Nancy Reading

Eino Kenttä wrote:The onion grass intrigues me. A thought: did you try to leach the tubers in ash lye or similar? People must have had some way of reducing the bitterness if they did eat them, and that's the first one that comes to mind. Can't imagine anyone wanting to eat anything tasting like you describe.

I've not had much experience with bitter food, but the grass tubers did not encourage me to experiment! I still dig them up sometimes and they do looks as if they ought to be edible - sometimes they are really a good size. I'd not heard of using wood ash, only boiling in several changes of water (I can't remember now exactly what I tried). I know couch grass is edible and supposed to be quite nutritious, and I think the two grasses are quite closely related. Maybe I just have an extreme form locally

Hello Cassie and welcome to permies! We've got a few teachers here I think (and a whole category for education resources) I think if you stop learning then there is probably something wrong in your life! Good luck with your vegetable growing this year. What is your biggest challenge?

Do you have any restrictions on what you can plant? Think about the maintenance time you will have - perennials once established take less time, annuals a bit more, lawns (probably) most of all! Do you get to keep the bits of the old trees? How about hugel cultur? Or for bed edging, trellises, or other structures, it would be nice to use them on site if that is permitted. Maybe the wood is actually or timer quality and could be used from something more structural.

Sketch something up, and we can maybe make some more suggestions - think about how your family might use the area. Make a list of plants you like the sound of and see how they might fit in. I'm not familiar with your area - what climate zone is that? How much rain in summer? It sounds like extremes of temperature can be a problem from what Cristobal says. Can we think of other ways to mitigate that? Stones can absorb heat in daytime and release over night. In my climate I find things will germinate in the paths that never do in my garden beds. Any rocky resources? What else might have the same effect - water perhaps, trees once they are established?

One of the permaculture methods is to look at natural patterns and apply them. What is the natural flow of the area, how will you move around it? Do any patterns seem to fit?

Thank you Devaka, Paul and all the other people who have worked hard to get us the new server. Thanks also to everyone who chipped in to buy it for the community!
I for one am noticing things are very much faster this morning woo hooo!




As Devaka said above, please report if you notice anything odd, out of the ordinary, or plain wrong!

Ac Baker wrote:"Analysis revealed that the breadcrumbs were likely from flatbreads made with wild barley, einkorn wheat (Triticum boeoticum), oats, and tubers from Bolboschoenus glaucus, a type of rush plant."

Interesting stuff! - so maybe we can include oats in the menu (although they probably weren't introduced here until much later....
I found a nice article on foraging for Bolboschoenus here in the Pacific North West of North America which says that chufa are in the same family. I'd describe them as a sedge rather than a bulrush (which Americans call cattails) I'll have to do a bit more research on whether any might grow nicely for me, since plants that grow well in the wet and are edible could be useful!

You might like this one too that Alec Newland built in his Anglo-Saxon reenactment hut - A cob stove with rockety burn and an oven. It is based on Romano-british kilns and is moderately clean burning and pretty compact. Exhausts through a side wall. I really think you'd be unwise to vent inside unless you have no other option.

My Grandad used to buy my mum and her brother a jigsaw at christmas every year. These were lovely post war hand cut plywood jigsaws. When we visited my Gran we used to gather round and do a puzzle together. One of the interesting things about these puzzles is that they didn't include a guide picture, so you just had a title to work from. To this day I still quite like doing puzzles without using the picture, which somehow seems like cheating! Another feature was that the cutter would include several 'whimsy' pieces that were non jigsaw shapes, like a boat or a squirrel.
These puzzles sometimes come up in vintage toy shops, but I'm lucky enough to be custodian of the family ones now.
Here's one on ebay:

source

Jay Angler wrote:The one thing I would do a little different, is the piece that goes across the top could have flaps that stick out to cover over the two side panels to stop dust from sneaking in there.

Similarly, if the strings on the front panel were sewn further in from the edge, it would curve around the side panels just enough to keep dust out there also.

Like this? Great suggestions - thank you!

Oh my this is my new thing for the day! 1) I didn't know joined up writing was called cursive, and 2) it never occurred to me that children wouldn't be taught it today. I do wonder about screens and computers and handwriting...
I was taught a version very similar to Abraham's without the extra curls and loops of Rachel's example. Not taking your pen off the page makes writing so much quicker....We used to write out 4 lines of our choice every week as a competition at school and I used to be top of the class for neatness when I was ten....my writing now though is sometimes illegible to the point that even I can't read it if I don't remember what I wrote!

Nina Surya wrote:In Finland we have karjalanpiirakka, which translates into Karelian pie. It's savory and soooooo goooood...

Thank you for that link - they are sort of open raised pasties with rye pastry. I suspect they have been developed as inexpensive but filling food-lots of possibilities to adapt it too....I think the porridge rice may be what we call pudding rice here?