Action4Canada - Gardening And Food Security with Dan Vachon

00:00:00.000 OK, so basically what they're suggesting is that there's too much misinformation and disinformation on on the Web, probably about everything we're talking about, like all the truth that we're talking about.

00:00:11.260 So they want to clean it. So what they want to do is they want to disconnect the World Wide Web for one day.

00:00:17.800 And then they're saying, well, probably to do that, what we should do is disconnect the entire power grid in certain countries also for that same day.

00:00:26.640 And they're also saying, well, it's going to cost the world economy like it's in the billions of dollars.

00:00:32.920 And then some are saying they're going to say, oh, look how greener the planet got today because we did this.

00:00:40.680 And so it's all part of the climate change initiative. Right.

00:00:43.720 So my suggestion was, well, if if all we do to preserve our food is is put things in the freezer, you know what it's like.

00:00:50.980 I mean, we have hurricanes here on the East Coast or the tail ends of hurricanes and winter storms and sometimes the power goes off for, you know, a week and that.

00:00:59.400 And so we have to be prepared. Right. So we don't want to put all of our eggs into the freezer, so to speak, or into one basket.

00:01:05.800 So we have to be prepared. So having said that, some of the segments in the videos we're going to do is I'm going to teach you how to cook without an electric stove.

00:01:14.880 So there are options. Right. And all you need is maybe a few tweaks, maybe a barbecue.

00:01:21.400 And I'm not going to reveal all the secrets here. You'll have to stay tuned.

00:01:25.100 But we want you to be prepared for disasters and all those things.

00:01:30.500 I'm super pleased to introduce tonight's special guest, Dan Vachon.

00:01:38.000 Dan is a retired pastor, missionary and paramedic, and he is Action for Canada's chapter leader in Sydney, Nova Scotia, as well as the chapter team leader for the Maritimes.

00:01:49.600 He also co-leads Action for Canada's pastoral support team.

00:01:53.280 Dan has a great love of nature and the outdoors, and he's here to share his knowledge of farming, gardening, and preserving the bounty of the harvest with us.

00:02:04.200 Dan is a man of faith and integrity, and we are so pleased that he can join us tonight.

00:02:09.460 Will you all help me welcome Dan Vachon?

00:02:12.080 Dan, thank you for joining us and welcome to the Empower Hour.

00:02:15.700 Thanks, Heather. So good to be here again.

00:02:18.120 The crowds are going.

00:02:19.380 Oh, yeah. Yeah.

00:02:20.960 Yeah, I know. Right. I saw you doing that in the background.

00:02:23.280 Other people couldn't see that, but Dan was making me laugh earlier.

00:02:26.880 I was trying to keep it together.

00:02:29.360 Oh, Dan, I'm so happy to have you on.

00:02:31.580 Just so everybody knows, this is such a good friend of Action for Canada and such a valuable and cherished part of our team.

00:02:38.140 Dan wears many hats as part of the co-leader of the pastoral team and a chapter leader in Nova Scotia.

00:02:45.760 There we go. Maritimes.

00:02:48.820 Yes. And Dan also has so many talents when it comes to animal farming, gardening, preserving, and preparing.

00:03:00.000 So, Dan, thank you so much.

00:03:01.520 I'm just going to hand it over to you, and I look forward to your presentation.

00:03:05.040 All right. Well, thanks so much, Tanya.

00:03:07.440 I got to tell you, I was kind of excited seeing all of the people logging on tonight and seeing where they're from.

00:03:13.520 And so many new people saying this is their first time.

00:03:16.920 So, welcome. Welcome, everybody.

00:03:19.480 And so, here I am in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, at the eastern end of the country.

00:03:23.620 We had 15 beautiful degrees here today, bright, sunny day, and I was in my greenhouse watering things there.

00:03:32.140 And I think it said it was like 42 degrees in there.

00:03:35.640 So, summer is definitely here, at least in part of where we were on the land.

00:03:40.620 So, I'm just going to go right ahead and get into the PowerPoint here.

00:03:45.380 Now, I got to tell you that I'm just going to kind of skim the surface here tonight, and I don't want to overload anybody with a lot of information,

00:03:54.700 because I want to give you something practical to take home tonight while you are home, but something practical that you can do, okay?

00:04:02.580 And I know and realize that some information is good, but I don't want it to be discouraging to you either.

00:04:11.260 Things are kind of in our economy right now.

00:04:15.100 Things are kind of rough, and I want to show you some things right from the government of Canada to kind of give you an example.

00:04:22.840 So, I'm just going to go ahead and share screen here, and I'm going to get right to this PowerPoint here.

00:04:31.620 I'm going to go right from here.

00:04:35.980 Do, do, do, do, do, slideshow.

00:04:37.800 So, from the beginning, okay.

00:04:42.360 You all see that okay?

00:04:45.660 Yes, we're good.

00:04:46.360 Are we good?

00:04:46.560 Okay, okay.

00:04:48.120 All right.

00:04:48.860 So, I may as well just go right to the first screen here.

00:04:53.500 So, what I want to show you is, as you know, when you go shopping at the store, the price of everything is crazy, crazy high.

00:05:01.600 So, just since February 2023, the import price of foods is up 3.1%, with the consumer price index 5.2% on the rise.

00:05:14.940 Anytime the consumer price index is over, say, 2%, you really, really feel a pinch, because nobody is getting a 5.2% raise.

00:05:22.840 Certainly not these days.

00:05:26.040 I know that just today, government workers went on strike here.

00:05:29.280 I don't know if it's Canada-wide, but here in Nova Scotia, the picket lines are up already.

00:05:34.300 So, it's a dire situation.

00:05:38.400 Let me move my screen here a little bit, because it's blocking this here.

00:05:42.180 But the total number of farms in Canada last year went down by 1.9%, which represents almost 200,000 hectares of land.

00:05:53.060 That's a lot of land.

00:05:55.260 That's less land that's being farmed.

00:05:57.980 So, of course, when that happens, you're going to see these numbers go up even more.

00:06:04.060 This graph here is representative of where we get the majority of our grain in Canada.

00:06:11.260 This is mostly of the prairies.

00:06:14.580 The yellow that you see there...

00:06:17.900 Sorry, I just got to move my screen here again.

00:06:22.160 The yellow that you see there represents what would have been similar to the growth pattern the year before.

00:06:29.320 The peach color is lower, but the brown is much lower.

00:06:34.320 This is compared to the year 2022.

00:06:36.840 So, what this simply means is that our crop production in the prairies has gone down again since the year before.

00:06:46.160 And this is what the CBC has reported here just on March 21st, 2023.

00:06:51.280 The inflation rate drops to 5.2% in February, but grocery prices are still up.

00:06:57.600 I was at the grocery store just a couple days ago, and I could see three different tills next to me.

00:07:05.080 And by the way, I never go to the self-checkout because I don't work there, so why would I do the work, right?

00:07:09.080 But I could not believe how many people had grocery items at their till, at their checkouts, that had reduced price tags on them.

00:07:18.020 I mean, this is where we're at.

00:07:20.160 And I mean, inflation rate drops to 5.2%.

00:07:22.980 When the inflation rate is like 2%, everybody's feeling the crunch.

00:07:28.620 I mean, if you work at a job and you get like a 1.5% raise per year, you're not really getting a raise.

00:07:34.380 You're barely keeping up with inflation.

00:07:36.560 But 5.2%, I mean, come on.

00:07:39.000 So, back in the old days, I used to have, you know, I've owned a number of farms in my life.

00:07:45.400 I've had a 36-acre farm, a 54-acre farm, and the last one I had was a 200-acre farm.

00:07:51.640 So, I call this Dan's not former glory days, but my farmer glory days.

00:07:56.400 And at one time, you know, I had three tractors.

00:07:58.960 And one of the reasons I had all these farms is because, hold on to your hats and sit down for this,

00:08:04.300 but I've raised, I had nine children.

00:08:07.420 And these children, you know, they like to eat, but I realized I had to feed them.

00:08:11.660 And I knew I'd get in trouble if I didn't feed them.

00:08:14.760 And one of the things that I did as well is I taught my children how to become self-sustainable.

00:08:22.640 And if all of my children right now, you know, they found themselves in a dire situation, they could all cook.

00:08:30.880 You know, how many kids in school today know even how to cook an egg, right?

00:08:37.160 But they all learned life skills, sustainable life skills.

00:08:41.800 And so, these were my former days, my farmer days.

00:08:46.600 But here I am now.

00:08:47.740 I mean, we're living on just a few acres.

00:08:50.220 We're on a river.

00:08:51.480 But at this point, you know, we have our own laying hands.

00:08:55.800 We do raise some meat chickens.

00:08:57.760 And we live on a gravel pit, but we do garden.

00:09:00.120 And, I mean, it doesn't sustain all of our needs, but it does sustain some of our needs.

00:09:05.480 So, we can all start somewhere.

00:09:07.620 Now, you may not be able to have a farm or a large farm.

00:09:12.640 You may not have big barns like this that you can store a lot of produce and be able to, you know, quote, unquote, hoard things at this point.

00:09:23.340 And maybe this is you.

00:09:25.560 Maybe you're listening to this and you're thinking, well, what can I do?

00:09:28.400 I mean, this is me.

00:09:29.360 I live in a complex like this.

00:09:31.260 I live in a condo.

00:09:32.160 I live in an urban city.

00:09:36.380 But there is something you can do.

00:09:38.940 Don't feel like you're strapped.

00:09:40.820 And, I mean, this is what the powers that be want, right?

00:09:43.320 They want to move us all into 15-minute cities where, you know, you're kind of stuck in a 15-minute prison.

00:09:49.260 But one of the things I want you to notice about this building, look at all the greeneries growing on these balconies.

00:09:56.000 And so, that's kind of where I want to start with you tonight.

00:09:58.780 Now, whether you live in one of these apartment buildings or a smaller apartment building or even a little bit like in the country, even like I do, this is a place you can start right here.

00:10:09.020 Now, last summer when I did an Empower Hour, I shared a little bit about a tower guard.

00:10:14.260 Now, we actually own one of these.

00:10:16.280 And the first time I planted some of my lettuces in something like this, we actually kept the same lettuces in the little containers in these for over a year until the roots were actually growing right down into the bottom water container.

00:10:29.860 To the point where it plugged up all the holes and I had to take it out.

00:10:33.300 So, we basically planted, I think, three or four different types of lettuces, some Swiss chard.

00:10:38.840 We had some kale growing in there.

00:10:40.260 I even had little baby tomatoes growing in there.

00:10:42.660 And this thing produced well over a year.

00:10:45.160 Now, ours has the timer on it where the lights come on for, I think, 14, 15 hours a day.

00:10:51.740 The pump comes on to water it for about a minute and a half every 10 minutes.

00:10:55.480 And we put the nutrients in there.

00:10:57.360 And this is, you know what?

00:10:59.080 About the year round.

00:11:01.100 Now, if you have, say, a salad a day.

00:11:04.260 I know around here, like a three-pack of romaine lettuce costs about $8.

00:11:09.180 So, you know, you could be saving yourself some money.

00:11:12.880 Now, these things do cost some money.

00:11:15.060 And they cost a little bit to run them every day.

00:11:17.620 But you can be having some fresh lettuce every day.

00:11:21.200 It's healthy for you.

00:11:22.600 You get your fiber.

00:11:23.600 And besides, if you look at the picture on the bottom right, you hardly even see the tower when they're in full blue.

00:11:30.600 So, if you're in an apartment and you want to provide some fresh greens for you, there you go.

00:11:36.160 There's a start.

00:11:37.400 If you live out in the country, you can have this in your house.

00:11:40.300 And you're providing for yourself a little bit.

00:11:44.360 Now, let's say you are in an apartment complex and you don't have very much space.

00:11:48.980 You've got to make use of the space that you do have.

00:11:52.220 The photo on the left, you see the little planter boxes there.

00:11:55.120 And you've got different types of lettuces there.

00:11:57.300 You've got some spinach.

00:11:58.680 You've got some, what else do they have?

00:12:00.520 Yeah, different types of lettuces there.

00:12:02.240 And maybe some Swiss chard.

00:12:04.660 The photo on the right.

00:12:05.840 They're not even using their deck.

00:12:07.440 They built these little containers there that are suspended on the other side of your balcony.

00:12:14.300 And one thing I want to mention here, when you're planting seed, on your seed packet, it will say to plant your seed with certain spacing requirements.

