Food and plants (split from Why do scientist "think" they know everything??)

[studiot]

38 minutes ago, MigL said:

IOW, are you wasting our time, and simply trolling us ?

 

No I think Bartholomew is simply taking things to far to extremes.

It is interesting that the hero in what I think is your character's best film started off following the Jones life philosophy, but found, as have many others in history (eg Lindisfarne) that this makes them vulnerable.

I have quite a lot of sympathy for the agrarian work ethic, but it is not enough and does not suit everybody.
It has been shown (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31257940/) to be one of the most successful methods of treatment for mentally unwell people.

But like those at school who suffer in sports lessons, it is actually bad for some people.

Humanity is a disparate species.

[Bartholomew Jones]

2 hours ago, MigL said:

I have to wonder …
Why are you posting on a science site if you are unwilling to consider science facts, or the scientific method ?
Why not post your unscientific ( and/or unsupported ) ideas on a 'naturalist' site ?

IOW, are you wasting our time, and simply trolling us ?

I've stated several times how I use science.  Please don't ask again: science is one very useful way of looking at nature.  I look, get some semblance of a scientific perspective, then I step away, and do things by my best judgment.  I don't attempt to apply scientific principle.  I apply principles of natural discovery; which in my view, are of a higher order than science.  Nature rewards me without scientific precision because nature is asymmetric.  Science is useful to me the way hearing another person's music is useful to a writer or arranger of music.  It's that simple.

For example, Rothamsted published a collection of articles, 1975, Soil Microbiology, Norman Walker.  With due care I discerned a principle the second article discusses (Margaret E. Brown), that being that the zone called by soil microbiologists, the rhizosphere (I call it the root zone), is rich with life--micro and other small organisms, flora and fauna.

So I build layer upon layer of processing power by stacking my sod, upside down, 8 by 8 by 5.  So the rain draining through my new mound is processed richly, organically.  And my whole lot benefits as the elevated ground at the center delays the total drainage on my property.  And it serves next spring as a site for crops.

Edited December 10, 2020 by Bartholomew Jones

[zapatos]

1 hour ago, Bartholomew Jones said:

...natural discovery; which in my view, are of a higher order than science.

Then you are indeed in the wrong place. Bye.

[Bartholomew Jones]

25 minutes ago, zapatos said:

Then you are indeed in the wrong place. Bye.

Actually I'm home, which is the right place.  This device is a contraption I'm using for the time being.

People who have nothing good to say usually are pretty good at extracting parts of a whole and attacking.

[MigL]

3 hours ago, studiot said:

It is interesting that the hero in what I think is your character's best film started off following the Jones life philosophy

Clint's 1955  'Francis In The Navy' ?
With Francis the talking mule ?

I assume, Bart, that you grow all of your own food ( or at least try to ).
How much land do you require for this ?
How big is the property where you are able to do this ?
Now multiply this by almost 8 billion.

It is estimated that we currently use 11% of the world's 510 million Km² for food production.
But this could be 3 times larger if we used all available fertile land and deforested it all.

Do you think there is enough for everybody ?

Edited December 11, 2020 by MigL

[Bartholomew Jones]

30 minutes ago, MigL said:

Clint's 1955  'Francis In The Navy' ?
With Francis the talking mule ?

I assume, Bart, that you grow all of your own food ( or at least try to ).
How much land do you require for this ?
How big is the property where you are able to do this ?
Now multiply this by almost 8 billion.

It is estimated that we currently use 11% of the world's 510 million Km² for food production.
But this could be 3 times larger if we used all available fertile land and deforested it all.

Do you think there is enough for everybody ?

Yeah, 3 times larger if you keep mass manufacturing and overprocessing everything.  How many front and back lawns are mowed every week?  A half dozen well-groomed tomato plants produce hundreds of tomatoes in one season.  My lot is 115 by 30 ft.  I work it myself without any utilities, without power tools/equipment.  How many run down cities and blocks are there.  How many condemned premises?  There's infinite potential for land development.

Edited December 11, 2020 by Bartholomew Jones

[iNow]

You’re arguing against a strawman of science and don’t realize how much of what you do and know itself comes from the scientific method. 

You’re standing on the shoulders of giants and pretending you can see farther all by yourself. 

