William Bronson

Something that has worked well that I will continue to do is cutting the root end off of onions and planting them anywhere I can find space.
This will usually grow out to 3-5 mini onions, about the size of a quarter.

The next step is to plant them out at normal spacing so they can bulk up.
I've not tried this step yet, but it seems as strait forward as using onion sets.
This uses kitchen "waste" to create a perpetual source of seed onions from almost any onion.
Like growing potatoes from just the skins, we are squeezing more out of our purchased resources.
I plan on trying this with just the smallest rooted ends, to see how little it takes.

It was a good lesson.
I just bought a bunch of bare root trees and bushes from my local  Food Not Lawns group.
They have great roots, like 18" long, and they cost 5 bucks each...
It was a group buy , so they hopefully made a profit.
I could have probably done as much myself, but I didn't, and they did, and I was glad to give them my money.

The organizing work that a good middleman does is important and valuable,and should be honored.
Selling puffed up bullshit instead of the product you are promising isn't important, valuable or honorable.
I hope to "get back" at Sam's by growing out and propagating these bushes, then getting them out into the world, by sale, trade or gifting.

My dad's parents  had victory gardens during WW2.
They had moved from Alabama to Cincinnati to work and escape oppression.
They were skilled farmers and knew how to preserve food, but even the family members who owned their own land could only get so far in Alabama.
My mother's parents started better off, but my grandfather was still a farm boy.
His father was well to do enough that he was able to go away  to highschool, a boarding school, because there were no local schools he was allowed to go to.
He served during and after the war and he was the one who let me "help" in the garden.


I'm involved with my friends food pantry.
It has a big, under utilized garden.
In the spot where the compost pile was I plan on growing out a ruby red  meal corn that my Guatemalan  neighbor gave me.
We have pound and pounds of seed potatoes, and I plan on starting new beds by growing potatoes in them.
I also want to grow more sunchokes.
The pantry has acres of land and lots of forest edge, in addition to the fenced garden, and I plan on pushing out less desirable plants by planting sunchokes.

At a different community garden I plan on planting sunchokes in front of the greenhouse, in bucket/ pots.
This will facilitate summer shade for the greenhouse, plus easy distribution of sunchokes to new homes.
Plus, I've watched some videos that make me think planting sunchokes in  a smallish pot might actually increase their production.

At my mom's, it's turnip , collard, kale, and mustard greens.
I have also sourced some dwarf sunchoke for a weedy, shady corner.
I'm growing them out in pots for now, because I need to be sure they really are dwarven sunchokes.
Moms yard gets special treatment, nothing too unruly is allowed.

I have 6 hazelnut bushes that need to go in the ground, but I'm not sure where.

Recently I've been thinking about getting pear rootstock with the plan being grow hard, not- sweet pears as a tree vegetable that has some storage qualities.

I wish current circumstances didn't call for victory gardens.
It was recently pointed out to me that the Bracero Program imported Mexican farm workers during the same years we were forcing Japanese Americans into internment camps.
A lot of those Japanese Americans were skilled farmers, who's important work was interrupted and their  land "lost".

So I was at Sam's with the wife.
She buys some things there,mostly paper goods, vitamins and OTC meds
I udually have little interest in what is there, but that day they had edible  perennials for sale.
Among the grapes and raspberries there were packages of
Phoenix Tears goji berries, two plants per package, for dollars.
I bought them.
Here's some photos.:

Christopher Weeks wrote:Doing a little reading about them online, they don't look like something I'd admit to my garden.

Following your lead, they do seem to use resin, so it's closer to mdf or hdf board than hardboard.
(Hardboard is just pressed wood, with no glues.)
Very disappointing.
I don't think they are compostable in any real sense.
Like even if they meet industry standards, we all know that might not mean it's something we want in our ecosystem.

If the material can be composted, but requires industrial composting, in a backyard *would expect it to either not break down at all, or leave inert particles behind.
It seems unlikely it will break down into something harmful.

I would probably use it like a tarp, to kill off grass in places I want to plant.
This will give you a chance to see how normal weathering affects it, while keeping it in one piece for now.

My chickens are valued colleagues.
They have names and I cry when they die.
We don't eat them, but we also don't take them to the vet.
They tend to live 7-9 years in our backyard setup.
But I only touch them when needed, to put them to bed or clean their buts, or in the end,to dispatch them with my own hands.
They produce compost, and not much else, and I'm fine with that.
Caring for them is soothing in a way that petting my dog or feeding my bunnies is not.I think they live a more fulfilled life than my dog or bunnies.
I give them space to exist, living their lives parallel to my own, and that feels good.

Lately, a young friend has been visiting them.
They had chickens as minor and they truly love chooks.
They are on their own now and our chickens are a comfort to them.
They actually seem to like him, were they only tolerate me.

I think helping a fellow living thing live a good life is good for the soul.

I think a manure tea/smoothy might help the strawbales break down.

Alternatively,a slurry of common garden soil, followed with a planting of inoculated legumes?
Would the legumes and the nitrogen fixing bacteria be able to set up shop?

What about a green smoothie made up of weeds?
Could that provide the needed nitrogen?

King stropharia spawn added to the bales should help break them down while providing another yield.
If the bale is placed on top of a bed if wood chips, you are liable to inoculate them during the life of the bale.
Such a bed would also hold a lot of water.

Turn them into Biochar?

I bought these off of eBay.
The roots are tiny, so I expect to eat them whole.
I'm starting some of them in containers, other in raised beds.