Comments by "Ray W" (@rayw3332) on "Simple Mortgage Free Cabin Build Pt 7: Front Porch, And Planting The Garden" video.

  1. Strawberries, once they get established, willl send out long aggressive runners and within a few years will entirely engulf that garden plot as you laid it out. Once strawberry plants have runnered and spread themselves they will form a thick layer of root crowns that will be very hard to eradicate. So they should be given their own bed away from the vegetable garden and perhaps put down a weed preventing fabric or plastic material covering the planting row. Only THEN, with only small holes in the fabric, plant in holes you've made at recommended spacing. This way one can prune off the aggressive runners allowing bushy hills of bearing strawberry plants nicely contained and weed free.
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  2. Take a medium-sized tarp say 10 by 12, string it up with paracord from four smaller trees. Make a valley at one end of the tarp so that all the water that hits the tarp runs down into it and into your storage container -- large bucket, garbage can or whatever.
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  3. Potatoes with growing eyes can be cut into pieces before planting as long as there is one eye per piece of potato. After cutting the potato up into pieces, let it dry for say 48 hours before planting them. You can still fertilize your newly growing plants with soluble fertilizer from a watering can, or you can work some 10-10-10 granular fertilizer into the top layer of soil around plants after you get sprout. Get those compost piles going (mentioned previously) now tho.
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  4. Do not collect roof water: heavy metals from roofing, acid rain, toxic pollen, bird droppings, algae, critters, gutters that are ALWAYS dirty with hideous goo, always need ladder cleaning and flushing. Use my tarp method, cleanse tarps easily. You gathered so much lake water -- you can easily build or preferably buy a water distiller either a countertop electrical one or an outdoor fire pit setup. And I would spend real money on a quality well if that's what you're going to do, not some half-assed mud pit!
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  5. You should be aware your video is preceded by partisan political ads, bleccccch.
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  6. Oh. Unless you're talking collecting water for garden watering. I'd be OK with that. If you've got some extra cash you can buy strainer inserts for 55 gal drum barrels. Or, buy commercial "rain barrels" for which you get barrel top screens to catch leaves and crap. Usually used with a "rain barrel diverter." You buy the rain barrel with pre-installed spigots (the barrel is installed higher up, say on some blocks, so that you can easily place a watering can underneath the spigot!)
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  7. They also make filter tops that fit on to say 5 gal buckets.
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  8.  @KYLESCABIN  "blight" Kyle, pick off bottom leaves of the tomato plant because the blight disease is soil born, so once the plants get about a foot or foot and a half tall, start that process. The other thing that should be done is putting a layer -- an inch or two -- of mulch around the bottom of the plants so the soil organisms can't splash up onto the tomato leaves. I'm a university certified master gardner. .
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