Notes from 2 years in Nova Scotia - Nova Scotia https://canadianpreppersnetwork.com/community/provincial-network-directory-nova-scotia/notes-from-2-years-in-nova-scotia/ The New Canadian Preppers Network Discussion Board en-US Thu, 28 Mar 2024 08:12:48 +0000 wpForo 60 RE: Notes from 9 years in Nova Scotia https://canadianpreppersnetwork.com/community/provincial-network-directory-nova-scotia/notes-from-2-years-in-nova-scotia/paged/3/#post-373133 Sat, 05 Nov 2022 23:17:53 +0000 Additional notes, 

195) A large bird flew against our window and died.  It had beautiful feathers and I thought it was some kind of hawk.  It takes me courage to admit that I was unable to identify it correctly as a partridge.  I had never saw one close up enough to admire its beautiful plumage.  Who saved me from embarrassment was the local Home Hardware delivery man, who I know and who just happened to have come for a delivery.  He told me and showed me that it is super easy to pluck.  And it was.  The feathers together with the skin detached readily from the bird, which had been dead for a few hours by then.  The only edible part, he said, is the breast, and so I cut it loose, cleaned it and put it in the fridge for three days of curing.  It ended up having a pleasant moderate bird taste, nothing „gamy“ about the taste, and mildy stronger fibruous meat than most chicken.  

196) We continue to experiment with spacing when we plant our vegetables.  The task is to use the garden space efficiently, have the plants grow optimally, and have space to run a mechanised weeder.  Using the weeder (Stihl) always proved taxing.  Our spacing isn‘t perfect, plus plants leaves tend to grow out, and it‘s easy to „weed“ some food plants with the Stihl. Particularly, when there are a lot of weeds, one must walk the Stihl backwards to get good results, and that complicates everything.  We have started on a new planting system.  In the past we had walking/weeding space between each single row of plants.  This time round, we have planted a double row of garlic.  That means, two garlic plants close together and that throughout the row.  And between the rows, meaningful space.  Specifically, we had a string line and planted garlic on either side.  The spacing is naturally somewhat variable, and the plants are between 5-15 cm from the string.  We are not perfectionists.  The weeder we will use next season is 55 cm wide (it‘s our old Craftsman rototiller that we plan to use on a shallow setting as a weeder).  Since some plants will be out up to 15 cm either side, the rows must be at least 85 cm apart, which is what we did.  It bears adding that the weeder wheels are 55 cm wide, the actual tines are limited to 40 cm width.  We have gained some experience with that type of system, with this year‘s fava bean crop.  Each row was a quadruple row, four plants beside each other for the length of each row.  That worked well for us. 

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Nova Scotia edibleforestguy https://canadianpreppersnetwork.com/community/provincial-network-directory-nova-scotia/notes-from-2-years-in-nova-scotia/paged/3/#post-373133
RE: Notes from 9 years in Nova Scotia https://canadianpreppersnetwork.com/community/provincial-network-directory-nova-scotia/notes-from-2-years-in-nova-scotia/paged/3/#post-373132 Sat, 05 Nov 2022 01:56:04 +0000 170) Even though it’s November, this is our update we wrote in August.  We misplaced our password and couldn’t get the recovery option to work, but the friendly help of the site moderator has put the wheels back on.  We like this is a small forum, we mostly write honestly for ourselves, this is our diary, which we gladly share here.  We consciously chose a small forum rather than a big one, discretion and modesty is a good thing.  We are currently here in Nova Scotia, and will write another update soon, that is the plan!  

171) This is our 10th year in Nova Scotia.  We continue to live in a big city about 1500km away and spend about 3 months a year on our property.  We have in this time been developing our rural paradise as a survivalist type of retreat with enough comforts for it to also make a lovely vacation and retirement property.  While at the beginning we worked continuously during our time here, we have become much more relaxed.  Rather than working 12 hours a day, we now work 6 hours and take the rest of the day enjoying the natural features of the property and what we have created, or visit the many local attractions and beaches.  After all, Cape Breton continuously gets voted among the more picturesque islands on this planet earth. 

172) Over time we get a much better sense of the wisdom or lack thereof, of picking this particular property in this particular area.  We have no regrets that we decided on Nova Scotia.  We also are glad we stayed away from close to open ocean.  It‘s good to have a few mountain ridges between you and the ocean around here, that take the edge of the sharp winds and indeed, hurricanes, that arrive here.  Living in Central Canada, or just about anywhere in Canada, really, it‘s normal to think that in the south, there is the continental USA.  But that is just not the case here.  South of Nova Scotia is not the USA, but open ocean right down to the South America, and that brings tropical influence when oceans and winds so want, including the tropical storms.  Its good to be in a setting where flooding is impossible.  The way our house stands, flooding is not a concern.  That brings the all-important question to how good our land for growing crops.  For the better part, we give our land a „C“ grade.  The soil is stony, acidic, and drainage is an issue.  It‘s classified as lowest grade farmland (Grade 4) but it is graded as farmland.  There are no big stones in the soil, just a lot of them, fist-sized or under.  The acidity is the least issue, lime solves that problem.  The soil is quite wet when it rains consistently a lot.  The first 40 cm of soil is decent, even good loam, but what‘s underneath, is pure clay.  So when it rains, there is limited absorption before the water cumulates.  This is more of a problem for our fruit trees than field crops.  Starting all over again, I‘d be tempted to pull out a map of where in Nova Scotia is the good farmland (Grade 2).  There is of course the Annapolis Valley, but in Cape Breton there are pockets of much better soil than what we have, particularly in the St-Peter area.  „Ferfal“ (the Argentine survivalist-prepper) recommends, and maybe even has, property in that area, and I can see now how he chose wisely. Moreover, as a negative, we are in the last remnants of the Margaree Valley-Lake Ainslie frost pocket.  The air literally is warmer starting a km away from where we are.  So we are susceptible, and yes we get, more early automn frosts and late spring frosts, than what a perhaps wiser choice would have entailed.  Nova Scotia‘s one climatic disadvantage are the late springs, and having ultra-late spring frosts obviously affect crops and tree crops.  Our hazelnut crop for example is highly vulnerable to late spring frosts.  All that gotten out of the way, life is short and we picked a place and area that we really enjoy for its beauty.  The combination of endless green hills, pretty waterfalls, closeness to warm ocean waters of the Gulf of St-Lawrence and a 4km long sandbeach complete with walking trails along dune vegetation, (20km), closeness to the touristic Cabot trail (15 km), closeness to the Trans-Canada highway (30km), closeness to a 24/7 hospital (20km) is paradise for us, not to mention bald eagles circling the sky and the truly dark night skies with a sky full of stars.  On the property itself, its good to have a river flow through our property.  For recreation it‘s great (kayak), there is fish (trout) and an endless supply of water.  When it gets dry enough, we run a pump and irrigate what we want.  It takes the worry of things.  We do have to live with beavers and all that entails.  Its good to be on a dirt road.  It keeps traffic down to local.  I guesstimate there are 30 cars going by our property per day, most of it during „rush hour“.  It’s good to have a property with no real neighbours.  Its good to own a lot of land to keep all private.  It‘s good to have protected wetlands nearby, its good to have quiet forgotten crown lands nearby.  It’s good to be within delivery distance of Home Hardware Building supply centre.  It’s good that the house isn‘t visible from the road, though ours is in winter time.  It‘s good to be in an area where crime, including property crime, is almost unknown.  We have all that. 

