Thrifty Mother's Day Gift Ideas, 7 Easy Crops for Your Garden

Bruce’s Poor Man Survival Bulletin

A Digest of Urban Survival Resources

http://www.PoorManSurvival.com

For Independent Minded People!

ISSN 2161-5543

In This Issue:

1.       7 Easy crops for your garden

2.      Thrifty, Unique gifts for Mother’s Day

3.      Plan 3D-Design solar homes

4.      Are workers just a liability?

The most remarkable thing about my mother is that for thirty years she served the family nothing but leftovers. The original meal has never been found." ~ Calvin Trillin

7 Easy Crops  by Craig Idlebrook

Not everyone is blessed with a green thumb. Many gardeners are looking for low-maintenance crops after watching past efforts fizzle. And even the best gardeners suffer off years, scrambling for quick-growing crops to replant after poor weather or critter mishaps.

Don’t throw in the trowel! Here are 10 suggestions for crops that are easy to grow, including some quick-performers. While there’s no guarantee in the growing world, these crops are a good bet to succeed under your care, or in spite of it.

Garlic

While garlic’s an easy crop to grow, growing perfect garlic can become a lifetime obsession. Getting started is simple: In the fall, plant peeled cloves, pointing upward. Cover. Wait. Harvest heads in the spring or summer.

These hardy plants basically grow themselves. If you plant them in rich soil and regularly water them, the cloves will produce bigger bulbs. Erratic watering and poor soil leads to smaller cloves, but smaller cloves usually have a stronger taste. You can’t lose.

Green beans

There’s a lot to love about a plant that feeds itself.

Green beans are nitrogen fixers; they process nitrogen from the air rather than pulling it from the soil. In other words, growing green beans is a tasty way to fertilize your garden.

They’re also quick growers. You can wait until all danger of frost has passed to plant and still have plenty of the growing season left. Green beans are an excellent candidate for a replacement crop in late spring or midsummer.

Gently harvest the beans, and the plants will produce all summer. If you get tired of green, try purple or yellow varieties.

Peas

Another nitrogen-fixer, peas are great for gardeners who can’t wait until the frost is gone to start planting. As soon as the soil can be worked, you can pop peas into the ground.

Peas prefer some shade, but they’ll do fine with full sun, if planted early. Plant peas in loose soil about a knuckle-deep. Give them something for climbing to avoid fungus problems. Water regularly.

Peas are the perfect garden-grazing food. Children love being able to pick peas for munching while their parents are working in the garden. Also, pea shoots are a delicacy.

Cilantro

The biggest problem with cilantro is keeping up with it. Cilantro plants grow quick and bolt in the blink of an eye. If that happens, you’ll find cilantro volunteers in your garden for years, and wouldn’t that be a shame?

Stagger plantings of cilantro for a continual harvest. Plant in containers or in the ground an inch apart and a half-inch deep. Keep in full sun and water regularly.

Everyone has a strong opinion about the taste of cilantro.

It’s perfect for salsa and salads, but if you like the taste, you’ll find it fits well with almost any meal except pancakes.

Chives

Plant seeds in sun or partial shade after danger of frost has passed. Water regularly until established. Watch ’em grow. Wait until well-established to harvest, and then eat regularly. Cut stalks 2 inches from base for continuous growth, but don’t worry about measuring. Chives are hardy!

Use chives in any dish you would otherwise use onions. They are a beautiful addition to eggs, and their flowers are great for salads.

Potatoes

Potatoes are the king crop in northern Maine, a growing area plagued with rocky, acidic soil and a terribly short growing season. That’s all you need to know about a potato’s hardiness.

Like garlic, you can tinker endlessly with growing the perfect potato, but you can grow good potatoes easily. They even grow well in plastic bags filled with dirt, according to one potato blogger. Potatoes can be planted as soon as the soil is worked, but you might want to cover them if it’s a soggy spring. Plant again in June for a second crop.

Tempting as it is to use a shriveled potato in the back of the fridge for seed, buy seed potatoes from the garden center. They’re cheap and, hopefully,
disease-free. Cut up bigger seeds so that each chunk has two or three eyes. Plant a foot apart in rows, closer in hills.

Dandelions

If you can’t beat them, eat them. Dandelions are nearly impossible to keep out of your garden, but they also are a great crop to eat. Every part of the plant is edible and extremely nutritious. And talk about a no-maintenance crop.

