Zip ties and their many uses

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Zip ties and their many uses on the farm, homestead, the garden and elsewhereZip ties, or as they are called in England, cable ties, are, even though they are plastic and some people do have a problem with plastic, are often a godsend when it comes to temporarily or even, more or less, permanently fixing something, be this in the home, on the farm, the homestead, the garden or elsewhere. The uses literally are legion.

While, as said, those little (and not so little) ties are plastic and thus (probably) not all that green but they are so very useful for so many things, be it for temporary or even permanent fixing of things.

These simple strips, typically made of plastic, come in many lengths and feature a special ratcheting design, some even can be reused in that they have a “reversible” catch. When you insert the pointed end into a slot at the opposite end, it latches firmly in place and creates a loop that can be tightened (but not loosened – unless the special kind) to whatever size you need. You can combine multiple zip ties to create much longer zip ties.

The potential uses for zip ties are almost limitless and all I can give you here are a few example of their uses around the farm, the garden, the homestead and the home. As far as I am concerned zip ties are so useful that I even pick up any unused ones that people, who have been using them somewhere, have dropped. Weird, I know, but then that's what I am like; waste not want not.

The uses for those – predominately – plastic strips, those cable- or zip ties are legion and, more or less, I should guess, endless, on the farm, in the garden, in the home, and elsewhere.

Installing wire mesh fencing: When installing mesh wire fencing, it doesn't get much easier than securing the wire in place with large zip ties. The evenly spaced gaps in the mesh wire ensures that you can slide the ties through wherever necessary, securing them around metal stakes to hold the wire upright. They work equally well for installing deer netting.

Guiding grape vines and other climbers: Simply attach the vines to the trellis of wires or fence on which you want them to grow up on with zip ties. It could not be easier. Eventually, the vines will curl their tendrils around the wires and be able to support themselves, but in the meantime, the ties effectively hold the vines in place.

The same applies to all kinds of vines, not just grape vines, and delicate plants that need support can also be helped with zip ties.

Repairing fruit tree branches: Unfortunately, it's fairly common for fruit trees to overestimate how much fruit their branches can support and branches can crack under the weight of a heavy crop. However, as long as the branch is not fully broken, it is possible to support it with a stake and allow the tree to heal the crack. Zip ties are an important part of the process, perfect for holding everything in position. This may even work, though I have not tried it, with tree saplings that have been accidentally broken though not completely off.

Securing tarps: Need to tie down a tarp to keep something dry? Loop some zip ties through the grommets on the tarp and secure it in place. It does not get easier than that now, does it.

Pole bean teepee (pole beans = runner beans in Britain): When installing bean poles and turning them into the teepee shape there is no easier way than using some cable ties and, voila, ready is the thing. While it is possible to do it with string, or wire, doing it on one's own with the latter two can be a little bit of a problem, time-consuming and fiddly. Not so with cable ties.

Bicycles: Here they have their first uses, obviously, to hold cables and such in place, but there are also things on the bike that can be temporarily or permanently tied down with cable ties.

Shower curtains: Want to put up a shower curtain (think tarp but hanging down) onto a pole and there are no hooks or rings. Zip ties through the grommets and over the pole and voila, there it hangs ready for use.

This is but a very small list of the uses for zip ties around farm, homestead, home, etc., and one could, I should guess, fill a small book with them at least and after publication of such book another hundred uses would come up. So, maybe, a book I won't write about it.

© 2018

They walk among us... unfortunately

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

UK, April 20, 2013: On the way to the shops this morning passing the Farmer's Market being held at North Cheam in Surrey, England, a woman of about 70 spoke to me saying: “We don't need such farmer's markets and farmers. We can get all our food from the supermarkets.”

When I tried to, sort of, point out that food came from farms she continued: “And the food at the supermarkets is also much better and healthier.”

At that stage, not wishing to engage in this conversation any further, as I might have gotten rude, I departed.

It is a sad fact when someone of an age group such as that woman talks such utter rubbish. What chance is there for the younger generations to understand how things really are.

Many children do believe that beefburgers, for instance, come from a factory and have nothing to do with the cattle in the fields. Milk many kids also believe to come from yet another factory and that it actually comes from cows is very alien to them.

From the accent I would assume the woman that spoke to me to be from the area and even though this is close to London with North Cheam being actually in the London Borough of Sutton there are farms nearby.

Nevertheless the brainwashing by the corporations seem to have even affected people of an age that should still have encountered the farms and farmers and markets for all manner of things.

Guess it is a sign that I am getting old that I cannot fathom such ignorance.

The person, however, does not have, it would appear, been getting much of the recent news about the horse meat scandal in the UK and the EU and other issues associated with food in supermarkets.

A truly sad state as to how things have become...

© 2013

Farming subsidies

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

I must say that I have never understood why farming is the only business, aside from banking, that is being “bailed out” by government and the likes of the EU.

While I do understand that farming is important as it produces food for us and such but no other business, if it cannot break even and make an income is, generally, been given subsidies by the governments. Why then should farmers not be able to do without.

The truth is that the great majority of farms and farmers would not be able to survive were it not for those subsidies and that, in the main, is due to the fact that they are being encouraged to invest in more and more very expensive technology, machinery, and such.