173) Its worth taking a step back and ask what we prepare for and believe what‘s coming our way.  We are convinced that North American society and economy is moving into a direction that is comparable to Argentina: unstable, inflationary, financial suppression, protectionist, shaky capital security, higher crime, a tendency to look to government for easy solutions, which in turn looks to the central bank for easy solutions.  The middle class has become impoverished in Argentina through multiple inflations and asset confiscations.  We think we are well on our way to the „Argentinasation“ of North America.  That is enough reason to leave the city and settle in quiet country with meaningful self sufficiency.  We don’t think in dramatic ways and believe that basic necessities, such as Diesel, basic repair services, parts, and the like, will be available in our lifetime; we do not prepare for breakdown of that extreme kind.

174) For meaningful self sufficiency, what we need is: water, food storage, cultivable soil that grows a lot of calories, seeds, fertilizer, pesticides, a go system to complement the provincial power and replace it in a pinch, a shotgun, hardware and tools including quality hand tools, good neighbourly relations.  We have all that covered, some in full, some partial but readily scalable.

175) I have never fired a shot in my life.  I store my shotgun well oiled in its original case in a legal-spec safe in an unheated building.  The safe is well hidden and hard to access. So hard to access I haven‘t opened it in the ten years since I put it there.  Eventually I will open it and take it to a range for my first shot, if it hasn‘t rusted away.  I am not anti-gun, but I have no interest in my gun, other than feeling better that I own one.  My ammunition is stored at a separate location, in the dry but open to freeze cycles and summer humidity.  I am unsure in what state it‘s in.

176) Our numerous fruit trees and bushes we planted the past 10 years are bearing more each year and also look nice.  We also have cleared and tilled 700 m2 of soil, and use 200 m2 for active growing of annuals.  We have an additional 3000 m2 all cleared and ready for tilling and growing.  We have a tractor-pulled tiller (more on that below) and more planting of annuals will happen eventually, we wish to have fields of sunflowers, oil pumpkins and cereal corn.

177) For annuals, clearly the easiest way to grow calories and proteins is fava beans.  They also store well.  Potatoes are survival food and we don‘t grow that many.  We prefer rice and pasta.  But if the situation required, we will will scale the potatoes.  Other crops that grow very well even when we are not here for weeding are bush peas supported by netting and garlic.  Cabbage and brassicas also grow well but are susceptible to slug attacks.  We can handle slug attacks when we are here.  This year we could not be on the property in June and July.  When we arrived in August, the brassicas we planted in May were decimated by slugs.  We were able to save the cabbage but the broccoli and kohlrabi, not so much. We had our first successful year with onions BUT we started with those little planting onions, not seed.

178) I come from a fruit background (as a child and teen) and pruning was always done in late winter.   That is of course fine but fruit tree pruning in mid summer is fine, until mid-August, to let the wound heal well before the automn frosts.  Spring pruning should not be done, when the sap flows upward.

179) We took up a little but powerful plow to the property.  It‘s a Kunz Till-Ease and from the same company that sold us a pull-behind brush mower a few years back.  These are the best products money can buy.  The tiller rips through hard ground.  Our limitation is not the tiller, but our little 20hp Diesel tractor.  We did ten rounds in May on cleared but hard soil, about 500 m2.  The tiller turned the soil, no issues there.  Before leaving, we put a lot of sunflower seeds on the bare soil but did not have time, or the equipment, to work the seeds into the soil.  When we came back in August, next to none of the seeds developed into flowers.  Possibly the birds ate them all, or they require a light soil cover, or they sprouted but dried out.  We do not know.  We have not worked this field in the summer further.  That‘s because we want to avoid soil erosion.  We will till it again next spring and then treat it with more equipment, a drag harrow and a cultipacker.   the have the drag harrow on site, and the cultipacker will come this automn. They are of a size that our little tractor can pull and are meant to break soil clumps into smaller pieces, and work seeds into the soil.

180) As a reflection, we will change our schedule of when we come to the property.  Thus far it was mid April through mid-May, July and August (most years), October and Christmas.  We now think that it will be better to come up later in the spring and make it end of May-end of June and then arrive again mid-August.  Springs start late in Cape Breton and end of May we can still plant all the cool season plants such as fava beans and bush peas.  But by mid to end of June, we can also plant all the warm season crops, such as string beans, oil pumpkins, sunflowers and cereal corn.  Also, end of June we could cut the garlic scapes, and harvest our haskap berries.  The big bonus of a schedule where we are here for all the month of June is that we can stay on top of the weeds.  June is of course when nature, and that includes the weeds, grow a full metre and in thick stands.  In July, the growth of weeds is much less.  There is no pressing reason why we would want to be here in July.  It is a hot month, even by Cape Breton standards, and farm work in the full heat of the sun is quite taxing.  It makes sense that we leave end of June and return middle of August for a month. Its past peak summer and the time for harvesting various berries, vegetables and the garlic.   Also at the time of arrival mid August, the fruit trees still can be pruned.

