Ellen Lewis

I just ended up with a bunch of charcoal sticks as a byproduct of another project and have been wondering what to do with them.
They're too appealing to just dump them on the garden like any other biochar. They're a pleasure to draw with, though I really don't sketch much.
I guess they go in the Art Supplies For Someday drawer.
I wonder if they would subtitute for bamboo charcoal to purify a jar of water.
I was firing a few small ceramic pieces in a dutch oven in a fire. I put sticks and leaves inside the dutch oven to see if they would do anything to the surface of the clay. It came out black.
The sticks were cute, they had shrunk down to perfect miniatures of themselves.
They were varied and not identifiable species, picked up from broken branches I had chopped & dropped. Most likely fruit wood (plum, cherry, apple), pecan, spicebush, fig.
I was worried about ruining my dutch oven, but I realized it has a curved bottom & won't work on my induction stove. So I'm no longer likely to use it in the kitchen. The fire took off the seasoning, but the metal seems fine.
I could see the wood gas coming out beneath the lid of the dutch oven and catching fire.

I make very strong lavender and rosemary tea for people with a cold. A small handful each of lavender and rosemary, about a quart of water, steeped between ten minutes and ten hours, depending on how soon you need it.
I also make lavender syrup - strong tea, strained, with sugar added 1:1 by volume, then boiled briefly. It is a nice seasoning for lemonade or other things that need sweetening.
Lavender vinegar (tea that got too old and fermented or lavender infused in white vinegar) makes a good cleaning solution.

I made gravlax once. It came out way too salty. I'm afraid to try again with less salt. I guess the answer is less time, but that, too, is a little scary. (Probably shouldn't be, I eat sushi. But this has to last longer, so I dunno.)
I just read that gravlax used to be fermented, but no longer is, so I suppose the lox I'm accustomed to is not the actual pickled variety.
I don't fish, so it was just an experiment with store-bought fish.

My personal redwood grove fanstasy:
I was on the island of Hawai'i, and saw overgrown, seemingly abandoned eucalyptus stands.
I wanted to plant redwoods in the interstices of the thicket of blue gum and see if they could grow up tall in all that rain and shade and finally overtop and shade out the eucalypts.

also:
ginger flower buds

There's a variety of ginger (myoga) that is grown specifically for the edible flower buds.
I'd remove it and experiment with eating it.

Boil up an appropriate quantity of whole wheat macaroni.
Grate good cheddar or gruyere at about an ounce or two per serving of pasta.
Make a slightly thinnish bechamel, maybe two or three of cups to a pound of pasta. Season as desired, maybe a little towards the salty side.
Add the cheese to the béchamel. It doesn't need to get smooth.
Sauté an onion and some mushrooms in butter or, if you prefer, olive oil. Or if you eat pork, cook a few strips of bacon, sauté the onion and mushrooms in the bacon fat, then cut up the bacon and add it also.
Mix the sautéed stuff with the pasta, then mix with the sauce.
Put it in a shallow baking dish.
Bake slowly until getting brown on top.

There are many lives that are good without access to private land. There are many aspects of permaculture that are not gardening-based. There are even ways to access land that are not ownership based.
Community garden plots - even better, organizing and helping in community gardens. Community gardens don't only grow vegetables, they grow outreach. People engage with the people they see working, and learn what is happening and what is possible.
Care for people - volunteering in libraries, schools, school gardens, senior homes, your own extended family or neighborhood. For some people, even politics. Working on local water quality or land use issues. Learning how to work collectively for goals that are larger than personal.
Gardening on waste land - the parking strip, vacant lots. We have a couple of parks that used to be garbage dumps and are pretty barren. I occasionally go put local acorns and fruit seeds in the ground there. Do any come up? Who knows. Do the ground squirrels eat them all? Maybe. I still find it worthwile. Despite our teminology, nothing is permanent. A tree that lives for five years rather than fifty is still a net benefit.
Education. Both in schools and elsewhere. I'm a docent at the local native plant garden. Lead nature hikes and foraging outings in the city and in parks. The more people know about our natural world, the more they care about the Earth.
Production. We don't have to grow the produce to participate in the production of our sustenance. Brewing, fermentation, fiber arts, cooking, woodworking, natural building, repairs of all sorts, clean transportation; as you can see by the forums these are all part of permaculture and all are important to how we live well.