sleepingwool

[sleepingwool]

this seems like a great and easy dandelion jelly recipe! i haven’t had dandelion jelly since i was about ten at my small town’s Maplefest celebration and i’ve been wanting to try it again, so with dandelion season on it’s way i figured i’d share this recipe here for anyone else who wants to try it, too!

(just make sure the dandelions you used are clean and haven’t been sprayed with pesticides!)

#dandelion #dandelion jelly #recipe #gardening #urban gardening #resources

[sleepingwool]

I am glad that bee hummingbirds hatch nests of eggs each smaller than a pea. I am glad that there are oceans two miles deep where fishes unknown to science glow like fireflies.

I am glad that the crumbs taken from my bedroom are returned to tiny cities built by ants, and that the thunder of the storms rolling in from the north trembles in my chest when it is still a ways off. Hello, says the world, you are so little. Hello, says the world, you are so big.

[sleepingwool]

In order to make a relationship last, you really have to flow with a person as they change. Give them space. My friend always told me about his grandfather who was with his wife for 60 years before she passed. His grandfather said that through all that time, his wife changed so much it felt like he had been with 8 different people by the end. But he said the secret to making it last was that through all those changes, he never suffocated his wife with his own idea of who he expected her to be. Rather he loved, fully, every new woman she became.

[sleepingwool]

having to come to terms with the fact that love is not an everlasting performance in which you attempt to retain the attention of your significant other but rather a release of control and putting faith into them and trusting them to choose to stay with you no matter what you have to offer

#love

[sleepingwool]

[ID: A mother brown bear laying in dark sand next to her three cubs, who are curled up together.]

#wildlife #countrycore #image description

[sleepingwool]

[ID: A fisher peeks over a snow mound with snow stuck to their chin and chest.]

#wildlife #cottagecore #countrycore #image description

[sleepingwool]

I was watching old tool restoration videos last night at like 3am and got super emotional about them? A blacksmith makes a knife, maybe for himself or a neighbor, maybe to sell for far less than its value, or maybe just because he can. A knife that outlives him by decades, centuries, only to be found by another smith who takes it upon themselves to remove the rust, give it a new handle, polish and sharpen it, making it a collaborative work over the course of several hundred years, by two people who would never meet and lived in vastly different worlds. What would the blacksmith think, knowing that a piece of him would not only live on for so long, but be shown such love and care long after he was gone?

#cw death mention #tool restoration #blacksmith

[sleepingwool]

I just want to remind everyone how affordable buying food from indigenous tribes is. I live in a major city and I was able to purchase and ship (15) pounds of fish from back home to myself for cheaper than I could buy it from a grocery store here in the city. Yeah, shipping has its own environmental factors but I was able to support an indigenous owned business while also getting my groceries at a lesser cost. (Buying in bulk is always a good idea if you’re planning on having something shipped to you)

Some tribal owned grocers that ship:

Bow and Arrow (Ute Mountain)

Native Harvest (White Earth)

Red Lake Fishery (Red Lake)

Wozupi (Mdewakanton Dakota)

Ramona Farms (Gila River)

Tanka Bars (Oglala)

Indian Pueblo Store (Pueblos)

Twisted Cedar Wine (Cedar Paiutes)

Ute Bison (Ute)

Seka Hills Olive Oil and Vinegars (Yocha Dehe Wintun)

She Nah Nam Seafood (Nisqually)

Sakari Botanicals (Inupiaq)

Honor the Earth (? Anishinaabe)

Nett Lake Wild Rice (Boise Forte Anishinaabe)

Passamaquoddy maple (Passamaquoddy)

BONUS: coffee :)

Yeego Coffee (Navajo)

Spirit Mountain Roasting (Yuma Quechan)

Birchbark Coffee (Anishinaabe)

Thunder Island Coffee (Shinnecock)

#cw food #resources

[sleepingwool]

I finally picked up some soap berries from the bulk store after being curious about them for a while. For anyone who doesn’t know what soap berries are they are little nut like balls that can be used in place of laundry detergent. You throw about 4-6 of these bad boys in a cloth or mesh bag and throw them in with your laundry, you use the same nuts over agin until they turn white (between 6-10 uses) and then they can be composted. I also picked up a solid stain remover bar (visually looks like a bar of soap) which a shaved some off to add in with my laundry to give it an extra boost. I was impressed with the berries they seemed to do the job just fine! The only thing I miss is the ‘fresh’ sent that comes with traditional detergent as the berries are scentless (which makes them great for anyone with sensitive skin). I looked up a DIY scent booster for laundry which look very simple (just epsom salt and essential oils) which I will be trying next! 

I think laundry has been marketed as something that needs to be as simple as possible. This can be seen with rise of laundry pods that you just throw in with the laundry rather then measuring liquid or powder. Laundry detergent is also often advertised as being environmentally friendly because it is more concentrated then it used to be. However, the measuring lines in detergent is often way higher than it needs to be plus people are often inclined to use more detergent then is recommended. I think soap berries are a reasonable switch to detergents which come in plastic containers and are full of questionable chemicals for laundry detergent as soap berries can be bought in bulk or in cloth bags while being completely natural. Additionally aside from replacing the berries after the 6th wash they are not that different from the ease of laundry pods. Another benefit of soap berries are the cost. They are on average $0.05 per wash where as laundry pods are on average $0.30 per wash, added up that makes a large difference over all. The only barrier to these soap berries is the fact that they can be hard to find where as laundry pods are sold at every grocery store. Hopefully with more demand for sustainable products soap berries or similar products will be available more universally. 