181) Fun fact: since its perfectly legal these days, we planted four marijuana plants in May.  Three survived.  None are particularly tall, maybe 70 cm.  One has those „bud“ formations that form.  We know little about it and will harvest in October.  Upon harvest, we‘ll dry whatever plant material there is (minus the stalks), and put it into a jar.  The idea is to have emergency pain medication.

182) Random fact: in May before leaving, we threw a few seed potatoes onto the compost pile and covered them lightly.  They grow very well there but overall it was a poorly thought out idea. With the potatoes growing on the compost, we can‘t throw a lot of cut grass or what not onto the compost pile.

183) There was no rain in July.  The grass stayed green and I don’t call that a drought.  That said, there is less fruit, less blueberries, no saskatoon berries.

184) The gooseberry leaves were eaten up again by something, probably caterpillars.  That is another reason to be here in the month of June, to deal with those outbreaks.  There was a decent harvest of black and red currants, and neither of these bushes were affected by caterpillars.

185) We planted 20 blueberry bushes a few years back, about a dozen survived and they grow, the first one gave a small harvest this year.   One of our silliest moves was to pay for highbush cranberry plants.  After we finally understood what they look like, we looked at each other laughing because they already grow naturally on our property.

186) We are motivated with our Mulberry trees.  In our minds, we see majestic trees with massive harvests of tasty berries.  So we stayed tenacious when a few died, until we protected the graft area in winter time with pipe insulation.  Since then, one does well, two more are growing.  We are highly determined to get at least one good tree.

187) The bamboo plants that we bought from a British Columbia nursery did not survive.  In theory they are good to hardiness zone 5.  We assert they are not.

188) Among our major projects are hazelnut trees.  They grow.  There are fewer nuts then last year, but on more plants.  We have about 20 hazelnut trees in various stages of growth.  The nuts that we do get are large, pretty and come with that addictive fresh hazelnut taste.

189) Note on food storage: we still have 10 year old split peas.  They take 45 min to cook in a pressure cooker.  After that, they are as soft as fresh ones.  We also report that parboiled rice stored in suboptimal temperatures will go rancid in a few years.  That happened to us with rice stored in the garage where it is hot in the summer and freezing in winter.  The conditions are much better since we have the root cellar.  That said, the parboiled rice is still rancid.  This is not a reason to throw it out.  Here is why.  The oil content in rice is low, about 1.5% in parboiled.  It is easy to flush out the oil.  After soaking the rice in hot water, a lot of the oils will already separate out of the rice and into the water.  Then the rice is boiled with double the necessary water.  Once cooked, the excess water is drained.  It contains all the oils.  The remaining, now oil-free rice is perfectly fine.  My wife, who has a much finer nose and taste organs than I, can discern zero rancidness in rice thus prepared.

190) Our solar system produced 4.3 MW in the last 12 months.  With Nova Scotia prices, that is $800 worth of electricity.

191) The main electric use happens in winter when we are not here, electric baseboard heat to keep the inside of the house from freezing.  Cost is high, and baseboard heaters are a fire hazard, even dust has been known to ignite.  We have an agreement with a company for a Panasonic mini-split 18,000 BTU heat pump coming in, for $6,500 all in.  There are apparently also subsidies and we’ll apply for those.

192) The biggest problem we have is a leaky roof.  The asphalt roof looked very good and I noticed nothing particularly wrong with it, no buckling shingles or the like.  We get a new standing seam roof in that will last for our life, in theory it’ll last for 70 years.  Standard is 26 gauge, we get the 24 gauge, which is substantially heavier and thicker.  The cost is high, $20,000 all in (after negotiation) for 110 m2 of roof space.  It is what it is, we will not cut corners on our roof.  The issue is that with the supply chain problems, the metal has not been produced yet for the install.  Fingers crossed the install will be soon.

193) Our Kubota B26 TLB tractor, which we ordered last October, still has not arrived.  That story is for another day. (November note: it has arrived!  Story coming.)

194) Final fun fact: we enjoy the success of our Egyptian walking onions.   We planted some a few years back and now have a hundred.  They are very pungent and tears drop from the eyes cutting the little guys. They are perfect to eat with bread and butter.

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Nova Scotia edibleforestguy https://canadianpreppersnetwork.com/community/provincial-network-directory-nova-scotia/notes-from-2-years-in-nova-scotia/paged/3/#post-373132
RE: Notes from 2 years in Nova Scotia https://canadianpreppersnetwork.com/community/provincial-network-directory-nova-scotia/notes-from-2-years-in-nova-scotia/paged/3/#post-373128 Sun, 27 Feb 2022 15:44:16 +0000 Awesome post  love reading your progress

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Nova Scotia scrounger https://canadianpreppersnetwork.com/community/provincial-network-directory-nova-scotia/notes-from-2-years-in-nova-scotia/paged/3/#post-373128
RE: Notes from 2 years in Nova Scotia https://canadianpreppersnetwork.com/community/provincial-network-directory-nova-scotia/notes-from-2-years-in-nova-scotia/paged/3/#post-373127 Sat, 26 Feb 2022 14:50:07 +0000 Our blog, continued. This is the first update to our blog in a year, and we do it from memory.  Here is our first go at it, we may add more colour or other items later.

