Ac Baker

I have been given a mystery squash, and I'm not even sure if it's good to eat.  I'm hoping someone here might know ..

There are well-documented cases of experience mushroom foragers making a mistake and making people very ill or worse with toadstools.

Studing in-person with a local toadstool (harmful if eaten) fungi expert is an absolutely vital step before feeding anyone foraged fungi.

I'm defining expert as someone who really knows the fungi locally, not based on paper qualification.

It's irresponsible at best to fail to do this.

I would very much like to go on a course to learn the local "toadstools" e.g. inedible & dangerous fungal fruiting bodies first hand from an expert.  That's the vital first step that I missed because my family couldn't or didn't teach me sadly ..

Tom Bexley wrote:The amount of useful material being diverted into that plot is pretty impressive, especially the wood chips, leaves and supermarket produce that would otherwise be waste.

We're very lucky with the support we're getting!  Today, we have our share of a new "chip drop" to the site also, huzzah!

Tom Bexley wrote:The pallet compost bin should make a big difference if the volume keeps growing.

I think for now we've probably plateaued.  But I think the compostables could reach 5 m3 per year, so the pallet bin will need a second bay.

Tom Bexley wrote:One thing that might be worth tracking is which beds get the richer finished compost versus mostly leaf mould or woodier material. After a season or two you could end up with a pretty good picture of what actually gives the best return for potatoes, tomatoes, beans and the lighter feeders without having to treat the whole plot the same way.

I think we're going to aim to keep the woodier material to the bed edges & paths.  The leaves we'll try to turn into leaf mould from now on, as we'll have a decent supply of well rotten compost.  We'll give the heavy feeders like the runner beans, toms & tatties the rich compost.  I'm already roughing out next year's planting plan in my head, of course!

Oh, and the plot is now rented for the coming 12 months. Hoorah! and thanks to our sponsors.

I was in agony this time last year, one the very few cold sweats I've ever had, for about 5 hours.

Long story short, turned out after an intensive burst of oral antibiotics last summer for a serious infection, I'd developed fructans-sensitive IBS.

I think the harmful effects of agrochemicals and industrial additives on me are much more gradual and insidious: nothing you can "hang your hat upon".

I mention this, because my reading suggests that fructans sensitivity is starting to be taken more seriously, after being largely ignored for decades.

Significantly more people are fructans sensitive than gluten sensitive, it seems, for example.

But because wheat, barley & rye are rich in both fructans and gluten, a lot of fructans-sensitive people have wrongly thought they were gluten-sensitive. (Coelic disease is real, very serious, but only about c. 1% of the population have it).

So real Organic sourdough bread is such a boon to so many of us, not least because authentic sourdough fermentation pre-digests the fructans in a way that baking yeast proofing does not.  Plus lower agrochemical resides too!

Garlic & other alliums are even higher in fructans. Sunchokes too. Lots of vegetables & fruits as well.  But there are lots of fruits & veg low in fructans (carrots, green beans, strawberries, honeydew melon, I think for example).

So I feel the past year of learning to eat again, in a way that's mindful of fructans, has been really valuable for me.

And now I cultivate a sourdough culture, on my kitchen worktop, too!

A big advantage of a low, open "picket" fence is, you're not excluding visitors of any species whom you DO want, either, I'd say?

Ooo. I can start planning on eating my sunchokes in the late winter again.  Last December, after strong antibiotics in August, I was diagnosed with IBS.  Turns out I am now sensitive to fructans. Inulin is a type of fructans.  But! The NHS Dietetic service have helped me make great strides in healing my gut, repopulating my microbiome, and learning a different diet balance to manage my IBS quite effectively.

Meanwhile, I left the sunchokes alone through the entire year, to do as they would with the hot drought.  They've put on a lot less growth than usual, barely half.

The only time my sunchokes, Fuseau type, have ever flowered for me was in two hotter summers with good rainfall.  They grew to well over 2 m / 8 ft tall too.

So reading what you've variously written:

I will get help to dig over the entire sunchoke patch in January.

I'll put some of the stems into the compost & leave the rest to mulch the patch until Spring.

I'll try fermenting some of the tubers, as I'm doing very well with my grain sourdough to "pre-digest" the grain fructans.

I'd already learned that I love acid parboiled roasted sunchokes pre-IBS, so fingers crossed!

Contrary view: if you put the whole tripod in the shed, is there any natural light? If so, can you put the tubers into compost?

Because runner beans are perennial in frost-free conditions, I'd say the above conditions would allow them to ripen somewhat more.

Anne Miller wrote:Is it necessary to buy certified organic if you are going to peel what ever it is.  

The biggest reasons for me for buying an Organic labelled food, with a recognised certification scheme, is the reduced harm to others.

The farming should be free of agrochemicals.  That should mean less harm to the farm workers.  There should be no new persistent chemicals going into the growing environment harming the animals, plants and the rest of the biosphere.

Avoiding all but the persistent background of agrochemicals is an added bonus, but not my primary motivation.

So Fairtrade is also an important certification for me.  That reduces harm through financial exploration.  Last I looked, the standards also required far low use of agrochenicals than unfortunately "typical" these days.

I'm too busy with other important things for my garden to provide a large proportion of our food.  I mostly grow berries, with a bit of top fruit & leafy greens.  

So doing less harm to the world to feed my household is important to me. If I could buy all my food from a farm I could visit, then the burden of independent certification would not be so necessary.

We have had historicaly hot, dry conditions in England this summer. We will need 120% of recent average winter rainfall to get our of drought by Spring 2027.  So, not "dryland" but a hint of what that's like. Despite rain since late August, our soils are still very dry to a spit deep.

Observations:  cardboard sheet mulch turned to papier-mâché keeping rain & dew out of the soil. I've had to manually remove it.

Living roots in the soil keeping the worm population alive. Probably due to both shading & cooling the soil, and conserving moisture because plants can regulate transpiration for a long time when bare soil cannot.

By far the best tomatoes grown where I trenched part-rotted compost for runner beans, compared to the adjacent bed where I top-mulched.

So next year, I plan to plant into green manures, not to top mulch until the soil is properly rehydrated, and to experiment with more buried compostables, for a start.

I'm composting my comfrey in bins, just to moderate the PAs: https://permies.com/t/286439/Pyrrolizidine-Alkaloids-Comfrey-Boraginaceae-Family

I'm going to ponder how chop-and-drop of other plants might fit into all this.