Lexie Smith

Check with your county extension agent, they can tell you exactly what grows well in your area and how to tend it. In my experience, they have good information but take it with a pinch of salt because some are fully onboard with monocropping with heavy chemical inputs and look at you like you might be insane if you mention things like permaculture and food forests and organic methods.

Summer in Alabama is hades hot so I wear as little as possible. I love the wrap in the post pic but I don’t think my 60+ year old self would rock it like quite the model does, not to mention the very real possibility of a random thorn or tree limb keeping it as I went by. I buy second hand, 100 cotton, denim house dresses for my summertime uniform and practically live in them. I guess when you consider the saving wear and tear on underwear as well as laundry costs they are pretty close to perfect. The fact that breathing makes me sweat has pretty well cured my need for pretty or stylish clothes and I generally wear handmedowns for church. The clothes available now just make me sad and I can’t think of a single thing in my wardrobe, other than under things, that isn’t at least second hand.

I have a genetic defect that makes scrubbing my hands more than once or twice a day problematic so thick, leather work gloves are a big part of my wardrobe, any time I’m outside. I would really love some advice on the real thick, leather ones since my local source has stopped selling them. I don’t know what the brand is to even search for them. Ankle high rubber boots are my go to for out in the barn or garden. I keep them right inside the door, in my coat closet and switch to moccasins when I come inside. I try really hard to not buy anything polyester and stick with natural fibers when at all possible.

I am not honestly certain that’s the correct word for them but it’s the small, new growth tips of the tree. If you have young trees, like we have everywhere, there are new growth tips that are lighter than the old growth and each tree has many dozens because each branch has one. The part to use is the top inch or so.

I don’t have time to read through all the posts but my family discovered something this spring that was a game changer when the pine trees were causing the air to turn orange with pollen blowing around in waves. We’ve been using goldenrod and mimosa tincture for years but it hasn’t been very effective during the pine bloom. I had read somewhere last year about cutting new, tender pine boles and covering them in sugar. Over time the sugar becomes pine syrup which (according to the article) is very effective for a cough. Turns out that it is good for soothing a cough but spectacular at calming the suffering caused by the pine blooms. It worked for all our allergy sensitive family and friends, so well that I made a gallon this year.

I’m not a single woman, living alone but I definitely understand the intimidation of hiring someone to be on my property and I wanted to make a suggestion that has worked really well for me in hiring someone to help on a project basis. Near my home is a fairly large farm, for my area, that supplies hay to most people in the area. It’s a big enough place to require fencing and projects but not a full time crew. I mentioned to him that I needed someone to build fences for me (definitely not something I am personally capable of) and he immediately recommended someone that works for him occasionally. It has worked really well and the man he recommended has done an outstanding job for us.

I make a really extra healing recipe by adding loads of onions and garlic as well as ginger and turmeric. It’s absolutely delicious as well as remarkably healing and nourishing.

I do the same as Mac. Our current favorites are a rosemary, sage, thyme and garlic scape herbed salt and a plain, garlic scape salt. I use these every day. The garlic is particularly delicious on a seared steak.

I grow it in my greenhouse in Alabama in permanent raised beds. It’s incredibly easy and resilient.  I just buy a couple pounds of organic roots every time I replant and cut them into pieces that have at least one sprout on them. I also grow a purple variety that is more cold resistant that supposed to be highly medicinal though I couldn’t tell you right now,  what it’s supposed to be so good for. I make gallons of fire cider every year and both varieties as well as turmeric and horseradish are the centerpieces.

I can’t wait to try this method! The American chestnut has been mostly made extinct by a blight that decimated the trees that once filled the woods. It is my understanding that very few American chestnut trees survive and most nuts available are, at least partially, due to the addition of Chinese genetics. I am definitely not a scientist so my knowledge is probably very limited.

They are delicious raw but much easier to eat if you boil or roast them briefly after cutting an x in the shell. There’s a special tool for this that I can’t recommend enough, it saves a lot of cut fingers!  I cook them either way but only enough to make them open up for easy peeling. If you watch them cook, it doesn’t take long before the x you cut peels away from the edges and the shell and inner skin both come away easily.