I’d be curious what types of crops you tend and across how large a parcel. I’ve got a tiny garden I built for my family and it’s about 40’ x 30’ (with a fence about 7’ high to keep the deer out). I cleared several massive thorny locust trees to make the space and ensure enough sunlight, and put down several raised beds for the more fragile crops we grow.

As winter hits, it’s been nice beginning to open some of the jars we canned, and our homemade pickles this year are some of the best we’ve ever done. We’re also slowly enjoying some of the venison I took and field dressed, but I really prefer the jerky I made, especially when eaten from the farmhouse oak table with mortises and tenons that I built from hand. It’s a massive heavy beast, but it will long outlast me.

Anyway, let me know what you’re growing. I’m always looking for new plantings to consider. 
 

18 minutes ago, Bartholomew Jones said:

A half dozen well-groomed tomato plants produce hundreds of tomatoes in one season.  My lot is 115 by 30 ft.

I can’t believe you just x-posted this at the exact same time I typed my post. Lol. Too funny. Good timing, and thanks for sharing!

Tomatoes are good producers, but some are better than others in terms of taste. What else do you plant?

I enjoy okra, peas, rhubarb, squash, melons, carrots, peppers, especially hot ones, pumpkins, tomatillos, onions, garlic, various herbs, a few stalks of corn, some random other things and we have tended various wild berries and grapes along the fence I put up. It’s great stuff. We raised a bunch of butterflies and released them into the garden with the kids, and are considering keeping our own hive of bees.

I do encourage you to stop arguing against a strawman of science, though. I promise you’re not as different from the members here as you seem to like pretending to be. 

Edited December 11, 2020 by iNow

[Bartholomew Jones]

28 minutes ago, iNow said:

You’re arguing against a strawman of science and don’t realize how much of what you do and know itself comes from the scientific method. 

You’re standing on the shoulders of giants and pretending you can see farther all by yourself. 

I’d be curious what types of crops you tend and across how large a parcel. I’ve got a tiny garden I built for my family and it’s about 40’ x 30’ (and about 7’ high to keep the deer out). I cleared several massive thorny locust trees to make the space and ensure enough sunlight, and put down several raised beds for the more fragile crops we grow.

As winter hits, it’s been nice beginning to open some of the jars we canned, and our homemade pickles are some of the best we’ve ever done. We’re also slowly enjoying some of the venison I took and field dressed, but I really prefer the jerky I made, especially when eaten from the farmhouse oak table with mortises and tenons that I built from hand. It’s a massive heavy beast, but it will long outlast me.

Anyway, let me know what you’re growing. I’m always looking for new plantings to consider. 

Sorry I underestimated you.  Last year I was in jail for activism, and the year before during the harvests.  The prior mayor, against whom I acted, is out of office now, and the new mayor apologized for the former mayor bulldozing my property twice when I was in jail, and he calls on me.  My first arrest was just after my tomatoes started flourishing but not quite mature.  I tasted one; it was perfect.  I had probably 300 baby cucumbers that season on the vine when I was arrested.  My beets weren't so nice.  This next year watermelon is primary.  Strawberries.  Zucchini.  Some others.

I appreciate the scientific method as described earlier by swansont.  It's many of the applications and conclusions I disdain, especially in terms of the theory of evolution.

Science people, for example, often claim that science has proven that there's no Creator God, which is a blatant lie.  They won't name the first basis of their "proof."

Edited December 11, 2020 by Bartholomew Jones

[iNow]

Good list. All of those are delicious options that we’ve grown, too. Strawberries are pretty easy to do, and worth it. I rather like huckleberries, myself, but I tend to enjoy anything I’ve sprouted, planted, and protected with my own two hands. 

I’m sorry to hear about your troubles. I can’t imagine how I’d react if someone took a bulldozer to my things or property. Fortunately, the people at this site aren’t like that. They’re good folks. Good teachers. Patient and helpful. Worthy of respect. Deserving of kindness.

Anyway...My first arrest was because I was an idiot. The good news is that was also my last arrest because I chose not to continue being an idiot. Peace to you and yours 

15 minutes ago, Bartholomew Jones said:

I appreciate the scientific method as described earlier by swansont.  It's many of the applications and conclusions I disdain, especially in terms of the theory of evolution.