00:12:24.560 Now, you've got to kind of be careful of that if you're planting root crops, like your carrots and your parsnips and your beets and such.

00:12:31.640 Because things growing in the ground, they kind of need to, you know, they need that space in the ground to grow.

00:12:39.200 If you're planting leafy things like lettuces and that, you can plant them closer together because they can grow up and then they can grow up.

00:12:46.980 So you can make really good use of your space.

00:12:50.320 Now, if you look at the planter on the left, it's on wheels.

00:12:53.240 So when it gets a little cold, you can actually bring it inside, put it next to a window.

00:12:59.560 Here's another idea.

00:13:00.560 Same thing on the one on the right.

00:13:02.500 It's also on wheels.

00:13:04.200 And you can cram things in there.

00:13:06.260 The one on the left is made of recycled materials.

00:13:09.240 Now, I had a little business there for a number of years, and it was called Driftwood Pallet Works.

00:13:15.060 And because I live close to the ocean, I used to go and collect all kinds of driftwood seashells.

00:13:20.560 And I'm a bit of a scrounger and collector a little bit.

00:13:24.740 And I used to collect pallets and I used to make all kinds of things like coat racks and license plate holders and different things.

00:13:33.740 But I'm always kind of collecting things and upcycling them and reusing them.

00:13:37.620 And the planters on the left look like they're recycled buckets of some sort and little racks.

00:13:43.400 And these are kind of a nice concept because look how closely those plants are planted together.

00:13:48.280 You can jam a lot of stuff in there.

00:13:50.460 And again, you can bring these in.

00:13:51.940 And if you have a garage, you can set up some lights and you can extend your growing season in something like this in the fall.

00:13:59.720 You can plant in containers.

00:14:02.200 I mean, isn't your mouth just watering a little bit right now?

00:14:06.020 We make a lot of pasta sauces.

00:14:07.860 We use different types of tomatoes.

00:14:09.800 And these pots can be moved around to a shady location if it's too hot or to a sunnier location.

00:14:17.100 And, you know, you can mix and match varieties close by.

00:14:20.500 If you don't have a lot of space, this is an excellent, excellent idea that you can incorporate.

00:14:26.400 Some people have these balconies, you know, and they hardly ever use them.

00:14:29.940 If you want to grow some herbs, for example, in a tight space, look at the one on your left.

00:14:36.240 Or you want to grow specialized little peppers.

00:14:38.900 I really like spicy peppers.

00:14:41.040 So I grow four or five different types of habanero peppers or jalapenos, I call them, peppers, you know.

00:14:49.240 Now, look at the idea, the photo on the right.

00:14:52.420 You've got this older gentleman there.

00:14:54.900 He has simply taken some bags of dirt.

00:14:58.140 You cut up the top.

00:14:59.460 Then you poke some holes in the bottom.

00:15:01.240 Stick them on a tray.

00:15:02.400 You don't even need pots.

00:15:04.160 You just put your seeds or seedlings in there and stake them up as they grow.

00:15:08.640 And voila, Bob's your uncle.

00:15:11.140 Right?

00:15:11.340 And then when you're done, you can recycle that bag of soil to spread it on your lawn when you're done or whatever.

00:15:17.740 All right?

00:15:18.140 So you can get a little creative that way.

00:15:20.620 So what if you do have a little bit of a yard and you want to use some of the space?

00:15:25.300 And, you know, you don't want to rototill your yard or you don't want to dig some holes.

00:15:30.640 You don't want to turn the sod over.

00:15:32.220 Well, one of the easiest ways to do it is to do a raised bed garden.

00:15:36.840 And the nice thing with raised bed gardens is you can go to your lumber yard and you can get a few 2x4s, 2x6s.

00:15:42.540 You can put some raised beds together really quickly, really cheaply.

00:15:47.800 Or you can use some recycled materials for that as well.

00:15:50.940 Now, in this little bed, these little beds here, you'll see on the far right, there's some tomatoes grown there.

00:15:56.980 They've got corn in the middle.

00:15:58.100 I don't know why they have corn in the middle, but anyhow, we won't address that.

00:16:02.720 That's not my photo.

00:16:04.120 And then on the far left, you've got some sort of maybe some squashes there or maybe some zucchinis, it looks like. 0.93

00:16:10.820 Notice the mulch in the middle of the beds.

00:16:13.220 Hey, no need to mow between those rows.

00:16:16.200 And it's easy on your feet, easy on your knees when you kneel as well.

00:16:21.680 And it looks like they have an automatic watering system there, too, or some sort of soaker hoses in there, too.

00:16:28.100 Now, here's a neat idea with a raised bed as well.

00:16:33.520 You don't need a ton of good soil to build a raised bed.

00:16:37.760 Now, talking about the Prepper Dan videos that Tanya was just mentioning at the beginning,

00:16:42.280 I do have a second one that's up now that we're going to be putting on that site as well.

00:16:46.440 And I take you through a tour of my raised bed gardens inside my greenhouse.

00:16:52.140 And I use some panels that I get from lumber yards here.

00:16:57.880 When someone orders a cutout or a new steel door or a new fiberglass door and they want a big window in it,

00:17:05.160 the cutout that they cut out from those doors, they throw them out.

00:17:09.060 And so I use those to make my raised beds.

00:17:11.320 And they're already insulated.

00:17:12.460 But in the middle of the garden beds, you don't have to fill it with good topsoil.

00:17:18.180 And here's a prime example of what you can do to create an organic, rich type environment for your plants.

00:17:27.360 And this is called the lasagna type garden.

00:17:30.320 You can do this.

00:17:31.180 You don't have to do it in a raised bed, but it's super economical and super easy to do.

00:17:35.360 So you create the raised bed using recycled materials.

00:17:39.000 On the outside, you can use pallets.

00:17:40.940 And as they decompose or just rot, you tear them apart.

00:17:44.360 You build new ones.

00:17:45.980 So you mix your carbon and your nitrogen-rich organic materials.

00:17:50.280 And I'll talk a little bit about that in just a few moments.

00:17:52.980 When you do something like this, you can plant your plants really close together.

00:17:57.000 It cuts down on some water and it also cuts down on your weeds.

00:18:00.640 And with something like this, you mulch heavily, say, with straw or with shredded newspaper initially.

00:18:06.260 And then it'll cut down on your weeds as well.

00:18:09.620 Get creative with your raised beds.

00:18:11.220 Doesn't that just look beautiful?

00:18:14.000 Now, these raised beds would cost you a fortune, mind you, because it's all galvanized and all really nice kind of pressure-treated lumber.

00:18:21.380 And they're all stained, nice and neat.

00:18:25.200 But those panels that you see that go up, those are called cattle panels.

00:18:28.940 And those are actually fairly inexpensive.

00:18:31.540 And you can get those at hardware stores.

00:18:33.620 And I know around here, the 4x8 panels are probably about $14, $15 a piece.

00:18:40.880 You can get them that are coated.

00:18:42.460 They're a little more expensive.

00:18:44.100 But this is a beautiful thing that you can do.

00:18:47.620 You can plant some pulled beans on there.

00:18:50.820 You can put some peas on there.

00:18:52.760 Cucumbers do well on there as well.

00:18:54.440 Even some zucchinis or squashes.

00:18:56.360 And so you've got more room inside your garden, inside your raised beds to grow other things.

00:19:03.280 But then your climbing things go up there.

00:19:05.300 And you walk through there every morning.

00:19:07.060 And you just pick your vegetables.

00:19:09.660 And away you go.

00:19:10.860 Here's another idea using the same thing with the trellis at the back.

00:19:13.960 And in the middle there, you can plant some lower type of beans, some bush beans.

00:19:20.800 And one thing I want to say about these beds here.

00:19:24.720 These beds are great for older people like me.

00:19:27.720 Don't want to bend over too much, you know, so you can actually sit.

00:19:31.900 I would put little corners on there even.

00:19:34.220 You can sit there.

00:19:34.900 You can take a break.

00:19:35.780 You can have your morning coffee.

00:19:37.720 And you don't have to bend so much.

00:19:40.140 Now, you may be thinking, you know, these would be kind of expensive to build.

00:19:43.340 Well, not necessarily.

00:19:44.960 You can find an area where somebody would have maybe a sawmill.

00:19:49.520 So you can get some rough sawn hemlock or even some spruce or some pine.

00:19:53.840 Now, I'm fortunate.

00:19:54.600 I have my own sawmill.

00:19:55.740 So, you know, I can make my own lumber.

00:19:57.840 But something like this is ideal.

00:19:59.940 And, again, you don't have to fill the bottoms of these with very expensive dirt or topsoil.

00:20:07.040 You can put some rotting logs in the bottom, some shredded leaves, all kinds of leaf litter.

00:20:13.960 You can put some grass clippings and you build it up like a lasagna bed kind of garden.

00:20:20.560 And as those things decompose, the nutrients in there build a really nice, rich type environment for your plants.

00:20:30.520 And then the roots will gravitate down to that and get lots of nutrients from that.

00:20:35.500 A few more ideas.

00:20:36.600 The beds on the left, again, they look very aesthetic.

00:20:39.720 Boy, I say that fast 10 times.

00:20:41.900 Aesthetically pleasing.

00:20:43.560 And there are trellises in the back.

00:20:45.240 So you would put some climbing type things toward the back there.

00:20:48.760 And the beds on the right, sorry, if you look at them, they're smaller beds.

00:20:54.740 But look how jam-packed they are.

00:20:56.980 Obviously, somebody likes some flowers there.

00:20:59.320 But you can really pack a punch in those beds.

00:21:02.260 And there's a lot of lettuces in there as well.

00:21:04.700 And those beds will keep producing, you know, as long as you get some nice weather.

00:21:10.340 Container gardens.

00:21:11.640 Again, I mentioned those earlier.

00:21:14.060 It looks like somebody got some coats, you know, from Walmart or whatever.

00:21:18.040 They've recycled some five-gallon buckets and pails.

00:21:22.020 And again, you can move those around.

00:21:24.480 And, you know, as the weather gets cooler in the fall, you can move those to a warmer location.

00:21:29.860 And just keep those going.

00:21:33.040 What about extending your growing season?

00:21:35.300 Well, somebody found some six-pane old single-glazed windows.

00:21:40.020 And they've made some cold frames out of those.

00:21:43.720 You know, you just extend a piece of your baby barn or something like that.

00:21:48.220 A few sticks of wood.

00:21:49.540 And again, you put some dirt in there.

00:21:51.600 Now, this will extend your growing season in the spring maybe by as much as six weeks.

00:21:56.440 You can actually just plant some seeds in there.

00:21:58.620 And it's amazing how hot it will get in there.

00:22:02.900 And then once your plants reach the height of the window there, you just simply take those off or prop them open.

00:22:08.940 And you keep growing through the season.

00:22:10.980 Now, what I do in my greenhouse, and I share this in the new video, I actually plant some root crops in there towards the third week of September.

00:22:20.000 Once I've taken the tomatoes and the peppers out there in the fall, and stuff grows in my greenhouse all winter long.

00:22:28.060 And it's not heated at all.

00:22:29.920 So something like this is a great addition as well.

00:22:34.460 Polytunnels, greenhouses, cold frames.

00:22:37.360 The picture on the top right hand, these are kits that you can actually purchase.

00:22:41.740 They're metal frames.

00:22:42.580 They are a little more expensive.

00:22:44.280 But these kits will last you a very long time.

00:22:47.540 The one that you see on the bottom right hand side there, that's actually electrical conduit.

00:22:53.940 Now, I just bought some electrical conduit for some of my outdoor raised beds.

00:22:59.640 And they're actually fairly cheap.

00:23:01.420 They're like $7 for a 10-foot section.

00:23:04.000 The nice thing with those is one end is flared.

00:23:07.340 So all you've got to do is get those little brackets that screw into your wood at the bottom.

00:23:11.340 And it's in the new video as well.

00:23:13.940 You can see it.

00:23:14.680 You just simply just slide them in there and fold them over and just wrap your plastic on top.

00:23:20.540 I mean, you don't need to be a rocket scientist to build these.

00:23:23.820 The photo on the bottom left, those are a little more elaborate.

00:23:27.160 If you have some teenagers that are taking shop class, for example, and you want some help, build something a little more elaborate.

00:23:36.640 And these frames, they look like they just maybe slide off and then you would stack them or put them away until the fall.

00:23:44.100 But again, very aesthetically pleasing.

00:23:46.060 So now that you have all of your produce at the end of summer or towards the middle of summer, what are you going to do with it?

