If you listen to this idiot you have issues. So , his one size fits all - NOT… plan. speaks of exclusion of people under 30. So what is he saying open the country up to children? let them spread it like wildfire to the rest… because their baby adolescent bodies and immune systems are almost not vulnerable. First, we have no idea what this does those healthy people after they acquire and survive the illness. Then the rest of the country becomes disposable? Sounds like something out that star trek episode with only kids living on the planet… like our current moron kids. Anyway… besides this he cannot do simple math. He takes about the over-all mortality rate of the illness the deaths/per 1M of population… And he said its something like not even 1 in a 100k. Well, actually while mulling over the numbers today , I realized that death rate in NYC is closing on very close to 1/1000 … that is the death rate total population not per infected… so, its certainly not 1:100,000. That is taking the outbreak area - - being all these deaths are occuring inside an area of population between the 8.5M of NYC and the surrounding total population of about 23M/ So, I have no clue what the heck he is speaking about… And we are still losing 1k per day in patients with another 10k critical - and I am sure they have dropped many deaths that were no diagnosed… He further talks about they are seemingly dying and no matter what - being listed as a covid death… Well if they died of a heart attack and had no covid symptoms , Id get that… but if they are sick " hence the definition of being ill with an infection"// and they die… from severe symptoms consistent with this… its not another cause. Never the less, I dont listen to people who spew this trash…
Thanks for that great idea about placing a tarp over the grass you need to remove. I tilled my soil two years ago and been trying to grow a partial sunny/sunny grass on the newly tilled soil. I bought a commercial off the self grass combo, but I get are weeds. I will try covering with a tarp.
mountainhouse man
Thanks for explaining the storage differences among the squashes…
I will open and cook a butternut from last September today. Still solid.
Can you provide any advice on freezing potatoes. I have tried freezing prepared (boiled) potatoes and raw potatoes but no luck. Maybe I need to make parboiled fries first?
Potatoes are a prime subject for resilience but dont store well for many months. This is an important topic.
thanks
MrPug,
I keep forgetting to suggest this…
The last place I lived in Santa Barbara, CA before moving away had a lot of issues with Bermuda grass and other “weeds” while we were creating an Edible Food Forest. (“Weeds” are pioneer species, which usually have medicinal properties and some parts can be used for either fiber, dyes, foraging, etc. Basically, they’re earth’s healers since they tend to show up when soil has been either disturbed or dilapidated.) We dug out a LOT of rhizomes and kept composting them in various ways, fed a lot of them to the chickens (they would gobble them up), and eventually they stopped showing up… Except, for a long thin strip between the fence and the house on the west side of the property. I kept reading about ryegrass inhibiting “weeds” from growing. I finally decided to give it a shot and found some annual ryegrass seeds at the feed store.
Once the rye grass was about 5-6” tall, no more problems!!! Then, I would come along and trim sections of the grass by hand to give to the chickens (14 of them) as part of their daily goodies… They soon learned what that bucket was for!! Goodies such as grubs, grass clippings, funky tomatoes or leftovers were on the way, and they would get very excited, and noisy as a result. (I miss “talking” chickenspeak with them, and they have such entertaining and different personalities.) I would also give them whole pumpkins (which lasted about 20 minutes between 14 of them) since the seeds help them with parasites, in addition to planting mugwort on 2 corners of the chicken coop so they could have some when they wanted it. To help keep their diet diverse and to help provide protein for their eggs, I would also get live crickets from the feed store weekly or every other week (the store was a few blocks away and they would buy the extra eggs or I could have store credit).
One day my non-hunter indoor cat was making some really weird noises which I had never heard before, so I went to investigate. She had found a live lizard at least 6” long inside the house. Her eyes were huge, and I realized she had been calling me for help. What am I going to do with this?? Ah… I took it to the chickens and they had me laughing hysterically, so much so my stomach hurt for about 45 minutes, while they played “lizard fumble” with it.
Linda
For me potatoes already are a long storage crop and I dont need to preserve them. You do need to knock the eyes off of them to store better late in teh season if they want to start sprouting.
