07-22-2024, 08:39 PM
I envy you Chiefsmom. You have this very rare substance called............ soil. Oh Lordy, wouldn't it be swell. Still, we have a rare substances to you, or at least I think so called...... cocopeat and seaweed meal. Newsflash: Cukes don't care for blazing hot/sandy loam/ salt environment, HOWEVER, change one variable, and make the soil rich with seaweed meal and make it retain water with cocopeat, and Voilà! It Lives!! It's a-LIVE!!
Ok, so this year's projects are twofold: Water Spinach, and Chayote aka Cho-cho. Water spinach is fairly easy to grow, except it is super-invasive, so much be contained somehow. It is illegal to grow in much of the U.S. because it just takes over. Tasty stuff though, and will keep a few people alive.
Chayote is in the gourd family, but tastes like a squash. It can be eaten raw, and is cucumberish, or fried, mashed, and I like making fritters out of them. Traditional use is in soup as a tasty filler. Once established, one plant can feed a family. Well.......... not feed them if that's all they're eating, but as a side dish it really delivers.
Since those of us down here in the Caribbean see the same things you all do -- that is to say everything going to crap at an alarming rate, we are determined to grow landfood -- breadfruit, sweet potato, tomato, cukes, pumpkin, chayote, etc., and harvest mobile MREs (feral chickens) and harvest seafood (fish, spiny lobster in season, conch in season, whelks (Turban snail), etc.).
I envy you also all the berries. Berries take a hell of a lot more work than most people realize. Not just letting a bush grow and the picking it. Strawberries, especially (which, I guess aren't technically berries, but who's counting?)
Ok, so this year's projects are twofold: Water Spinach, and Chayote aka Cho-cho. Water spinach is fairly easy to grow, except it is super-invasive, so much be contained somehow. It is illegal to grow in much of the U.S. because it just takes over. Tasty stuff though, and will keep a few people alive.
Chayote is in the gourd family, but tastes like a squash. It can be eaten raw, and is cucumberish, or fried, mashed, and I like making fritters out of them. Traditional use is in soup as a tasty filler. Once established, one plant can feed a family. Well.......... not feed them if that's all they're eating, but as a side dish it really delivers.
Since those of us down here in the Caribbean see the same things you all do -- that is to say everything going to crap at an alarming rate, we are determined to grow landfood -- breadfruit, sweet potato, tomato, cukes, pumpkin, chayote, etc., and harvest mobile MREs (feral chickens) and harvest seafood (fish, spiny lobster in season, conch in season, whelks (Turban snail), etc.).
I envy you also all the berries. Berries take a hell of a lot more work than most people realize. Not just letting a bush grow and the picking it. Strawberries, especially (which, I guess aren't technically berries, but who's counting?)
