C Lundquist

I'm living with people who don't really care. And if I took over buying all the grocery items I would burn myself out. So I do what I can in my own actions and appreciate when my family members do something too.

For me, I compost everything I can. I try to buy items that can be composted, packaging and all, though this isn't always possible. I've switched to compostable pantry liners and buy natural fiber clothing whenever possible, for instance. I don't have enough composting capacity to compost all humanure, but I compost my own when I can. The batch from last year is ready to use, so I'll be able to compost more when I harvest that. It sure helps to heat up my pile and I can compost a surprising amount since it reduces in size a lot over time.

My favorite thing to do with my instapot is to make yogurt, so I do that and bake my own sourdough bread when I have time.

Metal and glass are pretty reliably recycled, so I don't feel too bad about those, but plastic and paper are not recycled at high rates. I mostly compost my paper waste and try to reduce my plastic consumption. A lot of the paper is shredded for guinea pig bedding, then composted. We also use friends newspapers for this, as we don't produce enough shreddable paper waste on our own.

My work is the worst offender, I try to use glass when I can but there's a lot of plastic waste, biohaz too so not recyclable. ☹️

Pearl Sutton wrote:When, due to health stuff, the garden is not planted yet, some of the beds were not even cleared last fall, none were done the way I want beds done in the fall to be ready for spring, so everything needs work before I can even find the dirt under the weeds to amend and plant it.
BUT!!
The main weeds out there are brown eyed susan, ox eye daisy, buttercups, yarrow, lots of asters as tall as I am...
You know you are a permie when you say "I'm not coping, but at least the bees are happy!"

That was me last year. I didn't have energy for the front garden. The weeds were California poppies, love in a mist, coriander, dill, calendula, breadseed poppies, lettuce, purslane, dandelions, and chickweed, all "weeds" that I've either sowed myself or selected for. A riot of flowers for the bees and they kept the neighbors happy too!

I've been working on my fava bean breeding. A main goal is a bean that sets seeds earlier so that it fits into my garden rotation.

I'm also on a list to grow up a hardy avocado, but haven't gotten a tree yet. Excited for when I do!

Native flowers already past blooming

When weeding the berry patch, you leave the juiciest, tastiest dandelions for breeding your dandelion landrace. 🌼

What I want to know is, can I grow them from tubers at the Asian supermarket? I can get Nanaimo tubers pretty easily here.

May Lotito wrote:4) self sufficiency. Last year a bad batch of potting mix destroyed many of my seedlings and potted plants so I decided to make my own as much as possible. I bought Coco coir and used home made compost. It still needs some optimization but all of my indoor plants repotted are rejuvenated and growing vigorously.

This was the potting soil mix used by the place I first learned to garden.  It's based on old English recipes.  1 part soil, 1 part compost or leaf mold, 1 part sharp sand or granite grit, 1 part vermiculite or perlite. Leaf mold is such a great amendment, I dedicated a compost bin to making the stuff.

Douglas Alpenstock wrote:

May Lotito wrote:Happy to see mole tunnels showing up everywhere in the yard. That means the soil quality has been improving and the growing worm population attracts moles to aerate the soil. Good sign!

Although when the start chewing the bottoms off your root vegetables, you may find that your perspective changes from "welcome" to "dog food." Active rodents are not always friendly, and they breed exponentially. Just a heads-up.

Moles don't eat roots unless they are starving, nor are they rodents. They eat insects and dig a lot. In fact they eat insects that would eat your roots, so they are protecting your roots (if they don't totally dislodge them!

Perhaps you are thinking of voles, which are rodents and love to eat plant roots. Gophers also.

Barbara Kochan wrote:I'm preparing to grow more perennial veggies. Just read scarlet runner beans are perennial in zones 7-11. Has anyone in the coastal pacific northwest had scarlet runners produce for more than one year? I think I'm in zone 7b/8 so I have some hope ...

I'm in Seattle, zone 8b. I have grown scarlet runners, but they weren't perennial for me. They did partially overwinter one year when we had an exceptionally mild winter, but that was the exception. Winters are so unpredictable here, some years we have no snow and only mild freeze, other years we have 2 feet of snow. So runner beans are very unreliable here. You could try digging them up and overwintering the roots in a garage or shed, like some people do for dahlias. I haven't tried that, though I have overwintered eggplants and peppers indoors. I would say it's hardy to zone 9 myself.

If you do plant it, don't plant it right next to garden beans. Even though they are different species, they will cross if planted too close. My purple speckled black beans are a testament to that...

For a perennial legume, you could look into Siberian Peashrub (Caragana arborescens) which is a hardy shrub that has lentil like seeds. Mine aren't big enough to produce yet so I don't have personal experience, but I have high hopes for it. 🙂

Beckie Gaskill wrote: resident bunny family

I have had lots of wild rabbits (eastern cottontails) in recent years. They mainly like legumes year round, and to a lesser extent greens and carrots in the winter. I have no fencing and my beds are in the ground. But they are easily deterred by floating row cover. When I sow legumes, I cover the beds. This helps the seeds sprout faster too. I don't use hoops or anything, just have a sheet larger than the bed size, and gather it at the sides to allow for some plant growth. When the plants are big enough they can handle the rabbits. I don't have major damage to other crops.

In the past when I had raised beds, rats got into them and ate my brassicas. Rabbits are larger and can hop, so I doubt raised beds would deter them much.