DIY Grow-op

Sorry to disappoint but this is not a blog post about how to start a marijuana operation in your basement.  It is about growing our own vegetable garden in a simulated subtropical environment, while the reality of a subzero Canadian winter lingers outside your home. 

My husband and I decided to build a little grow-op in our basement.  We decided to see if we can plant one harvest before spring, followed by another, and then transport those small plants to the garden after the last frost. 

Our set up was pretty easy.  The table is an old door that we removed in our house, the table legs and the framing around the door were waste wood from RONA.

The plastic flats we picked up at Canadian Tire along with the soil.  We would've acquired the soil out of the field, but it is -10 Celsius here right now.

A simple DIY grow-op.  Total cost was under $100.  If our basement was actually heated, we would have not needed the heat bulb. 

Both the heat bulb, the grow light and a timer we picked up at RONA.  We placed the mirror that was already down stairs behind the heat bulb so the wood would not catch on fire.

We planted peas, lettuce, and onions. Lettuce grows amazingly fast, and we shall see if the onions beat the peas.

Though a nice experiment, this may not prove to be an easy if we were to do it while off-grid.  Heat-bulbs take a lot of energy, so we shall see if this is even feasible.

Is going Off-grid the right thing to do?

I have no idea how this even started.  Maybe it was our few trips to the north on canoe trips and desiring to be "out there", or watching Les Stroud's "Off-Grid" show thinking, "I can do that!"  Although, I think what brings out the desire in us most to take the plunge into this life altering experience is to somewhat take control of our own destiny.

It seems like in today's world you are expected to be one of a million drones that are slave to routine and societies expectancies of working nine to five, raise a family, keep up with friends on facebook (because you know only your REAL friends are on facebook), being popular, office politics, keeping the yard perfect or the neighbours will complain, host parties, etc etc etc.

Do you really desire to be a part of any of this anymore?  If you answer "no" what can you do about it?  I guess put up with it.....right?....perhaps.

My husband and I, I have found, though we seem like normal people working for a living and making money to live, we feel like we can do more for ourselves then just live our lives like the generic human being is programed to.  We want to live for ourselves!

This may sound selfish to those reading this post but please hear me out.  We want to live for ourselves in a more sustainable way and have more control over our daily life in general.

Basically this is our game plan:

Sell our stuff
Find jobs online
Quit our old jobs
Buy some land for cheap
Build a house on our cheap piece of land
Sell our house
Generate our own power (solar, wind, geothermal)
Grow a garden, raise some animals
Build a greenhouse
Hunt, fish, trap
Can, smoke and dry (food)
Keep warm during the winter
Keep our bellies full of food

So how are we going to do this?  This is what the content of this blog is going to contain.  If we succeed, then it will be a testimony of our adventure, and perhaps others out there can gain some information from it.  If we fail, then this blog will probably not exist anymore.

Is it coincidence that this first blog is posted on January 1st? I'll leave that to you to decide ;-)