Isa Jardinera

Riona Abhainn wrote:My worst was a lonnnnng time ago at work, we ran out of the dishwasher soap in the kitchen there, so I figured regular dish soap would be fine, because why not?  Well I found out why not when the bubbles were _everywhere and kept coming.  No I didn't get fired haha.

I have done that too! 😂 I just chalked it up as a twofer- dishes get cleaned and the floor gets mopped.

My mom never taught me how to cook, so when establishing my own home and trying to cook from scratch, I undercooked chicken and gave myself food poisoning. Twice.
Two Valentine's Days in a row with my new husband were spent hurling into the toilet while he pet my back. Needless to say, we don't make plans for V-day, even 14 years later 😂

Alternatives for other growing zones, or based on availability:
For sunchoke alternatives, some people have access to yams, especially the ones that give "air potatoes" in the fall. They are perennial, getting bigger with age and spread by edible air potatoes (a little too easily if you have neighbors who don't want free food). David the Good has some articles on his website about which ones are good for eating.

Where I grow we get more heat than cold; kale would be the crop that gets babied with a short harvest window. Horseradish grows well here and even the leaves are medicinal; they do better than kale for me with bugs and harvest window and neglect. For summer we use lamb's quarter; it's related to spinach, grows early spring to early winter in the heat, and is SUPER "weedy" (ie spreads easily, no care required, pest and critter resistant). You can also use care-free trees that grow in your area to make salads or a leaf concentrate (see Leaf for Life website). Some, like mulberry, will provide a crop of berries as well as leaves and you can totally defoliate them and they'll come right back in 2 months, with more berries!

I also have wild garlic because the walking and potato onions I bought died on me but the foraged garlic is thriving under neglect! The greens are mostly only available in the spring but the bulbs are always there, and they, too, are "weedy", spreading and thriving.

By your definition they wouldn't count as food pumps, but if you're around for it foraging nuts & acorns is also a viable strategy for cheap and easy calories. Acorns require processing; but you can get upwards of 200# per oak tree and the processing can be done with minimal equipment and hands-on time so I think it's still worth eating if you've got it.

It does pay. We have neighbors who moved in and tore up almost all of the food-bearing crops and good garden soil the previous neighbors had worked so hard on for two generations. Made me cry a little because I knew WHY those foods were planted and these new neighbors, for better or worse, had no idea what lack is. They didn't want the inconvenience of maintenance.
But we befriended them, let their kids play in the yard while the chickens were running around. After a while, they got a few small garden beds. Now they have chickens of their own!
So we have friends. And we can trade farm-sitting if needed. Plus they don't like pears so they give us bushels of fruit from the one tree they didn't cut down. 😊 I'd call that payment.

When we have way too much to use in our own garden, we sell our rabbit poop. It's always interesting how many people buy poop... And how many are somehow surprised when it stinks! 😂 But hey, it pays for the feed.

My submission -

- A picture and identification of the 3 species of volunteers and 2 species of selected wild plants
- A brief description on how you encouraged the volunteers and selected the wild plants (ie mulch, selective chop and drop)
- A brief description of the permaculture use of the plant if it isn't obvious

My 3 chosen volunteers are sunflower (pollinator bait, animal feed, shade/support for the other plants), radish (pollinator bait, animal feed), and passion vine (used as a supplement and caterpillar food for a butterfly that only eats passion vine leaves). My wild plants are lamb's quarter (people & animal food, shade for other plants, contros erosion while warm-weather crops are sprouting) and wild garlic (people food, animal supplement, rodent repellent).

I encourage volunteers by letting things go to seed before using it as mulch/compost and allowing seeds in the kitchen compost.Or just let decorative pumpkins rot in place then find babies in odd places. The passion vine spread underground from another area because the ground is protected and I guess comfy enough for roots to move through. For the wilds, I work to identify "weeds" that I like and let those go to seed while selecting out ones I haven't a use for. And any plant I like that is in a no-plant zone gets rehomed to a safe place.

Three words - Cast Iron and Fat

The way restaurants get a sear on their steaks is to slightly undercook the meat, maybe 10* lower than desired at the finish, then transfer meat onto a very hot preheated cast iron pan with a good layer of high smoke point fat, like bacon grease, and stick that in the broiler oven to finish. You may need one pan per loaf to keep from bringing down the temp of the pan too much.

Alternatively if you don't want to transfer, put a cast iron pan in the oven to preheat while you're mixing and add a Tablespoon or two of fat before plopping on your loaf and cooking to slightly under. Then pull it, readjust your oven to the higher temp (I generally do 425*), and put it all back in to get the final crust.

Just keep an eye on it; you want a crispy layer of fried meat, not burned. Cast iron is great at holding heat so don't leave your meat on it too much longer than it takes to cook or you may dry out the meat.

It may not be the way she does it, but it's how I make my gyro meat and that works for us. Good luck!

We mow with critters in the backyard when it's tender, but the front is more tricky because we live in a neighborhood. We generally mow that with an electric mower and bag the clippings, then lay clippings in a thin layer on the driveway to quickly dry (before it ferments) and make hay. After a few hours it's usually good to go into a storage tub for later when fresh food is scarce.