Tereza Okava

i'm still thinking of some kind of worm. tapeworm, botfly larva, one of those bad boys that are hard to get out.

(I would love it to be a tardigrade's mouth, but doubt it is).

Ulla, you've got so many good points, especially about taking turns planting things. I grow loofahs every few years (it takes me a while to use them!) and we are still working on pumpkins from last year!
Neighbor and community trade is also super important. I swap with my neighbors because we have different fruit trees, and everyone is happy.

Lastly, many people who don't have a garden feel left out by canning and preserving, but you can also can things you didn't grow!! This year when tomatoes were dirt cheap I bought a huge quantity to make passata and can it for when tomatoes are expensive. I did enough for a year, and it has been marvelous. I did the same making compote and jam when I got a super deal on very ripe peaches and plums, and with the mulberries I foraged. Some of the mulberry jam got swapped for honey, which was a great deal as far as I'm concerned!!

is that the new screwworm thing that is causing such havoc in US meat production/imports/exports right now?

T Melville wrote:A couple thoughts I forgot to mention:
1) Maybe coincidence, maybe a cause and effect relationship, the white scum usually seems to fully replenish within a day. After adding all those new vegetables and waiting 2 days, there seemed to be less of it than usually forms in a day. Is that stuff, by chance, dead bacteria? Did I slow down the scum by giving the Lactobacillus something else to do? Or am I just reading too much into a coincidence?
2) I had a thought about putting a layer of oil on top to automatically keep things anaerobic, and was going to ask the group for opinions. But observation showed me why we don't do it like that, at least without having to solve a new problem or 2. Most of the veggies float. I don't know if they'd float in oil, but if they breach it's surface at all, then my idea wouldn't work. You could weigh them down somehow to keep them below the surface, but that's the method we do use, and it doesn't need any oil. Thought I'd mention it here in case someone with a more suitable use-case hasn't thought of it yet.

1) the white stuff is probably Kahm yeast. don't worry about it.
2) do you have a weight? a river stone you've boiled, a plate, a clean plastic bag full of water. I often take a cabbage leaf and then throw any of those things on top of it. this will keep your stuff from floating and stop mold.

A comment you didn't ask for-- you're adding a LOT of different things and the chance of introducing weird stuff is higher with each new addition. It's going to get harder and harder to keep track of what works and what doesn't when so much is getting added. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but I think your chances of contamination with yeast, especially, are very high at this point.

Last night it so happens I was interviewed on a podcast about food, and people specifically wanted to talk about stockpiling and pantry.
Some background: I live in Brazil, and people still have strong memories of 'inflation times' (in the 80s, when the currency fluctuated so much prices of products changed before you reached the checkout, and people converted their savings into things like canned vegetable oil).
In the 20 years I've lived here we've been through not only the pandemic lockdown and the resulting limited shopping options but also several transport strikes, where the first casualty was diesel fuel and shipping of goods. We know a thing or two about surviving. I also had some very lean times as I was growing up, and ever since I've had the money to do so I've had things stashed as reserve, "just in case". I have never really quantified it, but I probably have enough to feed us for at least 3-6 months, not counting the garden.

The best way to prepare is calmly, little by little, when you see good prices on things you know you'll use, and you know you have a good place to store it. Bug proof, humidity proof, etc. That pasta you like is on sale? Those dry beans you know how to make a killer bean soup with? Found a good deal on something? Buy some extras to stash. This way you can slowly build up a reserve without spending too much at once, and you know you'll use the things you buy.

One thing many people learned during Covid, when they had things stockpiled, was that they didn't use some of the things they thought they would. A good friend of mine asked me, at least a year later, "what the heck am I supposed to do with all these lentils I still have??" If you don't have a plan for an ingredient, you're probably not going to invent some great use for it as the shit is hitting the fan (and you certainly don't want it in large volumes!). Buy what you know how to use, and what you like. For me, that means a whole lot of dried beans and rice and flours.
And what goes up must come down-- if you have a pantry full of dried stuff, it needs to be rotated or it will get buggy and wasted. Elsewhere I've posted my adventures as I clean out my cabinet and use up some of the weirder things (and replace them with stuff I know I'll use).

Gardens can be a great extender of the pantry-- I keep some kind of alliums (leeks, scallions, garlic chives, etc) at all times. But leafy greens are the real nutritional powerhouse, and you can have them year round. It can be as easy as growing a few sweet potatoes in a pot on a porch during the summer, or having a collard patch year round, or having kale or other heavier leafies in the cooler weather. You can even forage for greens-- chickweed, purslane, sowthistle grow almost everywhere and are edible (and yummy) and are important if your diet is limited.

