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Post by blueadzuki on Jul 8, 2023 17:17:49 GMT -5
Shoulder? You've got me beat, I'm only at waist (though, as a tall, long legged fellow, my waist is pretty high.) Still since superstition only called for knee high, I guess I'm still ahead of the curve.
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Post by blueadzuki on Jun 11, 2022 23:18:38 GMT -5
I GUESS I'm going to try some corn this year, assuming I can get the patch turned over (with all the tree roots, it gets harder and harder every year).
WHAT corn, I have yet to decide. The way I see it, I have two options (and, unlike many on this site, I don't have the space to do both at the same time and be able to keep them discrete and not crossing.
The first option would be to continue trying with my miniature non-popcorn experiments, which, this year, would mean doing the red dent one (the one I think is the result of a cross between Strawberry Popcorn and some sort of field corn). Those seed samples aren't getting any younger. Of course, every year I DO try, the animals end up eating every single seed or seedling long before they can produce anything.
The second option is to try the miniature Glass Gem I have saved up. This has a few disadvantages, the main one being that doing so wouldn't advance the above corn project any. On the other hand, there is the advantage that I have SO MUCH seed of that one stored up that, if I use it all and overplant like crazy, there may actually be so much seed the animals CAN'T eat it all before some of it makes it to a stage where they stop being interested in it.
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Post by blueadzuki on May 26, 2022 8:47:52 GMT -5
I know there is also bright red (some snow peas) and salmon.
As for pods, I seem to recall SOMEONE is working on red.
Don't know of any specific sources for either, but if I bump into any, I will let you know.
If it is of any help, I seem to recall that the scarlet flowered snow peas I got once had brick red seeds.
Also, when you say "white" do you mean green with a white cast, or a TRUE creamy white (like a wax bean). I don't think I ever saw a pea pod that color.
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Post by blueadzuki on Feb 22, 2022 19:04:28 GMT -5
Well, The seed I bought came from actual seed packets (the kind you buy in the store). So if there was such a cross, it occurred pretty far back in the line.
And it is interesting you said that about Earth Tones, since I have an ear that is more or less exactly that! Two or three years ago I bought some "Indian" corn from a farmer's market stand that had decided to grow out Earth Tones and Oaxacan Green that year, and wasn't that careful about if they crossed. Besides an ear with a few sweet corn kernels on it (which probably came from sweet corn that they had grown earlier in the year) I wound up with an ear that had full pastels, opaque color, and no dimples. As the ear is still intact, I can't tell if it is "cap" (like dent without the dent), "shell" (all soft starch with a thin hard starch shell all around), or true flour (no hard starch at all). But it certainly matches what you describe very well. It even has the hard to find sea green kernel color.
While we are discussing colorful corns, I should mention that I also have what amounts to a miniature Glass Gem corn. Three of them, in fact. There's the one that looks like a straight miniature version of the standard, which I have a LOT of. That came from two sources, some corn ears on sticks being sold out of Canada as home décor, and a different farmer's market stand. The second is one I got on eBay, which, while still small, is larger than the first. And the third is three ears (almost assuredly sibling ears) that have the same color palette and size as #1, but have rice type kernels instead of pearl type.
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Post by blueadzuki on Feb 22, 2022 8:13:58 GMT -5
Earth Tones has colorless hulls. If you introduce colored pericarps (hulls), keep in mind that every kernel on the cob will have the same hull color. You may not want to get those genes into your line. Your new friend, Dave Christensen (406) 930-1663 Are you sure? All the Earth Tones corn I have ever bought appeared to have pale brown pericarps (that was always the problem I saw in it, the brown pericarps made the corn colors duller than they could have been.). It's been a while since I bought any, so I suppose they could have cleaned that up.
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Post by blueadzuki on Dec 1, 2021 18:17:55 GMT -5
There IS such a thing as purple endospermed corn. It's a rare trait though, and I have NO idea how to go about getting it (I've bumped into it twice). But if you could it might be worth adding as well (I guess that would make the endosperm brown).
Basically, your probably on the right track for the pericarp with the Morado. I'm not sure there is a pericarp darker than that shade of purple.
The aleurone is where the blues, pinks, etc. hide out. That's only a few cells thick, so I'm not sure how much nutritional value that will contribute IN TOTO. But the darkest you can probably get with that is blue or purple.
I THINK there is such a thing as double aleuroned corn, but am not sure.
The germ can be purple as well, so you might want that.
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Post by blueadzuki on Nov 15, 2021 17:36:16 GMT -5
I was simply pointing out that large parts of living in a post-apocalyptic society have to do not only with producing your own resources, but in being able to defend those resources. And that REALLY being prepared means not just being prepared to weather a period of instability, but in being able to handle things if it NEVER destabilizes. Real long term survival only works if you can get a pretty much totally closed economy, where you don't need ANY inputs of ANYTHING to keep functioning indefinitely. If there is any item that you need someone outside your group to produce, that is a weak link.
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Post by blueadzuki on Dec 15, 2020 10:59:24 GMT -5
Whew, that is a lot of ground to cover. But I'll try my best.
For cornbread it depends. Carol Deppe says that more or less any corn works for wet batter cornbread, but as I do not personally eat cornbread, I do no know how that differs from other corn breads.
Basically, what you are looking at is how much soft versus hard starch is in the corn kernel. Flour is nearly pure soft starch, hard flint nearly pure hard. the other are in between.
Dent is basically a hard/soft starch mix where there is a hole in the top of the hard starch layer that causes the kernel to collapse in and make a dent or dimple in the top of the kernel (soft starch shrinks more than hard). Most commercial corn is dent.
