Here to share a little

[Marie2020]

from Central Illinois. Please be sure to give a better description of your location...
backwoods where?!?!?
You Could be Backwoods Southern Illinois, or Backwoods Montana.
We Are growing plants and I can't answer your questions in the future without a zone and something like,
Backwoods Pacific Northwest.
Unless you are on witness protection, your secret will be safe with us.

Don't believe ducks

Don't tell her I said that

 

[ducks4you]

JUST so you know, I have given up ALL other forums, except this one.
BackYardChickens WAS great, but, w/apologies to @Nifty , it's waaayyyyy too crowded now, not like when I joined it in 2009. If I post a question it gets lost in like one day, so...
I was happy to drop out of a horse forum I was on, where EVERYBODY was an expert, especially those who had only been in horses a few years. I have owned horses for 40 years, straight, and I got tired of the arguing.
Here we often go into tangents, but you don't have to follow those rabbit holes if you aren't interested.
I have watched many members go in different directions--some here only grow one or two things, and, like @Dahlia , I have learned a LOT about sailing and seafood.
The TEG Bean Community will welcome you with open arms and you can be very happy discussing beans and varieties and what has worked and what hasn't, and, "do you know where I can get this _____bean--can't find it ANYwhere!!"
stuff like that

 

[Marie2020]

Hi there

Thank you for joining us.

I'm the most useless of gardeners here but I'm trying again this year. With my clay ground and slugs I find it impossible.

I would dearly love to grow beans. So I will be looking in to check out what you are doing. Do you have any pictures to share.

Well that's all from me for now. I hope to catch you really soon

 

[flowerbug]

I do like beans. I like talking about beans. I know no one else who likes talking about beans. So...I don't see the problem.

ha!

I grow Grandma Gina, Stephen's Pole, and Turkey Craw, as well as Pinacate Tepary Beans, Chinese Noodle Beans, Cowpeas (I'm working on a landrace) and Blue Lake Bush Beans.

I save all my own seeds. I have drawn the line there for the time being, because I'll end up growing beans and nothing else.

like you said above i don't see the problem... landraces are fun to think about. i'm not there yet because i have different projects that i probably don't want to mingle that much (but i'm sure they do converse with each other via some bees, etc.).

 

[baymule]

Very true point. While I am extremely cautious online (my privacy is something I guard online jealously!) it does seem a little overcautious to not at least share my zone and region on a gardening forum. Updated! It's been a while since I've done forum-stuff. I'm a lil' rusty.

Anyway, being rusty at forums, I must ask--what's it like, here? What are some of the things you find yourself discussing most? Looking through the bazillions of comments here, it's a little intimidating to know where to begin.

Though I suppose I should expand a little bit on what I came here for, too. As I said in my first post, I'm a suburban transplant who has reinvented life on my off-grid homestead. I was raised by a family that totally spurned their rural background, and as such, I had absolutely no training or guidance on life (unless you count being taught how to get into ever deeper pits of debt like they did). I am jealous of those of you who had parents or grandparents who shared their wisdom with you. You are very blessed.

I had to turn to books and the Internet to get started. Now, that was almost a decade ago and I've learned a lot... A LOT since. But I've become absolutely sick at the way that AI-generated content (lots of gardening content, it seems) is invading the internet like a cancer. So many of the "articles" I come across online are so clearly written by AI, not people, and, as such, are riddled with non-information. Also, I hate AI to the depths of my soul (but that's a conversation for another day). So I've come here, to this place where there seems to still be human people who have conversations about plants, hoping to both share what I've learned and also learn from your experience. I wish I could turn to my rural neighbors, but most of them are druggies or folks who abandoned their rural roots and know less than I do. I always yearned for an elder to teach me things, but I've never found one. So, I'm endeavoring to someday become the elder that I never had, and help the next generation, if they'll listen.

In the meantime, some of my reluctance to interact too much on this board is due to the fact that I have easily divided attention, and knowing there's a conversation going on in the online world can sometimes distract me from what's happening in my Real world.

So...there's all that!

There is a young family with 3 boys that are moving on 7 acres across and down the road from me. They don’t know much about country living, I’m that elder that you looked for and didn’t find. I’ll be mentoring this young family and we’ll work together to help each other. They do know how to garden and I’ve offered to go break up a garden for them with my tractor and disc. Im looking forward to them moving in. A couple from across the road came over to learn how to slaughter chickens. Then we took the chickens in the house where I taught her how to cut up a chicken and vacuum seal the meat. They were thrilled to learn a little bit of self sufficiency. I’m always happy to teach anyone that wants to learn.