And don't forget -- pantry also includes other things. Cooking fuel-- what happens if your propane tank runs out and can't be refilled? We bought an induction burner to test during the first fuel shortage, and it turned out to be so awesome that now we rarely use gas! We also made a mini cooking rocket stove out of large cans outside for the pans that don't work in the induction burner (mainly, my wok). It's nothing fancy but it cooks, and if need be I could rig one up out of bricks. We also have a stock of dish soap and vinegar (my main cleaning materials), laundry soap and materials for disinfecting (mostly for the animal spaces in the garden).

Thom Bri wrote:I leave a few containers of stagnant water outside. As I walk by I look inside and if I see larvae swimming around I dump it out and refill.

And iF you have containers that need to be left open and fishies aren't an option (like I have water catchment from my roof) they can be covered with a screen or cloth to stop the mosquitoes from laying eggs (or from getting out to bite if eggs end up in the water.

Even if you eliminate every bit of standing water, there will still be mosquitoes (coming from neighbors, surrounding areas, etc). We do all these things, and our house is screened, and this year we still had mosquitoes inside our house-- they had a really good year, apparently.
We have one of those electronic rackets and every night someone has to "go hunting". When it's hot, keeping a fan on will also keep them off of you. When we have a dinner party out on our porch during the season, we burn citronella leaves for smoke, put down scented geraniums (similar smell) and zap as many as we can, but we also have a fan on to keep them off of people.

Oh boy. So last week was wild again, so we ate a lot of quick staples that didn't affect my pantry problem. The things that did help, in no particular order....

[no pic] Korean pork bone stew (gamjatang)-- I buy pork in volume and then break it down, usually a piece of shoulder or leg. It sometimes comes presliced, but always with bones and skin. I save the bones and fat for later use-- this was a few months worth of the bones, cooked up with some garden veggies. Cooks in the crockpot all day, and now that the weather is turning cold it's a nice treat.

Sausage slop (an unfair name for what turned out to be excellent) with Brazilian cuzcuz- here we steam a kind of precooked cornmeal to make a couscous type carb side dish.  I learned recently that different types of cornmeal can be used for this, and so this was made with half of the "right" kind and half of a bag of another meal I had laying around (I buy it to put on the bottom of pizza and sourdough when I bake it and then it sits around and gets buggy forever. I've decided to use this up and then stop buying this "wrong" kind).  This also used up all the stragglers in the veggie drawer on a Sunday when I really didn't want to go out and spend money on food (and we needed lunches for Monday). I bought a few sausages, squeezed them out of their casings, and fried it up with onions and the sad onions, green beans, and peppers that needed using. Also half a cubed pumpkin that was in the freezer (other half going into pumpkin muffins tomorrow). Then added some broth, some dried tomatoes and fresh herbs that also needed to go, and made a gravy.  

Finally, I made a big honking donut-- from https://theviewfromgreatisland.com/glazed-old-fashioned-buttermilk-doughnut-bundt-cake-recipe/ . It used oat flour and I put in half a cup of amaranth flour, so it is cake but it also keeps you full for days-- we ate two pieces and then took the dog out to walk 8km and weren't hungry for 6 hours afterward, it was remarkable. Anyway, the amaranth flour is gone, wooooot!!

if it smells like celery, lovage?
(isn't there a flower with leaves like this too? maybe not peony but... can't remember)

i've got a great setup with pulleys, i just wish the rope lasted longer.
we had a coated metal line for a while, but the coating could not resist our sun here-- cracked and then the line rusted. le sigh.
it's easier for me to just buy a cheapie (synthetic) line every few years, so that's what we do.
Inside (under my back porch roof) I also have a pulley system, that one has lasted 10+ years since sun never hits it.

Tiffaney Dex wrote:I got a cotton tissue that we like for the top and sides of future cushions and canvas for the bottom. But maybe Jay is right in that I should use wool for the bottom?  Wool would be less flammable?  

If the canvas is cotton and not a blend, then I would make covers with canvas.
But the more I think about this, the more concerned I am about heat. As mentioned above, you are literally playing with fire here. I've been thinking about whether fabric will MELT or not, but all things will combust if they get hot enough. if it's a cushion, speaking just for me, I'm more likely to take it off when I'm done than if it's cushions+blankets+other things. I don't know if wool would be more or less flammable than canvas, but I would remove anything from the mass if I'm not around to supervise, and that removability would have to be part of my planning.