the beans. Not much to add here. I throw it in the instant pot, and it takes about 20 minutes to 1 hr depending if I’m making brown rice or jasmine rice.

Uses for rice through the week:

• Stir fry

• fried rice

• tacos/burritos

• side dish with salt/butter

• chili

Pre-chop and wash produce:

I pre-chop most of the veggies and produce each week, especially the ones that can be easily used in multiple dishes. This can be done in about 20-30 minutes at one time and allows me to portion them for each meal for the week. This saves a lot of time later. By pre-chopping veggies I can simply just throw the veggies in a pot, in the slow cooker, in a fry pan, or in the oven depending on what I’m making. A lot of veggies can also be used across multiple dishes.

I also pre-wash all the veggies before chopping and storing. How do I prevent them from getting slimy after washing? The secret: a salad spinner. A salad spinner will get everything 100% dry so the moisture won’t get locked in and spoil the veggies early.

My go-to list of produce I pre-chop most weeks:

• Squash

• Carrots

• cauliflower

• Broccoli

• spinach

• Kale

• sweet potatoes

• Onions* (this one is sometimes ok but only if they will be used early in the week, chopped onion will get slimy quickly)

• Mushrooms(I know it’s not a veggie but I cook with these often)

Pre-mix dry ingredients and spices

I make a lot of different meals, as I’m planning for the week, I think about what spices those meals will require. Most of my regular go-to meals heavily rely on spices such as garlic powder, onion powder, salt, pepper, paprika, dill and many others I keep stocked in my cabinet. If I know I’ll be making a certain dish I’ll pre-measure the ingredients and mix them together on my prep day. This saves more time than it seems than having to measure each one at the time.

This simple prep also helps me remain versatile with my plan, since it’s just dried ingredients, if plans change I can use them later in the week or the next week if that meal plan doesn’t happen. On the day I make that meal, I dump the premade spice mix into the pot or pan as I’m cooking. It seems simple but it does make a big difference. I suggest if nothing else you try this one and see how many barriers are lifted from cooking on a weeknight by just having spices pre-measured and mixed togehter.

Pre-mix of recipes I mix spices for regularly:

• chili

• veggie burgers

• chickpea ‘tuna’ sandwiches

• buffalo cauliflower

• broccoli cheddar soup

• tomato basil soup

• stir fry

• tacos

List of spices I keep in my cabinet that can be used most of recipes each week:

• chili powder

• salt

• pepper

• dill

• flour

• paprika

• cumin

• oregano

• garlic powder

• onion powder

I just portion each out and divide them depending on what I’m making that week.

Prep sauces and marinades:

Of course I like a good ranch, I’ve perfected the perfect restaurant style fully homemade ranch for dipping or salads. But I also prep oat milk, marinades for stir fry, and other sauces that I can easily use for the week and will last until the end of the week.

With that said, you want my ranch recipe don’t you?

Of course you do:

• 2 tbsp heavy whipping cream

• 1/2 cup mayo

• 1/4 plain greek yogurt or sour cream

• 1/2 tsp dried dill or 2 tsp fresh

• 1/2 tsp dried parsley or 1 1/2 tsp fresh

• 1/2 tsp dried chives or 1 1/2 tsp fresh

• 1/4 tsp garlic powder (wouldn’t recommend fresh garlic for this as it can get slimy if storing for a week)

• 2-3 twists of black pepper

• salt to taste starting with 1/4 tsp

• pinch of sugar(optional depends on flavor profile you’re after and for balance)

Mix all ingredients and let sit for 5-10 minutes for flavors to meld. Optionally add 1 or more tablespoons of water if you want it more or less runny. Stores in the fridge for a week if covered. If it thickens more than desired later in the week add additional water and shake before using.

Obviously, I don’t make the dairy portions of this myself. Sometimes I do use my homemade oat milk in place of the cream, but sometimes I get heavy cream for other recipes and this uses up the rest. I do make my own vegan mayo which I’ll share another time. The main flavors and texture come from the mayo and the spices.

