Sharing seeds with people in need

In a group on one of the social media platforms I am a member of there was a question about "where to buy seeds for small money". This question brought me back to thoughts I already had a couple of years ago.
Many of us preserve seeds and we always preserve too much. Other people need them due to various reasons, may it be that they are starting their garden, may it be that they were flooded or whatever situation came along.
Up to now I also buy part of my seeds, because I am still building up my garden, now I am going to get 5 varieties of pole beans and 5 of bush beans that were grown in over 700 m and therefore support some more cold weather than the usual beans.
Wouldn't it make sense to have seed banks maintained in many places all over the world where one can apply to receive seeds just paying the postage or even receiving them for free, when there is someone who would pay for the postage? Wouldn't this be a way where people simply start to co-operate and create real-life networks? Wouldn't this be a further step for many to assure self-sufficiency?
One of the big examples for me is Navdanya by Vandada Shiva. She has done great work so far. The only thing I would change is: I would not collect seeds in a central place, because central places generally are more vulnerable. It's like with distributed computing: storing in many places is safer and much cheaper.

Photo from pixabay.

Garden today - 3rd May 2019

What I actually did:

* I harvested some lemonbalm that started to overgrow my seedlings
* Parsley got sawn in place
* Dill was sawn in place
* Spinach was sawn in place
* I covered up the places where my cat messed around with the soil (in the garden beds)

And then, here you go with a rare picture for the month of may: my daffodils are flowering now and not like usually around the second week of April.

Well, indeed these are cold times ... some frost is to come along and the three tomato plants (bought ones - the seedlings are not even out) and a cucumber plant I received as birthday present are cuddled so that they stay warmer. The tomatos will be covered completely during the night. They should well make it.

Cook what you have - May 1st, 2019

Well, yesterday was cook with what you have day ... so I had a look in my vegetable basket for stuff that needs to urgently be eaten. And there was

• one hokkaido
• one huge leek which I bought as being "not so nice anymore"
• one tomato
• one carrot
• sunflower oil
• Salt
• Chilie

And there you go ...

First I added some oil into my pot and then added the leek after having cut it in small pieces.

Then I added the hokkaido cut into small pieces.

Please do never throw away the seeds of squash ... I will show you in nother blog, what you can do with them.

Then I cut the tomato and the carrot into small pieces.

And added them in my pot.

I just kept stir-frying all for a couple of minutes.

Then I added salt. A tablespoon full of salt I would say.

And a teaspoon of chilie.

I mixed it well and had everything stir-fry some more.

Since my family loves creamy stews, I added three tablespoons of flour.

And again I went on stirring ... and frying :-)

As next step I added aprroximately 1,5 litres of water and let the vegetables boil until they are almost fine to eat.

That's the moment, when my Italian years come throug ... I added approximately 300 grams of noodles (also spaghetti broken into small pieces are fine). And let everything cook until the noodles are how you prefer them (mine are always rather al dente ...).

Well, and here you go ... that's what it looks like just before eating. I just sprinkled some dried parsley on top. Btw. I always get parsley from a neighbour, since it simply doesn't like my garden ... it won't grow.

P.S.: And yes, this is a one pot meal - I truly love to cook things in just "one pot" :-)

Compost Toilet - for the Garden and why not ... also Home

Some years ago I met a person who had a self-built compost-toilet. It was just a bucket with a box around and a toilet seat mounted on that wooden box. She always had a soil/dry leave mix in another bucket. She put a first layer of soil in the bucket and everytime one used the toilet some more soil was put on top. This went on a separate compost pile in her garden to be left for two years, So there were three piles. Acutally also the Aztecs (if I remember well - or another people) used human made fertilizer.

Photo from Pixabay under CC-0 License

Weather for the coming two weeks

Well it is supposed to get warmer. At least the nights below zero seem to be over and by Wednesday it should be 5°C during the night and 10°C during the day (max 5°C today). Then it should get up to 8°C during the night and 16°C during the day, which is fine. No rain for the coming 2 weeks, like it seems ... hmmmm ...

Legal data is online, but needs some nicer layout ...

Well, I just added the legal disclaimer in German and English, because these two languages are those I mainly use. Occasionally you also might find some text in Italian, Franconian or Neapolitan. I will have a closer look at the layout during the coming days, but what is relevant is that the page is up-to-date.

Back to Blogger ...

As of to day I will write blogs here again. I just got annoyed by needing too much time to maintain a website with CMS. Continuous updates, resolving problems etc. Yes, I can program, but most of my friends follow me on various social networks and therefore it just makes more sense to post photos here on the blog and via the social networks.

I am just downloading the data from my website and will then add things here.

My legal notes will be updated asap ... just have to copy them over here.