00:23:54.100 Now, let me take a quick pause here and just say something because I'm still researching something that may be happening this summer to a world near you.

00:24:03.740 Now, back in October 2019, the World Economic Forum, in collaboration with the John Hopkins University, the Bill Gates Foundation, the World Economic Forum and the World Health Organization, did an exercise where they plant a worldwide catastrophe with a corona-type virus, a SARS-2 virus.

00:24:29.520 And wouldn't you know it, a few weeks later, the world was hit with a corona-type virus.

00:24:35.480 It actually happened.

00:24:37.500 So now on the World Economic Forum website, they are saying that the Internet has too much misinformation and disinformation.

00:24:51.080 And what they are suggesting is that perhaps as early as July, they may need to clean the Internet.

00:24:57.260 And how they will do that is by unplugging the Internet for one 24-hour period.

00:25:03.940 And then they're saying, we may need to shut down the entire electrical grid in certain countries for a said 24-hour period.

00:25:13.000 And they're actually saying it will cost the world economy X amount of billions of dollars.

00:25:21.080 This is an exercise that they may actually be planning to a world near you in the month of July.

00:25:27.760 So if that actually happens, my thoughts is they may be saying, oh, look how much greener the world became in 24 hours.

00:25:36.740 What if we extend this by three days or, say, a week?

00:25:40.240 Now, here we are, we're planning to grow all this wonderful food, and we've got to preserve it somehow.

00:25:46.360 And my first slide is, hey, why don't you blanch some of your food and freeze it?

00:25:51.280 Now, we do that here.

00:25:52.580 You know, we've got freezers here, and, you know, we want something that's convenient.

00:25:56.200 We get some steaks out of the freezer or some ground beef or some vegetables.

00:25:59.700 But what if they decide, you know, you've got smart meters on your house.

00:26:03.760 We don't like what you're saying.

00:26:04.840 We're going to shut off your smart meter, or we're just going to power off the grid for a week just because it's good for the environment, right?

00:26:11.500 So I'm not trying to discourage you from freezing your vegetables.

00:26:14.860 But if you are going to freeze your vegetables, you need to know how to do it.

00:26:19.160 So, again, we're not going to get into too much detail here.

00:26:21.740 But we will have some follow-up videos on how to preserve in all of the ways I'm going to introduce to you right now.

00:26:29.220 But keep that in mind.

00:26:31.580 It's simple and it's easy to freeze things.

00:26:35.140 But keep in mind that things may go awry and go sideways at some point if somebody at the World Economic Forum decides that they're going to do something to fare.

00:26:48.080 It's like they did in October 2019.

00:26:50.700 And our world here, here in Nova Scotia, they're still following this narrative.

00:26:55.160 And you know what I'm talking about, right?

00:26:56.460 So another way that you can preserve your food is by doing something like this.

00:27:01.880 Now, that is not one of my photos.

00:27:05.220 If it was, I would be going absolutely crazy because you see the third shelf down in the pickles?

00:27:11.380 There's one jar that's crooked that stands out and it's not in line.

00:27:15.460 My OCD would drive me absolutely nuts.

00:27:18.740 I would not have that on my shelf.

00:27:20.700 But other than that, doesn't that look beautiful?

00:27:22.980 And things that are preserved and canned this way will literally last you for years.

00:27:29.560 The power grid can go off and this will keep for years.

00:27:33.480 Now, we do some of this and we actually do some of our vegetables like this that are pickled.

00:27:38.620 And they will also last you for a lot of years.

00:27:40.880 So one of the things we're going to do with our Prepper Dan videos is do step-by-step videos on how to pickle and how to can and how to preserve.

00:27:49.680 Did you know that your products can look as beautiful as that?

00:27:55.900 Now, there's a full meal in a jar.

00:27:59.080 You want to, you know, enhance one of your chicken dinners or whatever.

00:28:02.620 You pop it out.

00:28:03.360 You warm it up.

00:28:04.040 And away you go.

00:28:04.680 Now, some of your vegetables, all of your vegetables, as a matter of fact, will need to be pressure canned because they're low-acid food.

00:28:12.140 Your jams and jellies don't.

00:28:13.900 They can be water bath.

00:28:15.260 But we will go through some videos with you on that, on how to do that.

00:28:19.320 But did you also know that you can can your own meats?

00:28:22.960 Now, we don't really eat lamb here, but I am a hunter.

00:28:26.260 And, you know, we do preserve a lot of our meats this way.

00:28:29.600 The nice thing is when you go to the store and you buy your beef, well, it doesn't, you know, they are playing around with our meats and stuff.

00:28:38.540 And I did have some slides and some articles, but I didn't want to discourage you too much tonight.

00:28:42.480 But you know what?

00:28:43.660 The best thing you can do, one of my children, she raises some pork. 1.00

00:28:49.140 And so we usually buy a pig from her. 1.00

00:28:51.260 We do have some connections also that raise cattle.

00:28:55.080 And so we buy, you know, a quarter beef or a half beef.

00:28:59.200 And so we do our own.

00:29:01.200 Do you know that you can can ground beef?

00:29:03.140 You cook it up, put it in a jar, pressure can it, and voila.

00:29:07.120 And this stuff will last you for years.

00:29:09.560 You can spice it.

00:29:10.940 You can add, you know, as you see there, some onions and some, a few other things.

00:29:14.680 And we also do some of our pasta sauces like this too.

00:29:18.440 And that's a good way of doing it as well.

00:29:21.260 Another way of preserving your meats as well, or not your meats, sorry, but your other produce, things that you can grow in your garden, is by dehydrating it.

00:29:29.780 You can dehydrate some of your meats as well.

00:29:32.100 Make some really nice jerky.

00:29:33.880 I am going to recommend one thing to you, though.

00:29:35.720 You can buy those cheap dehydrators that are round and they just simply have a fan.

00:29:39.900 Again, my recommendation to you is if you are going to get a dehydrator, get a decent one that has a timer on it and also has a temperature control.

00:29:52.400 And we have we have a couple of dehydrators, but particularly the one on the far right.

00:29:58.800 And I'm hoping that when I say right, it's also right on your screen, but the taller looking one over there with all the nice looking stuff on there with the stainless steel trays.

00:30:08.720 I think ours has 12 or 14 trays on there and we can pack it on there.

00:30:13.340 I'll tell you, one of the things that we really like is sweet potatoes.

00:30:16.400 We have we have three dogs and we dry them up as treats for the dogs.

00:30:20.660 And I take one of these like mandolin slicers and I I put a little bit of olive oil on mine and I put some spices on there like Montreal steak spice and a few other Lowry spice and a few others.

00:30:33.100 And I mix it all up and I put them on it.

00:30:35.080 And I love that as a snack and I'll eat like five or six of those little chippy things and the craving goes off.

00:30:41.440 And anyhow, I'm not going to give you all my recipes tonight, but stay tuned for a video coming up on that.

00:30:46.560 So just before we wrap up on this, do you remember those days?

00:30:53.180 Come on now, a couple of couple of years ago.

00:30:55.740 Remember the big the big to do with this?

00:30:59.120 Well, I'm thinking that we may be coming to one of those days at some point soon.

00:31:04.960 Now, at this point, I'm going to share something with you and some of you will say, well, I'm not going to kind of believe where you're going with this, but I have to just give you a disclaimer and share this with you.

00:31:16.560 Tanya shared a scripture verse just a few moments ago.

00:31:20.460 We can prepare as much as we can.

00:31:23.600 And I really want to encourage you to prepare as much as you can to get out there because everything that we do out in our gardens and you can do you can do a lot.

00:31:33.660 You have a patio garden.

00:31:35.240 You get a little bit of dirt under your fingernails.

00:31:37.580 You spend time in your garden.

00:31:39.040 You're grounding yourself.

00:31:40.260 You know, it's good for your mind.

00:31:42.260 It's good.

00:31:42.780 It's good therapy.

00:31:43.800 And, you know, Heather mentioned at the beginning of this, you know, I was a paramedic for just shy of 30 years.

00:31:49.660 I've seen a lot and I've done a lot.

00:31:51.980 And sometimes I just need greenhouse therapy, I call it, or I just need to spend time outdoors.

00:31:57.060 But our world, if you haven't noticed, is going sideways really quick.

00:32:01.120 And things are going to get worse because things have been going from bad to worse for a lot of centuries.

00:32:09.640 So here's what I want to leave you with tonight.

00:32:12.740 There is hope for the future.

00:32:14.240 Scripture tells us that in a lot, a lot of years ago, I wonder if I can move this here.

00:32:23.360 I don't think I can.

00:32:24.820 I can't read all of this here, but God tells us in Genesis chapter five that God saw, and I've just highlighted a few words here, that God saw that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time.

00:32:40.300 And the Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled.

00:32:46.820 So the Lord said, I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race that I've created. 1.00

00:32:53.040 And with them, the animals, the birds, and the creatures that move along the ground, for I regret that I've made them.

00:32:59.420 Now, the earth was corrupt in God's sight, and it was full of violence.

00:33:03.680 And God saw how corrupt the earth had become for all the people on the earth had corrupted their ways.

00:33:08.340 Now, one version says, but Noah, thank God for, but Noah.

00:33:15.060 So God said to Noah, I'm going to put an end to all the people of the earth, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. 0.97

00:33:21.980 I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth.

00:33:26.280 That's at the very beginning of the Bible.

00:33:28.400 God had just made everything, and just a few chapters later, God said there's so much evil in the world that mankind can't even think of doing good.

00:33:38.720 And everything Tanya was sharing at the beginning of this webinar, it seems that mankind is creating new ways of becoming evil today.

00:33:47.840 And if you can't see it, I mean, you need to step outside your house.

00:33:52.440 And so 2,000 years ago, Jesus was with his disciples, and they knew that the end was coming.

00:33:57.920 That's 2,000 years ago.

00:33:59.180 And they said, so, Lord, tell us, what's it going to be like at the end of the world?

00:34:03.480 And this was his answer.

00:34:05.300 As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. 0.95

00:34:09.660 For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark.

00:34:16.040 And they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and he took them all away.

00:34:21.040 That's how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. 0.78

00:34:23.860 But it's not all doom and gloom.

00:34:28.380 We can prepare for the uncertain future here on Earth, but one thing is certain, we all face death.

00:34:35.200 Maybe you've heard it said before, there are two things that are certain in your life, taxes and death.

00:34:43.340 And it's tax season, right?

00:34:45.480 And I got to tell you something absolutely for certain, for sure.

00:34:51.080 In my 30 years as a paramedic, I have met too many people who got up in the morning, had a shower, got dressed, and were on their way to someplace but never made it there because death came.

00:35:03.400 It happens.

00:35:05.200 My question to you is not, are you going to garden this summer and how will you preserve your food?

00:35:11.000 But my question as we leave here tonight is, where will you spend eternity?

00:35:15.880 But the good news is, God sent his Son to pay the price for our sin and to reconcile us to him.

00:35:23.120 But it's a free gift.

00:35:25.760 And will you receive this free gift of salvation tonight?

00:35:30.360 And that's my challenge to you.

00:35:32.420 And I do pray that you will.

00:35:34.080 So that's it for this presentation.

00:35:36.760 And stay tuned for more videos with Prepper Dan.

00:35:39.420 And we'll stop, screen share.

00:35:42.460 And there, that's that with more to come.

00:35:44.920 Oh, thank you, Dan, so much.

00:35:48.700 That was a wonderful presentation.

00:35:50.960 I can't wait till we can put that on the page because I'm sure that our viewers are going to want to share that with others or watch it again, right?

00:35:59.260 So that they can absorb more of the information.

00:36:02.360 And I just kind of love it that we're going back to the basics.

00:36:06.540 I remember when my kids were small, I would grow a small garden with them.

00:36:10.500 And it was just so rewarding, just the way that new life just naturally grows on its own.

00:36:16.340 And I look forward to not being so busy one day.

00:36:19.960 I'm hoping my neighbors will share because I just don't have time to plant a garden.

00:36:25.660 But that is exceptional.

00:36:28.320 All right.

00:36:28.640 I think we're going to go and thank you as well for your word.

00:36:32.040 I do believe that it's very important in these trying times.

00:36:35.900 There's a lot of people who feel helpless.

00:36:39.460 And that's why I wanted to give the amazing story about the prayer around the school board in Kelowna and how God is here.

00:36:46.760 He does answer prayer.

00:36:48.160 But when we turn our back on him throughout history, he does allow evil to rise in a land.

