Rb For Bigger Sample Size. I'm Actually Really Curious About This.

rb for bigger sample size. i'm actually really curious about this.

Esplorando i fondali ©Tiziana Loiacono

Solarpunk stuff for really broke people

Hey! I’m excited about sustainability, but I’m really poor! So here are some tips if you are also poor. 

Some starter tips

There are some things you can take that, while not stealing, people won’t expect you to take. This includes seed collecting from untended gardens, portions of plants that grow in the wild, and soil from parks. This kind of stuff can cut down on expenses.

Seeds can be sold in expensive stores, but can also be taken from produce you buy. Stuff like garlic, onions, green onions, tomatoes, and potatoes are all really easy to reproduce by themselves. Care enough to want organic, heirloom, ect? Go to a farmers market, take the seeds.

Some places also do seed libraries or seed swaps. Keep an eye out for these, especially if you live in or near a big town. Dollar tree also sells seeds in the spring.

A lot of this might involve bending rules. Be sneaky and be careful.

Plants

Ideally, land to plant on in a garden is how food is produced. However if you’re like me you live in a cramped, overpriced studio on the second floor or something.

Yeah containers work. But you need soil for that, and you can’t grab all of it from potting soil bags ripped open at your local garden store. Maybe if you’re patient. But I’m not.

Hydroponic setups work better. One like this requires a plastic bottle, some kind of mesh, and fertilizer. 

Fertilizer is, in a lot of places, seen as a bright blue powder sold in gardening stores. You could buy that. I wouldn’t personally. You could steal it from a chain store. But more likely, you could make your own. This article talks about fertilizer from food and food waste. And you can learn about nutritional needs of plants here.

This method could grow herbs, leafy greens, and some vine plants like pole beans, with support. this is not recommended for root plants like potatoes, for a lot of reasons.

Of course if you have access to dirt (not necessarily potting soil) you’re in a better place. Do a few tests, like drainage and composition. PH shouldn’t be a huge deal if you’re digging it up, just find dirt that shit is already growing in. Find a container that can hold a lot of dirt, poke a few good sized holes for water drainage, and plant that shit!

If you manage to bring some of your shit past usable to seed, congrats! Maybe learning about seed collection would help you spread the love to your other friends.

Oh and since there are no bees in your apartment (I hope) you’re gonna need to hand pollinate fruiting plants.

Recycling and reusing

Perhaps the most efficient way of doing this is having friends who also reuse things. You’re not gonna be able to save every candy wrapper most days, and I’m in no position to give up simple luxuries like candy. If you got the money, finding local producers who use compostable/recyclable materials for your little luxuries is nice though. But some of us ain’t got that kinda money. And that’s ok.

As I said before, bottles can be used to make hydroponic gardens. Maybe if you want you can help your friends set up some gardens if you got one too many two liters from Little Caesars.

Plastic bags can be turned into plarn (plastic yarn) and used to knit or crochet. If you feel so inclined you can learn to make cool shit, like reusable shopping bags or something. You could also make a bunch of plarn and outsource this to your friend who likes to knit in exchange for something you wanna do, or are good at.

Egg cartons can be used as seed starters. If you use the cardboard kind, they’ll dissolve into the soil if you break em down a little before planting them.

Aluminum foil can be used to keep algae out of your hydroponic garden, or as an alternative to steel wool. 

There’s a lot that I could say, but reuse stuff is popular right now. Ideally, it should be reused into something that has a good use. And remember, sharing your talents and outsourcing things you can’t do is good and pure.

Green Power

This is gonna be a little more expensive. If you got a little money laying around, this could help reduce your power bill or something. But this isn’t gonna be free or next to free.

Phone chargers are an easy one to power. They charge up and don’t vary in their power needs.

This tutorial is, quite frankly, brilliant, and takes away a lot of the barriers to making solar powered stuff (like soldering). They tear apart a garden light to do this. That light could be used for some plants or something.

Wind and hydro are kinda unrealistic for an apartment, but it’s something people do.

Local resources

Food banks, community gardens, borrowing land, pooling resources. Buy an empty plot with your friends and start a community garden. 

Deuterium.

Basically. I got screwed.

I am very sorry for how relatively quiet this blog has been but I've been dealing with a very unpleasant situation the last few months, and now I need help.

Essentially, I tried to help someone out, and she took advantage of me, and I have no way to recoup my losses.

Earlier this year, I moved into a new house. Before we sold the old house, a Now-Former friend ran into some trouble and was about to become homeless with pets and a small child. Not wanting them to be on the street, we offered to hold off selling the old house so she could stay there for a little while, if she could pay the cost of the mortgage on that house (because I could afford one mortgage but not two) while we helped her find somewhere more permanent.

I was not making money from this- since I was still paying the utilities and property taxes, I was actually losing money, but willing to soak that in order to help her save up and get her on her feet.

Instead, she:

Never Paid a Dime towards covering the mortgage costs like she agreed ($12,000 for the nine months she was there)

Trashed the house ($500 dump fees for the trash alone)

Let her pets piss and shit all over the house ($1,500 bio hazard cleanup, $4000 to replace the carpet and other damaged flooring)

Caused an electrical issue in the garage ($900 to repair)

Broke the washer, dryer and refrigerator ($2500 to replace)

Broke the fence ($1000 to repair)

When I told her I could no longer financially support her and that I needed to sell the old house, she illegally squatted there for a solid three months and I had to hire a lawyer and actually take her to court to get her to leave ($2,500)

The resulting stress has been, as you can imagine, stressful.

So stressful, in fact, that it aggravated a the medical conditions my husband had and made him extremely sick. He had to go to the hospital and take time off work to recover. Now the health insurance is trying to weasel out of paying his short-term disability claim.

So net, this woman has managed to cost me around $25,000 and that's not taking into account the missed paychecks and medical expenses. I do not have $25,000, and until at least $13,000 of that is spent to repair the damage she did, I legally cannot sell the house to even begin to recoup my losses.

Theoretically, I could sue this woman, but she doesn't have any money and it would be me paying even more money I don't have to get... Nothing. So I'm asking for help to cover the costs of getting the old house ready to sell, my husband's medical expenses, and other expenses incurred by this debacle:

paypal.com

Gallus Tried To Help And Got Screwed

I tried to help out a now-former friend by letting her rent my house at cost, and she instead failed to pay any rent, trashed my house, and

If you can help out in any way-share, donate spare change, anything- I'd be extremely grateful.

Thank you.

Ocean Fun 💙