155. We continue to live in a big city about 1500 km away from our secondary residence in rural Nova Scotia.  We have been developing our Nova Scotia residence as a homestead and hobby farm since 2012.  It will be our retirement property and is our SHTF bugout.  We understand that the long distance, and three provincial boundaries to cross, means that in some specific scenarios, we might be unable to flee the big city and successfully arrive on our property.  That’s a risk we take.  The risk is counterbalanced that rural Nova Scotia is where we enjoy living.  The landscape is varied with mountains just the rights size, it’s always green with plenty of rainfall, temperatures range from warm to cool, rather than from hot to cold.  We have bald eagles and other birds of prey circling the skies above our house, and stepping outside on any angle on the property we see nothing but green, and full sun exposure from morning to evening.  We are on a river that carries fish and that we can use for irrigation, and our property, which is 80 hectares, includes a range of ecosystems from good river-side cropland, Acadian forest, freshwater wetlands and bogs teeming with the full spectrum of animal life that exists in the province, including species that depend on functioning wetlands, such as otter and salamanders.  There are no neighbours for hundreds of metres any direction.  However, remote as our property is, it is not isolated.  In 15 minutes we can arrive at a small but 24/7 hospital and other infrastucture.  While we are not drawn to the ocean, it is nice to know it’s there, just a few km away.  And sometimes we do enjoy walks on the long sand beaches, and swim in the water, which gets to above 20 degrees in the summer.    In short, it’s God’s country here.

156. With age comes humbleness as life keeps surprising in ways one would not have thought possible.  Someone asked me in March 2020 how the virus will affect the rural Nova Scotia property market, and my answer was, “as dead as it has been the last few decades, only deader”.  Well, I have been dead wrong.  Since the virus, prices have doubled across the board around here.  To illustrate how unusual this is, it bears calling to memory that the rural NS property market had seen falling prices for decades.  If you wanted to sell a property, you had to be prepared to wait years until you maybe got one offer, and then sell it for a pittance.  When, equally likely, no buyer emerged, the property became just one more in a long list of abandoned properties that littered the NS landscape.  The virus changed market dynamics 180 degrees.  Properties that used to languish for years now sell within a matter of weeks, and often above asking.  The going joke among the local real estate agents is that “half of Ontario now wants to live here”.  The primary advantage that we drew from buying back in 2012 was that our low purchase price ($110k for decent house and land) meant that we had money left for improving the property.  We outlined our improvements in earlier blog posts.

157. The disadvantage of having to cross several provincial boundaries was quickly apparent in May.  We could NOT come to Nova Scotia.  Not even my registered agricultural business made the difference, nor did contacting the local MP.  It was not possible to enter New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, by vehicle, even by the smallest roads (which were blocked by boulders).  The announcement of the border closures came lightning fast and with next to no notice, however, there was a window of opportunity: had we left the big city, upon the announcement, within an hour, we would have slipped into Nova Scotia before the closures.  There were reasons we did not do that, including a lack of urgency and shaky internet on our NS property to work well from home, plus our child in school.  That said, my wife concur that when a situation arrives where we think prompt action is needed, we will start the car and just go.  That decision has become easier, because …

158. We finally have fully functioning high-speed internet here.  Our connection was unstable because the cable which connects the house from the road was frayed.  We had to get a whole row of trees trimmed before the phone company came back to install a fresh line.  In a big city, you make one phone call, and if you pay enough, the tree trimming will be done the next day.  In rural Nova Scotia, the clocks ticks slower.  The charming part is that in a sparsely populated rural area, everyone knows everyone.  The phone company employee recommended his uncle for the tree trimming.  Upon speaking with my neighbours, noone had a better idea.  The uncle arrived and announced that the tree trimming for safety needed a bucket crane, which he didn‘t have.  To rent one is expensive.  He called us once he had a second customer to split the cost for the day’s rental.  What would have taken a day or two in the big city, took four weeks in the country.  The Internet now works admirably.  It’s not fibre optics, but enough for my wife, my child and myself to use video applications simultaneously, on 6.5 mbp download speed.  It looks to us that fibre optics is more of a business need rather than a household need.

159. I jumped a point.  We could not enter NS in May but we took the earliest possible opportunity, which was  end of June.  NS still was not open for tourists, but open for seasonal residents who own property.  We needed to fill out online forms to enter New Brunswick and Nova Scotia and got instant approval.  We crossed into NB from Quebec through a small bridge.  We were checked by NB authorities; however, when we reached NS on another small bridge, there was no check.  We stayed in Nova Scotia for eleven weeks.  We then returned to our big city and returned to NS for the month of October.  Again, we needed to pre-register with NB and with NS.  The NB registration was that with full vaccination, you apply once, and you receive a permit that is valid forever.  For NS, it’s still an individual permit situation.  I am sure there are full checks on the Trans-Canada entering NB and NS.  But we don’t take the Trans-Canada.  There were no checks on the small bridges leading into either province on our October visit.

160. We could not plant the early season crops: fava beans and peas.  Those need to be planted in early spring, where we could not be there.  We came to the property with trays of seedlings, which we had started in the city: cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, onions.  We spread out landscaping fabric and cut holes for planting.  We planted all end of June, and other crops: potatoes, string beans, lettuce, spinach, egg plant, oilseed pumpkin, sunflower, kale, swiss chard.

161. We had our share of hungry garden devourers.  Slugs and cabbage moths abounded.  We dealt with them with slug pellets and perethrin.  The insects and limaces damaged our crops visibly.  We could do much better with our weeding and thereby reduce the slugs and insects.  We use our Stihl cultivator to weed between rows, but hand weeding is often needed.  We hand weed to ensure the plants have full sunlight, but we don’t remove smaller weeds around the plants.

162. Harvests.  We changed our way how we do garlic.  In the past, we kept the best bulbs for eating and planted the smaller ones.  That worked decently but from logic, we should replant the best bulbs for the best genetics.  We harvested about 250 bulbs, many of good size despite our lack of weeding.   We had excellent harvests of cabbage.   Market-sized.  We could have done better to preserve it.  We kept it in our root cellar from October to December (yes, we spent Christmas at Nova Scotia).  The temperature in the root cellar was above 10 degrees and the cabbage had rotten leaves deep into the inside.  The best way to preserve cabbage, kale and swiss chard is freezing.  The second best is to open the trap of our root cellar at night to cool it to under 6 degrees.  We were not there (Nov-Christmas) to do that.  Harvests of swiss chard and kale were also excellent.  Broccoli was market-size.  The egg plants stayed super small.  We‘ll try again.  Our small potato patch did well, our neighbours had a bumper crop of potatoes.  The string beans did alright, but not great.