That’s too bad. It really is a shame that your local religious leaders have lied to you and tried to make ugly that which is the deep beauty and obvious truth of natural selection. If there’s a god with a plan, then Darwin merely helped us to better understand and appreciate it. 

Edited December 11, 2020 by iNow

[zapatos]

We have a large garden and can all summer. In the winter we make syrup from the sap of our black walnut, black maple, and silver maple trees. We make apple butter with the extended family every other year in a copper kettle that has been in the family and in use for about 100 years. It was bought used back then.

My wife picks up the walnuts and hickory nuts from our trees and spends many evenings cracking them by the fire that is burning wood from our trees. We found wild grapes on some trees and made our own jelly but I prefer the strawberry jelly we make. We grow blackberries, wild plum, blueberries, cherries, apples, peaches and raspberries. We planted a couple of pecan trees but we may not be around by the time they are producing. We also just got our first figs this year. I haven't developed a taste for our paw paws, but I've grown to like the morels when we can find them.

Our compost pile is a beauty with the straw from our chicken and duck coops, and the best of all from the manure from our alpacas. You don't even have to let it compost; it can go right from their butts to the garden. We shear the alpacas and our daughter in law uses the wool for her crocheting.

We use all the leaves from our oak trees for compost and mulch. We eat all the fowl eggs but we don't eat the birds; once you name them and figure out their personalities it just doesn't seem right. At this moment my wife is out in the dog kennel doing physical therapy on Wilma (our black star chicken named after Wilma Rudolph). Something is wrong with her leg. We have three bee hives but one of the hives swarmed this summer and we couldn't successfully split one of the other two. We'll probably buy a bee nuc in the spring.

I love being able get so much from the land.

[Bartholomew Jones]

31 minutes ago, iNow said:

You’re arguing against a strawman of science and don’t realize how much of what you do and know itself comes from the scientific method. 

You’re standing on the shoulders of giants and pretending you can see farther all by yourself. 

I’d be curious what types of crops you tend and across how large a parcel. I’ve got a tiny garden I built for my family and it’s about 40’ x 30’ (with a fence about 7’ high to keep the deer out). I cleared several massive thorny locust trees to make the space and ensure enough sunlight, and put down several raised beds for the more fragile crops we grow.

As winter hits, it’s been nice beginning to open some of the jars we canned, and our homemade pickles this year are some of the best we’ve ever done. We’re also slowly enjoying some of the venison I took and field dressed, but I really prefer the jerky I made, especially when eaten from the farmhouse oak table with mortises and tenons that I built from hand. It’s a massive heavy beast, but it will long outlast me.

Anyway, let me know what you’re growing. I’m always looking for new plantings to consider. 
 

I can’t believe you just x-posted this at the exact same time I typed my post. Lol. Too funny. Good timing, and thanks for sharing!

Tomatoes are good producers, but some are better than others in terms of taste. What else do you plant?

I enjoy okra, peas, rhubarb, squash, melons, carrots, peppers, especially hot ones, pumpkins, tomatillos, onions, garlic, various herbs, a few stalks of corn, some random other things and we have tended various wild berries and grapes along the fence I put up. It’s great stuff. We raised a bunch of butterflies and released them into the garden with the kids, and are considering keeping our own hive of bees.

I do encourage you to stop arguing against a strawman of science, though. I promise you’re not as different from the members here as you seem to like pretending to be. 

whoah!  I can't keep up.  I did a couple varieties of beans-- Bush and mung, I grew my first sunflower.  I want to try corn.  And I want to grow some tobacco along the railroad.  I'm not a smoker but it's nice to have when someone asks for a smoke.  I might just throw some on the fire when people gather around.  I've done bell peppers.  Most of what I've done i'll keep doing.  Onions and garlic.  I forgot basil that first year.  I have apple, winter pear and maple scattered, for later.

[iNow]

4 minutes ago, zapatos said:

My wife picks up the walnuts and hickory nuts from our trees and spends many evenings cracking them by the fire

Black walnuts are a BEAR to clean. I’ve spent tens of hours extracting tiny morsels of nut meat from them. Removed the husks with a pressure washer, some chicken wire, and an old wheelbarrow, but it didn’t work great and took forever. I’ve had good luck cracking them with the bench clamp and use wire cutters to trim the shell away. Please let me know if you have any tricks!

