Susan Mené

Samantha Lewis wrote:I like growing these.    They will be fine in heavy soil.
https://www.rareseeds.com/carrot-parisienne

Thank you Samantha! I will try these!

This is a beautiful topic.
    The past three years have full of loss and change; 3 deaths from my circle of love that have affected me profoundly and two more that rocked my world but didn't knock me down.  Other losses too, ones that we all experience.  I'll head over to a forum on grief and loss to expand on that; in the meantime, I'll get back to joy.
     Even when I can't feel joy, I'm aware of it surrounding me and holding me up.  Nature, always nature.  Walking with my dog and watching her swing from vines, fight with logs, and tear through the woods at full speed.  Running my fingers through her fur and burying my face in it.
      Gratitude for the first sip of coffee in the morning, my faith, my family, and for the way past "trauma" has become nothing but a tool to help others.
        A month ago,  my friend's dog Luna woke up paralyzed. Long story short, she opted to try treatment, surgery was performed, and last week I received a video of Luna jumping up and walking 6 ft. (1.8m) feet before having to rest.  I remembered what joy was, I felt it, yay!  And now I have joy about having the feeling of joy again.
       

Ra Kenworth wrote:I have regrown all these veggies plus garlic, bok choy, turnips, beets, fennel,, kohlrabi, wild leek butts from my neighbor (I save mine and only eat the third leaf once they're producing three at around 4-6 years old) and I got a chayote plant one year off a fruit that I chopped off the sides but left the shoot in tact (the part that looks like an anus)

For turnips, rutabagas, and beets, I chop off a section of both sides leaving top and tail and a section spared along each side, works for me.Edit: I prefer the leaves from these roots. Also carrot leaves.

As far as long term, my onions disappear, the carrots are great for stabilizing compost hills, and they last. I have found the best way to keep the critters off my veggies is to provide them with sufficient oats and corn that are away from foot traffic that they aren't hungry.

Honorable mention: grapefruit seeds germinate well, and although too cold in Canada, they produce fantastic leaves I will nibble on raw and put in the crockpot I use to make teas. They are all stripped of their leaves before the frost.

Edit: pics added

I never knew that about grapefruit leaves!  Many thanks! Do you sprout the turnips, rutabagas, and beets in water?

jim loggin wrote:Had to use my 12 cup perculator during a outage this week.

I have a similar one and love it when the power's out.  The neighbors do too!

   Love this topic!
   I, too, use a vintage farberware percolator and I will never use anything else.  Actually I have two: an 8-cup and a
4-cup that I inherited from Grannie.  When my previous 8-cup broke, I found one easily on etsy.
    My Dad used a stovetop percolator for my entire childhood.  I remember him telling me that when it starts to "perk"(that wonderful sound!"),  allow it to perk 4 minutes slowly with the heat source on low, then raise the heat so that it perks rapidly for 3 minutes and done.

May Lotito wrote:Not exactly "cooking", but another thing I use with the air fryer is to split black walnuts. At 250F for 20 minutes, the hard shells uniformly crack along the seams, making it very easy to halve with a screw driver. Of course the nut meat still can't come out in one piece,  but subsequent cracking is a lot faster when they are halved like this.

Wow, what a great tip!  I have an abundance of black walnuts available to forage, and in the past I have even tried (unsuccessfully) to run them over with my car trying to split them.  
Unfortunately I have developed an allergy to tree nuts, so more for the squirrels!

paul wheaton wrote:Another angle to all of this:  There may be a thousand different philosophies about what things will look like in two years.  Therefore, a thousand different suggestions for the woman considering a return to college.  It is clear that there are some that are thinking what I am thinking, and they are saying "don't."

And when it comes to how to prepare for two years in the future, I feel like the core is:  a humble home and a large garden.

I want to go a little further and say:   for 30% of the population, a humble home and a large garden is a massive life improvement for nearly any scenario two years in the future.  It's just basic math.  

   A humble home and a large garden seems to be a wise goal for anyone.  I think that knowing how to do things without technology can provide skills for when/if technology takes over many jobs.  
    Debate always exists, but it's not an efficient means for solutions when dealing with unknowns.  None of us knows exactly what this future will look like.  
      So from that point of view, a solution could (must?) be to start with the children.  Instead of hard-core STEM education, teach also sustainability, the science of soil and gardening, and life skills.  And from the view of sustainability and practicality, skip the government and offer it ourselves.  I know all the "why-we-can't-do-that's".  One can't do it alone, but a community can.  
   People don't know there are options like boot camp. The young are still open and curious and open to ideas. Now this is not a solid business plan, organized vision, detail oriented solution.  But it's an answer.

     
   

John C Daley wrote:What are these please.

We have some ROCs here in our state already and hopefully there will be more

I found this:
https://rocusa.org/why-resident-ownership/