163. The fruit harvest was excellent.  For the first time, we had a true hazelnut harvest from our three hazel trees that we planed in 2013.  We had half a kilo of large nuts, with the shells.  They looked beautiful and as big and pretty as you can find in any store, with excellent taste.  Given we have 20+ hazel bushes, which we planted in later years, we look forward to future harvests.  That said, the hazel harvest will never be reliable.  A late spring frost can easily kill the flowers.   Also for the first time, we had an excellent harvest of our haskap berries, a few kilos.  They take patience to harvest, however.  The fruit is hidden by leaves.  Handpicking is alright for household quantities.  We have 30 bushes in development, and to harvest them all will be a task.  The birds like them and it‘s a bit of a race between you and the birds.  WE had another bumper harvest of blueberries, decent harvests of currants.  A few kilos each.  All these harvests will increase every year.  We need watch the gooseberries. Some caterpillars clean the leaves off within two days.  The bush can deal with that, but not year after year.  We‘ll treat the bushes with permethrin when I see caterpillars in future years.

164. Also for the first time, we had a good apple harvest from the trees we planted in 2014.  The description of the B118 root stock was accurate.  It was said that the trees will take 7 years to the first harvest, and 14 years to the full harvest.  That said, we are worried about the trees.  Several got seriously uprooted during windstorms. The problem is the high water table and thus a shallow root structure.  We stabilized the trees by building up soil and placing rocks on it, plus staking.

165. Our apple tree experiment is a mixed success.  On the plus side, we are starting to see good harvests and good quality apples.  On the downside, we are worried about the root structure as described above.  But also, the decision to protect the trees with wire cages was wrong.  The problem is that with the winds, no matter what you do, branches will whip against the wire cages and thus damage branches.   This is a serious problem.  We cut the wire cages to a much lower level, but of course this means that the trees are more susceptible to deer damage.  Overall, the solution to fruit in Nova Scotia is to grow the berries and hazelnuts.  These bushes grow easily, fast and also regenerate when damaged.   There are millions of wild apple trees in Nova Scotia, so obviously apple does grow.  We know of failed orchards in our region, and while ours hasn‘t failed yet, failure is a possibility.

166. Sunflowers did well given we planted them late.  We plan to grow a large area in 2022.  Our idea is to produce our own oil.  Similarly, the oilseed pumpkins we grew also did well.  Again, the idea is to grow a larger area and produce our own pumpkin seed oil.

167. Our solar system produced 5000 kw in twelve months.  In winter time, the system will always be short with little production.  Not only are there few hours of sunshine, but winter in our part of Nova Scotia typically has clouded over skies.  We will be fine during power outages that last a few days, anything longer, in winter, we will have enough solar production to power a few LED bulbs, no more.  Financially it‘s good, the 5000 kw are worth $1,000 at NS electricity prices.  Point is: if a longer SHTF type power outage were to occur, we‘d have surplus power in summer, on-par power in automn and spring, but a dramatic shortfall of power from December through March.  We‘d be alright, though.  The solar still would bring enough power to keep the house lit and (fingers crossed) the water pump.  For warmth and cooking, we have wood stoves.  And the root cellar in winter replaces the refridgerator.  The least pleasant part would be personal hygiene without the hot water heater.

168. One advantage of the low acquisition cost of our property is that we have extra money to spend on equipment.  During the corona crisis, it was clear that we want our property ready for a true permanent refuge.  Power equipment is a good thing.  Despite the shortages, we managed to seriously add to our equipment.  One is a small-commercial farm sized vaccuum seeder.  It is the size of an old-style moped and about the same size and weight.  It weighs 65 kg and runs on a 4.5hp engine.  Basically, you prepare the seedbed but it does not need to be perfect.  That‘s where the weight and the design of the machine comes in. You guide the self-drive machine by hand and it will make a hole in the soil, drop a seed in on a vaccuum-seeder principle, close the hole and move on.  This is a god send for medium size plantations.   Gone are the times where I need to spend endless hours on my knees planting hundreds of fava beans and other greens that benefits from row planting, including sunflowers.  These machines are not cheap, they are made in small-scale production, and are typically used by small scale commercial farmers.  Having one shipped to me including attachments, was US$3,800 plus shipping, custom fees and HST.  For those interested, we got the Wizardplanter, A-10.  https://www.wizardplanters.com/en/self-propelled/wz-a-series/

169. Other equipment we got this year was a quality snow blower.  We picked the Honda 1132 model.  It gives us freedom to come to our property also in Winter.  We would not have come here for Christmas had we not had the snow blower there.

170. We also got a quality rototiller that allows us to make the transition from small garden to large garden to small farm.  It is the Honda FRC 800.

171. We learned the hard way in 2020 that our shallow well will run dry in a hot summer if we abuse it.  By abuse, we mean running a garden hose for hours on our plantings.  Luckily, we are on our river and thus using a pump system is the solution.  We got a 2“ Honda trash pump with extra hoses and a fireman‘s nozzle.  We picked a high quality nozzle that can spray in a fine mist.

172. Our bridge across our small river makes progress.  We spent many hours placing three additional gabion cages in the water, and filling them with rocks.  The cages settle for the winter.  I have enquired about obtaining metal I-beams to run across, which may or may not happen.  If not, we‘ll work with 6x6 pressure treated.