7 minutes ago, zapatos said:

. I haven't developed a taste for our paw paws, but I've grown to like the morels when we can find them.

My daughter and I have spent several weekends morel hunting, but haven’t yet found a decent honey hole. It was a bit mind blowing to realize how good they are when I tasted my first one. 

[Bartholomew Jones]

2 minutes ago, zapatos said:

We have a large garden and can all summer. In the winter we make syrup from the sap of our black walnut, black maple, and silver maple trees. We make apple butter with the extended family every other year in a copper kettle that has been in the family and in use for about 100 years. It was bought used back then.

My wife picks up the walnuts and hickory nuts from our trees and spends many evenings cracking them by the fire that is burning wood from our trees. We found wild grapes on some trees and made our own jelly but I prefer the strawberry jelly we make. We grow blackberries, wild plum, blueberries, cherries, apples, peaches and raspberries. We planted a couple of pecan trees but we may not be around by the time they are producing. We also just got our first figs this year. I haven't developed a taste for our paw paws, but I've grown to like the morels when we can find them.

Our compost pile is a beauty with the straw from our chicken and duck coops, and the best of all from the manure from our alpacas. You don't even have to let it compost; it can go right from their butts to the garden. We shear the alpacas and our daughter in law uses the wool for her crocheting.

We use all the leaves from our oak trees for compost and mulch. We eat all the fowl eggs but we don't eat the birds; once you name them and figure out their personalities it just doesn't seem right. At this moment my wife is out in the dog kennel doing physical therapy on Wilma (our black star chicken named after Wilma Rudolph). Something is wrong with her leg. We have three bee hives but one of the hives swarmed this summer and we couldn't successfully split one of the other two. We'll probably buy a bee nuc in the spring.

I love being able get so much from the land.

Thank you for sharing!  (and sorry)

I tapped a maple tree once just for the water.  This year I'm going to collect a lot more, Lord willing.  I almost started farming for honey, but decided to give more time before moving the hives I bought from a neighboring property from the roof.  I thought maybe I was being overconfident.  I've always been friendly with honey bees but this was new.  But the bees depopulated the hives.  The only manure I get to use in my compost is deer droppings I find when gathering amendment materials from the woods.  So I guess we broke the ice?

[iNow]

4 minutes ago, Bartholomew Jones said:

So I guess we broke the ice?

I reckon only you can answer this. Most of the rest of us weren’t being cold to each other in our posts. 

[MigL]

My  little garden is mostly different kinds of tomatoes and peppers.
But on different years have done eggplant, cantaloupe, and beans.
Anything I don't grow, is available from farmer's markets all over the Niagara Peninsula, and just minutes away.
I grow my herbs in pots so I can bring them inside in the winter; can't make a tomato/onion salad without a couple of leaves of basil.
And of course I have my late father's lemon tree that has been going strong 20 years now.

Don't do much canning/preserving, mostly rely on the grocery store during the long Canadian winters.
Greenhouse tomatoes aren't as sweet/tasty, but they'll do.
I don't think that makes me a 'bad' person, does it Bart ?

8 minutes ago, Bartholomew Jones said:

So I guess we broke the ice?

Turns out most of us are a bit like you.
Why not return the favor and become a bit more scientific, like us ?

[zapatos]

5 minutes ago, iNow said:

Please let me know if you have any tricks!

Haha. My wife bitched about how hard it was to get black walnuts for years. Now she has a method she's very happy with!

Let the green walnut outer husk dry. Then stomp on them, drive over them with a car, or anything similar.That part comes off reasonably well.

Throw a fair amount of hard walnuts into a five gallon bucket, fill with water, then use a large paint stirrer on a power drill to get off a lot of the crap on the shell. Let dry.

Following is a Youtube video of the process she uses. Pretty much exactly the same way. I've also included a link for the tool she uses.

Good luck!

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000TDDP6E/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o09_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

16 minutes ago, Bartholomew Jones said:

Thank you for sharing!

You're welcome! I love this stuff!

