Sarah Joubert

Jill Dyer wrote:I can't grow Phaseolus coccineus either!  Drying out of pollen also affects the tomato plants. . .

I am so glad I am not the only one struggling to grow beans! I grew them for years on the hot highveld in South Africa-like weeds! But our rainfall was more summer showers so probably more humidity. Successful in the UK too. The  combination of hot, dry, windy conditions here must just be too much for them to cope. Interesting about tomatoes. My friendly neighbouring farmer (who speaks spanish very well), surprisingly cannot understand me ;-) so I have trouble finding out how/where he grows such exceptional tomatoes. He keeps us stocked up but it's disheartening to struggle so. Interestingly, the self seeding tomatoes take off really early so we get early season tomatoes, they die back in the heat of the summer and don't come back when it cools down a bit in September, but then my planted varieties seem to get a growth spurt and I had tomatoes into November last year. So the reduced pollination in high summer makes sense and I'll try altering my sowing dates for early and late tomatoes. Thanks for that!

Robert Ray wrote:Burra, did your runner beans produce a tuber to eat?

Interesting! I don't know about Burra, but I got bigger roots than I would expect under my runners-I may have pulled them early in disgust. Are they any good? Do they store well underground/in a cellar?

Burra Maluca wrote:I'd recommend finding someone near to you who grows beans successfully and begging a shovel-full of soil from their bean-patch to mix into a slurry to inoculate your seed, just in case your soil doesn't have enough of the right bugs.

Thanks for that advice. I do have a vacuum sealed bag of "innoculent" that I got along with some akfalfa/lucerne seedsI bought several years ago. I decided not to plant the alfalfa and waste the innoculent as I quickly learned the hard way how everything struggles without water in these conditions-sound a bit like your 1st property in Portugal! Hopefully it is still viable because, even though vacuum sealed, the pack says it expired years ago. But we all know not to trust best before dates.
So that's why my runner beans don't fruit! I will look at those other bean families.
Thanks's for taking the time to reply.

Rebekah Harmon wrote:

Sarah Joubert wrote: I'm willing to change my diet to build a better world, but I can't see a nutritional reason to force someone to eat sunchokes every day!

HAH! Sarah! Thats hilarious! And I totally agree with you. They aren't bad on a salad. I could eat a little one every day on the side somehow. But they aren't a delicious way to fill a plate.

Thank you, I'm glad someone saw the funny side of it! These are serious times but we need to laugh at ourselves occasionally.

Burra Maluca wrote:

Brian White wrote:The situation is bleak ... because nitrates are the biggest  problem

If enough of us switch our diets so that we all eat more beans, it might be possible to prevent the cost of food going up 10x.

Hi Burra,  not sure if this is the forum to ask, but do you grow your own beans, peas or lentils? Legumes form the backbone of our diet and I was wondering if there are any tips you can give for growing them in our part of the world. I think we share similar weather conditions- cold winters with some rain, hot, dry summers with ferociuos winds all year round. My husband loves fresh peas and I like fresh beans, but I just can't get them to grow so I'm cautious about allocating any of my meagre gardening space to grow store legumes. A local farmer gave me some fresh chickpeas a few yers back, so they do grow here but not sure if  they need to be innoculated like some legumes. What about lentils?

paul wheaton wrote:Now we are getting into my favorite kind of conversation.

I feel like the core is:

  - gardening and not farming (farming choices are very different)

  - things that can be harvested in deep winter

Growing a high calories per acre crop is easy.  But it becomes difficult if you have to have a lot of discipline to harvest at the right moment.  And if you miss that moment, it quickly drops to zero calories per acre.  So a large harvest window is handy.

My starter staples are:

sunchokes
walking onions
annual kale (which reseeds itself)

Am I missing a fundamental point here?
I get that those 3 are self propagating, long lasting, low maintenance, storage free. But if we are considering a 10 fold price increase, will those 3 growies be sufficient as a starter pack for a balanced, daily diet in the depths of winter?
Of the 3, only kale is worth growing for me because the other 2 have easy,cheap substitutes .
I know this is climate based and those 3 probably do well in most climates but I still can't see the benefit of focusing on those 3 things to start with. Sure, add in wild/ weed foraging and the occasional fruit in season but I can't see how growing sunchokes, an allium and kale/chard is going to help curb expenditure on food in such a scenario.
I have grown and eaten sunchoke, I can't see it as a staple food source.
Grains (as a staple crop) are out- too much input and too energy intensive. I think Geoff Lawton proved that with an experiment one year. Bread /pasta/pie/seitan are luxury items if you need to grow your own flour.
Animal protein production requires a significant input and external dependency-especially if done on a small acerage- and still has a large "crop failure" risk through disease, predation, slower breeding cycles in winter etc. In a 10 fold scenario a person would be better off eating the feed of the animal instead of converting it into animal protein. I think 2 exceptions  would be eggs and fish- for obvious reasons- but there are still risks involved. They could be very unreliable sources of protein.
Hunting/trapping isn't an option for a large portion of the world's population, and in any case animal numbers would drop significantly if everyone got in on it.
If we're looking at food security, we'd best limit the risk factors as much as possible to guarantee adequate affordable nutrition.
So we're left with growing calories and there has to be a better staple than sunchokes. I'm willing to change my diet to build a better world, but I can't see a nutritional reason to force someone to eat sunchokes every day!

Thekla McDaniels wrote:And another use!

A friend gave me a couple dozen strawberry plants and even if I only get 10% survival, it is worth the effort, but you know chickens!  Moist soil is a magnet for them…. And they have their own philosophy regarding appropriate use of strawberries.  They showed up as soon as I began.