Flint and flour are often listed together because the two can sort of grade into each other. Yo can get "soft flints" which have as much (or more) soft starch as a dent. There are also "flint/flour corns" which have varying amounts of the two on different kernels on the ear.
Hard flint corn is more often used for things like Polenta than strictly corn bread.
In general, the softer the corn, the finer the flour you are going to get. The tradeoff is that the softer your corn, the easier it is for pests to get into it.
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Post by blueadzuki on Aug 10, 2020 14:30:03 GMT -5
Different places.....here, potatoes and even corn will grow well ( many varieties of corn need help to withstand the wind though), as well as many pulse crops. The thing is trying to find those that not only produce crops but actually are nutritious, so many foods these days look pretty but are feeble on the nutrition page. As far as books go, I was bemused by Steve Solomon's comments on many garden "truisms" and somewhat taken aback about using animal feedstock as fertilizers, it seems to me that would lead to an explosion of groundhogs, mice etc. I've often found more useful information in very old books rather than those written since everyone figured they could make some money writing a book. The modern books mostly have very pretty pictures though! I have 2 varieties of supposedly perennial rye which I need to plant in a protected spot so the deer/moose don't get at them. The other thing is trying to find crops that will provide winter food for chickens, wheat at an average of 12% these days is too low in protein for a laying flock, so looking at wild seeds, amaranth, mangels, squash and so forth. . I am trying to grow some traditional foods (for which I've been scolded, these are supposedly sacred foods which are profaned by growing in a garden plot...but I guess I'm going to have to live with being considered disrespectful, I'd bet good money that 99% of people, native or otherwise, wouldn't have a clue what they were if they tripped over them. I am not a fan of political correctness. I know that if it came to it, I COULDN'T grow enough food to meet my needs here. Not with the acidic rocky soil, and pests that eat near 100% of planted seeds. If you are trying out wild/ ancient native foods, have you tried/do you have trailing fuzzy bean (Strophostyles helvula). If not I could send you some (the stuff grows all over the place here, thanks to the adding it to the stuff they use to bind the ground on the rail lines.) As a legume, it probably has a LOT of protein, and a lot of the Northeastern Indian tribes, like the Chocktaw and the Iroquois used/use it. (so much that some people think that ALL of the extant patches are descended from plantings.) American groundnut might be good too (if you can find someone with the fertile diploid as opposed to the sterile triploid version, so it will reseed itself.) And my apologies I never knew you were Native! If I had, I would have apologized for the "Project Jo'Gee'Oh references.) I meant no offense but I can see how it might be interpreted as cultural appropriation.
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Post by blueadzuki on May 14, 2020 8:29:29 GMT -5
I have a jar of dried ground sweet corn. Does not make for good bread or polenta. What's it good for? It's too sweet for anything savory. A lot of Native and Latin American communities used dried sweet corn to make pinole ( link) I also imagine it has uses if you are making corn beer (you probably get different results than you do using a starchy corn, but I'm sure someone does it.)
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Post by blueadzuki on Apr 22, 2020 18:37:17 GMT -5
"He was a bold man who first ate an oyster" Johnathan Swift
But seriously, I've always wondered how the people who don't have lactose intolerance worked out you could drink the milk of other animals. Did they get into the habit of hunting nursing animals and then say "what the hey, might as well suck on the udder" (Remember, lactose tolerance is a mutation, so the first people who had it would not be coming from a dairy consuming culture) and how'd they work out they could safely milk the animals without them kicking them to oblivion?
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Post by blueadzuki on Apr 14, 2020 20:19:38 GMT -5
If you are willing to look around, there is also what I refer to as "shell" corn; corn that is nearly all soft starch but with a "shell" of hard starch surrounding it all the way round (this differentiates it from dent as in dent there is a break in the hard starch layers at the top of the kernel, which is what makes the dent).
I tend to think that shell corns might have the advantage in a high moisture or high pest area. Hard starch is more difficult for pests to get into (not impossible by any means, but more difficult). so the kernels are a little more protected. And it will mill as easily as dent (easier probably as there is more soft)
A lot of Southwestern corns are also what is called "flour/flint" where the kernels can be floury, flinty or anywhere in between on the same cob. I imagine these corns HAVE to be sifted as each kernel presumably mills differently.
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Post by blueadzuki on Apr 14, 2020 17:51:03 GMT -5
Had the same thing happen the time we wound up making "Black Death Paella" (paella using black "forbidden" rice). Turned white enamel pots permanently purple.
Thought has occurred to me with black soybeans as well (though the water on those tends to be more brownish than true purple).
Also should point out the Peruvians are presumably using Maiz Morazo (the same purple corn they use for Chicha morado) which is VERY dark purple of pericarp. Don't know how the Zapalote measures up.
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Post by blueadzuki on Apr 13, 2020 18:44:23 GMT -5
link to how to dye with purple corn. This might be something for me to look into as I still have a tiny amount of kernels of a bright magenta corn I found once.
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Post by blueadzuki on Mar 30, 2020 17:48:22 GMT -5
But that's part of the issue. Based on the results China got, there is no evidence catching COVID-19 and recovering GIVES you any immunity. They think people are catching it more than once. There are already nine different strains of it, and it's supposedly still mutating.
What concerns me is how some scientists think that viruses as virulent or even more may become an annual, if not perpetual, occurrence. It's one thing to say it's only 2-3% but if we are talking 2-3 percent ever YEAR, or even with every wave of infection, and it will add up quickly. The next one could be 50% fatal, or 70% or nearly 100%.
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