Paul Houtz

I tried planting something like this last year. I did just what Mark Reed described. Everything I put in my planter sprouted into very healthy vines.  I had such high hopes.

Then the squirrels ate everything right down to the soil.  Apparently the vines are edible, unlike potato vines.  It was pretty disappointing.  I have since made a cage from chicken wire and I am going to take another crack at it, and also try to grow the catnip again.  

I do a lot of lacto fermenting, mainly cucumbers but also veggies.  I just want to remind folks that it is critical to add sufficient salt to your recipe.  Don't attempt to reduce salt for dietary reasons. My minimum is 4 tablespoons of salt in 4 cups of distilled water, but lately I have been upping the salt a bit to 4.5 tablespoons.  The symptoms of too little salt are:  1. Lots of white mold; 2) slimy cucumbers and other veggies; and 3) somewhat peculiar odor or flavor.

I am happiest when my ferments end up with clear brine and distinct crunchy veggies.  I also stopped experimenting with too many different spices, as it becomes confusing to tell which products are healthy and which are off.   I now mainly use garlic and dill, and a single bay leaf for a quart jar.

This is just what I do. The USDA site on preservation also has some great information that has been studied thoroughly.  Yes it is possible to get botulism with an improper attempt at fermentation but it is fortunately quite rare.

I found this site and read every single word of it, it is so interesting and really opened up my a options for making the most of my garden!

https://nchfp.uga.edu/

We need to know the actual facts about fertilizing with urine.

If you use raw urine in your garden, you are depending on rainfall and irrigation to wash out the sodium salts.
The study below indicates that in ideal conditions of heavy rainfall, something like 5% of salts will remain in the soil after a year.  This sodium does not go away.
Over time this will slowly increase until the soil is no longer tenable, it will be come "sodified," which is the technical term for having too much salt to grow plants.

In areas where there is heavy, dependable rainfall, it would take decades for sodification to occur, but eventually it will be a problem.  It can be mediated by the application of certain calcium compounds.

However, in areas where rainfall is sub-optimum, and regular irrigation is required for plant cultivation, the wash-out does not occur, and sodification can happen much faster.  

So be careful!  Those people who claim that they regularly use urine as fertilizer good results may very well live in a region that has plentiful rainfall, OR, they may have been fertilizing with urine only for a short time.  

Attached is the link to the peer-reviewed paper from 2016 detailing a significant experiment that produced the results I summarize above.  

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s41207-016-0010-9

Never let down your guard against misinformation and disinformation!