I like Carol Deepes ( author of The Resilient Gardener, which I highly recommend) Idea on potatoes, she has an essay about them here https://caroldeppe.com/The%2020%20Potato%20a%20Day%20Diet.html She grows all her own food, and at the time of this essay had a garden/farm partner, so the amount grown and stored were for 2 people " ...I began my Nearly All Potato Winter right after Nate finished harvesting, and we stood in our attached garage gloating over an entire wall of shelves of bags of potatoes—about 1200 pounds, of 18 varieties." Yes, that is 1200 pounds of potatoes, hand grown and stored in paper bags in a garage somehwere in Oregon, I think outside of Eugene. In mid-March, close to the end of my Nearly All Potato Winter, Nate and I parceled out the remaining potatoes and then stood gazing a bit mournfully at the near-empty shelves in the garage. It was time to turn to the cornbread corn, polenta corn, and beans. These were superb gourmet varieties. But it was sad to see the last of the potatoes. “I’m not the slightest bit tired of eating potatoes,” I observed.She says that there are so many varieties of potatoes, and so many ways to eat them. No other preserving of them, just eat them all within the 5 or 6 months that they will store. It is very inspiring to read about the wonderful ways to use the different variety of potatoes in her eassy she ends it thus
But, I know what you mean, I do not like to freeze cooked potatoes ( maybe mashed potatoes, but not chunks, they get watery, even trying to freeze a leftover soup with potatoes in it is passable, but not ideal) I do not freeze potatoes, I dont freeze much, realy. I dehydrate alot. But, Others do freeze them and you can buy them frozen. You need to blanch most vegetables before freezing. Warning, I have not done this, but this looks like the right idea https://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-freeze-your-own-french-fries-235216 I think I preserved potatoes once by making gnochi and then frezzing that. And those potatoes were realy shrunk and looked to be on their last legs and made good gnochi, they were just harder to peel being so old.Happiness is 1600 pounds of potatoes tucked away in the garage, with another half dozen new varieties.
Hey Chris, I’ve been following your videos since “why is Wuhan building hospitals in a week??”And honestly your videos have have been amazing. I’d like to share this as a South African perspective on what you’ve been calling the coming food crisis. right now, according to stats of 2015 (so these are probably worse now because #corruption) To feed a single person a nutritionally complete basket of food for the month costs around R527 for a small child ($1 = R18+-) The government grant for a child is R420, clearly not enough to feed a child correctly. 55% of the population live under the upper bound poverty line, with 25% living below the lower bound poverty line or more distastefully referred to as extreme poverty. at the moment we’re around 20 odd days into a National Shutdown of everything except essentials (grocery stores and pharmacies) currently we're seeing supply chain trucks for supermarkets being intercepted, robbed and looted. We’re also seeing food aid trucks, being intercepted and robbed and looted. The media is reporting this as a crime from the people but I’d like to give the international people a more well rounded view of what is to come from RSA and that is a total shit storm. Right now it’s only small scale, our social unrest is going to follow the case, case, case, cluster- cluster- BOOM stage too, when that happens you should our country making headlines Why? Well government officials as we speak, have been arrested for “allegedly” (which we all know means is absolutely true) SELLING FOOD AID PARCELS to the poor, the parcels, meant for distribution for free, to the poorest of people, were being sold by some shady corrupt official. And then the media, asks “why are communities looting supply trucks??” Well i think its simple really, if a community living below the poverty line gets told they need to buy food aid, you can expect social unrest to follow, how does someone who lives on a weekly wage, who hasn’t been paid in 20 plus days, pay for something that should have been free? the craziest part of all of this is, a lot of our countries population come from villages, in beautiful mountains. A simplistic person would call village life beautiful, tend your gardens, walk 5km for water and take care of the ins and outs of your daily life in a rural village. The problem is “the rat race” and modernization of cities with people living in suburbs and driving fancy cars allures a lot of farm folk, as it does all over the world, these people in turn, leave their villages In pursuit of a university education and “making it” in the city and also, uplifting their family which are still in the rural areas, now these people get to the city and end up living in slums, working dead end jobs and suffering in the name of hope for their family back home. Its a sickening cycle of increasing country wide poverty endorsed by a government of corruption that thrives off of poverty. compounding this whole issue is massive corruption, like I mean monumental government and private sector corruption, e.g. the previous president of our country Jacob Zuma held the position with more than 700 corruption charges hanging over his head, state owned enterprises are all in disarray and a quick google search of South African Airways, Eskom and South African Broad Casting Services, as well as the “Gupta saga” who exemplify how money and contacts will let you pillage an African country and retreat to the UAE without any criminal implications. These are all perfect reasons as to why South Africa is about to experience a serious collapse , not just economically, but socially too. The real reason our country is in an absolute crisis is 100% corruption based, international firms are all involved and complacent in this, we are the perfect example of how a government can completely destroy a nation, my hope is that the millions of people in poverty abandon the slums and return to villages, focus on their families, their lives and growing food, sharing in what Africans call “Ubuntu” the mind boggling thing is, food is grown by these people for themselves and by themselves in the villages. Ubuntu means, I exist because you exist - at its most fundamental core meaning, and my wish from coronavirus is, we all see Ubuntu within ourselves more clearly We’re only in poverty when we all want to live the 1st world life, the western world life really. According to western standards, Africa is in poverty because we don’t earn a certain amount of money per month. but what is that money worth when average American businesses make $3 debt for every $1 they earn? Why are African countries trying soooo hard to replicate a failing system? I mean the whole western concept of civilization is literally falling a part in front of us, financial systems are collapsing housing markets are collapsing These things are what made the western world so “civilized” now we see them falling apart, so was the west really ever out of poverty or were they just living a fallacy while exploiting the rest of the world? The west, isn’t just directed toward USA but more so Switzerland and France, and England, the real colonizers of the world, who are currently living on stolen wealth. This I hope, will be the 4th turning. What I am seeing unfold in South Africa is truly diabolical, and I shudder to think what’s really happening on the ground in Zimbabwe, our brothers north.
