Thekla McDaniels

Thanks, May,  it would be good to have a control area.  I have missed these rains so things won’t be equal, but I do have an area with more developed soil that is also bare, and my long term objectives for my lower pasture are to have more vegetation and fewer prairie dogs, so I don’t lose any thing by seeding additional areas.

I worry that if I don’t cover my seeds with something, soil or plant material of some kind, then the birds and mice will take the seed, but it’s probably worth a try.  

We’re hoping for a wet season, and with snow as mulch once we get late enough in the year, so it’s a perfect time for getting seed out and germinated!

How exciting!  I’m a winner 😊. Thank you!

I did buy several copies during the kickstarter, and still have a couple of spares.  

Is there a simple procedure to choose another winner or is there a runner up?

I can certainly find a good placement for a copy of Kate’s fabulous Sourdough without Failure , but maybe there’s a very deserving person right here who would love a copy of the book.

I will be looking for PMs or a post for input.  If I don’t hear anything, I’ll proceed with receiving this most generous prize.

Prairie dogs are who dig my soil.  It doesn’t seem to grow anything for some time.  What they bring up is subsoil.  Is it possible there aren’t seeds in the subsoil?

I tried an experiment.  I took a rake and a mixture of seeds down to the prairie dog town.  Around each hole, I raked the diggings fairly smooth and tossed handfuls of seeds out, then raked again to provide light cover.  I used seeds different from what grows there in between the holes.  If there’s germination I will be able to recognize the new species of plants, as well as by the locations… 🤞🤞🤞

I did it before I thought we might be going to get some rain, and, lucky me, the rain came.  We’ve had intermittent showers and sun for at least a week.

In another part of my pasture, there are tiny green seed leaves of a local brassica.  I will be visiting my seed test plots as well as making more.  Early fall is the best tme for planting.

S. Kennedy wrote:Thank you for the information on common club moss. I discovered it in Maria Treben's herb book.  It is working beautifully for me. Is this forum like a community club of sorts to join?

Thank you again, s. Kennedy

Hi S!  Welcome to Permies!

Thanks for joining us.  This is a community, and since you have posted, you must have registered and therefore joined.

It’s Paul Wheaton’s baby.  Free for the rest of us due to his generosity.  

There are a few verboten topics… we’re here to discuss permaculture, which is a very broad topic, and we don’t discuss or promote toxic products or methods.

He asks us to be nice.  Leave room for other people to have valuable knowledge.  We only discuss controversial topics in the “cider press”.  

There’s more to learn, and there’s a thread that tells it all, but being an old woman and not tech savvy, I will leave it for someone else to direct you there.

Welcome, have fun.  I am going to go find out about common club moss you refer to.

Roman meal!  What a blast from the past for me.  It had flax seed meal and sunflower seeds in it.  I don’t know what else but it was a huge step up from the “brown bread” of my childhood.  I enjoyed “Roman Meal”, and when I was making bread to sell i used that combination in my fresh ground whole wheat dutch oven no knead bread.  People liked it (in 2009- 2010).

After Roman meal was so well received(in about the 60s and 70s) and and there began to be an interest in “organic” food and health food, pretty soon there was a very dense bread made in a smaller loaf pan, so the loaf was smaller.  It was made by Orowheat, and I  it was called “Honey Wheat berry Bread”.  That was wonderful bread, real food at last.  I loved it!  My body appreciated it.  It was expensive, but I always bought it anyway.  And I think it is still commercially available.  If I had to buy bread at a grocery store that would probably be the one.

I always hated wonder bread.  If there was a wonderbread sandwich with a slice of ham in it, when I bit the sandwich, the bread between the meat and the roof of my mouth got smashed against the roof of my mouth and stuck there 🤣. In trying to free it I probably looked just like a dog who has a lump of peanut butter stuck in her mouth.

Anne Miller wrote:I like several of the suggestions.

Jay suggested pavers though why not use flag stones in place of the pavers?

Moss in between the flag stones.

I wonder if flagstone is durable enough to drive on.  Seems like as large as they can be, a tire in the middle would break it.

Thank you, Kate.

I will try it out today, starting with my starter smeared jar 😆

Funny how we can get attached to sourdough starters and such.  It’s sad to lose something we love

If your old starter was from an open bowl or jar, and had been colonized by airborne organisms, there’s a good chance you had some bacteria in it

You probably already know you can buy starters.  Cultures for Health is a reputable company and they sell all kinds of starters.

You also might find someone locally who might take pity on you, and give or sell you some of their’s



Good luck!

Anna there’s a whole thread here on permies on how to catch or start a starter.  Kate has also included it in her book.

The starter I have had for 4 or 5 years, I used live kombucha to start.  I don’t mean the mother… I mean the part we drink.  symbiotic community of bacteria and yeast= SCOBY.

I just substituted kombucha for the water.  I use GT Dave’s

Jennifer Life wrote:I will definitely be digging into this post!  I have made sourdough successfully (even using fresh ground wheat, which seems to be elusive according to some people), but I do not care for the sour flavor.  So, I have been trying to figure out how to make it without the strong flavor.  My family loves it, though, and I would like to get the health benefits of the sourdough.  I would like to try some other uses for the it, as long as it doesn't have the sourdough flavor .... makes me a bit nervous to try recipes.  : )~

I feel the same way about overly sour.  I have learned a lot from Kate.  My understanding at this point is that the soir develops from length of getment time… which I am definitely prone to.

I have a jar in the refrigerator where I used to keep my starter.  It just has some starter stuck to the sides and bottom.  When I am getting ready to bake, I get out the jar and add equal weights of water and flour, and let that get bubbly.  I look at the recipe i want to make, and if I am going to need more starter, I add more flour and wateronce it’s bubbly.

Then when it’s bubbly again, I make the recipe.  I either leave about a tablespoon of starter in the jar, or I put the lid on the “dirty”-with-starter- only jar and put it in the refrigerator for next time