Tereza Okava

May Lotito wrote:Canna lilies are easy to grow from seeds and flower in the first year..

They absolutely do, so much so that here they are pests! you really have to keep up on pulling them out or they'll take over the yard. The hummers do like them.

Hm, i think you have a point there Chris, I'm thinking of "wildlife" rather than specific ones.
Maybe better to use yogurt? Sour some milk?

I think no matter what you use, the texture is going to be .... unfortunate, with cooked beets, but if you blend it up you've got a fermented beet soup, which sounds good to me.

Pearl Sutton wrote: I can do just flour as a starter,

I think that works, i was going to also say raisins? fruit peels? a potato? crabapples (or whatever kind of wild fruit you have there) out in the yard?
You figure the canning process killed everything, so whatever you can add will probably help.

I think you're spot on about adding a starter.
you might find this useful https://www.reddit.com/r/fermentation/comments/85uxsi/can_i_lacto_ferment_frozen_or_canned_vegetables/

I am not sure about your probiotic starter. i have tried making yogurt with one and got some weird outcomes, but what could it hurt?  you have the starter, you have the beets, try a wee batch and see what happens.
if you have anything else with live cultures, it would be worth trying. I do like the idea of adding cabbage leaves or whatever you have around to get things going.

we have a lot of mildew issues here (she says on the 3rd straight day of rain....) and I have a lot of luck with peroxide. I might use normal liquid first aid kit, peroxide oxy-bleach detergent, or (more likely) hair peroxide, which my daughter often has around and it's sort of creamy, easy to spread and keep it focused on the spots that need treatment.

I also recently discovered sodium percarbonate, which breaks down to peroxide and washing soda. It has gotten rid of real horrible things for me, without all the associated added nasties of the oxy bleach or other cleaning products. It needs to be activated in warm or hot water and used before it breaks down, then you soak your stained clothing, but I had a pillowcase that looked a lot like your photo there and it got it all out.

I would be concerned about getting out the rust stain first, I haven't had a lot of experience with rust and i think that requires an acid.


(I have used peroxide on almost all kinds of clothing, except for wool and silk, and i've never had a problem. i wonder if the throw cautions against just for colorfast purposes.)

our weather has gotten very chilly so tonight I'll be making some sort of shepherd's pie out of cassava and sausage, I think, along with a seared broccoli soup with some sad broccoli I found in the fridge (it's broccoli season, two weeks ago I got a great deal and bought so much that I'm still finding it around the kitchen).

I also made broth last night from bones in my freezer- beef, pork and chicken - and I'll take the meat bits that came off the bones to make some sort of gravy to put over our steamed polenta type corn business (called cuzcuz, but not Moroccan type- it's made of corn). That will be lunch for me; the broth will be become noodle soup, either pho or ramen, not sure yet.

wow, those are GREAT for pickle weights!! nice score!

i knew a boatbuilder who lost his ring finger when he got his wedding ring caught in something in his drydock work and his entire body weight ended up on his finger. Not pleasant. I never gave my husband any crap about not wearing a wedding ring after that (heck, i almost never wear mine either, so there we are!)

I know this is not the focus of this thread (I lived out in rural lands and learned to drive a tractor, saw plenty of that stuff), but I also have gotten very sensitive about wearing eye protection for almost everything. The older I get, the more I prize my vision. I've had to bring several people to the ER with stuff in their eyes, and they have been spectacularly lucky. I hate to be "the boss's wife" and in all other aspects i stay the heck out of my husband's mechanic shop. but if i go in there and someone is fooling around under a car or over a motor or a grinder without safety glasses, they are going to get a lecture (with exhibit A being my husband who had a carburetor squirt crap in both of his eyes a few years ago, he's lucky to still have his vision).

growing year round, don't really have winter mulching needs.
I do mulch depending on water needs (when it's dry and I need more water retention) and according to snail/slug pressure (when it's really wet, mulch becomes Snail Paradise and I'll lose everything I have if I leave the mulch out).

Hugo Morvan wrote:pitch your idea to local seed swaps that already exist.

This is a super great idea. Reaching out to your local resources might give you an idea. Where I live, the slow food people are a great resource for seed swaps, for exmaple.
In the US, I know many public libraries went through a phase with seed banks/libraries (the ones I know seem to have left it fall to the wayside, but maybe it's case-by-case). I know I would reach out to my public library and organic center (whether that's health food store or some other holistic type thing, UU church, etc) and see what else is out there. The more the merrier.