Wrap up:

I’ll be writing up a more in depth set of posts of other recipes and more in depth about some of this as time goes on plus all the other semi related nonsense as usual. I have to think how to organize a set of recipe posts. I just wanted to share the ranch recipe here as a slight teaser. I hope to convince people that meal prep isn’t that difficult if you think it through. The ranch recipe for me in particular made me realize I could do this. I love restaurant style ranch on salads and whatever else. It was hard kicking the habit of going out to eat with that missing. I hate the store bought hidden valley crap, and my salads at home just never hit the spot. Now my salads are way better with fresh veggies and better ranch. Now that I’ve conquered this recipe and many others since then I routinely have the feeling when we do go to eat at a restaurant that I’m not missing much.

The good news is we’ve been doing this for so long and we feel way better, but sometimes we end up sick if we eat too much processed garbage. We are now sensitive to some of the nasty cooking oils regularly used in restaurants. This alone has stopped most of our willingness to eat at most restaurants, particularly chains. It feels good to be on this side, but it also makes road trips, day long events and sometimes vacations harder. To compensate we’ve gotten to the point we usually make snacks and/or sandwiches ahead of time. This way we don’t have to rely on whatever is nearby and less worry about logistics.

Thanks for reading! Until next week.

-Luna Sage

Dried beans are super cheap from the grocery store in bulk bags. They’re kind of a pain to cook and less convenient than canned unless you have a pressure cooker. I have a set of meal prep posts for another time to go through cooking dried beans.

For this post, I’ll be talking about dried beans and how to grow new bean plants from them.

Each individual bean fully dried is a potential new plant. Exciting right? You can basically have an endless supply if you do the right things. For most common bean types, kidney, black, pinto, garbanzo, regrowing them will only work if they’re not halves or pieces. Whole dried beans are needed and they’re fairly cheap for 1lb bags.

Also keep in mind the timeframe to get a harvest, most common bean varieties take at least 6+ months to fully mature. If you’re stocking up keep that time frame in mind to plan ahead to allow for time to regrow them.

What to expect after your first harvest:

I’m only mentioning this because I was confused when I started doing this and wondering why my beans didn’t look like the grocery dried beans. After growing common bean varieties will generally will not look like the dried versions on store shelves. You’ll have to manually dry them after harvest. For most bean types, if you want to dry them, you’ll want to let them sit in the pod on the plant for a bit longer until the pod turns brownish. Once that happens you can harvest the pod, pull out the beans inside, and then you’ll have to further manually dry them to get them from that point. This can be done in several ways, and I have a few posts coming on food preservation and drying beans in particular.

A little about my equipment:

I have a mason jar with a mesh lid, you can use any container that you can easily fully drain and drip into a tray underneath. I have a metal contraption that I can place a mason jar on so that the jar is tilted when I’m done rinsing. I have pictures below so you can see what I’m talking about. The metal contraption allows the jar to fully drain through a mesh lid without having to worry that every drop of water gets out after each rinse. If the inside doesn’t dry enough between rinses you’ll get mold and they’ll go rancid.

I did all the experimentation here with these tips so you hopefully don’t have to, it took me about 3 or 4 tries with results of moldy beans and/or bugs getting in the jars before I got them to sprout. You probably want a similar setup of a mesh lid + some way to tilt the container to allow drainage and a tray to catch the water. Hopefully for people reading, if they try this, they will have quicker success than I did.

With all that out of the way here are the steps to grow beans in a mason jar:

• Fill the jar with the amount of beans you want to sprout up to 3/4 of the way full.

• Fill with water so the beans are fully submerged.

• Cover with a cloth or towel and put in a normal room temperature spot away from any sunlight. Keep the jar upright for this step.

• Keep covered and undisturbed for 8-12 hours, or overnight.

• After 8-12 hours, fully drain the water.

• Rinse the beans thoroughly with clean water, and drain thoroughly.