Thanks for that on-the-ground report. I was born in SA to American parents back in the 1950s. We moved to the States in the early '60s. I still have friends there - children of parents who were friends of my parents when we were all kids, and friends of theirs who have become my acquaintances via social media. I keep one eye on your news.
It’s heart-wrenching to think about all the human suffering taking place in the midst of such long-standing corruption; and to think that for a brief moment at the downfall of apartheid it looked like something good might emerge.
It’s more depressing to look at developments here and recognize they’re baby’s first steps in the same direction.
Over the years I have grown stuff that is easy. My theory is that if it doesn’t want to thrive in my climate…then I should find something that does. I’m in South Central Texas, so what works here probably doesn’t apply to all areas. But I have had great success with Asparagus (basically a weed that that comes back year after year).
Butternut…Irish Potatoes …sweet potatoes …and Onions are my storage crops. They are kept in a root cellar. Storing anything in Texas heat is not easy.
Oliveoilguy: That is sound advice. Nothing like knowing what works locally and staying between the white lines. No use trying to mimic something you read or see on the net if it is for an entirely different environment.
I always wanted an orchard. From when I was a kid. In watching how the legacy trees produce on my little farm, I have learned a few things about my local climate: blossom period is 90% of success. Peach and cherry trees dot the fields and borders and make it past the April frosts maybe one in four years. For apples, the early bloomers make it about the same amount. The middle bloomers (Golden Delicious) make it about half the time.
So I chose only late bloomers for the new orchard (and planted grape vines that are for a cool climate). They are just now in the early stage of blossoming and will probably make it through tonight’s freeze. The gorgeous cherry trees out my window that are covered in blossoms are probably toast…
3000’ elevation can put a hurt on things. You have to bend with the local wind.
Will
Now is the time. Lots of newfolks are entering the home garden community. This is wonderful news. Seeds, fertilizer, manure, etc are flying off the shelves. Gardening equipment is being snapped up. Clearly it is a sellers market.
Now is the perfect time to sell to sell that gas guzzling, carbon spewing, climate changing waste of energy. Yep that front tine, rear tine, mid tine piece of crap.
I had the 2 happiest days of my life (sailors will be able to relate). The day I bought my tiller and the day I sold it. That was over 40 years ago. I call it independence day.
One of the worst things you can do to a garden is till. God knew what he was doing when he laid down all that soil. There is a structure and a complex ecosystem in what we tend to take for granted and call “dirt”.
The following link can help you get started on your path to recovery from the tiller addiction.
https://learn.eartheasy.com/articles/no-till-gardening/
Then there is a revolutionary book from the 1940’s
https://www.amazon.com/Plowmans-Folly-Edward-H-Faulkner/dp/0806111690
New updates re Alberta and BC processing plant virus outbreaks:
The beef plant just south of Calgary - a major Canadian supplier - is temporarily suspending operations and is now being investigated and potentially sued for wrongful death related to the virus:
Chicken processing plant in Fraser Valley just east of Vancouver BC now has an outbreak with 28 staff infected
At least 5 new virus cases in BC interior as a result of transitory tar sand workers returning home from shifts - I suspect there will be MANY more.