The leaves are tastiest young, but you can eat them anytime if you boil them long enough. Add young leaves to a salad or sauté to add to any dish. The yellow flowers are versatile and tasty. The roots can be brewed for tea, roasted or added to soups.

One word of caution: Dandelions are great at soaking up toxins. Don’t harvest them near roads or in public places where pesticides or herbicides are used.

Dandelion seeds sometimes are tricky to buy, but why bother? You don’t have to go looking for them; they’ll find you.  

Excerpted from GRIT, Celebrating Rural America Since 1882. To read more articles from GRIT, please visit www.Grit.com or call (866) 624-9388 to subscribe. Copyright 2012 by Ogden Publications Inc.

Find Your Timewasters. Keep track for one week of all the ways you waste time. Do you spend 10 minutes finding your keys? If so, make a key hook by your door, and use it. Do you forget "that one item" when you go to the store? Keep a list on your refrigerator and, each time you empty something, add it to the list.

PM’s Compendium of Useful Resources

Genetically modified crops have been shown to have some very negative effects on the environment and on human health. But the USDA has approved 80 different genetically engineered crops and has never denied a single one. At this point, approximately 70 percent of all processed foods in the United States contain genes that have been genetically engineered.

Sign up for A Busy Mom's Kitchen E-Newsletter & Receive Recipes, Kitchen Tips, plus a FREE Cooking with Kids E-Book!
http://noelskitchentips.com/2010/01/21/a-busy-moms-breakfast-tips-for-kids/

5 Thrifty Mother's Day Surprises
Showing Mom you care doesn't have to break the bank. Surprise her with these ideas.

Mother's Day celebrates the one person who not only keeps our lives from toppling into slovenliness and disorder, but singlehandedly also makes all the other holidays of the year magical.
Read more: 5 thrifty Mothers Day surprises http://www.bankrate.com/finance/personal-finance/5-frugal-gift-ideas-for-mother-s-day.aspx#ixzz1tjqtI5CX

Unique Mother's Day gifts

Show Mom you learned a thing or two about the value of a dollar. Our super chic (and cheap) picks for Mother's Day gift picks include something for every mother and every budget.

http://www.allyou.com/budget-home/money-shopping/cheap-mothers-day-gifts-00400000066536/

Building a new solar home or on adding energy-efficient features to your existing house? Here are some design ideas and free building guides

Mother Earth News magazine has provided solid information on many topics related to sustainable living and natural building for several decades, and now many of these articles are available on-line. I've compiled a list of links to some of their best articles on passive solar design, landscaping and retrofitting, by experts like Dan Chiras and Gary Reysa. Combined, the articles add up to a book-length primer on green, energy saving design. They are yours to read and use for free.
Click here to get the Mother Earth News Solar Design Guides >>>
 http://www.todaysplans.net/use-motherearthnews-free-solar-green-home-guides.html

Plan3D is a website that will let you experiment with your solar design ideas before you build. It's a simple and intuitive CAD program

http://www.todaysplans.net/a-plan3d.html

Get Tara’s Best Kept Secret to Balance for Busy Moms

www.workingmothercoaching.com

The Nanny State Updates…

Top 5 Biggest Concerns About CISPA

The House on Thursday opted for an earlier-than-expected vote on the controversial CISPA bill, which now moves to the Senate. But what's the big deal with this bill? How might it affect the average Web user?

The Cyber Information Sharing & Protection Act (CISPA) is intended to allow for information-sharing between private companies and the government in the event of a cyber attack…as we all know, it’s a challenge to trust the government anymore.  Read more at:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2403658,00.asp

The Parting Thought –

The average duration of unemployment in the United States today is about three times as long as it was back in the year 2000.

And according to a recent Wall Street Journal article, the number of announced job cuts is actually rising again....

Also, announced jobs cuts rose 7.1% in April, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, to 40,599 — and up 11.2% from last April — another bit of evidence that the jobs market isn’t doing well.

Economic conditions in the United States have been steadily getting worse for quite a while, but that is not the only reason for our employment problems.

There are two other trends that I want to briefly mention…

1) A lot of jobs that used to be very labor intensive are now being replaced by technology. Thanks to robotics, automation and computers, a lot of big companies simply do not need as many workers these days. Those are jobs that are never going to come back.

