Meg in New York with Mormon Helping Hands after Hurricane Sandy
This past Thanksgiving weekend I was planning to prepare my garden for the winter. But Hurricane Sandy had hit New York City hard that fall, so I joined a group of volunteers to help clean up in Queens instead. The damage was amazing, even several weeks after the storm hit. Here were a few more pictures I took during that weekend. The first is a car damaged by the storm, the next one of the houses we helped clear out (this picture is after the dump truck took away most of the contents of this home, newly remodeled only the prior November).
I dont regret the time I spent in New York, but my own yard remained messy throughout the winter. There were remains from various projects, yard debris, and general unkemptness. Heres a couple of shots showing the mess:
Then my local Mormon missionaries stopped by this past month. "Is there anything we could do to help you?" they asked.
"Anything?" I said. "Well, I could use some help with my back yard..."
They were good to their word and showed up last Saturday, ready to make quick work of a mess that had bothered me all winter. Heres a couple of shots after theyd moved the trash out of my yard:
Yeah missionaries! Many hands make light work. Now I can get started on my spring garden without hours of dirty, heavy lifting in my way!
Today "my book," the Complete Idiots Guide to Aquaponic Gardening, was officially launched. Around 4 pm today I finally got a hard copy to look at.
A year ago I got a random e-mail, which read:
"I am a literary agent scouting on behalf of a major publisher for an expert to write an introductory book on aquaponics. I found your site and wonder if you have interest?"
I responded, saying something to the effect of "Heck yes!" and began a whirlwind journey creating the book I wish I could have bought, back when I started into aquaponics in the spring of 2010.
The Complete Idiots Guide to Aquaponic Gardening (CIG to AG as I came to know it) was a labor of love. I did get paid, but this was a work for hire deal, which means I dont get royalties on book sales. Given the way my head works, thats actually really great for my sanity. The book pulls heavily from the collective wisdom currently available via online forums, innumerable scholarly articles, conferences, and endless youtube videos. So I would have felt guilty getting royalties for this book. However, I did put many, many hours into crafting the book, and that labor deserved some payment.
Its been interesting today, reading the book. I havent seen it for four months, so its kind of fresh. I find several instances where I wish I could edit the English just one more time to make it read more smoothly. And the glossary includes one problematic typo - nitrite misspelled as nitrate in the definition of cycling (p. 306), but the definition in the body of the text on page 126 is correct.
It will be interesting to see what folks say. I read this book knowing the hours I spent gaining the knowledge contained in each paragraph, not to mention the additional hours it took to distill that knowledge into comprehensible prose. Only I and a few others know how many authorial "darlings" were killed during the creation of this book. If you were one who read an early draft, I think youll agree the final product is far superior to what you saw.
I hope the book helps people make the transition from hearing about aquaponics to confidently embracing aquaponics as part of their lifestyle. In the mean time, Im thrilled to have the book itself, with an index! What I would have given for such an index three years ago! Its fascinating knowing how much of that information was unknown to me in March 2010 when I first tumbled across the word "aquaponics."
Lastly, I have to acknowledge again the amazing generosity of this community, and how willing people were to share their experiences and photos. I am humbled to know such wonderful, innovative people!
Now back to enjoying my own garden, and actually getting to tend it, unlike the neglect that writing the book necessitated last year. Beets, bok choy, spinach, radishes, and turnips are thriving, as are most of the plants that wintered over. All the fish are alive, and despite the cold, ammonia levels are nearly zero (a great thing). Its great to merely have to do the simply daily visit I mention in the book, to check water temperature and level, feed the fish, and notice what plants need nutrients or organic pest control. Its my happy place, where the world is simple, life abounds, and the speed of "information" is the rate at which spinach seedlings put forth their first true leaves.
If you have been thinking about aquaponics but havent yet set up a system, I invite you to take the plunge. Its well worth it!
Check out this video to see how to install a simple utility sink in your home. Have some sort of utility tub or sink setup in your home is a must for any home owner. No more washing off paint brushes in the kitchen sink, no more greasy hand washing in the same area you wash you dishes. If nothing else, your wife will thank you! Since we have lived here in this home for a few years I have been wanting to get this installed and it kept getting put on the back burner. Until a few weeks ago I passed by a perfectly good utility sink at the end of someones driveway as a giveaway. Call it divine intervention or just a lucky break but it inspired me to get this project put to the top of my list.