Photo below.  I watered, loosened the soil, applied my amendment materials, put the pallet in place, then added the strawberry plants.  I will probably toss some seeds in there since I will be watering, probably white clover.

Hmmm, I might try this for flower borders and seedling beds to keep the cats out of the new "litterbox" I made and stop the dogs flattening my cosmos. Great idea!

Dian Green wrote: For us, doing a turmeric/ginger paste has been our first major medicinal herb for regular use. It has worked really well for reducing my mothers inflammation.

I'm interested in how you prepared your paste and how you used it as my mother suffers terribly from arthritis and old post operative wound sensitivity.

This thread is well worth taking the time to read. There are so many helpful tips from every angle and to suit so many circumstances.
As I only have work for 4 months of the year, budget is very important to me.

I am married to someone who's country  and culture has a very high meat portion allowance. Every evening meal had to contain meat. I come from a family of 7 which meant I learned how little we actually need to eat to stay healthy. One chicken would do 2 meals for a family of 7-thats 14 servings.  If I roast a chicken in my house (2 people), it wouldn't last 2 days. Yes, I get a soup out of it after, but it's taken me years to get my spouse accustomed to "carcass soup". For fussy eaters I recomend involuntary fasting- it sharpens your appetite no end! So I abandoned the roast, cut meat into smaller pieces. I used less and padded out with beans or grains. I have slowly weaned him off beef mince (ground beef) by adding lentils- to the point where he will now happily tuck into a lentil bologneise, lasagne, curry, baked potato with chilli or spicy cottage pie and enjoy it.

I see lentils have taken a bashing here. Lentils are the easiest of the pulses to prepare and digest - taking less time to cook and reduce GOS and the anti nutrient- Phytic acid. I have learned several ways to make make them more edible, save on long cooking times and improve texture. Too often lentils turn to a grainy, grey/brown mush because we have to boil to reduce the flatulence causing enzymes (GOS) and phytic acid.
Quick soaking in boiling water with ACV or lemon  and discarding the water helps reduce the GOS, so you can shorten the cooking time and lentils retain more of a ground beef texture. You can also add a bit more ACV or lemon juice to the cooking liquid. But I like to sprout my lentils as I find this subtly changes the taste and means you can cook them in so many different ways for a much shorter time, you also reduce the GOS and PA through the repeated rinsing. Just sprouted, they are great for mince replacements- I've even made sausage from them. Sprouted at varying degrees of shoot length and you can add them raw to salads, or cooked in veg stir frys, fried rice dishes, vegetable curries and soups. They only take 5-10 to cook through and add a "fresh veg" aspect to meals. I try to have 2 sprouting jars spaced 3 days apart on the go at all times. I also have a "multimince" recipe so I can make a giant pot, freeze in portions then change the seasoning for italian, indian, chilli, or pie. From 1kg of dried lentils, I can get at least 16 porions- if necessary, we can eat lentils 5 times a week without eating the same thing twice.

If you haven't cooked /eaten lentils before, or you've bought lentils and don't like the taste, try using them in smaller portions over a period to adjust to their flavor profile and fibre. They really are the budget consious cook's best friend.

Some really good, sound advice based on experience in this thread. My two cents worth:
The "gap" for me is the difference between staying below the  tax threshold and having to pay the taxman if I go over the threshold. I'm fortunate to work part of the year (3  and a half months) where I earn enough to stay just under the threshold. One year I was offered 6 weeks more work and thought, "at that rate of pay I'll have so much more to do things that need doing". However, I lost 30% in taxes as I live in one country and work in another and my country of residence taxed me at a higher rate on a lower threshold. On top of that I had travel expenses, we had 2 household expence budgets as my husband does not accompany me. So yes, I earned more, but we didn't reap any major benefits.There were more downsides actually, I didn't see my husband for nigh on half the year, didn't spend time with my dogs eather. When I was at home, it was a race to get things done and I couldn't focus on growing more of what we eat and developing income streams.

Every year we have the same discussion about him going off to work as he feels he should be the one bringing in the money. And every year I have to explain the additional costs in storage, significant travel expences (we would need to take the dogs with us), possible damage due to break ins, natural events etc. He struggles to see that his contribution in staying behind saves us money. Even though he isn't paid, his work on the property has value - more than he could earn and it cuts my workload down as I'm the one who would have to organise everything!

On a contraversial note, I think having a good credit history (especially in europe) is a good thing. I think it's misunderstood by many. Just because you have a CC that you can spend £2000 on, doesn't mean you should spend it on things you can't afford. I use my credit card to build a good credit history. I pay all my monthly expenses with it BUT I pay it in full whern it's due. The trap of CCs is the whacking interest (currently about 23%) compounded monthly, that has to be paid if you don't pay off in full. Showing that I can manage credit allowed us to get an unsecured loan ( at 4.5%) interest so that we could buy our own piece of land without the mandatory bank evaluation. If we had tried to get a mortgage on our piece of rural land with no "livable" house, no bank would have considered us. We would have had to spend considerably more, and therefore earn considerably more in order to be approved. And it would have taken considerably longer than 5 frugal years to pay it off it off. I'm no number cruncher, but 5 years loan @ 4.5%, no insurance  is better than 20+ years mortgage at 4% variable with compulsory insurance.
Good credit means we have removed a mortgage and the mandatory insurance from our monthly outgoings. Also, if we have an emergency that requires a sizeable amount we don't have, I can use the credit card and I have 30 days to apply for another unsecured loan- which I will get because of my good credit score.

We should beat the banks at their own game, use their "easy credit " offerings to secure manageable credit at more lucrative rates without indenturing ourselves and being forced to pay mandatory insurance- often provided by the banks themselves.