2) As labor has become a global commodity, millions upon millions of U.S. jobs have been sent overseas. Today, you are not just competing for a job with your neighbors. You are also competing with workers on the other side of the globe. Unfortunately, it is legal to pay slave labor wages in many of those countries. By sending our jobs out of the country, big corporations can also avoid a whole host of rules, regulations, taxes and benefit payments that they would be facing if they hired American workers

Workers are increasingly being viewed as "liabilities", and there is a good chance that the moment you become "expendable" to your company you will be kicked out on the street.

That is one reason why I am encouraging people to consider starting their own businesses. If you work for someone else, your security can be taken away from you at any moment. But if you work for yourself, you aren't going to get fired.

“Until the next revolution”, the Poor Man

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A Shallow Planet Production

5 Best Ways to Make Money, Predator Drones Spy on Americans

Bruce’s Poor Man Survival Bulletin

A Digest of Urban Survival Resources

http://www.PoorManSurvival.com

ISSN 2161-5543

In This Issue:

1.        5 Best Ways to make money, Sell stuff with a Tweet

2.       PayPal holding your funds?  State regulators want to know

3.       16 Work-at-Home Scams to Avoid

4.       Predator Drones now spying on Americans

5.       Will we ever end the Fed and become a sovereign nation again?

The Supreme Court has ruled that they cannot have a nativity scene in Washington, D.C. This wasn't for any religious reasons. They couldn't find three wise men and a virgin.
Jay Leno

Christmas Gifts Don’t Have to Make you a Debt-Slave

Finding holiday meaning beyond the shopping mall…

Retail and credit card numbers show Americans are spending a lot, so far, this Christmas season.  You don’t have to dig yourself into more debt.  Indeed, I find the gifts I enjoy most are those which are home made.

Among the gifts we’ve received, our favorites so far have been a batches of venison sausage, delicious cookies and pastries and homemade cheeses (artichoke garlic…hmmm)!

Our family does a ‘white elephant’ gift exchange whereby we bring one or two items to the family dinner, one for women and one for men.  These are items which some call ‘re-gifting’ or items previously received but never used.  It’s always fun to see what odd items have been included.

One doesn’t always need to provide material things as a present.  Creating your own services-oriented gift certificate works well too.  Gift certificates for house cleaning, babysitting, lawn care, and the like can easily spread holiday cheer.

If you are in the business of say, providing haircuts, remodeling services, tutoring, etc. consider joining Time Bank.org, a group which essentially swaps services for services. As their site states, they offer “Nurturing and expanding a movement that promotes equality and builds caring community economies through inclusive exchange of time and talent.”

The group has many volunteers and is expanding throughout the USA.  For more information, visit their site at:  http://timebanks.org/

Enjoy this Credit Crunch Christmas video parody song…it’s fun!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0zHKY3EHD4

NOTE:  No newsletter will be published this weekend in observance of Christmas.  Our very best wishes to all of you this holiday season!

Recycle your Christmas tree to avoid landfills (10 million last year).  Visit earth911.com to find a recycling program near you.

PM’s Compendium of Useful Resources

The 5 Best Ways to Make More Money
No matter how much you have, everyone can use a little extra money. And that's truer these days than at any time in recent history. Here are some tips to make more money and keep more of what you make. Read more.

http://www.stretcher.com/stories/11/11dec12b.cfm?STT

BUY (OR SELL) STUFF WITH A TWEET

As social networking grows and everyone hangs out on Twitter, vendors are starting to sell things in exchange for a tweet. Books, songs, research; anything can be fair game.

In some ways, the Net has become an intercontinental flea market where it costs bupkes to set up a stall. Since stall owners can still make money (from ads) even when visitors don't buy anything, "mentions" become the coin of the realm.

For more, see Pay with a Tweet.

http://www.paywithatweet.com/

"16 WORK AT HOME SCAMS TO AVOID"

Forbes recently carried a comprehensive piece on work-at-home scams. Data entry, check cashing and others are well-detailed. We worked extensively with ABC's 20/20 and the FTC on the rebate processing case mentioned in the article. For the full piece, click here.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/groupthink/2011/12/13/16-work-at-home-scams-to-avoid/

 PayPal Holding Your Funds? State Regulators Want to Know
PayPal holds are every seller's nightmare, tying up cash for 3
weeks or more. EcommerceBytes did some digging and discovered
that sellers can seek redress from state regulators if they feel
the holds are unfair. Today's story on PayPal's practice of
freezing funds is a must-read.
http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y11/m12/i16/s01

Apply a coating of non-stick cooking spray onto your snow shovel prior to using it and snow won’t stick to it, making the job easier.