00:36:53.980 And he uses evil leaders in order to bring us back to him.

00:36:57.840 So that's a different kind of harvest, you know, that we're looking at as well.

00:37:02.560 So thank you for that.

00:37:04.260 Okay.

00:37:04.640 So I have a couple of questions.

00:37:06.060 Anybody, if you're not familiar with Zoom, if you hover down at the bottom, there's a little symbol says Q&A.

00:37:12.000 If you pop your question in there, we'll ask Dan.

00:37:15.620 And I've got a couple of questions that are ready to go.

00:37:18.520 So somebody has asked, I have five feet wide by 40 feet long spot options, question mark.

00:37:26.420 I am an urbanite and clueless, sadly, on growing anything.

00:37:31.540 So I guess they're looking for a little direction on where's the best place to start.

00:37:34.980 Well, I would say if you're close to an Action for Canada chapter, we connect very well with our chapter people.

00:37:46.620 And I would love for you to connect with somebody with one of our chapters because, you know, we've got some information that we'll be posting on our website.

00:37:54.280 And there'll be more information on there.

00:37:57.880 And in my last presentation that we did, I think it was last, I'm going to say July.

00:38:03.100 There is a section I do on there where, I mean, that's a good space, five by 40.

00:38:07.700 Wow.

00:38:07.960 That's, you can, you can, you can feed a neighbor with that.

00:38:11.400 And if Tanya is close, maybe you can feed Tanya as well.

00:38:13.860 But I would say, you know, doing a garden like that with, with a friend or with a neighbor or, you know, finding somebody and say, I've got this space.

00:38:23.480 And if you know anything about it, will you work with me?

00:38:26.140 So partner up with somebody.

00:38:28.260 That's what I would suggest.

00:38:30.540 Right.

00:38:30.960 So with a, with a 40 foot space like that, five feet wide, you need a little room to be able to squeeze in there.

00:38:37.420 So if you have three feet of gardening by 40 feet, you could strategically plant some carrots.

00:38:44.640 I love growing carrots and the zucchinis put them somewhere on the end because they do like to travel and anything like that.

00:38:52.820 I used to grow my own pumpkins as well.

00:38:54.780 And so is there, tomato plants are also terrific and lettuces.

00:39:01.380 So is there anything else that you would recommend for a three foot by 40 foot garden space?

00:39:08.100 Yeah.

00:39:08.420 So typically your reach is about, looking up my hands, see where they go there now on the screen.

00:39:14.420 But your reach is about two and a half to three feet.

00:39:17.460 So you'd want to be able to access this garden from both sides.

00:39:20.620 Right.

00:39:20.920 So I'm assuming that this person can access the garden from both sides.

00:39:25.720 So depending on your orientation of this space as well, typically you would want a garden that's lengthwise like this to face east and west so that, you know, they would get full southern exposure.

00:39:37.720 So certain, certain crops like lettuces, they like a cooler weather.

00:39:41.740 So they would do well in more of a shady area as well.

00:39:46.980 Tomatoes like full sun, you know, and certain.

00:39:49.760 And look at your seed packages as well to see what likes full sun.

00:39:54.540 So you can plant, again, some shorter crops toward the front, like some bush beans toward the front.

00:40:02.260 And if you have some taller things, you can put tomatoes towards the back if that's how you're going to do it.

00:40:06.980 And even, you know, if you want, you can plant some corn if you have, if your access is limited, put your corn towards the back.

00:40:15.460 And what some people do, as a matter of fact, is they plant some corn and then they'll put some climbing beans, companion plant them right next to the corn.

00:40:25.180 And so the beans will actually go up the corn stalks.

00:40:29.600 That's neat.

00:40:31.060 Yeah.

00:40:31.740 Yeah.

00:40:32.360 Yeah.

00:40:32.640 I'm sure that, well, these are really good tips, right?

00:40:35.180 I like even having conversation about them because as we talk about things, those ideas come up because you said the preference was plant your garden east to west.

00:40:43.840 But if you only have north to south, then you would have to think what side would be best on the shady and what side needs the most sun, like the tomatoes.

00:40:54.920 Those are things to consider.

00:40:56.060 That's right.

00:40:57.060 Okay.

00:40:58.120 I've been looking at Tower Gardens.

00:41:00.380 What brand would you recommend?

00:41:05.940 Oh, you know what?

00:41:08.280 I would have to, I can't remember what, what brand ours is.

00:41:16.460 Just give me one second here and I will.

00:41:19.900 That's okay.

00:41:21.500 Take, take a peek at that.

00:41:23.120 Maybe.

00:41:24.560 Yeah.

00:41:26.060 Juice Plus is the brand that we have.

00:41:29.480 Ours is, the brand is Juice Plus and their service is excellent.

00:41:33.780 We have ordered some, some more of the, so basically with the Tower Garden is you don't, there's no dirt involved.

00:41:42.680 It's just water.

00:41:43.820 And every time we top up with water, we also add some liquid nutrients in there.

00:41:48.340 And we've had to order the liquid nutrients once before.

00:41:51.820 Their shipping is excellent.

00:41:53.640 It's very quick service.

00:41:55.000 We basically had to do no service to it at all.

00:41:58.020 It's just been a cleaning.

00:41:59.380 Like I said, we've had the thing for about a year and a half now.

00:42:02.160 And I've had to, to take all the plants apart in that once and clean it.

00:42:06.460 And I got to tell you something too.

00:42:07.760 When I took some of the, uh, the Swiss chard out, I actually took, when I took it out, I mean, it was a huge ball of roots.

00:42:15.680 I actually took it and put it in my greenhouse, uh, in the fall and it actually grew all winter.

00:42:24.240 So I did very well.

00:42:25.740 Yeah.

00:42:26.140 So Tower Garden by Juice Plus is the one that I would recommend.

00:42:30.060 Okay.

00:42:30.400 And that's food grade.

00:42:31.680 Some added needs to be food grade.

00:42:33.920 Yeah.

00:42:34.180 Okay.

00:42:34.560 So yes to that.

00:42:36.100 Um, I know somebody asked, Cynthia said website for Prepper Dan.

00:42:39.860 So it's going to be on the Action for Canada, uh, rumble channel.

00:42:44.160 And so that's where you can look for future videos.

00:42:46.920 Plus we're going to have it on the food security page on Action for Canada.

00:42:51.760 Okay.

00:42:52.440 I'm not sure.

00:42:54.180 Um, I've got a DIY hydroponic tower garden link here, but I'm hoping Sheila put that in the chat.

00:43:01.460 Okay.

00:43:01.940 Dan, would you please repeat what the WEF plans to do in July?

00:43:06.500 Okay.

00:43:08.820 Okay.

00:43:09.420 So basically what they're suggesting is that there's too much misinformation and disinformation

00:43:13.680 on, on the web, probably about everything we're talking about, like all the truth that

00:43:19.340 we're talking about.

00:43:20.140 So they want to clean it.

00:43:21.540 So what they want to do is they want to disconnect the worldwide web for one day.

00:43:26.120 And then they're saying, well, probably to do that, what we should do is disconnect

00:43:30.440 the entire power grid in certain countries also for that same day.

00:43:35.340 And they're also saying, well, it's going to cost the world economy, like it's in the

00:43:40.280 billions of dollars.

00:43:41.620 And then some are saying, they're going to say, oh, look how greener the planet got today

00:43:47.440 because we did this.

00:43:49.380 And so it's all part of the climate change initiative.

00:43:51.800 Right.

00:43:52.160 So my suggestion was, well, if, if all we do to preserve our food is, is put things in

00:43:57.820 the freezer, you know what it's like.

00:43:59.680 I mean, we have hurricanes here on the East coast or the tail ends, hurricanes and winter

00:44:03.960 storms.

00:44:04.320 And sometimes the power goes off for, you know, a week and that.

00:44:08.000 And so we have to be prepared.

00:44:09.360 Right.

00:44:09.620 So we don't want to put all of our eggs into the freezer, so to speak, or into one basket.

00:44:14.480 So we have to be prepared.

00:44:15.840 So having said that, some of the segments in the videos we're going to do is I'm going

00:44:20.740 to teach you how to cook without an electric stove.

00:44:23.720 There are options, right?

00:44:26.020 And all you need is maybe a few twigs, maybe a barbecue.

00:44:30.080 And I'm not going to reveal all the secrets here.

00:44:32.500 You'll have to stay tuned.

00:44:33.620 But we want you to be prepared for disasters and all those things.

00:44:39.200 OK, so we don't want to scare you, but we just want to say you got to think about being

00:44:45.220 prepared.

00:44:46.440 And so we're going to work at preparing you.

00:44:48.660 So you need to have food and you need to be able to cook it and preserve it as well.

00:44:54.900 OK, what about freeze drying?

00:44:57.800 Do you do that as well?

00:44:58.720 You'll probably provide some of that on Pepperdine.

00:45:02.240 We looked into that.

00:45:03.600 Yeah.

00:45:03.900 And I tell you, I've had freeze dried food before.

00:45:07.240 I prefer not freeze dried food.

00:45:11.180 The freeze dryers that you can purchase, I tell you, the good ones, they're like four

00:45:15.680 or five thousand dollars.

00:45:17.060 They're pretty expensive.

00:45:18.560 And the bags that you purchase for that, too, they are fairly expensive as well.

00:45:23.380 So if you're going to get a freeze dryer, I would suggest go maybe get one with maybe

00:45:30.240 another family or two.

00:45:31.980 And then, you know, like a person could use it for three or four days and then another

00:45:35.380 person could use it for three or four days.

00:45:37.040 But just to get one yourself.

00:45:38.400 I mean, if you've got the money to do that, like, you know, good for you.

00:45:42.480 Get one.

00:45:43.380 But I mean, there are perhaps easier ways to.

00:45:48.040 I'm not discouraging you, but I'm just saying of all the options out there, it's probably

00:45:52.000 the most expensive way to do it.

00:45:54.520 OK, this is going to have to do with slugs and rodents.

00:46:00.820 So one question is, last summer we had an invasion of slugs.

00:46:05.400 What do you suggest for this?

00:46:08.920 Well, some people like to put marigolds are good for for certain things.

00:46:15.340 Yeah.

00:46:15.440 Some people like to put like a cup out with beer, you know, if you know, people are getting

00:46:23.760 rid of a lot of their beer with the the the the trans person on it, you know, that would 1.00

00:46:29.700 be a good way to get rid of that beer. 0.89

00:46:31.320 You know, put it up for the slugs.

00:46:33.420 If you go a good way to recycle it, you know that what I use personally in my garden for

00:46:40.060 that is a slug bait, if you have slugs and you want to just and they just eat the stuff

00:46:45.880 and then they just they just shrivel up and die.

00:46:48.880 But another thing that works well is I I dry some eggs, some egg, not egg gardens, but egg

00:46:57.200 shells, and I just put them around my plant.

00:47:00.320 Another thing that you'll find for slugs are very destructive when your plants are very small,

00:47:04.800 for example, like your cucumber plants and that.

00:47:06.940 So what I have done as well is I take toilet paper rolls.

00:47:10.620 So when the plants get to be really, really small, I just cut a slit in the toilet paper

00:47:14.460 roll and just put that around the stem.

00:47:16.800 And then the slugs can't get to to the to the stem to eat it because they eat around the

00:47:23.020 stem.

00:47:23.360 The same with sunflowers.

00:47:24.980 I grow a lot of sunflowers and they seem to love sunflowers.

00:47:28.220 So that seems to prevent them.

00:47:30.300 But an easy way to is is just to go up there early every morning and just pick them.

00:47:35.260 Sometimes I'll just I'll have a can and I put a bit of water with bleach in it and it's

00:47:40.900 it's kind of an icky thing.

00:47:42.780 But now that I have chickens, I just pick them in a can and put them in a can and the

00:47:49.760 chickens get protein treats every morning.

00:47:52.820 All right.

00:47:53.780 And and that's that's icky for sure.

00:47:56.560 OK.

00:47:56.840 And then if you use.

00:47:59.580 Yeah, that's all right.

00:48:00.880 We got to talk about everything.

00:48:02.440 If you use slug bait, of course, if you have animals, you could put it in a yogurt container.

00:48:08.860 The slug bait, the slugs can crawl in and that way your animals can't get at it.

00:48:13.500 Just cut a little hole in there and protect your your pups and and and whoever else would 0.98

00:48:19.680 go after that.

00:48:20.300 I guess whatever pets you have.

00:48:22.260 All right.

00:48:23.100 The other one was, how can I stop the mice?