The fist step once you have a sink and faucet picked out is to locate a good spot in the basement for the sink. The best place will be in range of a floor drain and some overhead copper water supply lines. You want to make sure that your water supply is tapping into a 3/4" supply and not a 1/2" supply. 1/2" supplies are not meant to be split another times as they are already split from the main water supply line once.
Once you have a good location get your supplies together and get ready for a messy, somewhat stressful, and eventful afternoon in your basement working with one of my favorite tools.....the torch:) Make sure to leave yourself enough time to account for anything that might go wrong since this project will require that the entire water supply to the home is turned off for a bit. Start by turning off the water supply to your home and then hooking a hose up to the drain on your water heater. Next open the drain and a few faucets on each level of your home. This will allow air breath into the pipes and the water to drain completely back to the water heater which should be the lowest point in the system. Once the pipes are drained out, close the water heater drain and get ready for cutting and soldering.
Once you have your Tee in place on a 3/4" supply pipe go ahead and start measuring, cutting, and soldering your supply pipes over to your utility sink location. Remember to follow local codes and if you are unsure of where you can drill holes or how to run the lines consult with a professional plumber.
Once your water supply is run, solder on some supply valves and turn them to the off position. Now you are ready to get your water turned back on and start to fill up those pipes and check for leaks. This is that somewhat stressful time I talked about:) Did it leak, how do your joints look? I can say from experience that no matter how diligent you are sometimes in hard to reach places leaks can occur. Make sure to let the system sit for a bit and then keep checking for any drips. If you find any drips you will need to drain everything back out and re-solder the leaky fitting.
Now that you are all hooked up and leak free it is just a matter of hooking up your flex water lines from the valves to the faucet and you are in business. All you need now is a drain....... more on that later.
Parts used listed below........
Utility Sink parts - Utility sink - http://amzn.to/1Mj6q4u Water supply valve - http://amzn.to/1GulDPN Cheap faucet - http://amzn.to/1BYK8Uf
Tools of the trade - Spark start torch head - http://amzn.to/1BMl54f Mapp Gas cylinder - http://amzn.to/14G5DdF 1/2"-3/4" pipe and fitting cleaner combo tool - http://amzn.to/1BSy2ao Tight spaces pipe cutter - http://amzn.to/1y0INKD Pipe cutter - http://amzn.to/1xP2qDj Lead free solder - http://amzn.to/1wGPqvL Flux - http://amzn.to/1yPxXqA
All of these products and more recommended items from the SSL Family are available at the Simple Suburban Living General Store
Please check us out at www.simplesuburbanliving.com
Several weeks ago, I tested and reviewed a new wireless router that is on the market. Because I liked it so much and was very impressed with how easy it was to setup, I wanted to give our viewers a chance to win one.
So congratulations, Dan Giuntini! You are the winner of our HomeScreen Two-in-One wireless router! Thank you to everyone for entering and for following along. If youre still interested in picking up one of these routers for yourself, a link to purchase is listed below.
And if anyone has any questions on setting it up, please feel free to comment. Id love to help you out if I can.
How many potatoes can you grow in 12 square feet? Each year we add a little more garden space and are always impressed with how much food you can actually grow in such a small space. This year we decided to grow some potatoes in one of our 3 X 6 raised bed gardens and the harvest was excellent!
We chose to use seed potatoes to start our plants and planted them in early May. Potatoes are a great item to grow in colder environments since you can start them well before the last frost date. Up here in Michigan that is important! Each seed potato can be cut into a few pieces and planted one per square foot. We have had a total of 12 square feet available as this raised bed was also going to have some cucumbers along one side of it.
After about 2-3 weeks we started to see all of the sprouts coming up and from there they took off! The plants got to a height of about 4 and in Mid July started to die off. This is how you can tell they are almost ready to harvest and you can really start digging them up at this point right away. We decided to let ours die back all the way before harvest just to make sure they got to full maturity.
This has to be one of the most fun veggies to harvest! We got out of gloves and told the kids to get ready for a treasure hunt. Once we cleared away the dead plant stalks we were ready to dig up our bounty. The kids loved this part! As we dug through we were very surprised at how large many of the potatoes were and how many we were getting. All in all we ended up with about 35 pounds of perfect Yukon Gold potatoes.
