u/No-Language6720

I bought a spare router to put in storage a few months ago.

There was an FCC ruling I was concerned about and it was kind of dubious at the time if consumer grade router equipment would be available in the future in the US.

For some national security reasons the FCC put out some ruling that router equipment had to be manufactured in the US, however at the time no equipment met that criteria. You can look up more details if interested.

After that I took that as a que to buy backup network equipment a solid router and a few other odds and ends in case it was difficult to find. Our last one was doing fine I just wanted a solid backup so we didn't scramble.

Well Tuesday came for our router/modem ad there was a lightning strike night. It's now dead. The surge likely came through the coax cable of our Internet. I have a whole house surge protector otherwise and only the modem and the router were damaged. The computer nearby in the outlet/surge protector was fine.

So yeah. I was able to get the router out of the box without an issue to get my personal stuff back online that I keep off the Internet and only for my use. But our Internet is still out overall. Apparently whatever spectrum equipment that was struck last night is still messed up and homes around us don't have Internet either.

I'm writing this with my cell phone data right now and have no idea when the main spectrum Internet will be repaired.

We were going to switch to fiber since they recently laid down the infrastructure for that. This just pushes us to do that now. With fiber there isn't conductive coax cables for this issue to occur, and it's faster. I was putting that off just due to the 3 hour install for the line into the house.

Didn't think I would need my backup router this soon, but thankfully when they come tomorrow I can just plug in my replacement without having to scramble and research and potentially wait for shipping delays.

I'm assuming everyone here is up to speed with the middle east conflict and the world wide fertilizer shortages and food prices.

I want to share some tips and strategies that you may not know about and why they are important.

I assume most people that are heavy into gardening are doing some level of composting not only for their gardens but also keep trash to a minimum.

With that baseline what people may not know is composting and other nutrient recycling only goes so far.

Every time you harvest from your yard or garden you're causing a net loss over time of nutrients in your soil. Even if you use organic fertilizers.

Unless you have new inputs you will eventually get less and less production over time.

It's important to do all of this to minimize the need for new inputs organic or otherwise.

Some things I have actively done with my grow space and some that are work in progress.

Manures: these can be used as inputs if you have a vegetarian loving animal such as guinea pigs, rabbits etc.

Beach collections: these can give you good amounts for trace minerals as well as phosphorus and potassium depending on the items collected.

Check local rules you don't want to go to a state or national park and harvest live sea weed. I live within 2 hours of a beach and go once in awhile to collect the dried sea weed in buckets washed ashore, dead sand dollars as well as sea shells on the beach. All of those can be processed at home fairly easily and tossed into beds or in compost.

Fire pit: if you have access to hard wood you can burn it and use the ash to add potassium.

Volcanic and basalt decorative rocks: these are extremely good for releasing stored potassium, phosphorus and trace minerals back into the soil where they are placed. they're available at big box stores.

for these even if you buy one bag of each and put them in a small spot in your soil. you can actively mix that soil over time with compost and then spread that mix when and where it is needed. these are very good 'charge batteries' for replacing nutrients. they will slowly release the nutrients and minerals as it rains and keep long term reserves healthy for the rest of your space if you actively dig in the run off areas and under them.

There are many other ways to replenish your soil and many more ways besides veggie scraps and cardboard to recycle those nutrients for years.

Just trying to spread awareness around what we can individually do to replenish nutrients to our setups without commercial fertilizers.

Some of this depends on what you need for your soil, your climate and what you have access to.