00:48:26.540 Oh, those little mice there. 0.98

00:48:27.940 I've had a mouse problem in my garage this last year and 30 years.

00:48:31.120 Never a problem with mice, but I'm experiencing it.

00:48:34.380 OK, how can I stop the mice or something from eating my purple beans?

00:48:37.920 Well, if a cat is an option, I would get a cat cat mousetraps.

00:48:48.920 I mean, yeah, mice reproduce like crazy.

00:48:51.460 If you've ever seen videos of mice reproducing, you know, mice traps would be I mean, you can

00:48:58.880 put some poisons out.

00:49:00.160 The problem with some of the poisons out there is the mice do get they do get they get used

00:49:09.280 to them and it just doesn't seem to work well for them.

00:49:13.560 So people know I used to own a farm feed store.

00:49:17.120 So I'm very familiar with a lot of those products out there on the market.

00:49:22.600 I used to sell the big bags and buckets of the stuff for farmers.

00:49:27.300 And it used to be that you can get that stuff now.

00:49:30.240 You can't like it's very difficult to get the good stuff, the non-toxic stuff, the animals

00:49:35.860 in that.

00:49:36.960 And you just can't get that stuff anymore.

00:49:39.500 The only things you can get now is, you know, they come in the little containers that you

00:49:44.000 have to put the little blocks in there.

00:49:46.160 They just don't seem to work work as well for some reason.

00:49:52.140 I find, you know, the the mousetraps work best if you have to have a mousetrap.

00:49:57.300 And even relocating the mice, they'll come back.

00:50:02.360 Mice and rats, they're they're prolific.

00:50:05.440 Right.

00:50:06.020 I have a because my mom also lives downstairs with me.

00:50:09.980 She lives with me.

00:50:11.000 And we were going through this little mouse problem last year.

00:50:14.220 And I won't tell you what originally I had to do to get the problem under control.

00:50:18.220 I did try the traps as well.

00:50:21.340 And that's so very undelightful.

00:50:23.840 But, you know, the threat of the damage that they do, it was horrific.

00:50:27.880 It was absolutely horrific.

00:50:29.060 But I fixed the problem.

00:50:30.580 But now I got a live mousetrap and it's a steel one.

00:50:35.320 I bought it at Rona and we've caught two little mice in there.

00:50:38.660 And I take them over to Bonnie Henry's house and I drop them off at the health officers by her home.

00:50:47.400 But no, I do.

00:50:48.820 I take it.

00:50:49.360 I drive it miles away because apparently they have good little detectors to get back to where they've come from.

00:50:54.960 Right.

00:50:55.160 But, you know, if you have somebody like that in your neighborhood, you might want to, you know, give them a mouse.

00:51:02.260 So, but that is, there are options if you want to do it in a humane way that you can catch them live.

00:51:08.060 And then, like I said, you have to take that little trip a couple of miles away and drop them off.

00:51:12.800 Okay.

00:51:13.560 I did see a commercial one time with, it's like a bucket with a little ladder.

00:51:19.020 And it's got like the bucket kind of swivels.

00:51:21.100 So, you'd put something in the bucket, like some sort of a bait that would attract them.

00:51:26.620 And as they go up there, you know, it just swivels and then they can't get out.

00:51:30.040 So, then you can take a whole bucket of mice to Bonnie Henry's house. 1.00

00:51:33.060 Right.

00:51:33.540 I know.

00:51:34.460 I would just be so happy to do that.

00:51:37.100 Right.

00:51:37.440 In love.

00:51:38.440 Okay.

00:51:40.060 Good stuff.

00:51:40.960 All right.

00:51:41.320 What generator would you suggest when they turn things off?

00:51:45.920 A big one.

00:51:46.580 Generator?

00:51:47.600 Yeah.

00:51:48.220 A good one.

00:51:48.820 Well, there's a couple.

00:51:50.120 Like, I've got a Honda.

00:51:53.480 And I would suggest if you do get a Honda, get a GX engine.

00:51:57.700 It's a commercial-grade engine.

00:52:00.860 There is a type of generator out there now.

00:52:03.320 And I just don't have the information here.

00:52:05.300 But there's a type of generator that doesn't run full power all the time.

00:52:09.440 It's an on-demand generator.

00:52:11.160 So, as you plug things in and as things turn on, it revs up and goes down.

00:52:16.600 So, it'll save you on fuel.

00:52:18.500 I've got to tell you, though, generators are really heavy on fuel. 0.99

00:52:24.080 The expression I like to use is they're pigs on fuel. 0.99

00:52:26.440 And they really are. 0.98

00:52:27.420 Because you can easily go through, like, 20 liters of gasoline a day if you're running them.

00:52:34.240 Keep in mind, too, you know, your deep freezers are very well insulated, like the newer ones.

00:52:39.320 And don't think that as soon as the power goes off, you have to plug them into a generator.

00:52:44.500 They can actually go a couple of days without you having to do anything if you keep the lid down.

00:52:50.740 And what I do with mine is as soon as I have some free space in my deep freezers, I have, like, orange juice bottles, like the thicker plastic bottles.

00:53:00.480 And I fill them up, like, 80% full of water.

00:53:04.280 And as soon as I have space in my freezers, I stick them in my freezer.

00:53:07.860 So, they act like big, giant ice cubes in there.

00:53:11.040 So, if the power does go off, I've got extra ice in there.

00:53:14.440 And I can drink that water if I have to, you know, as they thaw out.

00:53:18.560 But that way, it keeps the freezer cooler even longer.

00:53:22.020 And you can also use, throw a few big blankets on top of the freezer to keep them cool even longer as well.

00:53:29.980 Right.

00:53:30.460 Yeah, I was going to suggest that, too.

00:53:31.820 We had a, my daughter had bunnies when she was little.

00:53:34.620 And this one mummy bunny, we were just wanting babies so bad. 1.00

00:53:37.680 And I had one little baby.

00:53:39.040 And it happened in the middle of winter in a snowstorm and really minus degrees.

00:53:43.340 And I was out there in the middle of the night throwing.

00:53:45.420 It was in the garage, but still it was so cold, throwing blankets over it.

00:53:49.100 So, there are ways to prolong that with your freezer, etc.

00:53:53.380 I know I was thinking about this with the generators and that you need fuel.

00:53:57.040 And they're wanting to get rid of the fuel.

00:53:59.040 I believe they're making some that go by solar as well.

00:54:02.660 And then I had this picture in my mind, it's just how it works, of connecting like a bicycle to it.

00:54:07.900 Or, you know, and then you can make your own energy, right?

00:54:11.220 And you can get good exercise.

00:54:13.180 So, that's something to think about.

00:54:15.420 Okay.

00:54:16.080 One of the things I'm going to show you at some point, a little, a little, you can get a little biolite stove.

00:54:22.580 It's just a little stove that you burn twigs in it.

00:54:27.800 So, it shoots off a flame.

00:54:29.760 So, you can actually cook like a boil, a pot of tea or coffee or put a cast iron pan on it.

00:54:35.200 You can cook something on it.

00:54:36.400 But as it produces heat to cook on it, it also creates electricity.

00:54:43.620 And you can actually plug in your cell phone and charge your cell phone on it.

00:54:48.460 So, but we'll be showing that in one of the videos.

00:54:51.840 Inventions.

00:54:52.540 My dad passed away many, many years ago.

00:54:54.680 But he loved inventions.

00:54:55.920 And I always loved that inquiry mind.

00:54:58.160 You know, people to come up with solutions.

00:55:00.360 Okay.

00:55:00.800 We can do this.

00:55:03.660 Okay.

00:55:04.340 How, oh, how do you keep raccoons and squirrels out of the garden?

00:55:08.020 They've ruined so many of this person's plants.

00:55:11.020 A fence or chicken mesh.

00:55:16.280 Out of your garden.

00:55:18.240 Yeah.

00:55:19.900 The best way to do it, if you want to do it humanely, is fence your garden.

00:55:24.500 You have to fence your garden.

00:55:26.340 You really do.

00:55:27.040 That would be chicken mesh, though.

00:55:28.780 Like, you got to go really, really small.

00:55:30.840 You got to use, well, even the chicken wire.

00:55:32.720 Raccoons will tear through that. 0.99

00:55:34.100 If raccoons want to get in, raccoons will get through that.

00:55:37.260 You've got to use the hardware cloth, which is a heavier gauge than that.

00:55:43.560 Unfortunately, where I live, squirrels get into your vehicles.

00:55:46.560 They chew the wires and they pull the insulation out.

00:55:49.080 So I don't know if you want me to tell you what I do with mine.

00:55:52.520 But we have to take care of them in a different way here.

00:55:56.920 Because they just, they've gotten into the house here.

00:55:59.820 They've gotten into the attic.

00:56:01.120 And then they have their babies.

00:56:02.360 And then it's a huge thing.

00:56:04.240 So, you know, yeah.

00:56:07.180 But if you want to keep them out of your garden, you have to basically just build a nice fence around your garden.

00:56:15.200 Okay, there we go.

00:56:16.880 All right.

00:56:17.280 Well, you're in Nova Scotia.

00:56:19.360 And this person is asking what type of greenhouse would survive a maritime winter.

00:56:24.180 And I love it because your next video as well, you go into the greenhouse.

00:56:29.620 You did in the last one as well.

00:56:31.000 You show the temperature and how you manage no heat.

00:56:34.040 And you still had vegetables that are growing.

00:56:36.460 And now they're thriving.

00:56:37.600 I was amazed from the last video to the next one that's coming out.

00:56:41.060 So it's pretty simple.

00:56:43.100 Yeah.

00:56:43.540 I've actually built two greenhouses.

00:56:46.580 One of them with the former police officer that I was working with.

00:56:50.000 And we just built a, somebody donated us some huge hoops.

00:56:54.080 I think it was, I'm going to say 24 feet wide.

00:56:57.960 And we just put plastic over it.

00:56:59.940 And they got hit really hard with Hurricane Fiona.

00:57:03.420 I mean, we did as well.

00:57:05.080 But both, so he had a sawmill building around his sawmill.

00:57:11.120 And right next to that was the greenhouse that we built.

00:57:15.300 So I inquired, I asked him how his sawmill shed fared out.

00:57:19.640 And he says, well, part of it is in Kansas somewhere from Cape Breton or from Nova Scotia.

00:57:25.400 But the greenhouse was intact that we built.

00:57:28.240 And my little greenhouse here, I mean, we, you know, we had a lot of damage.

00:57:32.060 If people saw pictures of Cape Breton after Hurricane Fiona, I mean, there were streets.

00:57:36.300 You couldn't even tell there was houses on it.

00:57:37.780 It was just massive trees everywhere.

00:57:39.960 My little greenhouse never budged.

00:57:41.680 So it's all on how you build it, you know?

00:57:44.540 Right.

00:57:44.900 Amazing.

00:57:45.140 And like I said, I own my own sawmill.

00:57:47.520 So I just milled my own lumber.

00:57:49.360 And I used the corrugated plastic panels from Home Depot.

00:57:53.240 And then in the wintertime, what I do is I put an extra layer of plastic on the inside.

00:57:57.180 So there's an air gap between the two by fours.

00:57:59.600 And yeah, I mean, I could have thrown a little heater in there this winter and maybe not lost

00:58:04.640 as much as I did lose.

00:58:06.420 But I've got crops in there that I'm going to be harvesting probably in the next month

00:58:10.300 and then replanting it for the summer.

00:58:13.700 Okay, that's awesome.

00:58:15.000 I'm just looking at, you know what?

00:58:16.560 I think I have.

00:58:17.640 I'm going to make it public because I think we agreed that the transplants and the chagatee,

00:58:22.580 right, is the next one?

00:58:24.580 Yes.

00:58:24.940 Okay, so for that person that asked the question, I've just made it go live.

00:58:30.000 And I'm going to put it in the Zoom and then Sheila can include it in the description of

00:58:36.480 this video.

00:58:37.300 We'll include this link.

00:58:38.960 So there's Dan's next video.

00:58:40.480 It'll also be on Action for Canada's webpage.

00:58:43.340 Be great if you came there and share that information.

00:58:47.040 All right.

00:58:47.380 Yeah, that's great.

00:58:48.960 I think that once people watch your videos and see what it is, I was impressed with the

00:58:54.740 corrugated wood because it had the insulation, like you say, which helped to keep the gardens

00:58:59.860 warmer.

