Hello Region 8, solar, gardening & camping

[RWS]

I am in region 8 on the East end.  My home is in the country & off grid capable.  I have 3 vegetable gardens.  I save seed.  This year I planted 3/4lb of sweet corn.  We ate corn and put corn in 3 cannings of vegetable soup.  I dried, shelled and put 20lb of seed in the freezer for long term storage.

[RWS]

My Fall/Winter garden has:
onions - have not bought any sets for 7 years
garlic - last year the garlic in my wife's earb garden seeded out.  I planted them in a flower pot.  Now I have transplanted them in a full row in the garden.  The extras I planted around in the wife's flower beds.
Cabbage both red and regular
Broccli lots of it as we freeze all the extra and eat it all year long.
Kale
Leaf lettuce
Spinach plants have not shown up yet in the garden center.  I have seeds for backup for when the time comes.

[RWS]

BlueberriesI have 50 + blueberry bushes.  I usually have more than I can pick.  This last year due to the warm winter and warm February, the blueberries bloomed early.  Well we had a late freeze and I lost all of the early verities.  So I ended up with half a crop.  I still had people over to pick blueberries.  I like to invite people with children old enough to help so they will have that experience in the back of their head for future reference.
I also propagate and plant 10 new bushes each year.  When we have a full crop, there is no way we can pick them all.  Needless to say the wife has many blueberry recipies and we keep some in the freezer year round.
If you want a blueberry bush, February is the month to come visit.
If you just want to pick, Mid June thru July is the time.

[RWS]

Here is a look at the Fall2017 garden.  Thought I had better get a picture before the deer got to it.  Click on picture to enlarge.  At the end of the garden is a row of blueberry bushes.  Across the open field is a small white building with the roof all slanted in one direction.  The slant is for the solar panels on top.  That is my pump house for the 2 acre lot next to my house.  I am hoping to develope it a bit as time goes by.
I have red potatoes in another garden which are mainly to grow off seed potatoes for the spring.

[RWS]

I mentioned on another forum that I was thinking about getting a bee hive.  I was contacted by another board member that had bees.  He offered to help me get started.  I took him  up on it using PM Private Messaging he guided me thru equipment selection.  I have placed an order and am in possession of a tracking number.  Next will be site selection and hive set up.  I plan to get bees in mid February as my early blueberries start blooming last of February or first of March.  I never get any early blueberries as there are no wild bees about yet.  I understand that if I feed bees in a hive they will produce offspring earlier.  Hoping to see how this works...

[RWS]

I have a 2 acre lot next to my home location.  It has a quansut hut on it I use as a storage building.  You can not leave anything out as it will be gone in the morning.  There were 5 offending trees which are in the process of being removed.  Why are they offensive?  Well they were blocking that fabulous morning sunlight that now shines on the quansut hut.  Now I need to pressure wash, plug holes and paint before I can start mounting rails.  Yes rails.  I use them to hold solar panels.

[ProGeek]

I understand that if I feed bees in a hive they will produce offspring earlier.  Hoping to see how this works...

You need to feed them the whole first year because they are weak.

[RWS]

February 2018.  I transplanted 13 new blueberry bushes.  They seem to come up around the existing bushes and try to spread.  I dig them up in February when they are dormant and transplant to a new location.  I put 5 in 2 gal pots for my wife's friend that wants some plants.  Then we called the neighbor lady and she came over and got 5 bushes.  So another day or two working in the blueberries and we will be done for the year.  The next thing will be to start picking.

[RWS]

March 2018.  I got a queen honey bee and a box full of drones & workers.  I just did the 5 day inspection.  The queen is out of her cage so I retrieved it.  I looked at the frames in the brood box.  The center ones were in the process of being built out with comb.  I did not locate the queen and I did not see what I thought was an egg.  I did see honey in one comb sell almost full.  Maybe I just don't know what I am looking for.  I was concerned as there was not much if any surgar water being taken from the top feeder.  Today however half of what was there is gone.  I guess it is because of the cold day yesterday and they stayed in all day.  Anyway we are off and running.

[RWS]

I had some old solar panels in the storage building doing nothing but taking up space.  They have tower mounts attached for Rohn 25 tower.  I removed the brackets and built fold out wooden legs from 1x2s.  I mounted a piece of solar panel mounting rail to the back and installed a charge controller.  After consulting the charge controller specifications, I wired the two halves of the panel in parallel to give 21VDC open circuit.  I expect to get 5.5 to 6 amps charge current to a 12V battery.  I put an Anderson "Power Pole" connector on the wire to the battery to allow an extension cable to be installed allowing the panel to be moved around to find the sun.

[RWS]

I grabbed an old battery from the shed and measured the voltage 11.6 VDC.  Then hooked up the solar panel and had 12.6 VDC.  Looks like it is working.  Notice the fuse ?  Anything hooked to a battery must be fused  Failure to do so could result in a fire.  I installed a small chain to hold the fold out legs in place.  The chain length is adjustable to set the panel angle.
The inverter battery wire is #4 copper welding lead 600Vdc and 50Deg C rated.  The inverter is a PD2000 PowerDrive modified sine wave.  Application is to run a freezer.  Notice the maxi fuse in line on the positive wire.  The inverter manual specified a 30A fuse.  The manual also said #5 wire - 2ft. max and #3 wire - 3ft max length.  Splice is a piece of copper tubing, crimped and soldered.  I left off the tape for the picture.  Two things left to do in build a rain cover and an extension cable to allow battery and solar panel separation.

[RWS]

Today we are making storm preparations as there is a hurricane in the Gulf headed this way.  Cat 2 this morning, supposed to hit tomorrow as a cat 3.  I policed up the portable solar panels that were charging batteries for the electric fence chargers.  I gassed up the cars and truck.  Topped off the diesel tank in the RV and filled the fresh water tank, good for 3 days.  The wife is baking apple bread as a result of our recent apple run to Ellijay, Ga..  She is also baking potatoes while the oven is going.  We are having a steak grilled over charcoal.  We will eat the extra baked potatoes over the next couple of days.  Baked potatoes are easier to warm up than bake without power.
The first rain band has moved thru.  It only lasted about two minutes with gusty winds.

[RWS]

Spring 2020 4-9-20
It is time to pressure wash my solar panels.  They get so dirty with stuck on pine tree pollen that the output is degraded.  A few days ago I cleaned 2ea 10 panel strings on the roof.  Before cleaning 2200 watts output after cleaning 3500 watts output.  The panels on the roof go to a seperate grid tied inverter (no battery)  and has a display so it is easy to see what it is doing.  What it does is make my meter spin backwards.
Why in the world did I put my panels so hi in the air.  It really makes it hard to clean every spring.  Well it's because I am crazy.  I figured it would be harder for someone to come by in the night and tote them off !  Besides up there they get the sun 30 minutes earlier than the ground mounted ones.
You can see the dirt better in the second picture.  For orientation the scaffold is in the same place.  I have already cleaned the top 1/3rd of the top row by leaning over off the roof.