Ellendra Nauriel

Tyson Foods has suspended operations at one of their locations due to the virus.

I'm not that fond of sourdough bread. I have made bread successfully with the yeast in the sediment left from making wine.

If you still have any squash from last year stored whole and uncooked, it's probably very sweet by now. They tend to get sweeter the longer they're stored.

Tristan Vitali wrote:

James Freyr wrote:When you're staying home because of covid-19 social distancing/self quarantining and realize it's no different than any other time of the year because you homestead and farm, and never leave the house anyway.

Ha! Same thing here, 'cept I have to remember to wash my hands when I go grab the cash from the farmstand for egg sales.

We're working on some ideas for simple, clean sterilization for the returned egg cartons now....spraying with lysol just seems so, well, ugly, but March in Maine is not the time to be leaving things "out in the sun for a few days" ;)


You know you're a permie when you find yourself agonizing over how to cleanly (greenly?) sterilize egg cartons so they can be safely reused in the time of coronavirus

There are UV sterilizing lamps that might work. Much like leaving things in the sun, but for seconds instead of days.

There are varieties of rice that can handle flooding, but are ok growing without it. Depending on how the waterflow varies, that might be something to look at.

If there's constant moisture, cattails, watercress, or marshmallow might work.

Baker Creek tests their corn seed for GMO contamination, and they don't carry hybrids, so you can be confident that any seed you buy from them is safe.

I'm not all that familiar with sweet corn varieties, so I'm afraid I can't help you there. Most of the corn I grow is either flint or flour corn. I will say that in the baby-corn stage, both the flint and flour corns I grow taste like sweet corn concentrate. Completely different from the canned baby corn you find at the store.

Bryant RedHawk wrote:Since this thread asks about whether or not we are in a pandemic, and I am part of one of the many teams working on understanding this covid-19 virus, I can confirm that this is a very real Pandemic.

That title certainly didn't age well, did it?

At the time this thread was started, there were cases in a handful of countries, and most of those only had 1 or 2 cases each. Things have changed a lot in a short time.

There's a weed that's common around here, called "butterprint". I'm sure it has other names. The leaves are big, soft, and velvety. It makes outstanding TP.

A few years ago I tried growing a type of gourd that had big soft leaves, much softer than the squash growing nearby. I think it was cuccuzzi. It would make a very nice TP, and it grows quickly enough to keep up with usage.

There are some types of beans that have big enough leaves it might be tempting to use them, but don't. They exude an acidic compound that can irritate the skin.

Larisa Walk wrote: You can do this with dent, flour, even pop corn and sorghum

Now I'm tempted to try it with Job's Tears.

I've had a few neighbors ask about my chickens lately, wondering how hard it is to raise them. And a few questions about gardening as well.

I went ahead and packaged up some of my spare seeds in case the neighbors can't get any. My seed collection is pretty big, so this was an option.

I fully expect that by next fall, there will be gardens and chicken coops up and down the block.

Oh, and on another forum dedicated to prepping, a new member started their introduction with the words "First off, I want to apologize to all the preppers I've made fun of over the years. You were right, and I was a jerk."

Even my father is seeing the sense behind my gardening and homesteading obsessions.