]]>
Nova Scotia edibleforestguy https://canadianpreppersnetwork.com/community/provincial-network-directory-nova-scotia/notes-from-2-years-in-nova-scotia/paged/3/#post-373127
Re: Notes from 8 years in Nova Scotia https://canadianpreppersnetwork.com/community/provincial-network-directory-nova-scotia/notes-from-2-years-in-nova-scotia/paged/3/#post-372953 Sat, 06 Mar 2021 16:18:57 +0000 142) This is the first season we are serious about starting seedlings well in advance. Beginning of March is a good time to start for transplanting in May. Today, we cut out egg cartons and created 100 cells in two of those commercial plastic seedling starters. We started cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, onions, kale, swiss chard.
143) We took part of an online Nova Scotia based gardening course and were introduced to companion planting. We did not know before that for example, onions should not be growns beside peas. Each has bacterial/fungal companions that disturb the development of one or both plants. A simple google "companion planting chart" will give you pages you can print.
144) We are motivated to transform one garden area to a "Hugelkultur" as popularised by the permaculturist Sepp Holzer. It's a lot of physical work. You remove existing top soil, put it on one side. Then you place a semi-rotten log or two at the bottom. Next, you place mixed layers of soil and semi-rotted light twigs and brush on top, with a good layer of top soil on the very top. You want to get to 150 cm high or more. Then you let it sit for a year, because it'll settle some. You place more soil on top next season if necessary. All that done, you have an astonishingly productive vegetable growing area. There are numerous youtube videos showing the benefits. For those who have a tractor with a bucket, the work is much easier than doing this by hand. We'll do it by hand cause our old F2000 Kubota doesn't have working hydraulics and thus no bucket. Since this is hard labour, we plan to spend half an hour a day on it, not more. We'll see how long it takes us to get there. But we will get there.
145) We looked into the sensibility of greenhouse construction and decided against it. A greenhouse is only useful if it is heated, otherwise the benefits are marginal, as no real extension of automn or spring takes place. That makes no sense for us.
146) We ordered a Wizard Planter A-20, which is on its way as of this writing. It is hard to find equipment that fits the scale of a large garden/small farm. We do not want to spend days on our knees planting fava beans, sunflowers, corn. To use light hand equipment such as a Hoss seeder, you need a perfectly fine seed bed with no clumps, ridges, hills, valleys, and stones. Our seed bed, once roto tilled and raked, however has clumps, ridges, hills, valleys and stones. The Wizard seeder seems perfect and we'll report on our experience with it later this season. It's a heavy (60 kg) vaccuum seeder not much bigger than a bicycle, maneouvrable and confidence inspiring. There are YouTube videos. Note that there are expanded models like A-30 which do multi row planting.
147) We looked into literature that touts the advantages of no-till gardening. The turning of soil is touted as problematic, as soil structure is disturbed and may create hardpan and erosion. The reality however is that no-till gardening makes weed control and seeding difficult and time consuming and you can't work amendments, like lime, into the soil. There are numerous stories of people who went from till to no-till and returned to tilling. We stay with tilling once a year in spring. Our old Craftsman rototiller works well but is a major workout for any area larger than 100 m2. Since we now have much larger areas to till, we need a better solution. Ours is two-fold. For larger fields, our F2000 will pull a Kunz Till-Ease, followed by a drag harrow and a cultipacker. Kunz produces high quality stuff. We can assert to the quality of their brush mower. What we like about the Till-Ease is the compact size and that it's pullable by our little tractor. We'll also report on this later this season. For smaller fields, we have an order in for a Honda FRC 800 rototiller. The rototiller also serves as a row weeder. Let's hope we get the unit. We paid a $500 advance. There are dramatic supply chain issues. People who ordered certain Honda equipment in spring 2020 still have not received it!
148) None of this equipment is particulalry cheap, what is cheap is our old little tractor, which can do nothing but pull. But the equipment is necessary. Hand gardening hundreds of square metres is not realistic. That said, anyone who decides to develop a property in Nova Scotia, rather than Ontario or southern Quebec, is dramatically ahead financially, simply because your up front cost to purchase agricultural quality land in Nova Scotia is inexpensive. We already disclosed that we paid $130,000 for our homestead in Nova Scotia with 70 hectares of land. You pay 3 times that in rural Ontario. A few thousands of dollars of equipment purchases doesn't hurt financially when it's planned that way. Our homestead and equipment and we personally are debt free and will remain that way. Any debt robs freedom. Use of savings for long lasting productive farm equipment is money well spent, the way we see it.
149) We had planned to construct a terrace around our solar shed for the sheer enjoyment across the green hills of Cape Breton that our property offers. This won't happen this year, as lumber prices are three times what they were last year. This can wait. We have a few deck blocks left and some extra wood, so we may construct a few square metres of temporary sitting area, large enough for three chairs and a little side table.
150) We aren't big meat eaters, so we never had a BBQ or even a propane tank. But I was curious about the relative costs of propane vs electric for cooking. The energy equivalence is 1L of propane = 7.15 kW. With our electric costs of 18c/kW, and 18L fitting into a standard 20lb propane tank, the cost equivalent of that propane tank is $23 in electric bill. I am unsure how much propane costs in NS but will find out. It looks similar cost. If that were so, I purchase three propane tanks, as propane cooking outdoor beats electric cooking indoors during summer. Three tanks are good for 50 hours of cooking. By quick extrapolation, that's good for 2 months of cooking and adds to energy security. Of course, we have also unlimited wood for cooking, but who wants to do that in July?
151) We have ordered numerous more fruit trees and fruit bushes from nurseries for planting in May. We'll write more about that later in the season. Our plan remains to plant as much as we reasonably can, and have fun, before we get to be 60, after that we just enjoy what we have. We have a few years of planting left.
152) Going back to farming, wireworms are a real problem for some crops such as corn. South of the border, you can get Chlorantraniliprole (GrubEx1) to deal with them, in Canada you cannot. Not even on eBay. Wireworm control is one advantage of using a tiller. After tilling, you walk your field and collect them. Other solutions are overseeding and planting as late as possible. I'd love to have the pesticide and be able to dust my seeds in it before planting, purely as a seed treatment. I wouldn't want to broadcast into the soil as it will kill earthworms. But for seed treatment, yes, I'd use it. Half a kilo would last a lifetime.
153) Carbaryl is also usually not available in Canada to treat Japanese beetles on fruit. Currently it is miraculously on Amazon Canada (brand name: Sevin ready to use 5%). Its a back up that I intend to use only in case of a major infestation. It kills bees so you never want to use it during bloom.
154) Community is very important to us. The word "very" is overused, as few things are truly "very". But community deserves the label "very". Even in the big city, we receive the local Cape Breton newspaper. It keeps us in touch and we cut out articles of small commercial farms and the like, that we intend to visit and make part of our network of friendly neighbours and farms and businesses.]]>
Nova Scotia edibleforestguy https://canadianpreppersnetwork.com/community/provincial-network-directory-nova-scotia/notes-from-2-years-in-nova-scotia/paged/3/#post-372953
Re: Notes from 2 years in Nova Scotia https://canadianpreppersnetwork.com/community/provincial-network-directory-nova-scotia/notes-from-2-years-in-nova-scotia/paged/3/#post-372722 Fri, 20 Nov 2020 14:52:38 +0000 Nova Scotia scrounger https://canadianpreppersnetwork.com/community/provincial-network-directory-nova-scotia/notes-from-2-years-in-nova-scotia/paged/3/#post-372722 Re: Notes from 2 years in Nova Scotia https://canadianpreppersnetwork.com/community/provincial-network-directory-nova-scotia/notes-from-2-years-in-nova-scotia/paged/3/#post-372718 Thu, 19 Nov 2020 20:37:13 +0000 Nova Scotia helicopilot https://canadianpreppersnetwork.com/community/provincial-network-directory-nova-scotia/notes-from-2-years-in-nova-scotia/paged/3/#post-372718 Re: Notes from 2 years in Nova Scotia https://canadianpreppersnetwork.com/community/provincial-network-directory-nova-scotia/notes-from-2-years-in-nova-scotia/paged/3/#post-372716 Thu, 19 Nov 2020 08:50:19 +0000 Nova Scotia farmgal https://canadianpreppersnetwork.com/community/provincial-network-directory-nova-scotia/notes-from-2-years-in-nova-scotia/paged/3/#post-372716 Re: Notes from 2 years in Nova Scotia https://canadianpreppersnetwork.com/community/provincial-network-directory-nova-scotia/notes-from-2-years-in-nova-scotia/paged/3/#post-372715 Thu, 19 Nov 2020 01:40:16 +0000 Nova Scotia peppercorn https://canadianpreppersnetwork.com/community/provincial-network-directory-nova-scotia/notes-from-2-years-in-nova-scotia/paged/3/#post-372715 Re: Notes from 2 years in Nova Scotia https://canadianpreppersnetwork.com/community/provincial-network-directory-nova-scotia/notes-from-2-years-in-nova-scotia/paged/3/#post-372713 Thu, 19 Nov 2020 00:03:18 +0000
123) We have spent three weeks on the property in October and November. Getting from Central Canada into New Brunswick was suprisingly difficult. We did not know that the Province had moved to mandatory electronic pre-registration. We came to the border and were turned back. We had to drive a few km back into Quebec. There, we found a spot with WIFI and got the registration done. Approval was instant and we entered NB. Someone who does not know that and does not have a smart phone is in trouble at that checkpoint. Entering NS was painless. The Province called us several times while we were on our property. We pregistered with NB before driving back, of course. We used our usual small crossing - and there was no checkpoint either on the NB nor on the NS side. Atlantic Bubble. Though there are checkpoints on the TransCanada. In a more serious squeeze, where interprovincial access gets prohibited except for a few, we pray that our official NS farm registration papers will get us through the Quebec/NB border. And in a pinch we can also pull out our Apiary permit -- bees count as protected lifestock and a statement they take care should get us through. If not,then the situation is so serious that we have made a big mistake in not being on the property in time. Especially, we have full Internet there and can work from home during the virus crisis.

