Ed Waters

I am reading (again) a book titled Just Enough by Azby Brown which is about the EDO period in Japan.  The EDO period lasted for 350 years and was an incredibly sustainable peaceful time in Japan.  As far as food in the rural areas the kept almost no animals, and they were too far from the coast for fish.  No dairy.  They had some soybeans and wild nuts.  Foods for the most part were boiled, steamed or baked.  Fish oil was a luxury.  

Anna D, when you get a chance can you expand a little more on using the seaweed with microgreens.  Thanks

Same here.  We don't rinse it.  

A problem we have is if we pile it on too much it turns into a slimy mess.  That may not be a bad thing in the long run but it is disgusting.

Also we don't use it with asparagus.  When it dries it becomes very brittle.  Unlike other crops we aren't sure where the asparagus is going to come up and the very dry seaweed blocks or strangles the spears.

Just to keep folks interested.  This is a couple in Estonia.  At 3:39 and 10:27 there is a little bit about seaweed

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_Uuvcv5b98

We are using it everywhere this Spring with very positive results.  Earlier we pulled the straw back from our garlic and put seaweed in instead.  That row after about 3 weeks is 25-30% largernand much greener than the garlic that was left with just the straw.  Our greens in seaweed have greener greens and redder reds.  
We have potatoes that we have mulched with seaweed and we have also just laid the seed on the ground (like Man from Anan) and covered it with seaweed.  
I will learn how to take some pictures.

I can get around 80 degrees (air temperature 35F) using seaweed and wood chips.  

3 months ago FF fertilizer was plentiful and cheap.  Crazy how fast things change.

Robert there is a strong Amish community in Smyrna just outside of Houlton Maine.  English with like minded views have settled in the area as well.

Yeah Ulla:  Thanks for that comment.  

Paul how do you harvest parsnips in the winter.  Are you growing them in a greenhouse where the ground kind of freezes and thaws.  Coastal Maine here on the 45th parallel, recently a zone 6.  The ground here is rock solid for months on end.  I can't imagine trying to get them out of the ground.  Same goes for sunchokes.  Also kale spinach and greens will last in our greenhouses through the winter, but they don't grow.  And when they come out of "hibernation" in late February their growth isn't much.  Better off putting in transplants.  We grew produce for restaruants back in Fingerlakes for almost 18 years.  We can still get plenty of crabs, clams and mussels through the winter months and we store lots of our produce in a "root cellar"

Taking this opportunity to thank you for your site.  I don't post much but visit every single day.  Learn something new with every visit.

There was a substack that I read around 2 weeks ago.  I didn't save it and I haven't been able to find it again.  What the author said, was that based on past experiences that if we experience a 20% increase in the price of food that the number of food insecure people in the US would go from 47M to over 90M.  Lots of foodnotes, well researched paper.

More on seaweed:

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/may/12/gardening-the-virtues-of-seaweed-archive-12-may-1973#:~:text=There%20are%20fashions%20in,ploughing%20it%20in%20each%20spring.

While looking for the book I stumbled upon this PBS series.  I haven't watched it yet but I thought I would pass it along:

https://www.pbs.org/video/harlan-hubbard-nsk4oi/

Thanks for the video.  

We started using the seaweed to make compost in 2025.  We mixed it with the "chips" from a man who cuts firewood.  Regular wood chips seem to be hard to come by, and whomever has them wants to charge a lot of money for them.  The firewood chips are much finer and break down a whole lot better.  We are paying $10/yard delivered.  Using a mix of seaweed, grass clipping and urine along with the chips the pile went almost to 130 degrees and stayed there a while.

I read that in Ireland they dug a trench dropped in the potato seed and covered it with seaweed only.  We tried that last year with a 50/50 mix of soil and seaweed with good results.