• Cover the container with a cloth and put back slightly tilted for remaining water to drain out.

• Rinse the same as the last step 2x per day for the next 5-7 days or until there a tails forming from the beans.

• After each rinse tilt slightly to allow for excess water to drain.

• After each rinse cover with a cloth so no light gets in to cause mold or attract pests

Helpful tips when sprouting from a mason jar:

When I’m trying to sprout anything from a mason jar, I usually fill the jar the night before, then do a rinse the following days once in the morning and once before bed. It helps me to remember. If you aren’t consistent enough you may end up with problems if you forget too often. You can rinse more than once twice day, it won’t harm anything, but forgetting for too long will cause them to go bad.

If you did the steps above appropriately, you’ll see little tails form on the beans, and they’ve started to sprout! Once the tails are a few inches they’re fully ready for planting hydroponically, in soil pots or an outdoor garden if conditions are good for the variety. Most beans varieties can easily grow in decently large containers with potting soil. Black beans and garbanzo beans don’t have large root systems, but they become a fairly large bush. You can trim the leaves up if your space is tight.

As a further FYI, you can grow a lot of other plants from seeds using this method. A lot of plants germinate and sprout faster than if you plant in traditional seed trays. It is a little more babying them up front with daily rinces, but you’ll get a faster germination time with this method. I grow and start microgreens and other edible plants using the same method.

This is the metal contraption I mentioned above, there is a tray under it to capture the remaining water.

Newly sprouted garbanzo beans(chickpeas)

A little further along with the tails, this was right before I planted them. I had just rinsed them before the photo.

These are chickpeas I planted in one of my hydroponics gardens. This was a couple of months after I sprouted them in the jar. They don’t have pods at this stage. The lower set needed trimmed and the upper set were younger in this photo.

As always thanks for reading! I hope you found this informative if you want to start your own bean plants from the grocery store. I love doing this because I have created an infinite supply of beans without having to buy more.

See you next week!

-Luna Sage

Background:

I have bananas, blueberries and avocados growing in my yard. They’re all very water hungry and it’s a pain to water them every other day especially in the hot summers. I’ve learned about terracotta olla pots years ago and decided to setup a more hands off irrigation system with them. Bananas in particular need constant water almost every other day and it’s a pain the keep up.

Time for this project:

1hr + (this varies depending on how many pots you are burying)

Materials for this project:

• Terracotta olla pots (~1 gal capacity or more is ideal)

• Fine fabric mesh screen

• rubber bands

• shovel

• metal cans

• drill

• drill bits

Step 1:

Cover opening with the fine mesh:

• cut the mesh to size so it covers the mouth of the pot fully

• place the mesh over the mouth of the pot

• place rubber band to secure the mesh

  

  this is the pot after step 1 with the mesh:

Step 2:

Drill a few holes in the bottom of a metal can

Step 3:

Dig a large enough hole next to the plant you wish to have watered. You don’t want to be too close to the main stem, but close enough the roots will get watered. The spacing is highly based on what you are growing.

Step 4:

Place the pot into the hole and cover with soil being sure not to get soil into the pot.

This is the pot buried next to my banana’s main stem:

Closer photo of the buried pot:

Step 5:

Cover with the metal can. Bury the can slightly around the edges.

The mouth of the pot is under the metal can cover.

Repeat these steps around the base of the plant if you wish to bury more than one.

FAQ:

How do I water my plant(s) with these?: you can water regularly around the base of your plant as usual. When watering fill the pot as well to minimize manual watering later. Remove the metal can and fill the water through the mesh screen to prevent mosquitoes and debris. Put the can back when the pot is full.

What is the advantage of this method? Less frequent need for manual or sprinkler watering

Why terracotta? Terracotta is porous. It allows for the right amount water to seep through. If you fill the pots with water right before a rainstorm or they get refilled by rain, they will only seep water into the soil if there is no moisture around them. They’re the perfect material to prevent over watering. They save time and money on watering.