[Bartholomew Jones]

10 minutes ago, MigL said:

My  little garden is mostly different kinds of tomatoes and peppers.
But on different years have done eggplant, cantaloupe, and beans.
Anything I don't grow, is available from farmer's markets all over the Niagara Peninsula, and just minutes away.
I grow my herbs in pots so I can bring them inside in the winter; can't make a tomato/onion salad without a couple of leaves of basil.
And of course I have my late father's lemon tree that has been going strong 20 years now.

Don't do much canning/preserving, mostly rely on the grocery store during the long Canadian winters.
Greenhouse tomatoes aren't as sweet/tasty, but they'll do.
I don't think that makes me a 'bad' person, does it Bart ?

Turns out most of us are a bit like you.
Why not return the favor and become a bit more scientific, like us ?

Yeah you're right.  Sorry.  But I'm staunchly non-darwinian.  Sorry about that.

[zapatos]

18 minutes ago, Bartholomew Jones said:

I tapped a maple tree once just for the water. 

I drank some this year just out of curiosity. Definitely noticed the slightly sweet flavor. It was good.

1 minute ago, Bartholomew Jones said:

But I'm staunchly non-darwinian.

Does that mean you think living things don't evolve? The earth was populated with the things you see now? From God I guess?

[Bartholomew Jones]

12 minutes ago, zapatos said:

I drank some this year just out of curiosity. Definitely noticed the slightly sweet flavor. It was good.

Physiologically it's like coconut water, right?

12 minutes ago, zapatos said:

Does that mean you think living things don't evolve? The earth was populated with the things you see now? From God I guess?

I believe things evolve in general.  The way he explains how people cultivate stronger breeds of creatures proves there's some sense of evolution.  I don't believe one species evolves into another.

I believe God created heaven and earth.  The earth was hoped for in form, then God said, "Let..."  And it took form.  That's the essence of faith being substance.

Edited December 11, 2020 by Bartholomew Jones

[iNow]

34 minutes ago, zapatos said:

I've also included a link for the tool she uses.

Good luck!

Thank you. That’s awesome! I have almost that exact pair already in the pliers section of my pegboard with tools ✌️

42 minutes ago, MigL said:

And of course I have my late father's lemon tree that has been going strong 20 years now.

Brilliant! I forgot to mention our lemon tree. It’s inside for the winter, but produced many juicy lemons for us several weeks back. Can still practically taste them. 

You also make me realize I want to try growing eggplant. I doubt my kids would enjoy them, but cooked right they can be amazing. 

39 minutes ago, zapatos said:

Following is a Youtube video of the process she uses.

I’m rather pleased with myself after watching this for coming up organically on my own with almost the exact same process. I just use my largest old school bench vise for cracking instead of a hammer. 

36 minutes ago, Bartholomew Jones said:

I don't believe one species evolves into another.

Then whatever you do, don’t study corn or apples. Lol

Edited December 11, 2020 by iNow

[zapatos]

32 minutes ago, iNow said:

You also make me realize I want to try growing eggplant.

We grew two varieties of eggplant this year.

Monster blackberries this year too!

[iNow]

I don’t recall all of their names, but we seem to have grown many of the same tomato varieties. We did green beans, too.

There’s something in your pic I don’t recognize. Are those purple okra??

 

2 hours ago, Bartholomew Jones said:

Science people, for example, often claim that science has proven that there's no Creator God, which is a blatant lie

Which ones? Be specific. Bonus points if you quote them. 
 

 

[zapatos]

16 minutes ago, iNow said:

There’s something in your pic I don’t recognize. Are those purple okra??

Yes, that's Carmine Splendor okra. It was probably the prettiest plant in the garden. It grew to maybe 7' tall and the flowers were big and beautiful. I think we had four plants and we could harvest from them about every other day. The stem at the base got real thick and woody. Took me about five minutes with a shovel to dig each one up.

[iNow]

Okra does indeed have a massive base, is quite prolific, and easy to dig up and till end of season 

 

[Bartholomew Jones]

9 hours ago, iNow said:

I don’t recall all of their names, but we seem to have grown many of the same tomato varieties. We did green beans, too.

There’s something in your pic I don’t recognize. Are those purple okra??

 

Which ones? Be specific. Bonus points if you quote them. 
 

 

Not on here.  In my experience.  Anyway.  That stuffs pointless.  Carry on.