And lastly (bold my emphasis):
And it keeps on rolling... :-( JanThe other labour issue facing the industry is a farm worker shortage. Some 60,000 temporary foreign workers come to Canada annually to work on farms and in plants but border closures mean fewer are expected this year.They are also required to quarantine for two weeks upon arrival, and this week, the federal government announced $1,500 per worker to help employers cover salary payments or revamp living quarters to ensure workers can abide by distancing protocols.Checks on those measures will be carried out by local, provincial and federal authorities, Bibeau said.Workers' rights group Justicia for Migrant Workers has raised concerns the onus is actually being placed on workers — not their employers — to comply.They cite a video being produced by the Ontario Provincial Police telling workers in Spanish what their obligations are, and say there are already efforts by communities to "name and shame" migrant labourers."We find it disconcerting that local community members are so concerned about migrant workers' social distancing while in public, yet do not share the same concerns regarding the lack of protections and accommodations provided by the employer to ensure that migrant farm workers are able to socially distance in their workplace and home," they said in a statement Wednesday.https://www.farms.com/news/bibeau-says-canada-has-enough-food-but-covid-19-will-still-bring-challenges-155561.aspx
I’ve harvested 18.5 lbs so far this year of sun chokes. First time spring harvesting!
Try cubing them and parboiling for 20 minutes. Slowly cook some bacon and caramelize some onions and add the sun chokes. Great side dish.
Although I’ve been a member for a while now, this is my first post. I am passionate about growing food, so this topic has inspired me to post. I am so glad I found this group of thoughtful, critical-thinking, and sharing folks. My deepest gratitude to Chris, Adam and everyone else who comprise the Peak Prosperity community. I’m very interested in how to live a more resilient, meaningful and compassionate life in a time where we face so many crises; ecological, social, political, financial, etc. I see great opportunity for positive change and it starts with each of us. Here is a video on some of the things we are doing at our house to be that change, including growing our own food…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZTeAZyYYfA&feature=youtu.be
Most gardeners have very small garden sites. We simply don’t have the capability (in terms of space, time, or physical ability) to produce all the food that we need, but we are still very interested in finding ways to produce as much fresh nutritious food as possible in our limited space.
I have recently created a 45-minute online video course: 10 Secrets for Growing More Vegetables in a Small Space. My sister and I have harvested 900 pounds of vegetables all year-round from less than 400 sq ft of garden beds, and I share the basics of all the methods we used in this course.
I used to help train Master Gardeners about vegetable gardening. I’ve decided to provide this course FREE to everyone, in order to help as many people as possible to harvest more fresh food during this pandemic and beyond.
Please share this course with everyone you think may benefit from it. Best wishes, everyone!
I live in South Central B.C. hard-against the U.S. border. Yesterday a jet fighter swooped low over the border and pulled a quick U-turn at about 2,000 feet. The last time I saw a jet fighter, (probably a RCAF F-16), it was on 9/11. It was doing figure 8’s above the Fraser River Delta, which as you know is near Vancouver, B.C. I spent a lot of time that day watching commercial overseas aircraft coming in low and slow over our house, lining up to land in Vancouver after U.S. airspace had been closed.
The reason I mention this is because everything is connected. My connecting these two jet-fighter sightings – the one yesterday and the one 19 years’ ago – has to do with the fact that I was outside at the time, working in the largest garden I have ever attempted: no mean feat for a somewhat deconditioned 60-something. But: I, (and I minimize the “I” part), I should say We, (my 20-something son has been helping out A LOT), have accomplished more this year than ever before.
Fighter aircraft have a lot to offer, but unfortunately, the ability to destroy the SARS-2 virus is not something they can do. However, good food, attentively grown, fresh, and simply prepared CAN be part of an effective response to the pandemic, so: all the best to you and all of us as we do what we can, wherever we are, with what we have.
It’s possible to can potatoes in jars using a pressure canner. I highly recommend it. Bonus: potatoes canned in jars have already been scrubbed, peeled and diced, which makes them an ‘instant’ option when time is running short, or when you are making a stew.
Thanks for the tip about covering the corn. I’ve been on the garden tilling and making preparations for over a week now, and despite the fact there are not as many crows here as there were in suburbia, (where I used to live), there is one crow in particular who is watching me, looking for seeds to pillage. Hm. Should I fix it a Drain-O and peanut butter sandwich?