Why bury the pots? Burying right next to a water hungry plant allows the moisture to travel directly to the roots as water seeps through the material.

Why bury more than one? Burying several nearby allows for even less frequent watering, more consistent moisture, and encourage outward root expansion.

How long will these pots last? Depending on your climate, these could last decades. If you get a regular freeze then they may crack over time and need replaced sooner.

Why do I need the mesh and the metal can covering? This is to prevent bugs, dirt and debris from getting into the pot. It allows for less maintenance. The metal cans are an extra barrier in case the mesh screen wears down, it’s optional but I would recommend it.

What maintenance is required?

• Spot checking and replacing the mesh as needed.

• If you live in an area with hard water, you may need to pull them out and rinse the inside with vinegar once a year.

• If in a northern climate with freezing winter temps you’ll need to ensure they don’t crack over winter.

  You can prevent cracking by:

  • fully drain them and fully cover them to prevent snow/water getting in over the winter. Also mulch heavily around them to keep them warm after covering.

    Or:

  • Remove them. Store them in a garage/shed before the first frost then bury them again in the spring.

Where do I get olla pots? I bought my pots off Etsy. There are different options, make sure they are unglazed and without any paint or decorations. Any other material may cause them to not be effective may not allow water to seep through.

Wrap up:

This method of irrigation has been around since humans have been farming, for millennia. I'm not sure why I don’t see this setup often in home gardens.

This method has massive advantages over drip irrigation. Its relatively cheap to install, DIY friendly, low maintenance, less worry about clogs and it saves water. For plants like bananas and blueberries or other multiple harvest plants it can save 50% water that would otherwise be lost.

I’m actively installing these in my yard as I mentioned earlier. I took the photos as I was burying the first few. I have more of pots on order to have 3-4 for each plant. Hoping with that amount I can go 1-2 weeks between watering my bananas this summer.

Until next week,

-Luna Sage

Common items I now repurpose:

Metal canned goods - If I buy store bought canned goods in metal containers(rarely these days), I’ll wash them out to create plant starters or use for small plants. I drill holes in the bottom for drainage, and they can be reused for future plantings.

For the canning lids, I have a manual can opener that creates a clean edge so I don’t get hurt on sharp edges. I use the lids as bait traps for pests if needed. (I do DIY effective natural and eco-friendly pest control. more on that below)

Vacuum sealing bags - sadly all vacuum sealers use plastic bags. I do have an attachment that can seal mason jars, but the lids don’t last as long and degrade the lids with repeated freezing and it doesn’t keep food as long. For the used bags I cut them into strips after I pull something out of storage to create labels for my plants to write on. The plastic bags work with dry erase markers so I can use them over again. I also sometimes use them as plant ties to keep them upright instead of buying new zip ties.

Old worn out clothes - I cut them into rags for cleaning especially if they’re stained. If it’s a nice color or in good enough shape I reuse the fabric for cosplays, crafts other costuming or pillows or whatever else. I have a bag for fabric supplies when I’m ready for some craft time.

Plastic grocery bags - I haven’t done this one in awhile, but I’ve made seat cushions with a crochet hook for outdoor furniture with plastic bags. It’s weatherproof and it crunches under your butt. My step mother taught me how to do this one. I don’t have grocery bags on hand anymore since I don’t have to grocery shop often. When my cat was still around I would use them to clean his litter box too.

Alternatives we’ve switched to: (anything marked with * is on my radar and hasn’t happened yet)

*Shampoo, I haven’t found another use for shampoo bottles, yet. I haven’t found an eco-packaged brand I like for now.

*Dawn dish soap - We still buy this one. This one is on my list to make myself, but the homemade castile liquid goes bad too quickly. With a basic homemade version not lasting long it turns this into a bit of a rabbit hole. To make this workable for me, I would need to make it less often which is doable. My problem is I don’t have the equipment(a high capacity water distiller) and I don’t have time to experiment at the moment.

