Gordon Blair

That... might not be a totally insane idea.

William Bronson wrote:

Judith Browning wrote:Gordon, Mine seem to take forever to ferment but as long as I keep them below the brine there is no mold just a bit of scum to remove occasionally and they are about as crispy as fresh.

We just finished last years a month or so ago...refrigerated after I called them done enough and they kept well😊

Yours might have been good still if the surface mold (scum?) was removed and the brine topped up?

This makes me curious, have you ever juiced them?
Could make a great fermented drink, or maybe they could ferment in their own juice?

Hmm, I can't recall what it looked like now, Judith--whether there were any funky colours appearing, etc.

Judith Browning wrote:Gordon, Mine seem to take forever to ferment but as long as I keep them below the brine there is no mold just a bit of scum to remove occasionally and they are about as crispy as fresh.

We just finished last years a month or so ago...refrigerated after I called them done enough and they kept well😊

Yours might have been good still if the surface mold (scum?) was removed and the brine topped up?

I fermented a bunch, and it was great until they got a mould on the surface... Rescued most of them and transferred them to a jar of vinegar. If I were to do that again, I would water the vinegar down a bit.

Judith Browning wrote:

Christopher Weeks wrote:I've had a thing happen to me over the last year or so. I think I've developed a food-aversion to cooked sunchokes. Just the idea of eating them as the primary thing in a stew or mash is triggering my gag reflex. But pulling them out of the ground, washing them off, and eating them raw is delicious. I wonder if anyone else has ever faced this and whether there's anything I can do about it.

Mine isn't quite a gag reflex but definitely an aversion to cooked sunchokes  and the flavor that develops.  I always thought it was becauses we ate so many back in the day and tried to eat them like potatoes boiled and fried.
Now, we love them sliced and fermented...no gas, and they stay nice and crispy just like fresh.

I have never seen any as large as those Paul posted...amazing!
Ours get smaller the longer they stay in one spot so will find new locations and this years areas will be weeds...easy to pull young and lay down for mulch.

Holy moley...

Sliced thinly on a pizza is great. Fermenting worked great for me. Pickled too. Good addition to stews and curries.

You probably don't eat them raw in huge quantities? And maybe you were eating them a lot before when you were still cooking them?

If it's important to you to get back to eating cooked sunchokes, you could try graded exposure..?

Christopher Weeks wrote:I've had a thing happen to me over the last year or so. I think I've developed a food-aversion to cook sunchokes. Just the idea of eating them as the primary thing in a stew or mash is triggering my gag reflex. But pulling them out of the ground, washing them off, and eating them raw is delicious. I wonder if anyone else has ever faced this and whether there's anything I can do about it.

I wanted to come back and report, especially to Paul, that I am now a full convert.

My wife and I grew a load of sunchokes and had them stored in the freezer for a long, long time because we could eat so little at a time--they were mostly forgotten. I was mulling over what Paul had been saying about building up a tolerance, and I eventually resolved to try it out properly.

For both of us, it took far less time than I expected. Over about a week or two, I went from only tolerating a small amount (and even that still produced a lot of gas) to being able to eat sunchokes like a potato substitute with no significant gas. It didn't even entail eating them every day, just most days.

If other growers can solve the problem as easily as that, I'd say it's well worthwhile! But I think the word needs put out there--in very explicit terms--because most people will try them once, get horrendous gas or worse, and never try them again? Your first experience is likely to validate the horror stories for you.

To be able to ask a genie (not Google) any question and receive a reply that accords with the absolute, objective truth.

More valuable than Superman's powers, and I find it compelling even as a thought-experiment...

Hullo, permie Fraggles, permie Doozers and everything in between!

I fantasise about the buildings I might construct if my wife and I ever manage to acquire some land. We would likely be growing somewhere in Zones 8-10, so a greenhouse would greatly open up our possibilities.

They're expensive and fragile things, and I have this dream of building a gigantic one that is cheap and rugged and incorporates ideas like insulating air gaps, heat-sinks, an integrated rocket-mass heater and the wallipini concept. Cheap materials, easy to repair.

An element of this concept is replaceable panels made of cheap sticks, maybe bamboo, enclosed in pallet wrap with an air pocket in the middle. I've had thoughts about how the panels would be connected up and what would be involved in patching or replacing damaged/degraded panels. I don't have all the answers there yet.

One super-important answer would be regarding how worthwhile it could be to use pallet wrap, knowing it has a limited lifespan. The potential advantages are obvious: it's cheap and ultra light. If a section is damaged, you can just stick a new layer on top. If it degrades in a matter of weeks, no good. If it all needs to be replaced every few years, might still be worth it compared wth putting together a heavy & expensive structure based on polycarbonate or glass... especially if I manage to figure out a good modular system.

The wonderful and underappreciated GREENPOWERSCIENCE channel played with the pallet-wrap greenhouse concept years ago.    Two years later, it was still holding together in strong, direct sunlight. I see others have experimented with it too.

Has anyone here experimented with this material?

Best wishes

Gordon

You mean me? I'm asking for speculative future plans, not an existing site.  

I want to know things like does pallet wrap last; what were her assembly methods... If she's not active on the forums any more or never got round to the project, I'll start a new post rather than piggyback on this one.

Rico Loma wrote:What is elevation, climate, soil conditions,  hours of direct sun on your site? That can influence any advice , I think