The Nanny State Updates…

Time to REIN in Runaway Bureaucrats

By Mike Kelsey

America’s out-of-control administrative state can best be compared to a runaway stage coach—trampling American workers and careening away with their money. This week, Congress will have an opportunity to bring much-needed oversight to America’s regulatory process by voting for the aptly named REINS Act (Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny), which would require any new regulations costing more than $100 million to be approved by Congress. If passed, the REINS Act will go a long way toward curbing the excesses of unaccountable bureaucrats and restoring the constitutional principle of self-government.

But don’t bureaucrats decide only the minor details of regulations? In 2010 alone, regulatory agencies issued a torrent of major new regulations costing a staggering (and likely underestimated) sum of $26.5 billion. That sticker shock has not slowed bureaucrats one bit; there are currently 144 major regulations pending that would each cost at least $100 million.

>>Click Here To Read More About The REINS Act.

http://blog.heritage.org/2011/12/05/whoa-there-time-to-rein-in-runaway-bureaucrats/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=33%2BMinutes%20Update

We are accustomed to Predator drones being used in the "war on terror", but now they are being used to watch American citizens. The following comes from a recent article in the Los Angeles Times....

The previously unreported use of its drones to assist local, state and federal law enforcement has occurred without any public acknowledgment or debate.

Congress first authorized Customs and Border Protection to buy unarmed Predators in 2005. Officials in charge of the fleet cite broad authority to work with police from budget requests to Congress that cite "interior law enforcement support" as part of their mission.

In an interview, Michael C. Kostelnik, a retired Air Force general who heads the office that supervises the drones, said Predators are flown "in many areas around the country, not only for federal operators, but also for state and local law enforcement and emergency responders in times of crisis."

Find lots of tricks to make life easier, room by room at: Householdtips.org

The Parting Thought – Will the demise of the Fed ever happen?

"It has been said that the greatest threat to our liberty is from well-meaning,
and almost imperceptible encroachments upon our personal freedom."
-- John Louis Coffey
(1922- ) Judge, U. S. Court of Appeals

The United States is a sovereign nation and it does not need to borrow money from anyone…

America once thrived under a debt-free monetary system, and we can do it again. The truth is that the United States is a sovereign nation and it does not need to borrow money from anyone. Back in the days of JFK, Federal Reserve Notes were not the only currency in circulation. Under JFK (at at various other times), a limited number of debt-free United States Notes were issued by the U.S. Treasury and spent by the U.S. government without any new debt being created.

According to Wikipedia, United States Notes were issued directly into circulation by the U.S. Treasury.

Our current debt-based monetary system also requires very high personal income taxes to pay for it.

In fact, it is no accident that the personal income tax was introduced at about the same time that the Federal Reserve scam originally came into existence.

Thomas Edison was once quoted in the New York Times as saying the following....

That is to say, under the old way any time we wish to add to the national wealth we are compelled to add to the national debt.

Now, that is what Henry Ford wants to prevent. He thinks it is stupid, and so do I, that for the loan of $30,000,000 of their own money the people of the United States should be compelled to pay $66,000,000 — that is what it amounts to, with interest. People who will not turn a shovelful of dirt nor contribute a pound of material will collect more money from the United States than will the people who supply the material and do the work. That is the terrible thing about interest. In all our great bond issues the interest is always greater than the principal. All of the great public works cost more than twice the actual cost, on that account. Under the present system of doing business we simply add 120 to 150 per cent, to the stated cost.

But here is the point: If our nation can issue a dollar bond, it can issue a dollar bill. The element that makes the bond good makes the bill good.

Our current debt-based monetary system was devised by greedy bankers that wanted to make huge profits by creating money out of thin air and lending it to the U.S. government at interest.  The IRS was created as part of the Federal Reserve (not part of the government) to ensure collection of funds to repay the Reserve.  This was done without informing the American people and we’ve suffered ever since.

Sources:  The Economic Collapse , PoorManSurvival.com, Ron Paul, Wikipedia

 Last coffin in America’s coffin…according to Sen. Ron Paul - video is right on! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeCpLcjxOq4&feature=youtu.be

“Until the next revolution”, the Poor Man

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Keep our services free, visit our sites…

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New self sufficiency books added weekly

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A Shallow Planet Production