00:59:01.240 Somebody had noted in the chat I saw, you were talking about above ground, but for people

00:59:08.520 that have more of a drought, they were suggesting that it was better to have it in ground, your

00:59:14.160 garden in ground, because they would do better.

00:59:16.000 But I guess it would rely on you watering it regularly.

00:59:19.800 Yes.

00:59:20.260 Yeah.

00:59:20.560 So above ground gardens, like raised bed gardens, they do dry out faster because they're more

00:59:25.600 exposed to the wind, to the sun.

00:59:27.620 So that's one thing to keep in mind.

00:59:30.140 And I do mention that, I think in this other, I mentioned it somewhere, that they do dry out

00:59:37.420 quicker.

00:59:38.280 All right.

00:59:39.220 Okay.

00:59:39.600 So the tower, there's a lot of questions.

00:59:41.440 These are great questions, people.

00:59:42.740 I love it.

00:59:44.160 Okay.

00:59:44.600 The tower that you use, I have seen them and a few others.

00:59:48.320 There's also rectangular ones that stack that have lights on them.

00:59:52.920 Which one would you think works best?

00:59:57.960 Well, I've not tried the rectangular ones, but I got to tell you, if you go, if you just

01:00:02.380 go to Amazon and type in, I did, you know what, if you go to my, to my other webinar that I

01:00:15.480 did in July, I post a few pictures of an alternate type that you can build yourself, but you can

01:00:22.040 order most of the components from Amazon and it'll cost you maybe $200, $250.

01:00:30.020 They're a little less elaborate, but they will still work.

01:00:34.520 So basically they're made out of PVC pipes and you can make them any size that you want.

01:00:38.800 So instead of a nice fancy bowl at the bottom, you know, you may have to just purchase like

01:00:43.740 a Rubbermaid, like a 10 gallon bucket, but they do come with a pump and all that. 1.00

01:00:50.220 So, yeah.

01:00:52.100 So I've never tried the rectangular ones, but anything is better than nothing at this point.

01:00:57.640 Sounds good.

01:01:00.040 I want to talk a minute about heirloom seeds.

01:01:03.220 For those that don't know what an heirloom seed is, somebody had posted something about

01:01:07.760 tomatoes in Mexico, possibly having the vaccine in them.

01:01:12.060 We know in my research that I think tomatoes, potatoes,

01:01:16.840 avocados were on the list for already possibly putting the vaccine in.

01:01:23.060 So talk about what an heirloom seed is and where people can get those.

01:01:27.640 And can you, once you're planting, because this is a mouse story again, is that my sister

01:01:33.580 is also very much into gardening and they were building a house and living in a camper

01:01:39.700 and there was a mouse issue and she had spent all of the time getting her tomato seeds and

01:01:46.080 she woke up in the morning and the mice had destroyed them and eaten them.

01:01:49.700 So that's a story.

01:01:51.160 Make sure that, you know, if you get the tomato seeds prepared and you're drying them, make sure

01:01:56.640 that they're well protected from any rodents getting in there.

01:02:00.360 But Dan, can you elaborate on this a little bit?

01:02:03.580 Yeah.

01:02:04.220 So all of my seeds are stored either in glass jars, tight-fitting glass jars, so the mice

01:02:10.360 don't get to them once they're dry, or in metal containers that are, again, mouse-proof.

01:02:15.940 So heirloom seeds are seeds that typically are older seeds.

01:02:21.780 A lot of them are open-pollinated, which means that, how do you describe open-pollinated?

01:02:29.260 They're basically, you can just plant them and they don't need other cross-pollinators.

01:02:33.480 And heirloom would simply mean that they've been passed down usually from generation to

01:02:37.420 generation.

01:02:38.400 They're non-GMO.

01:02:39.340 Now, I've got to warn people, too, there's a lot of seeds that we've been finding that

01:02:43.160 have the stamp on them that say non-GMO, that have been proven to typically not be non-GMO.

01:02:49.900 So it's really misleading, really.

01:02:56.660 I mean, we're reading labels of things that we're finding are false and falsified.

01:03:01.940 You really need to get some seeds, really, that if you can get them locally from a trusted

01:03:07.480 source, and it just means asking around.

01:03:11.380 The other thing that I would recommend, too, is there are some, oh, here's one thing I

01:03:15.840 forgot to mention that I was going to mention as well.

01:03:18.800 Our local library here has a free seed library this year.

01:03:23.620 And I thought, that's interesting, because are they really encouraging people to grow their

01:03:27.400 seed?

01:03:28.400 So someone that we know went to the seed library, and there's like eight different seeds that

01:03:33.860 you can get, like tomatoes, cucumbers, and a few other things.

01:03:36.700 And here's the catch.

01:03:38.560 You have to fill out this form, and they want to know your address, and they want to know

01:03:45.240 a little bit about you, right?

01:03:47.300 So now they want to know who is actually gardening in your area.

01:03:50.620 So they just turned around and walked away.

01:03:52.440 They're like, yeah, not so free anymore, right?

01:03:54.760 So they want to control that.

01:03:56.880 And so I just kind of want to just warn people, you know.

01:04:00.580 And the other thing that we are going to mention in a future video as well is there's a controversy

01:04:07.020 with regards to, oh, those are chemtrails.

01:04:10.120 People say, no, we don't believe in that.

01:04:11.780 They're contrails.

01:04:12.640 But you and I know, Tanya, we've had this discussion before about what's going on with

01:04:16.420 some of our fruit trees here.

01:04:17.740 You know, we've got cherry trees in our land.

01:04:19.780 And last year, by the end of June, the leaves were all dying.

01:04:23.640 You know, I have some gardens inside.

01:04:25.360 I have some gardens outside.

01:04:27.040 And every time it rains and then the sun comes out, everything in my outdoor gardens

01:04:31.180 turns yellow for like the next day or two.

01:04:33.920 But everything that's watered inside from the well is just thriving.

01:04:38.020 So there is stuff in the air.

01:04:39.940 We know that.

01:04:41.380 So the seeds that we get, that we purchase, you know, I'm finding some of the seeds that

01:04:47.640 say they're non-GMO, maybe only half of them are actually grown. 0.95

01:04:51.620 And the quality is pathetic.

01:04:53.180 So I have tried to save some of those seeds and grow them the next year. 0.92

01:04:57.620 Nothing is growing.

01:04:59.560 So we do have some trusted farmers that we know are heirloom seeds.

01:05:07.240 In other words, they don't necessarily have a package that say heirloom, but we know that

01:05:11.080 they are seeds that they save year after year.

01:05:13.460 And so we can purchase some of those seeds and some of those seeds I have kept.

01:05:17.940 And so some of them are some of the seeds that I use year after year after year.

01:05:22.260 So it's a matter of just building that community.

01:05:25.480 And we're hoping that we can build some of that community through Action for Canada as

01:05:28.840 well.

01:05:29.540 And, you know, we can trust our own suppliers.

01:05:33.260 Okay.

01:05:34.000 So as I'm seeing in the chat here right now, it's, again, it's building this community.

01:05:38.740 People saying, oh, I order, you know, from like some are saying Vessies, you know, from

01:05:43.780 PEI.

01:05:44.400 I get some of my seeds from Halifax Seed.

01:05:47.400 And I used to be a distributor with Vessies and with Halifax Seed when I had my farm feed

01:05:51.540 store.

01:05:52.680 And, you know, some of those are reputable.

01:05:55.000 And we do have two heirloom seed distributors here in Nova Scotia as well that I have bought

01:05:59.980 some.

01:06:00.540 So it's almost like a hit and miss.

01:06:02.700 You have to try some.

01:06:03.660 And what I do with some of my seeds is I usually put some in a container and I put some water

01:06:09.900 in it and I wait four, five, six days.

01:06:12.060 And if I see that nothing's happening with the seed, they're not starting to crack open

01:06:15.600 and germinate.

01:06:16.500 The chances are they may or may not germinate.

01:06:19.320 But a lot of times I'll take the whole package and plant them.

01:06:23.260 Nothing will happen.

01:06:24.380 I'll buy a second package and they'll all germinate.

01:06:27.040 So it's really hit and miss.

01:06:28.960 OK, is there any way to determine between the difference between GMO seeds and modified

01:06:37.100 seeds and heirloom seeds?

01:06:40.220 By looking at them, no.

01:06:41.780 But a lot of the ones that have been coated, like they're colored and they'll say, oh, it's

01:06:45.880 to help with, you know, handling them or spacing them or whatever.

01:06:49.500 I would suspect a lot of them are probably GMO.

01:06:54.140 OK, and maybe if they grow with superpower, like really fast, right?

01:06:58.040 If they're outgrowing the other ones, that might be a sign, too, that they've had a little

01:07:02.020 help.

01:07:03.600 OK, I always think they're on steroids and everything.

01:07:08.140 That's how I picture GMOs.

01:07:10.320 All right.

01:07:10.580 What exactly are bush beans or pole beans?

01:07:13.700 Are they like green wax beans?

01:07:17.840 Yes and no.

01:07:18.760 They like to climb as opposed to like a bush bean will stay maybe, you know, 18 inches to

01:07:25.820 two feet tall.

01:07:27.180 A climbing pole bean, they'll get those little runner twiggy things. 1.00

01:07:32.480 So they'll be almost like a pea.

01:07:36.800 You know, the peas, when the peas start to grow, they get those little fuzzy things and

01:07:40.740 they just want to climb.

01:07:41.940 Well, a pole bean will be like that and they just want to go up. 1.00

01:07:44.940 So my pole beans last year, I built an eight foot trellis and they climbed up to the top

01:07:50.080 and then they climbed down and then climbed right over to the other side.

01:07:53.840 And actually, we had the tail end of another hurricane and it blew the whole thing over

01:07:57.160 because it was full.

01:07:58.240 But the pole beans, like I grow Scarlet Runner pole beans and they literally grow about a

01:08:03.180 foot long.

01:08:04.960 And, you know, I think I'm the only one in the house that actually eats them.

01:08:09.440 And honestly, I just go out and work in the garden and I just pick them and eat them as

01:08:13.300 I'm working out there.

01:08:14.460 I mean, I come in and I steam them for a few minutes, but put some butter or I'll steam

01:08:19.180 them and I'll put them in the wok with some garlic, some fresh garlic, because we grow a

01:08:23.800 lot of garlic here as well.

01:08:25.400 But I, a lot of stuff in the garden, I just pick and eat as I'm working out there.

01:08:29.400 It never really makes it to the house, you know, like radish or whatever.

01:08:33.320 I'll just, you know, get the dirt off a bit and just, just eat it.

01:08:36.260 And the slugs, no slugs on there, Dan.

01:08:40.640 I was going to say, green beans are actually really good for canning.

01:08:45.100 So that's a wonderful thing to have on the shelf, you know, for throughout the winter.

01:08:50.220 Okay.

01:08:50.860 And can you train zucchini to grow up on a trellis?

01:08:54.920 Yes.

01:08:56.060 Okay.

01:08:56.540 Yeah.

01:08:56.700 But don't wait until they become like super sized, right?

01:08:59.760 Because then your trellis will just want to go.

01:09:01.560 I got to tell you a funny story about zucchinis because zucchinis grow prolifically.

01:09:06.260 Right.

01:09:06.560 And I always plant my zucchini in a manure pile.

01:09:09.680 It may sound a little gross, but zucchinis and pumpkins, I mean, they're, they like, you

01:09:14.660 know, a lot of nutrients in that.

01:09:16.220 I remember years ago we had bumper bumper.

01:09:19.040 I think one of my kids spilled a package or two of seed in a huge mountain of manure we

01:09:25.820 had.

01:09:26.380 And so we would go to church with it.

01:09:28.540 I was pastoring this one church at the other end of Cape Breton here.

01:09:31.760 And we filled the back of our van with zucchinis. 1.00

01:09:35.560 And I told my children, I said, now when church starts, when everyone's in church, I

01:09:40.680 want you to go in the church parking lot and everyone who has their doors unlocked, I want

01:09:45.940 you to take all of the zucchinis and put them in all the people's cars who have their doors 1.00

01:09:50.200 unlocked.

01:09:50.840 And that's how we got rid of a lot of zucchinis in our church that year. 1.00

01:09:54.320 Well, that's awesome.

01:09:57.860 That's awesome.

01:09:59.060 That's a lot of zucchinis, Dan. 1.00

01:10:01.620 Okay.

01:10:03.580 Oh, where, where was I here?

01:10:05.300 I live in a condo, have a balcony three meters by three meters facing west.