124) Our first business on the property was planting garlic. We planted about 300, about 10cm apart and with 50cm between rows. This is from experience. Last year we planted 15cm apart and 40cm between rows. The distance between the rows was too tight to run a Stihl cultivator through comfortly.

125) We continue to use our 5.5hp Craftsman rototiller, which we got on kijiji. It works well. That said, it's a workout. In years past, we rototilled 30m2 with it, this year it was a much expanded 200 m2. Next year, we push to the limit what this little machine can do. We plan to plant about 400 m2 of fava beans next year. But overall we have ten times this land (4000 m2) that we can plant, and we'll expand en fur et à mesure. We have done serious research into equipment without a firm conclusion. One practical and interim solution is to ask in the neighbourhood if a farmer will do some tillage for us.

126) We have moved from a small garden to a large garden. When we move from a large garden to a small farm, for expanded equipment, there are two main options we identified. One is a BCS hand tractor with attachments. These are sturdy long lasting machines with a solid Honda 390cc gas engine and high quality tillage, power harrow, seeding and snow blowing attachments. Altogether, and without skimping, that runs at $20k, new. A hefty sum, which, however, still means a major workout and slow going. We are reluctant to buy this used, as scorched pistons from abuse, and the like, are a real possibility. For small equipment like a tiller we take that risk, for bigger equipment, no. The other option is a Kubota BX 23s tractor (or an older equivalent), with an assortment of attachments, that used lightens the pocket by also north of $20k. We would not go below the BX 23s category, because when plunking in that kind of money, we want to at least have the option to add a backhoe later. We have no problems with buying Diesel used. We currently use a Kubota F2000 from the 1980s, which has an indistructible drivetrain and great 4x4 pulling power, especially with chains. We can't use it for anything but pulling however, because it has no PTO. The area is low in crime, but we are reluctant to have fairly expensive hunks of equipment sitting there. We'd consider it if we actually lived there. Until then, we really hope we can cut a deal with a neighbourhood farmer to do tilling for us.

127) We harvested 10kg of fava beans from about 100 m2 of plantation, so that's 1 kg per 10m2. We would have harvested more if we had been there two weeks earlier, some had already fallen to the ground. We are curious how much a 400 m2 fava bean plantation will give us, as our first large-scale test. We place much hope into fava beans as our main, trouble-free and reliable staple crop.