Body Soap - we buy castile bar soap. The whole set of bars are wrapped in plastic, but we buy it in bulk and the plastic is minimal. The individual bars are wrapped in paper we use the paper wrapper in compost or burn it.

Dishwasher soap we have some eco-brand I can’t remember what it is off hand. My spouse picked it out and we have it on auto ship. This dishwasher soap isn’t wrapped in plastic and the packaging is paper. Perfect. You can find one you like there are a lot of options.

Dishwasher cleaner - I run a cleaning cycle monthly with 1-2 cups of vinegar on the top rack, then follow with a 30 minute rinse cycle of baking soda sprinkled on the bottom. No extra products needed.

Alternatives I have started making:

All of these will have a deeper tutorial in separate future posts, but to give you a rough idea you can read below.

Laundry soap. I create less plastic waste because of the containers.

I use the castile bar soap mentioned above and mix with baking soda + washing soda. It takes about 20 minutes or less to make and is a powder. A homemade batch costs almost nothing and I can easily make enough for 2-3 months worth of detergent or more if I don’t feel like making more for awhile. It isn’t difficult to double or triple the batch.
**one caveat I will say about homemade laundry soap, make sure you check for soap build up in your washer so you don’t harm it longer term. Run regular care cycles to prevent damage.

Floor cleaning - I don’t use swiffer or other one use floor cleaners. I use cut up old shirt rags or use a regular mop. I make my own floor cleaner with a bucket. My floor cleaner is washing soda+ homemade lemon zest(lemons I grow and preserve) + dawn dish soap + warm water.

Granite cleaner/polisher - *Don’t use vinegar or lemon juice or anything abrasive on granite. My basic ingredients: water+ rubbing alcohol + dawn. I use a microfiber cloth. I put the solution in a reusable spray bottle. Be sure to seal the granite as normal with regular products if it’s older. Newer granite usually has permanent sealant.

Weed killer - STOP BUYING ROUND UP. One thing I want to say about bought weed killers, they are really bad known carcinogens especially with long term exposure. You’re begging for cancer if this is used regularly around your home even if you don’t apply it yourself. The environmental harm these cause are also terrible.

If you don’t want to do this DIY weed killer like I suggest below, that’s fine. Just pull the stupid things and accept that is your life when they creep up. You can also use strategic mulching, drainage rocks and planned landscaping tricks to limit them too.

One caveat before continuing with this one: THIS IS NON-TOXIC AND SIMPLE, BUT PROCEED WITH EXTREME CAUTION AND READ THOROUGHLY.

DO NOT PUT THIS ON YOUR LAWN, GARDEN BEDS OR ANYWHERE ELSE YOU WANT ANYTHING ELSE TO GROW. THIS IS BEST FOR AREAS YOU ABSOLUTELY WANT NOTHING TO GROW.

With that warning out of the way:

I use dawn + salt+ vinegar+ water in my driveway pavers. Apply this on a bright sunny day ideally hours before a rainfall. It’s best if it won’t rain at all later in the day (which is sometimes difficult where I am in the summers).

I have a more detailed post coming later for safely applying to driveway pavers or cement to minimize harm. I highly suggest reading that when it’s posted before trying this or find a detailed source for precautions.

Pest control: This isn’t a direct product always, sometimes people use services. You can do it yourself naturally, protect your house, and cause less environmental harm. This will be getting a longer more detailed post.

The general idea for my pest management methods:

• I utilize smart landscaping design and companion planting.

• I use food grade diatomaceous earth applied monthly in key areas around my house

• I intentionally provide breeding grounds for beneficial insects or other predators, birds lizards, spiders, and ladybugs that take care of a lot of pest management for me.

• I utilize box fans in some areas (mostly indoors) to create artificial wind if I spot trouble with aphids, flies or other air borne pests.

• If all else fails I use dish soap + neem oil, DIY sticky pads, or DIY bait traps. This is dependent on the type of pest problem I’m dealing with.