01:10:10.400 Dan, what would you attempt to plant?

01:10:13.840 Facing west.

01:10:14.920 Facing west.

01:10:15.500 So you'll get late day.

01:10:16.800 I would grow lettuces probably, you know.

01:10:20.120 So, you know, you, you may get some, some cucumbers, maybe things that like the sun, like tomatoes

01:10:29.400 may, may not do it.

01:10:30.540 Maybe some, some candy tomatoes or some tiny tin tomatoes, perhaps, you know.

01:10:38.660 But yes, lettuces don't really need a whole lot of sun.

01:10:41.960 Some Swiss chard, maybe some spinach, you know, things you can just like put in a salad kind

01:10:48.340 of thing.

01:10:48.660 Mm-hmm.

01:10:50.040 And as you were showing in one of the pictures, you can, at the hardware store, you can buy

01:10:55.460 boxes that if you do have a railing that you can put on your railing as well.

01:10:59.320 Just make sure they're very secure.

01:11:01.140 Depends what floor you're on, right?

01:11:03.180 Okay.

01:11:03.700 Yeah.

01:11:04.980 Somebody had asked as well, what was the mention, the name of the long beans you had mentioned?

01:11:11.340 I use the, the Scarlet Runners. 0.83

01:11:16.080 Okay.

01:11:18.200 All right.

01:11:18.760 Here's a question.

01:11:19.600 Hoping to afford a greenhouse eight by eight, should I buy glass or polycarbonate?

01:11:25.600 The glass will last you pretty much forever.

01:11:31.000 The polycarbonate will be cheaper.

01:11:33.700 As a matter of fact, polycarbonate's on sale this week right here.

01:11:37.500 Uh, I think they're, the panels are, um, you know, they're probably like $20 a panel and

01:11:44.640 you can cut them with a, like a pair of good scissors or good shears.

01:11:48.200 So that's what I use.

01:11:49.900 And I actually bought twice as much as I need, uh, in case they break or whatever, but I'm

01:11:55.060 serious.

01:11:55.380 Like we've, we've had, uh, you know, we had quite a bit of snow in the month of March.

01:11:59.720 We had a hurricane here.

01:12:01.560 I haven't lost the panel yet.

01:12:03.320 I use some where I have, uh, one of my rabbit condos here and stuff, and it gets direct wind.

01:12:10.120 And so I haven't lost one yet.

01:12:12.180 So, and it works well.

01:12:15.700 Sounds good.

01:12:16.760 All right.

01:12:17.080 Are, so I'm going to try to whip through, let's do these last questions because we're

01:12:20.540 almost at, uh, uh, six 30 here.

01:12:23.260 Okay.

01:12:23.860 Are solar panels a great idea?

01:12:27.320 Solar panels?

01:12:28.800 Yeah.

01:12:29.020 If you have sun, if you're living in a sunny part of Canada, maybe.

01:12:34.360 Yeah.

01:12:35.020 I mean, uh, solar panels do wear out after a few years and it's not just the solar panels

01:12:39.740 is you need a battery bank for those as well.

01:12:42.860 You need inverters.

01:12:44.820 Uh, it's, it's complicated.

01:12:47.840 I'm not an expert in that.

01:12:49.080 I don't have solar.

01:12:50.280 Well, I should say I have solar panels because I have solar lights outside for some of my

01:12:55.680 barns and they're great for that.

01:12:57.800 But other than that, to power your whole house, again, it depends on your weather.

01:13:04.020 And, um, in, in a pinch, I think it may work, but again, to power your whole house,

01:13:09.680 like your fridges, your stoves, your freezers and that, uh, you would need a pretty big

01:13:14.700 power bank and a lot of, you know, a lot of solar panels.

01:13:18.980 Would it be something for a greenhouse though to get through?

01:13:22.540 Would it give longevity to a greenhouse?

01:13:24.160 It didn't, it didn't specify.

01:13:25.860 I'm just asking for a smaller project like that.

01:13:28.240 Would it be something that would be beneficial?

01:13:30.780 I, I don't think I would bother really, but.

01:13:35.500 Okay.

01:13:36.360 Yeah.

01:13:36.580 Because once you see Dan's video, you can see that even in what minus 20, 24, you were,

01:13:41.600 you were doing really well.

01:13:43.360 Yeah.

01:13:44.000 Okay.

01:13:44.700 Um, I, again, it's back to the bugs.

01:13:47.460 Have you found a solution for earwigs?

01:13:49.740 Uh, we have such an issue with them in our garden.

01:13:51.960 Mm-hmm.

01:13:54.220 You know, we used to sell quite a bit of diatomaceous earth when I had my store, um, the big bags

01:14:00.680 of diatomaceous there, and you just basically spread that around in between your plants and

01:14:04.980 bugs really don't like them.

01:14:06.320 So they may work for, uh, for earwigs as well.

01:14:09.880 You know, there, there was a few years here where we had quite a run of, of, uh, of earwigs.

01:14:15.960 They haven't been bad the last few years.

01:14:18.000 But earwigs really depend on how much moisture you get sometimes in some areas, excuse me,

01:14:23.800 but diatomaceous feathers, I, I would, I would try that.

01:14:28.140 Okay.

01:14:28.840 Um, I know that somebody had asked about soil for the greenhouse, and I know in one of your

01:14:33.600 videos, you mentioned you have, uh, rabbits and chickens and creating a manure tea type

01:14:39.980 of deal that you, uh, water your garden with, but soil wise, what would you recommend?

01:14:45.740 And, and then as well, will you be going a little more into detail in one of your upcoming

01:14:50.560 videos?

01:14:51.340 Because you didn't really show people how to make the manure tea or what the, uh, quantities

01:14:56.260 were between water and actual manure.

01:14:59.040 So maybe answer both of those questions.

01:15:02.200 Yeah.

01:15:02.420 So in the next video, I've, I've got half of the content already for, for the next one,

01:15:07.240 but in the next video, I'm going to show people how to make their own manure tea if they

01:15:10.940 don't have animals that they can have access to, like fresh manure.

01:15:13.680 So we'll be discussing that.

01:15:15.700 Manure tea is, is, um, it's like the, the crack cocaine of, for plants.

01:15:21.600 It's what's going to make them go crazy, but crazy in a good way.

01:15:25.380 Okay.

01:15:26.340 So, uh, I'm also going to be showing you how to make your own soil.

01:15:30.200 Like even if you get like a bag of, uh, of good soil from the store, but you can go for

01:15:35.720 a walk in the woods, bring an empty shopping bag.

01:15:38.160 You can collect some leaves, some dry leaves from the woods.

01:15:41.540 Even if you live in the city, go to a park.

01:15:44.420 Um, when your neighbors start cutting their grass and instead of putting it to the curb,

01:15:49.720 say, Hey, can I get your grass?

01:15:51.360 And they're going to look at you kind of funny, but I'm going to show you what to do with that

01:15:54.800 grass.

01:15:55.180 And you can start making your soap, your own soap, even if it's just a little bit, and

01:15:58.460 you can mix that with whatever you may buy at the store, even to put in a planter.

01:16:03.040 And as that grass decomposes and you can mix a little bit of your, like your coffee grounds,

01:16:08.380 I never put coffee grounds in the garbage.

01:16:10.680 I've got my own bins for that.

01:16:11.780 The worms love it.

01:16:12.960 And you want worms because you want worm castings in your garden. 0.84

01:16:16.660 So we'll be discussing all of that in the next, uh, in the next video and the video after

01:16:21.160 that.

01:16:22.040 Okay.

01:16:22.540 I know in cities as well, in urban areas, they sell composters and they're actually a pretty

01:16:27.840 good size in, in your vegetable clippings.

01:16:30.480 And like you say, your coffee, your grass clippings, you can, uh, you know, put in there.

01:16:34.620 And then as you turn it in the soil, cause it, it starts to get warm and break everything

01:16:38.440 down.

01:16:38.820 Right.

01:16:39.260 And, um, is that what you're referring to?

01:16:41.500 People could even get a composter and then start using that for their gardens. 0.96

01:16:45.340 I would stay away from those plastic composters that you can buy.

01:16:49.220 Honestly, I would, because stuff just rots in there.

01:16:52.160 It doesn't really compost.

01:16:53.920 So what about a wooden one?

01:16:56.620 Yeah, that would be better.

01:16:58.440 I could actually do a five minute section on how to build your own little composter in

01:17:02.580 your yard where your stuff won't, uh, won't smell and it'll decompose actually a lot better.

01:17:08.000 You can actually do something very quickly in a month's time, uh, with a mound of just

01:17:14.740 stuff and, uh, you'll get some nice worms in there.

01:17:17.860 Yeah.

01:17:18.380 Yeah.

01:17:19.060 We'll do something like that.

01:17:19.940 Okay.

01:17:20.020 And yeah, sounds good.

01:17:21.620 And, uh, Jenny had made a good comment. 0.51

01:17:23.480 She just said, make sure that your neighbors aren't putting chemicals on their grass. 0.74

01:17:27.060 Um, and, and the more we can stay away from anything plastic, any kind of stained wood,

01:17:32.860 because all of that's going to seep into the soil.

01:17:35.740 So natural cedars, et cetera, is what we should be having close to our soil and our dirt.

01:17:40.780 Even when you're creating those layers, I know that you have had branches in there and

01:17:45.880 different, uh, natural materials, uh, because as your roots go into the ground, that's all

01:17:51.460 going into your food.

01:17:52.480 So stay as healthy as possible.

01:17:55.820 All right.

01:17:56.380 This is going to be our final question.

01:17:57.900 Then we're going to wrap it up.

01:17:59.400 Um, I have a small number of laying hens and besides the higher cost of organic feed,

01:18:05.420 acquiring the feed is becoming inconsistent.

01:18:08.440 I wanted to add to my flock, but am concerned about the food supply for the hens moving forward.

01:18:13.280 Any creative suggestions?

01:18:15.900 Yeah.

01:18:17.120 Yeah.

01:18:17.660 So, um, yeah.

01:18:19.580 And I know where you're going with this because I, uh, I, I, uh, when I, when I opened my store,

01:18:25.580 we started feeding co-op feed, which is by the way, garbage feed.

01:18:29.860 Uh, we feed the Purina feed now, by the way, the Purina feed in Canada is not the same as

01:18:34.660 the one in, in the United States.

01:18:36.200 So we feed our chickens a lot of other stuff too.

01:18:40.120 So a lot of organic things, a lot of, uh, table scraps or, or waste, not meat scraps

01:18:44.580 in that, but, uh, grass clippings.

01:18:47.000 We give a lot of that to our chickens.

01:18:49.520 We have to be very careful here with our chickens because we have a, a healthy fox population.

01:18:55.100 So our chickens do have a run, but it's fenced in.

01:18:58.240 And, uh, we have a few little dogs here that are patrol patrol dogs, even though they are

01:19:04.500 small, uh, so I, maybe I'll do a little video on this as well.

01:19:10.140 It'll be separate from our regular things.

01:19:12.400 I, I built a little contraption here a few years ago.

01:19:15.280 That was a five gallon bucket.

01:19:16.840 And I put a little, uh, one by four through it in the middle with a few, uh, nails.

01:19:22.480 And at the store, you can buy a piece of liver for like a dollar, $2.

01:19:26.880 And I poked a hole through the bottom of the five gallon bucket, stuck a piece of liver

01:19:30.700 on there and just left it there.

01:19:32.460 And you know what happens after a few days, uh, the flies come in and you end up getting

01:19:37.600 a really good, healthy supply of maggots and the chickens just love the feed. 0.80

01:19:43.240 I mean, free protein.

01:19:44.840 Yeah.

01:19:45.620 So better than crickets, right?

01:19:47.580 I mean, the elites want you to eat crickets, but here it was.

01:19:51.420 I mean, when I opened up the hatch in the morning, it was like maggots, you know, and it was,

01:19:57.480 it was just a show to watch them.

01:19:59.340 And they'd be, and all day long, they'd be, you know, a few of them would be scratching,

01:20:03.440 but they'd be looking up at this bucket, waiting for the next maggot to just fall.

01:20:07.200 And this little one, like $2 piece of liver would literally last there for like a week. 0.98

01:20:12.980 And it was the funniest thing.

01:20:15.180 And, uh, so anyhow, and then a lot of times when we rake the yard, we live in a wooded area

01:20:20.400 here.

01:20:20.720 So anytime I get like a large amount of leaves and a little bit of twigs, we put that through

01:20:25.500 our, we have a big wood chipper and then it all goes in there.

