Gilbert Fritz

No, I'm out. Sorry about that.

I did try; but I didn't have any proper equipment, so all I ended up with was a few tablespoons of green slime . . . which was the leaf protein, I guess. It didn't taste like much of anything, just a bit grassy. Mixed in with a grain of some sort and spiced properly it might have been fairly good.

Just bumping this up. I'm still thinking about it. I think it could be key to gardening without irrigation here.

Hi Bryant,

Most of the sources told me that was the way to do it; it may have been a bad idea!

Now that they are wet, will it hurt them to dry out? Will the sprout if I take them out of the refrigerator?

I've got a bunch of walnuts stratifying in plastic bags full of damp perlite in the refrigerator. Some of them have some white mold on the shells. Does this matter? If it does, what should I do about it? It will be a few months till I can plant them outside. The bags do have ventilation holes.

Hello Travis,

I'm so glad to see you back on here. I will continue to pray for you, I've been so sorry to hear about all the trouble you've been having.

Sorry, I didn't document things . . . I tend to be great at coming up with ideas/ plans, very bad a following through on them!

I do remember that we had mountains of tomatoes in 2014. However, I now don't think sheet mulching is an idea way to grow standard vegetables on a large scale. It didn't keep the bindweed out, just made the bindweed harder to deal with. It tended to dry out. Most vegetables are ruderal species adapted to disturbed mineral soil. It was actually more work that tilling; spreading a foot of wood chips, cardboard, and manure over a quarter acre garden is back breaking, and the soil underneath didn't fluff up like it was supposed to.

I think that initial tillage followed by crimped cover crops would be a good low-till system for large scale vegetables. But I have not tried it yet, just looked at the projects of others.

Bindweed in the worst weed in my area by far. Climbs and smothers plants, develops a dense carpet on disturbed soil, can't be smothered, any bit grows a new plant, seeds last for decades in the soil, deep and extensive roots that can't be dug or pulled.

Quack grass is similar but easier to outcompete or dig, and it does not climb plants.

Buffalo bur is fast growing, very spiny, and toxic. But it is annual and fairly easy to hoe out.

Great thread William, thanks for starting it!

I think Mel Bartholomew lost me when he instructed readers to carefully think about whether they really NEED more than four broccoli plants!

And here I am wondering how to grow the 400 cabbages that we eat in a year . . .

I really like Carol Deppe's books.

Depending on how cold the air is in winter in Denver, a Freezer Wofati could be an option.  While it may not be a freezer in the summer it could still be a root cellar.  I don't know if anyone has built one of these yet...

Denver can be cold in the winter, but it is not predictable. The whole ten day forecast is above freezing right now. I've seen it hit 75 degrees in February. On the other hand, it can get down to zero and below. Just random. The top few inches of the ground freezes, but in sunny areas it thaws again during the warm spells. And there is never consistent snow cover, so albedo is low.