#image description

[sleepingwool]

The real tragedy of theme park design is that the field emerged as a response to a society that was not meeting and continues to degrade its ability to meet humanities needs and desires. If we could build cities that were walkable, beautiful, unique, well designed, well planned, interesting - there’d be a lot less desire to escape them and no need to build artificial alternatives. Theme Parks’ focus on creating historical periods and fantastic natural landscapes reflects the desire of humanity to reconnect with beauty, value, craftsmanship, human-connection, and nature. All the things lacking in our cookie-cutter, mass-produced, conglomeratized, industrialized, disposableized, automobilized world.

It’s a sad fact that to design livable, complex, well-crafted, well-thought, aesthetically pleasing spaces populated by unique people, businesses, and experiences is notable, unusual, so rare and has to be carried out with such intention and singular voice that when they are now built such spaces gain the pejorative label “fake”.

[sleepingwool]

#image description

[sleepingwool]

if you don’t want your community garden crops destroyed by people looking for food, make sure everyone knows they’re welcome to take it so they don’t feel like they have to sneak around, and have signs by each plant explaining how to properly harvest and how to tell when it’s ripe. Make sure people know they won’t be turned away. People won’t “steal” if they know it’s free, and if they know they won’t get in trouble and know how to tell when something is ready to eat or not, they won’t waste time damaging plants trying to figure it out.

If it’s possible to steal from it, it’s not a community garden.

If your garden is not open to the community, it’s not a community garden. You’re just calling it that to get brownie points.

Make sure people know they are allowed and encouraged to take the food.

Make sure they know how to tell when the food is ready.

Like, you can literally just set up a food pantry or a cooler and have bags of chips or crackers or ready-made canned food and water and soda in so people are less desperate for food.

either you’re genuinely gardening for the community, or you’re doing it to look cool. You have to pick one.

[sleepingwool]

.

#image description

[sleepingwool]

I see a lot of guides around the solar punk community for how to do specific things with your gardens. Which is great! Unless you're a total gardening noob like me, to the point you're not even sure if guides you find are ligit or trying to sell you crap you don't need.

In short, have any super beginner basics guides that you can reccomend? Online is preferable but I should be able to track down a few books if needed.

I want to preface this by saying if this doesn't actually answer your question, please feel free to reply or send in another ask for more clarification!

That said, this is a difficult question to answer because you're going to need different advice depending on your situation and location, how much space you have, and what you want out of your garden (a polinator garden is going to need different advice than a perrenial garden or a garden to grow edible things without your HOA catching on, for example). Some people get really into soil composition, nitrogen ratios, companion planting, and such, but all it really takes to make a garden is obtaining some seeds, throwing them at the ground (or in a pot of dirt), and seeing what happens.

If you are an absolute beginner, I would definitely recommend doing that. Find some seeds, plant them, water them if needed, and observe. In my experience, observing the plants growing is a great way to figure out where your knowledge is lacking - I've done some of my most productive googling trying to figure out why my plant is doing something.

And now, a list of my favorite internet spaces to poke around for reliable gardening advice:

Food Not Lawns by Heather Jo Flores - Putting this at the top because this is where I recommend you start. This is a book, but if you don't want to track down a physical copy you can read it online at the price of subscribing to Heather Jo Flores' email list. 100% worth it in my opinion.

Farmers' Almanac - Great guides for growing specific plants, and good non-specific gardening advice, although sometimes too general to be much use. I mainly use this to find frost dates and recommended planting times for my area.

Morning Chores - A homesteading blog with a metric ton of articles, some more useful than others. Go to their "Gardening" tab and only read what looks interesting/relevant to avoid getting overwhelmed.

Permies forums - This is now my first stop when I have gardening questions. It's a collection of forums with years worth of discussion between permaculture enthusiasts, and you'll probably find the Gardening for Beginners forum helpful at the start. Some of the people are a little weird, but all the gardening advice is good and it's a great place to ask questions and get advice.

Free Permaculture Online Course - Completely free 52-week permaculture course from Heather Jo Flores, founder of the Food Not Lawns movement. Also covers some permaculture topics that aren't specifically gardening, but it's a great learning resource and I highly recommend it.

Your local Food Not Lawns group - I found mine by searching "Food Not Lawns (my city)" on Facebook. Some of them have websites. If you have one somewhere nearby, they're great to ask questions, connect with gardeners and people with a similar ethos in your area, and ask questions and get answers from people who have experience with the conditions of where you live.

Hope that helps!

- Mod J

#resources

[sleepingwool]

Good news: if you’re currently laying around and not producing anything, you are a credit to your species.

#image description

[sleepingwool]

This is Indian Land, Garden River, Ontario, Canada

#image description

[sleepingwool]

If you don’t have time to watch a simmering pot, you can make your veggie stock in a crockpot.  You will need a one gallon bag of vegetable scraps (doesn’t matter what, though I personally find a lot of celery makes my broth more bitter than smooth), add a bay leaf, 8 to 10 cups of water, then let it simmer on low for 8-10 hours or on high for 4-5 hours.  Pour liquid into jars while skimming vegetable scraps, and refrigerate.  

#image description #cw food