Nancy Reading

paul wheaton wrote:fukuoka flat now has electricity!

Nice rock stacking by someone!

Actually you have nice rocks. They seem to be very orthogonal in shape - that really helps make it look neat when dry stone walling.

Nick Mick wrote:Ah, ok. Do you know what I should do to make sure I don’t lose access to permies?

You could try adding another email to your account - that is not from yahoo. I gather gmail is generally fine. Then if necessary you can log in with the other email. Hopefully the hard work behind the scenes to get the email issues sorted will pay off soon.

Timothy Norton wrote:Personally, it seems like some people have a crop in mind and try to make the land fit the crop. Instead, I think we should look at what the land can provide and pick crops to fit the land.

Sorry, my previous post was a bit down....

I've been thinking about this recently and how unsuccessful my growing has been this year. I can grow crops after a lot of hard work and other inputs. I am really blessed with enough rain, but also compacted very acidic soil. Even where I have made my minihugels, virtually none of my seeds I sowed took - so they're mostly growing grass again...
However I think I could grow oats and bere barley, potatoes, Neeps (Swede/rutabaga), possibly carrots, kale, raspberries, brambles and blueberries reasonably easily. Looking at native food plants (of substance) there are also hazels and silverweed. Skirret I think prefers slightly less acidic soil, but does OK after a while other perennial vegetables also can struggle to get established. I'm still trying to work out a low imports land improvement scheme.....

Timothy Norton wrote:Personally, it seems like some people have a crop in mind and try to make the land fit the crop. Instead, I think we should look at what the land can provide and pick crops to fit the land.

Sometimes the best crop is animals. It is very hard work to grow food plants in a climate like Montana, or the Scottish highlands.

grows sheep

Although I agree the line is not clear.

I was hoping to find a follow up article on the farm - to see how mob grazing works in the UK. Unfortunately Tim Green (Rebecca Hosking's partner at the farm) died just a couple of years later in an accident with a tractor (more info). The websites are dead too, so I think Rebecca may have moved on.
I live in a sheep grazing area, so it would be super to point people to good working examples of alternatives to the free range sheep we have. To my uneducated eyes this seems to result in overgrazed 'sheep wrecked' land.

English heritage are investigating using scythes on some of the meadows they manage to try and protect rare ground nesting bees.


source

They're using volunteers to do the scything, and they are also going to do surveys of blooms, number of bees, other insects and which flowers they visit to assess the success of the management change.

I did a little research on UK sycamore seed edibility. Pfaf doesn't really mention them, but I found at least one foraging site that has information about using them. Charnwood foraging says that nutritionally they are

Rich in carbohydrates, providing a natural energy source.
Contains small amounts of protein and healthy fats.
A good source of minerals like calcium and potassium.
Contains antioxidants that help protect cells from damage.

Since they suggest late summer/autumn to be a good time to harvest them (the seeds get tough later on) I took a handful of keys and tried them. They are a bit smaller than the maple seeds in the video in the first link. The seeds are fairly easy to remove by hand, and have a slightly fluffy coating. Raw they were a little bitter. I roasted them as the video suggested - well, there was actually quite a bit of oil in the pan I used, so they were sort of fried. I've just tried a couple and the taste is growing on me. Bitter and chewy I could see them being an interesing addition to a salad for example, but I don't think you'd want to eat them in volume. I'm still just nibbling on the odd one - so far no ill effects.
I did find information that the seeds are toxic to horses. I seem to remember that sycamore seedlings are extremely toxic to them, so it's probably wise to be fairly cautious trying them for the first time.

It's that season again - time for me to dig my potatoes!

Mike Barkley wrote:Haven't owned or watched tv in about 20 years. Maybe more. Don't miss it one bit. Not even a little.

18 years without watching TV here. Ditto to not missing it. Although we used to have netflicks for a while.

Ac Baker wrote:But knowing when to turn off the video - stop 'binge-ing', avoid getting 'hypnotized', and muting the ads! -  is definitely a valuable skill too.   We tend to watch the 'old-fashioned' way e.g. one episode per week of our favourite shows.  

That was our problem - binge watching the whole series and then wondering why we bothered!

Chance Lunceford wrote:A late volunteer this year.

We'll see if I can get a single ripe fruit in the next 30-45 days, as I'm likely to have first frost within that window.

Well you've got a flower coming... 4 - 6 weeks, so fruit might be possible. If nearly ripe, tomatoes can be brought indoors to finish. They won't taste as good as vine ripened, but the seeds ought to be OK.