It is the same in the USA where the government subsidizes the farming industry and the only farms who make actual profit are those that are not part of the industry, namely those that are worked by people who do not take such monies.

The Amish and other Plain People, who farm with horses and man-power only, basically, and without chemical fertilizers, and also others who farm that way, actually have healthy farms that produce an income well above those of the “modern” farms with their heavy machines and subsidies.

In addition to that those farms, worked in a rather old-fashioned way, which may also be the way we will be working in the future once more, create healthy soil by using animal manure for improving the land.

Modern farming practices, on the other hand, destroy the soil and soil structure and leach the goodness out of it, and at the same time leach money out of the pockets of the farmer.

We are being told all the time that we need ever larger farms to produce the food that the starving world needs but we waste so much food that we could feed the starving world several times over, and much due to the large farms, and the rest, more often that not, due to the supermarket buyers rejecting misshapen produce and produce with slight blemishes, etc.

also, we are told that we must accept genetically modified and genetically engineered crops to feed the world but this too is a fallacy that is being perpetuated by big business and governments which are in the pockets of said big business.

The proof is that small (family) farms run on old-fashioned principles are more productive than most, if not indeed all, the large-scale commercial farms, and while the latter need subsidies the former, such as the Amish ones and those of other Plain People do not. In fact the Amish and others do not accept such government handouts as they do not want to be beholden to the powers-that-be.

Subsidies, much like child benefit (UK and other EU countries) make people beholden to the powers-that-be and thus the same powers can demand how they behave, so to speak. In the case of farmers this means how they farm the land, what they grow and how much they have to leave for environmental schemes, though doing the environmental thing is not a bad idea, per se.

Farming subsidies should not be necessary in any way, shape or form. If a farming is a business, just like any other, than either other businesses, especially those that benefit us, such as local ones, should be subsidized or none at all.

It is also down to the consumer, to be very honest, as to whether we, as consumers, support our small farmers or not and we should find every way possible to buy direct from them and thus give them the money directly into their pockets rather than into the pockets of the middlemen.

Milk at the stores costs several times that per pint than what our farmers get from the buyers and there is no way that this has to be the case. However, the farmer, in general, is not allowed to sell milk direct and neither can he do the same with meat. He is not even, as used to be the case, permitted to slaughter on the farm.

Everything is geared to the middlemen and not the producer, as far as farming is concerned and this needs changing.

The taxpayer is, via the subsidies, supporting the biggest farms which, amazingly, can just about break even, and, as they claim, just about tread water, and that with the subsidies. Something does not compute here.

The only businesses that are being supported by tax monies are farming and the banks, via bailouts, because they, apparently, were too big to fail.

Farms and farmers are, that is true, the producers of our food and thus we need them. That then also means that they should be paid the right price for their produce in order not to need government handouts.

Time for a rethink...

© 2013

The size of farming

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Farms in the western world and we include in this term the Antipodean countries, and such places, are becoming bigger and bigger and we are being told that we have to accept this trend as this is the only way to go forward.

Keeping in step with this growth pattern farm machinery, that is to say tractors, combines, sprayers, etc., also are getting every bigger and more and more sophisticated. The latter to such an extent that the driver of today's modern farm tractors and combines is just becoming someone who inputs the data and them monitors the operation. The machines can plow, etc., via satellite. Great for straight lines, but what if and when technology finally fails.

A great majority of farms in the USA, in Canada, in the UK, Australia and a couple of other such places, nowadays fall more and more under the term “factory farm”, for lack of a better expression, and the big old farming estates of Europe and such are not even close in size and operations. In fact many of the old large estates in Eastern Europe are still worked in almost the same wasy as before World War II.

With the ever bigger machinery and scale of operations, highly dependent of fossil fuels, especially petroleum products, and not just for running the machines, I just wonder as to how people think that this is going to continue with petroleum products becoming more and more expensive on an almost daily level. We are running out of cheap and abundant oil and thus it will get more and more expensive.

The huge farming operations are not sustainable and, in fact, do serious harm o to the environment, our health and the Planet as a whole.

Chemical fertilizers, based, predominately on petroleum products pollute the soil and the water and rob the soil of its ability to support life. Herbicides and pesticides pollute the environment, and us, directly and through the food that we eat and the water that we drink and even the very air that we breathe.

Use, or should we better call a spade a spade and say overuse, of antibiotics in animal farming is making us all sick and is creating superbugs, including MRSA and such like. Things have to change and they must change pronto; ideally now, this very moment.

To think that we can continue to grow farms and their operations more and more and bigger and bigger, as our governments, the farming lobby, and the general powers that be so, is absolutely ludicrous. It is not sustainable and the attempt is just to purposely destroy the (small) family farms, which is the very aim, in fact, methinks.

However, you do not have to have all the huge machines and run your farm like a factory and farming as an industry.

Instead of bigger and bigger our farms in the “developed” world – I sometimes really wonder about the “developed” bit – must be brought down to size again and everyone also must do his part in food growing.

We must return to the small, family-owned and -operated, or to community-owned and -operated, farms.

Small is beautiful also and especially in the farming sector and the Amish farms can stand as an example of this is the modern world. They are the only farms in America that don't just break even; they actually make a profit and a very handsome one at that.

© 2012