My general motto around pest control:

• An ounce of prevention prevents a pound of cure. Routine house maintenance such as fixing cracks in windows or repairing screens go a long way.

• I only step up the protocols if pests are in the house or causing direct damage to my plants outdoors. I generally don’t have problems because of the first 4 bullet points. I rarely need to utilize the last bullet point.

Wrap up

As always, thanks for reading! I’ll be writing more detailed posts about many of these later.

-Luna Sage

Another Etsy tutorial.

I have another hydroponics PDF tutorial in the pipeline to be posted in a month or two. The new tutorial will be a little more pricey than the first one I posted to Etsy at $25 per download. The equipment costs will be a bit more expensive too. This one will a NFT(nutrient film technique) type of system and a little more complex. I’m actively prototyping things now and working out the kinks regarding safety guidelines and durability. This one should be quicker to post than the last one because I have a solid workflow and have some of the materials on hand.

Gathering an AI training set.

While the next tutorial is in progress I’m actively gathering a dataset for my first AI model. I’m taking pictures of some plants I have growing. The future model I’m building will identify plant growth stages, eventually letting a user know when it is a good time to harvest. There will be more training sets than just the initial set. I’m not sure what the first version of my model will include yet. I have a bunch of other more ambitious ideas around all this for much further out. Gathering my personal dataset is just step one of 1000’s of branches I have written down.

Thinking through further out AI related plans and other longer term goals.

I’m kind of sketchy on those details because a lot of it is for much further out than a year so I’m not sure what form this will all take exactly or how close to my vision will happen. I’m also thinking through things such as how to secure the code, putting safe guards in against abuse and people using the models for unintended purposes and other logistics around distribution so it will be quite awhile. I can’t really give a timeline even on the above classification model I mentioned because of those logistics. I’m actively building out my work pipelines and code templates so I don’t get burned out longer term and end up too much technical debt. (I know it’s a fools errand to prevent all tech debt but I like to minimize it where possible.)

Learning component

There will be a learning component to all of this as well where I teach users to train my AI models for themselves. There will probably be some kind of UI and tutorials of how to gather a good training set. My thought is, you can use my (fully encrypted, no stealing my proprietary data) training set I provide as a baseline, but what if I don’t have it ready to identify some particular exotic plant? No problem, my hope is users will be able to create their own dataset, then use the provided UI to upload their own custom training sets. There are many use cases I probably won’t think of, or I just don’t have time to gather those sets.

I want to teach people about AI beyond chatGPT, LLMS and Gen AI. There are actual good uses beyond the hyped BS we think of normally.

Booth at Maker Faire in Orlando.

I have attended this event almost every year for about 5-6 years. I was disappointed to find out a lot of the learning, discovery and show and tell aspect has been diminished. I was told by friends the event last year had a disproportionate amount of booths for merchants selling items directly, and many booths were selling cheap 3D printed stuff. I couldn’t make it myself this year, but that tracks with what I observed before the event. When I was looking at a possible booth last year, the free demo booths were still available close to the show date while booths for direct product selling had been sold out for months.

I was sad to see Maker Faire change that way, but I haven’t given up hope on the event. I’m trying to help personally turn it around by doing a demo booth this year. My demo will be around hydroponics and gardening. I have ideas in mind for fun demos that I can transport and setup easily. This will be the next big project I’m actively working through after the next etsy tutorial is live.

The plan is to have an interactive demo, have a QR code for links to this substack and my Etsy shop, and hopefully give out free items related to the demo. I get to give back to the Maker Faire community, drive some traffic to etsy and substack, while not shoving cheap crap at people for pure profit.

Wrap up

I’m excited for what’s to come the rest of this year! Thanks for sticking with me. I’ll continue to post here on Fridays at 9 AM as I have been for the last few weeks. I have a lot of content for substack in various stages of draft and editing phases. By scheduling posts in advance I will be able to reliably publish content to substack for the foreseeable future.

-Luna Sage