The next step is to just take them inside, rinse off the dirt, and lay them out on some paper to dry for a few days. Once they are good and dry they can then be stored in burlap or paper bags as long as they have adequate air ventilation and are in a cool, dry, dark place.
A Short time ago I did a video on " How to expand you wireless range using an old router" and I have had a very positive response. Along with that has come a flurry of questions and comments directed at various setup options and how to configure various wireless situations. The one comment I have received most often was how can I extend my wireless range without running an Ethernet cable to the new access point. In other words, how can I easily extend my wireless network wirelessly. I came across this device called the Two in One router from a company called HomeScreen that will work perfectly for this purpose. This is a new product that looked very promising and so I contacted the company to offer to share the product with you. The HomeScreen Two in One router is both a regular everyday dual band wireless router and also a wireless range expander or wireless repeater. But this is no everyday router, this is a completely new design with a touchscreen and the footprint of a deck of cards. Having been in the networking industry for many years I have never seen a device so easy to use and setup and still contain all of the advances features that Geeks like me cant live without. The device has all of the features of a standard router including wireless isolation, guest networks, dual band AC wireless, user restrictions, content restrictions, DMZ configuration, time restrictions, and full advanced configuration. But it also has some goodies that only a router with a touchscreen can offer. The device contains a small screen that display the weather, acts as a digital photo frame, can be used as a clock, and also control other smart home devices that can be added to your HomeScreen account. The device has easy to follow wizards for setup and comes with a stylus for ease of use. The device can also be configured and maintained using the HomeScreen app available for Android and IOS. The setup of the router is as easy as answering a few questions. In my case I wanted to set it up as a wireless range extender in my home. Step one, power it on. Step two, select Range Extender. Step three, select your network from the list. Step four, enter your network password. Step five - Done. That is all it takes to expand your wireless network in your home. This can be plugged in anywhere in between the area of low signal in your home and your main router and it will pickup the main signal and rebroadcast it. I tested the device in various areas of my home and it outperformed my Linksys and Netgear routers for signal strength and allowed my to get full signal to the far end of our home above the garage. HomeScreen was nice enough to let me test this product out and share my experience with you and I thought to be fair it would be nice to share that generosity with you. Starting June 24th, 2015 at 6:00 am EST and ending on July 15th at 6:00am EST Simple Suburban Living will be giving this HomeScreen Two in One router away to one randomly selecting winner through a sweepstakes. All you need to do to enter is subscribe to the SSLFamily Blog to receive updates from us. You can unsubscribe at any time after the contest ends if you do not wish to receive updates from our site. Your email address will not be shared or sold to anyone and will only be used to notify you when a new blog article is released. If you are already subscribed to the blog please email us directly that you would like to be entered at sslfamily5@gmail.com. Only one entry per person will entered. United States and Canada only please.
Click here to enter the HomeScreen Two in One Sweepstakes
Check out the video review and demonstration here
Sweepstakes official rules
NO PURCHASE OR PAYMENT OF ANY KIND IS NECESSARY TO ENTER OR WIN. The “HomeScreen Two-In-One Router Contest” is sponsored by Simple Suburban Living (“Sponsor”)This contest is governed by these official rules (“Official Rules”). By participating in the contest, each entrant agrees to abide by these Official Rules, including all eligibility requirements, and understands that the results of the contest, as determined by Sponsor and its agents, are final in all respects. The contest is subject to all federal, state and local laws and regulations and is void where prohibited by law. This promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, YouTube. Any questions, comments or complaints regarding the promotion will be directed to Sponsor, not YouTube. 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After signing up for email updates and providing a validated email address, the entrant will receive one (1) entry into the drawing.WINNER SELECTION All eligible entries received during the Submission Period will gathered into a database at the end of the Submission Period. A winner will be chosen at random.The winners will be announced on or about July 20th, 2015 on or about noon EST. Announcement and instructions for prize will be sent to the e-mail address supplied on the potential prize winner’s submission. Each entrant is responsible for monitoring his/her e-mail account for prize notification and receipt or other communications related to this sweepstakes. If a potential prize winner cannot be reached by Administrator (or Sponsor) within fifteen (15) days, using the contact information provided at the time of entry, or if the prize is returned as undeliverable, that potential prize winner shall forfeit the prize. 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