01:20:28.780 So they eat bugs in there.

01:20:30.560 They, they're always scratching at things.

01:20:33.320 So, uh, we feed them scratch as well.

01:20:36.860 So crack corn and then a mixture of scratch grains as well.

01:20:40.240 But anything organic that you can feed them, uh, and food scraps, if you can get food scraps,

01:20:47.220 even from your local store, I know that there's a website, uh, YouTube site that I follow.

01:20:52.040 They get boxes of like food that's going like vegetables that's going bad.

01:20:56.200 They go in there and chickens will eat anything. 0.90

01:20:58.400 You probably know that already.

01:20:59.500 Right.

01:20:59.860 So.

01:21:01.280 Okay.

01:21:01.680 So I'm going to change that.

01:21:02.860 We're not ending on this.

01:21:04.160 We're going to ask one more question.

01:21:05.200 Cause that's too icky.

01:21:06.020 I'm thinking the cycle of life and those maggots are going through and then there's the eggs

01:21:13.280 and it's like, I don't want to touch those eggs.

01:21:16.980 I'm sure maybe other people are thinking about it as well.

01:21:19.840 So, okay.

01:21:21.240 Uh, so this is going to be the final question.

01:21:24.320 Do you know anything about in ground greenhouses?

01:21:28.100 Jenny, can you put the name of that again?

01:21:29.560 I had seen that you had posted what the name was and then I didn't catch it.

01:21:34.180 I've scrolled past there.

01:21:35.460 Uh, okay.

01:21:36.940 So in ground greenhouses, apparently they can be found up North and grow year round because

01:21:42.660 it is below the frost line.

01:21:44.520 I'm just seeing if Jenny had put the name in again, there's a special name for them.

01:21:47.880 So are you familiar with those?

01:21:49.500 I think.

01:21:49.880 Yeah.

01:21:49.960 Oh, there it is.

01:21:50.540 Yeah.

01:21:50.780 So I did hear about those and I got to tell you something about greenhouses.

01:21:56.400 Greenhouses are amazing.

01:21:57.980 Like just the simple concept of greenhouses.

01:22:00.560 It breaks my heart because I've driven across this country, except BC.

01:22:04.540 I've never been to BC or Newfoundland yet, but it breaks my heart to see how much land

01:22:08.820 and old farmland that is not being used anymore.

01:22:12.400 There is no reason why this country cannot produce enough food to feed our own, our own

01:22:17.420 people.

01:22:18.520 And the amount of like even dead and dying forests that we have that we can't heat our own greenhouses

01:22:25.780 even like, you know, I can go on and on about this, but if you take the concept, the greenhouse

01:22:32.760 concept and apply it even to our northern climates and you're right, because we have a frost level here

01:22:41.060 and I have a friend of mine who he has a firewood business and he also has cows.

01:22:46.560 And one year he produced so much firewood that he had a huge amount of just bark in his yard

01:22:54.000 and we went over to his house for dinner one night and I couldn't believe this is middle

01:22:58.400 of winter and we had like three feet of snow on the ground, but this pile of bark, the

01:23:02.520 steam coming off of it.

01:23:04.360 And he said to me, he says, stick your hand in there.

01:23:06.400 And I stuck my hand in there for about three seconds and I almost burnt my hand.

01:23:10.240 I said, what do you have in there?

01:23:11.460 He said, just the wood decomposing.

01:23:13.540 He says, come to the back of my house.

01:23:15.060 So we went to the back of his house.

01:23:16.920 He had taken a section about four feet by four feet, dug it out about, I'm going to say

01:23:22.000 three feet by his foundation, poured concrete.

01:23:25.420 And he had taken, now this may sound a little gross, but fresh cow manure and these wood bark

01:23:33.600 and filled it in there.

01:23:34.980 But he had put some water coils with ethylene glycol in there.

01:23:39.940 He had a circulating pump.

01:23:41.260 He was heating the majority of his house by that stuff decomposing and that's it.

01:23:48.420 And this little water pump was circulating that stuff through his basement and it was

01:23:53.160 heating most of his house.

01:23:55.120 You can use that concept and heat a greenhouse and grow food year round.

01:24:00.320 Right.

01:24:01.200 I mean, we've got this stuff.

01:24:02.600 It's decomposing in our forests right now.

01:24:04.540 Right.

01:24:04.720 So I used a little bit of that concept in my own greenhouse with insulated panels.

01:24:09.560 And so you can use something like that and bury it in the ground a little bit.

01:24:15.840 Right.

01:24:16.340 And you can grow food year round like for, I mean, we've got, we've got hungry people all

01:24:20.820 the time.

01:24:22.040 Right.

01:24:22.560 So, so this concept, I have, I've seen this concept before, but I haven't really researched

01:24:28.080 it, but it can work anywhere.

01:24:30.620 Okay.

01:24:31.220 Awesome.

01:24:31.620 That's, that's wonderful.

01:24:33.400 When you said this is going to be gross, I thought I was going to have to ask another

01:24:36.300 question.

01:24:37.620 So that story wasn't too bad.

01:24:40.040 Oh, so, well, Dan, I had fun tonight.

01:24:42.540 Boy, we've got so many heavy topics, right?

01:24:45.160 That, and I find that gardening, gardening is very healing.

01:24:48.780 Get my hands in the dirt.

01:24:50.680 It's my mental health days when I get to go out there and I, mine are planting flowers

01:24:55.520 and whatnot right now, but I hope to get back to gardening.

01:24:59.400 And so we just really appreciate that you have come on tonight and given us such an amazing

01:25:05.240 presentation, but stuck around with us and answered all these questions.

01:25:09.180 Again, we encourage everybody to come to Action for Canada on our food security page.

01:25:14.680 Dan's videos will all be uploaded there.

01:25:17.780 And we're going to have Dan come on again in a couple of months because we're going to

01:25:21.600 start talking about harvesting and prepping and canning.

01:25:24.200 And maybe we could do another show.

01:25:26.660 How does that sound?

01:25:28.740 That sounds good.

01:25:29.800 And let me just close with this wonderful thing, not gross or whatever, but if all you

01:25:34.800 can plant is flowers, because flowers are nice, and you want to plant an edible flower,

01:25:39.720 plant nasturtiums because you can eat nasturtiums.

01:25:42.880 They've got a nice little spicy taste in them.

01:25:44.720 You can put them in your salad and they look pretty.

01:25:47.620 There you go.

01:25:48.360 I do have chives in the backyard that survived my garden from years ago.

01:25:52.660 And they're pretty because they get the purple flowers on them.

01:25:54.560 And you can actually eat those as well.

01:25:56.120 Kind of a little bit spicy.

01:25:58.460 Yeah.

01:25:58.660 I'm going to ask you to stick around for a minute.

01:26:01.080 So just stay with me.

01:26:02.720 Terenzio, can you bring the Bible verse up?

01:26:04.980 We're going to keep Dan on.

01:26:06.620 And I'm just going to read the word.

01:26:09.600 And so I just found this of great encouragement.

01:26:11.680 Genesis 1, 1, 11, and God said, let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed and

01:26:19.720 fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind on the earth.

01:26:25.920 And it was so.

01:26:27.580 And as I was saying earlier, I just love this verse because it doesn't talk about changing

01:26:32.440 any of God's design with GMO or trying to improve on it.

01:26:36.200 You just can't improve on what God has prepared at the beginning of time for us.

01:26:41.440 And we need to treat it with respect.

01:26:43.140 And we need to go back to the good old days and start, you know, working to grow our food

01:26:48.400 and have control again over what we eat.

01:26:51.560 So Dan, would you actually close us off in prayer tonight?

01:26:55.020 I would love to.

01:26:56.340 Yeah.

01:26:57.480 Father, thank you so much for all of the wonderful people that we had on the show tonight.

01:27:02.840 I thank you for Tanya for giving her the vision, Lord, and the stamina for starting

01:27:07.900 Action for Canada so many years ago and for it growing.

01:27:12.000 We've been talking about growing tonight, but Action for Canada has grown to what it

01:27:16.380 is today.

01:27:17.060 So many different departments and ministries that we are enjoying today.

01:27:20.940 And I thank you for this wonderful team, Lord, that I get to spend so much of my time

01:27:25.260 and my weeks and my days with.

01:27:27.120 Our prayer teams, our pastor teams, our homeschooling teams, our chapter teams, Lord, and all of the

01:27:33.180 the fun things that we get to do behind the scenes, Lord, that a lot of these people don't

01:27:37.200 see.

01:27:37.460 But we have this much fun pretty much all the time with Action for Canada, Lord.

01:27:41.840 It's not always heavy and disheartening, but Canadians need to know that Action for Canada,

01:27:49.220 really, we are doing things for the glory of God all the time.

01:27:53.000 So, Lord, I thank you for everything that was said and done tonight.

01:27:55.720 May it all be done for your glory.

01:27:56.980 And, Lord, as I shared at the last part of my message, Lord, for those that may be a

01:28:02.280 little bit disheartened and may be a little bit discouraged at the state of our world,

01:28:06.720 we do know, Lord, that you have a wonderful plan of salvation.

01:28:10.160 And I just pray, Lord, that you will open people's hearts to receive you.

01:28:14.020 And we thank you for the promise of heaven where we just know and understand, Lord, that

01:28:20.280 you are preparing a place for us, Lord, for those that would receive this free gift of

01:28:24.640 salvation.

01:28:25.020 So, bless each and everyone as we go our separate ways, Lord.

01:28:28.520 And we thank you again for each and everyone that was here tonight.

01:28:31.260 We ask your blessing now.

01:28:32.820 And we ask this in the name of our wonderful Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

01:28:36.780 Amen.

01:28:38.320 Amen.

01:28:39.360 Amen.

01:28:39.980 Well, thank you so much, Dan.

01:28:42.400 We're going to be working together on a regular basis here.

01:28:45.160 So, I won't say goodbye.

01:28:46.180 I'll say, talk to you later.

01:28:48.320 And thanks again.

01:28:49.880 All right.

01:28:50.500 Super.

01:28:51.520 Terenzio, will you bring up our guest for next week?

01:28:54.580 There he is.

01:28:56.060 All right.

01:28:56.780 Thank you so much, Terenzio.

01:28:58.020 Thank you, everybody, for joining us tonight.

01:29:00.140 Have a wonderful week.

01:29:01.540 And there's a weekend coming up just around the corner.

01:29:04.440 So, enjoy that, too.

01:29:05.280 I hope you have some sunshine.

01:29:07.040 And just God bless you.

01:29:08.600 And God bless Canada.

01:29:09.700 God bless Canada.

01:29:09.760 That's what I've got to say.

01:29:20.380 Look at this crowd.

01:29:25.080 I'm going to thank God and God alone for the ground that I'm standing on.

01:29:32.000 I'm going to thank our founding fathers for giving their lives and sacrificing so much for

01:29:43.700 our freedom.

01:29:47.480 And I'm calling on you today.

01:29:50.740 Don't put them to shame.

01:29:53.020 Don't waste what they did.

01:29:54.840 We have guaranteed rights in this country.

01:30:05.540 We're putting chapters across the nation.

01:30:08.980 We are going to be in every town and every city.

01:30:12.880 And we are going to build communities within these communities of like-minded people who are

01:30:18.160 actually going to care for one another again and love on each other and give each other

01:30:22.620 the help when they're down.

01:30:24.600 We are going to use the teams and the people that build within chapters to support our businesses.

01:30:32.440 The government's actions are completely, 100% unlawful.

01:30:39.060 Judgment will again be found on justice.

01:30:42.860 And those with virtuous hearts will pursue it.

01:30:46.220 You have a virtuous heart if you are here today pursuing freedom and righteousness.

01:30:54.500 And then verse 23 comes along with a promise.

01:30:59.340 God says, He will turn the sins of evil people back on them.

01:31:04.900 He will destroy them for their sins.

01:31:08.860 I take great comfort in that because I serve a mighty living God who has allowed us to go

01:31:19.720 through this season of discomfort because we as a nation have turned our backs on Him.

01:31:26.380 And we need to get right.

01:31:28.820 So I am just going to thank you so much.

01:31:32.200 I am going to say God bless you and God bless Canada.

01:31:36.520 God bless you and I love you and God bless you.

01:32:06.500 Thank you.

01:32:36.500 Thank you.

01:33:06.500 Thank you.

01:33:36.500 Thank you.

Action4Canada - April 20, 2023

Gardening And Food Security with Dan Vachon

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