128) We put our "Little Pea Sheller" to test. It worked well. Not very well, but well. It took around an hour work to shell the 10kg. That's the good news. The bad news is it does so imperfectly, and there is some product loss. Still, we recommend the product. Handshelling would have taken us a full day.

129) We had our first apple harvest, about 6 kg. The harvest would have been higher had we been there in September. We have many varieties that bear at different times. The apples were for the most part small, but with a true grafted apple taste.

130) The Swiss chard did well in our absence. We ate it throughout our three weeks and there was left to spare. We took the kohlrabi and the cabbage with us to the big city. The cabbage was full size. That is a welcome surprise to us. The earth on which we grew the vegetables is acidic and only had one application of lime. The slugs are a real problem and ate away on our other cabbages. Slug pellets are a must on selected plants in our garden. The leeks did also very well. We left them in the ground for a May harvest.

131. We planted a further 10 apple trees. It’s the same kind we planted earlier this year. The apples come from British Columbia and are grafted onto the Malus Fusca rootstock. This rootstock is a wild pear rootstock that works with apples and can handle wet soil conditions. Half are grafted and half are for us to graft later.

132. We explored the back part of our property, which is 70 hectares, thoroughly. We hiked 3 days on our land and took notes, GPS points and photos. The land is dominated by yellow birch, with much maple, hemlock, spruce, tamarack, pine, others mixed in. Acadian forest. It’s also a mix of land that was cut at multiple times, yet with many tree giants standing. We counted several dozen majestic hemlock, maple, yellow birch, pine. It brings a sense of awe to stand before towering giants that have been there for centuries. We came across a sad sight: moose antlers with wires wrapped around them and bones on the side. Along the trees was old electrical wiring from the electric companies for hundreds of metres. The moose got wrapped up in it and then starved to death. Not sure how long ago. Maybe it laid there for more than a decade before we came across.

133. We continue to explore ecologically sound forest management with a private-public partnership that is meant to restore the Acadian forest in win-win-win way. The most important is the forest. The forest gains by thinning operations, removal of intrusive balsam fir and encouragement of the native hardwoods, in addition to hemlock. All mature trees stay. The company gains by marketable product. Woodland owners gain either by getting a cheque or in-kind. In our case, we want 2.5 km of road network inside the property. The company has promised us a proposal coming our way. We’ll be curious. One astonishing part is that Nova Scotia subsidizes private forest road building. When a forest road gets build on private land to grade „D“ standard, which is 5 metres wide, elevated and ditched, the Province pays for a portion. That is to encourage responsible land management and for forest companies to keep coming in for thinning operations.

134. Property lines are incomprehensible. There are property maps but they are not necessarily in accordance with the property description. Ours isn’t. According to the property description, our back parcel is 40 hectares, but the provincial property survey map shows 48 hectares. We are taking steps to clear this up. Obviously, our position is that the survey map is correct.

135. We identified two sites with a lovely view towards the lake. In our vision, we see a clearing at that site and a cabin.

136. Should the land management on the back portion work out to what we envision — forest restoration, proper and well maintained access and internal road network, lovely lake view, cabin, then that portion of land would dramatically gain in market value. We paid next to nothing for it — $20,000 for 40 hectares. It’s not that we wish to sell — we do not for our lifetime - but monetary appreciation is still a very good thing for the next generation.

137. Another instructive element has been how long brush fires burn. We burned one big pile. After a few hours, it stopped showing flames and we named it our „little volcano“. Our little volcano fumed for …. 11 days! This shows just how how dangerous brush fires can be. Very instructive.

138. Our solar system performed reasonably well in autumn. For the three weeks there, we had electricity surplus. The surplus was however all created in the first week, which was sunny. The last two weeks were cloudy and we had had a modest shortfall. We did not use electricity for much: lights, washing machine, water pump, wood splitter, and sometimes the hot water heater for washing dishes and showers. We did not use the stove nor the fridge nor the freezer. The reality is that we would have shortfalls in winter. Our little battery backup for the solar system, probably, won’t cover the shortfall in cases of weeks of winter grey.

139. We tackled the large mountain of unsplit wood that has accumulated over the years. These are mostly from wild apple trees. Our 9 ton electric splitter from Canadian Tire works slowly but well. A few of the largest pieces remain unsplit, the rest went well. It took two full days. We now have a measured 11 cubic metres. A note on the splitter: given the bursts of electricity it uses (the full 15 Amps), we used a very thick extension cord, normally used for welding, to run the splitter. That doesn’t count the smaller wood from the alders and small trees that remains on one big pile, waiting to get cut with a mitre saw.

140. We installed an IP security camera and are surprised at the poor image quality. Not that it was expensive, but it did say HD quality. The image looks fine on first sight, but on zooming in, one cannot make out a licence plate that’s a mere few metres away. Upon further research, it seems HD does indeed not cut it, one needs 4k with optical zoom. That said, we did not find one camera that appears to deliver. On Amazon, for example, there are quite a few cameras with 4 star ratings. But the trick on Amazon is to disregard those average ratings. There is a lot of tricks by vendors to get those ratings up. Instead, one is advised to look at the proportion of low ratings and read those 1 and 2 star ratings carefully. When enough detailed and recent low ratings appear, then those tell the real story. Strange that in 2020, we cannot find a reliable IP camera that can take a licence plate photo from ten metres away. Actually … truly is, we found one and it costs US$800. Errrr …no. We’ll wait. One will appear!

141. Overall, we are content with 2020. The virus accelerated our preparedness. On the most important items this year, we added full internet, completed solar and net metering, had our fully enclosed and roofed utility room with wood cook stove completed, expanded our area useable for agriculture from 230 square metres to 4000 square metres and built on community contacts and relations. In a pinch, we could escape the big city to the retreat and live and work there. This was not possible before. We are far more ready than before. Nova Scotia is lovely, and the troubles of the world have to be strong, before they reach the gravel roads of rural Cape Breton.]]>
Nova Scotia edibleforestguy https://canadianpreppersnetwork.com/community/provincial-network-directory-nova-scotia/notes-from-2-years-in-nova-scotia/paged/3/#post-372713