William Bronson

Distill water, and bottle it.
Sell it as solar distilled or just use it later.

Make and sell dry ice, the smallest machines seem to be a couple of grand each.

Oxygen concentrators start at a similar price point.

I was checking on things at another site and found a pot of sunchokes.
I had apparently chopped off the stalk a while ago, maybe it was looking dead?
Anyhow, it made a bunch of tubers in a small pot, even without going a full season, so I'm very hopeful for the ones I'm.strting in pots now.

I also checked on my raised bed of nothing but sunchokes, and harvested the green stalks, feeding the brown stalks, bare roots and any leaves back into the bed.
The above ground growth was tall, but sparse.
I have harvested from this bed already this year, but I expected it to send up more sprouts
Instead, the remaining ones just got thicker and taller.

Maybe plant them in a cage?
That way it can establish and grow out , but the goats can trim it back.


Kelly, how do the tuber fare, when the greens are harvested a lot?
Are they puny, or are their just fewer of them?
Do you ever feed the bunnies the tubers?
Have you fed them dried stalks or leaves?
I tried growing them in pots right in front of the porch, specifically as treats for the bunnies, but they struggled.
I haven't checked the yields yet but above ground, they were sad looking, I'm not sure why.


I gave a lot of my sifted out tubers to my friend, who was catering a farm to table event, but I have sooo many.
I'm going roast some, but I'm also trying  other things.

I put a bunch of the teeny ones and the white thready roots in a cat litter bucket with a black lid , layered with some sifted soil.
I watered it in and let it drain, and sometime this winter I'll bring it inside.
I'm hoping the sunchokes will sprout and grow blanched sprouts.
I've done this before with mixed success, too much medium in the bucket.
Now that I think of it, mold is real possibility, so any ideas to curtail that are welcome.
Garlic cloves maybe?
Would sand be better than soil?
I might dump this out and start over...

For the bigger , nicer bulbs , I plan on stashing them in containers filled with sawdust, soil, or sand, and leaving them outside until I'm ready to eat them.
I'm thinking of using smaller containers, for a dinner sized portion,maybe two 2 liter bottles, ends cut off and shoved together.

The other thing I was considering was fermenting them.
Not so much for me, but as a form of sillage for the chickens.
We shall see.

Back on the green biomass, it could also be silaged.
I've dried it before, but the leaves to not hold their shape for me, they powder in way the bunnies can't eat.
By stripping them and silaging them, you could store more fodder for the winter.
If you are drying a lot of leaves like this, you could pelletize them with a relatively simple machine , the Von Bachmayr drum.
It's a seed ballet, but it might work to make pellets.
Probably not worth the trouble.

If you plant the root end of conventional onions, it will usually grow into 3 or small onion bulbs.
I separate these and replant.
If you take a rotting onion and plant it, it will usually produce greens and after a while, a nice globular flower bloom.
I usually let these go to seed, but I've never seen evidence of them self seeding.

An alium that reliably self seeds would be interesting.
Probably not more useful than the ones that top set bulbs, but interesting none the less.

I have a tall bed down by the street that was filled with sunchokes, but also has raspberries, an orange tree, and a Siberian pea tree.
I want more raspberries and fewer sunchokes, so I have gone through the soil a few cubic feet at a time, sifting out the roots
.
The resulting holes are filled with dead sunchoke stems and topped with the sifted soil.
The bare soil will be completely covered by tree and shrub starts in pots.
Mulch will be added under the pots.
I am trying to create spongy soil filled with organic matter.
Digging out the tubers gave me an opertunity to bury organic matter,  since the soil was distributed anyway.

Most of the pots have at least a  tiny bit of sunchoke root purposefully added to them, some have an entire stem and root system.
I am in part testing the theory that sunchokes produce better when faced with obstacles, like the side of a pot.
I'm also seeing how much root is needed to generate a new plant/tubers.
Raspberries seem not to mind sunchoke allopathy, and the other trees, well we shall see.

Thank you so much for weighing in Rebecca!
After watching some naan making in action I think only the top part of the oven is used, plus there's a special mitt for conveying the bread to the oven wall.
Most homemade versions use terra cotta pots as the inner wall, which somewhat constrains the size.
Together, this makes me think a dedicated tandoori oven might be best.
This would be a nice focused project that I could drag my son into, since he's the one who suggested I focus on naan making oven.
We can still fire it with things like a Tlud or sawdust stove.



That said, I am not done thinking about a larger combo version.
Instead of filling in a shell, I'm now imagining packing clay onto or slathering refractory over a sacrificial form.
The form would be pallet wood and two bike rims of unequal size, put together to form a truncated cone.
Basically an upside down peach basket, if you can picture that.
Wrapped in foil to cover any gaps, I think it would work as a form that can be burned out on the first firing.
We could use a metal shell on the outside, or we could use a form.
This could be great time to try slipformed cob or masonry.

The firebox geometry on these stoves are very basic compared to the rocket stoves we often see here on Permies.
Rather than fight that, it occured to me that we could use a metal lid with a feed tube and flue to turn them into pocket rockets.
This could add a cleaner more efficient burn to an already great design.
Pocket rockets are notorious for shedding a lot of heat, but we are aiming to build an  refractory thermal mass around a vaguely barrel shape firebox , and then insulating that mass.

Great topic!
I have Egyptian walking onions, and I'm hoping to establish elephant garlic.
I have two other oniony plants that I'm not sure of, lol
North Dakota winter onions are new to me, but they should amazing!

I am interested in building a tandoori oven.
I have never used one, and I need to know if the interior can be made of metal or refractory cement, instead of clay.
I know a few commercial models use steel, but most of them are lined with clay
I've seen one made of refractory cement, but that maker never made naan on his.
I'm leaning towards clay inside a steel shell, fired in place.
This clay in particular:
https://www.dickblick.com/products/standard-clay-company-239-raku-clay/

Making naan is the foremost goal, but I plan to also make pizza and loaves of bread and of course skewers .
I'm aiming to build one big enough to cook a whole turkey.
I also hope to set a (removable) stainless steel mixing bowl into the top, so I can approximate a Korean gamasot.
Tandoori ovens are remarkably like a Tlud charcoal making stove, and I  intend try making charcoal in mine.


I plan on insulating the oven.
Perlite,or vermiculite are normally what is used.
I might use stone wool.
Ceramic fiber insulation, if used , will not be in the flame path and will be sequestered.
I might even use a mud/sawdust mix.

I think the firebox could be made of something quite different than the oven proper.
It doesn't need to be a good surface to slap naan onto!
I'm eager to try firing the oven with different fuels, but charcoal/ wood will be king.



Rebecca, I am certain you have first hand experience with naan making, so I'm looking forward to hearing from you!
In particular, how deep does the oven really need to be, in your opinion?
I'm a long limbed galoot, with some fire resistance, but the thought of putting my hand full extension into an ear than oven gives me pause...

Mine are dying back right now,so I'm cutting the stalks and stripping off the leaves.
They are sitting in the car right now, getting a little solar drying.
These will be for our two pet bunnies as winter treats.

The leaves and any stalks that are already brown go right into a nearby bed or pathway.
I'm harvesting the roots for my neighbor who is doing a vegetarian farm to table catering gig.
I'm replacing them with pots of raspberry cuttings, though I'm putting a sunchoke and beans in each pot.

I can deal with slow going, as I plan on using the bed for tree starts alongside growing garlic.

In some of the videos online they even pre spout the corms.

I also bought some of the giant single cloves that are the next step from being corms.
These should become extra large head of elephant garlic in a single season.