Keep going, learning as you go. Feel free to ask questions here, we will be happy to help. Some day you will be that elder who shares experience and wisdom.

 

[Dahlia]

JUST so you know, I have given up ALL other forums, except this one.
BackYardChickens WAS great, but, w/apologies to @Nifty , it's waaayyyyy too crowded now, not like when I joined it in 2009. If I post a question it gets lost in like one day, so...
I was happy to drop out of a horse forum I was on, where EVERYBODY was an expert, especially those who had only been in horses a few years. I have owned horses for 40 years, straight, and I got tired of the arguing.
Here we often go into tangents, but you don't have to follow those rabbit holes if you aren't interested.
I have watched many members go in different directions--some here only grow one or two things, and, like @Dahlia , I have learned a LOT about sailing and seafood.
The TEG Bean Community will welcome you with open arms and you can be very happy discussing beans and varieties and what has worked and what hasn't, and, "do you know where I can get this _____bean--can't find it ANYwhere!!"
stuff like that

I started out with 5 gardening forums and tried them all out and this one was my favorite so I stayed here and left the others. I like this one!

 

[baymule]

I’m mostly on BYH, but I love TEG too. Maybe someday soon I’ll have a garden again.

 

[flowerbug]

...
Anyway, being rusty at forums, I must ask--what's it like, here? What are some of the things you find yourself discussing most? Looking through the bazillions of comments here, it's a little intimidating to know where to begin.

prioritize your todo list and use the search function.

as for how i learned about gardening and plants i started at a young age helping out in the gardens but most of my experience when young came from growing houseplants of many different kinds (all the regular easy ones and then add a terrarium of carnivorous plants and a succulent/cactus collection)

when Mom was a teenager with no experience in cooking my Dad's Mom taught her how to cook and can/preserve things. a lot of my time at age 6-12 then became helping out in the kitchen so i learned by doing (and watching what not to do).

I had to turn to books and the Internet to get started. Now, that was almost a decade ago and I've learned a lot... A LOT since. But I've become absolutely sick at the way that AI-generated content (lots of gardening content, it seems) is invading the internet like a cancer. So many of the "articles" I come across online are so clearly written by AI, not people, and, as such, are riddled with non-information. Also, I hate AI to the depths of my soul (but that's a conversation for another day).

it is one i somewhat share, but i don't have the energy for that kind of hate of a thing. i do not consume a lot of media - i do like reading a good story when i get the time.

in college i went for computer science degree and then for a masters degree which i got half way through and didn't finish (the topic was AI as i do consider the human mind an interesting thing to learn about and think about and AI is a way of finding out about various theories and testing them out).

my current thoughts are that it's a big mistake in that it will take smarter people to be able to scan all that generated whatever to supervise and the language models will get better at things but it will also mean the supervisors will have to figure out when the content isn't right and then what happens when there aren't enough supervisors and they can't figure out if the language models are spewing BS or not? i sure wouldn't want that kind of thing making decisions that may have life and death consequences, but i'm sure that's already happening... like anything new, there will be positives and negatives, but i'm sure in the cautious camp when it comes down to them.

as for attention divided and distractable, that is quite possible with me too. my list of things to keep busy with is not getting smaller that is for sure.,,

 

[Marie2020]

prioritize your todo list and use the search function.

as for how i learned about gardening and plants i started at a young age helping out in the gardens but most of my experience when young came from growing houseplants of many different kinds (all the regular easy ones and then add a terrarium of carnivorous plants and a succulent/cactus collection)

when Mom was a teenager with no experience in cooking my Dad's Mom taught her how to cook and can/preserve things. a lot of my time at age 6-12 then became helping out in the kitchen so i learned by doing (and watching what not to do).




it is one i somewhat share, but i don't have the energy for that kind of hate of a thing. i do not consume a lot of media - i do like reading a good story when i get the time.

in college i went for computer science degree and then for a masters degree which i got half way through and didn't finish (the topic was AI as i do consider the human mind an interesting thing to learn about and think about and AI is a way of finding out about various theories and testing them out).

my current thoughts are that it's a big mistake in that it will take smarter people to be able to scan all that generated whatever to supervise and the language models will get better at things but it will also mean the supervisors will have to figure out when the content isn't right and then what happens when there aren't enough supervisors and they can't figure out if the language models are spewing BS or not? i sure wouldn't want that kind of thing making decisions that may have life and death consequences, but i'm sure that's already happening... like anything new, there will be positives and negatives, but i'm sure in the cautious camp when it comes down to them.

as for attention divided and distractable, that is quite possible with me too. my list of things to keep busy with is not getting smaller that is for sure.,,

Thanks flowering. I found your input food for thought ,)