The Meaning of Life is Chocolate Milk

I made this Pre-pandemic for a "Starting plants from the grocery store" class I was teaching, here it is edited down for anyone interested.

For saving seeds, the fruit should be fully mature for the seeds to be fully mature. Therefore, you can use seeds from a winter squash but not a baby zucchini, and the likelihood that the seeds of a tomato (or red bell pepper) will grow are much higher than for a green bell pepper. Unfortunately, many are either going to be poorly suited for your conditions, or hybrid, which we'll touch on later.

Stem cuttings are a great way to start many common culinary herbs! Especially basil!

Some tubers to consider starting from are sweet potatoes and actual potatoes.

And then of course, the bulbs! Green onions and garlic are your best bets!

These are outdoor plants and thus are Somewhat Fussy if you're going to grow indoors. Do not overwater them (eg, letting them sit in a tray of water for days) nor let them dry out completely. Try to keep them evenly moist, with thorough waterings that then pour out the bottom of the pot unimpeded. 

Given that they are outdoor plants, a south-facing window (assuming you’re in the northern hemisphere) or grow lights are your best bet. If they don’t get enough light, they will turn pale and stretch towards their light source. They won’t grow as quickly or as healthfully as they would with sufficient light.  

Examples:

Tomatoes & peppers! Tomatoes are the one that actually inspired me to make this because I saw this clip on starting plants from kitchen scraps, and they buried the whole dang half of a tomato! Don’t do that! What a waste of a tomato half! EAT your tomato! Take the seeds out! 

If you’re intending to grow these outdoors, start them about 6 weeks before your last frost. If you have not grown plants from seed before, here’s some information from another class I taught: https://tinyurl.com/seedstarting2020

If you’re intending to grow them indoors the whole time, you will likely need grow lights for both tomatoes and peppers, and they like it if you keep your house on the warm side. I would suggest growing them outdoors and buying seeds for a dwarf tomato if you really want to grow indoors.

The down side is that most are hybrid, so when you grow out the seed, it's not necessarily going to grow well, be productive, or taste good. Even if it is open pollinated, it's probably been bred to thrive in conditions unlike those you can provide. If you need a successful crop, I highly suggest buying seed, or swapping with a reputable source. Although if you like and can find yellow pear tomatoes, those are an exception to this entire paragraph.

Basil! Basil is a great one to do stem cuttings of, get it started indoors, and then plant out once night time temperatures stay above 50f (10c). I prefer to start them straight into soil, and seem to have a higher success rate this way. To do this, remove all leaves except the top bud, and bury the stem in soil up to just beneath that bud and firm gently. Keep the soil moist and the pot above 60f, and you should have a good success rate. This method works for mint, lemon balm, rosemary, sage, etc, as well.

Green onions- really easy, put the bottom inch or so in soil and they’ll grow very well for you. I prefer soil over water because a) the water gets stinky, and b) they grow better and stronger in soil.

AND MORE:

Sage, rosemary, and thyme (also any stemmed herb): just like basil

Lettuce, carrots, beets: you get the tops, but usually they’ll try to bolt. Easier just to buy seeds. If you want, I usually start in shallow water and then plant as soon as I see roots growing. Again, keep the soil moist, and for these ones, keep them in a cooler part of your house. But really, they almost always bolt in my experience.

Sweet potatoes: Get them in the fall, it takes months for them to start growing (unless you're somewhere warm apparently? ). They will sprout, grow roots, take slips to plant outdoors once night time temperatures study above 50f (10c)

Garlic, just grab a clove and plant in the fall. Boom. GARLIC.

Squash- you don’t know what you’ll get, because they might be cross pollinated with another variety or hybrids. If you do grow it out and it’s bitter, don’t eat it, it’s poisonous. If you want to know more, search “toxic squash syndrome”

Ginger: Plant the rhizome in summer, harvest before frost, or overwinter indoors with a lot of light.

Pineapple: Doable, but it takes three years to get a harvest. Plant in well draining soil, and give it as much heat and light as you can.

Just for fun: (Unless you’re in the tropics or have a lot of patience.)

Mango, avocado, citrus. Take years, and a different climate than I have to fruit. If you’re in the tropics, go for it, but know that avocado pollination can apparently be tricky. I am not in the tropics, so I do not have direct experience with this. Citrus I think I've read also don't come true from seed.

Apples, pears: take years, and don’t come true to type. You do not know what you’ll get, and you’ll probably get something that is not worth eating (but would work for cider). These do need a cold dormancy period in the winter to do well. Of course, you could plant them and then top graft if it does turn out they don’t taste good.

Plums, peaches, apricots: take years, often do come true from seed, but peaches and nectarines are very susceptible to peach leaf curl, so may just die depending on where you are.

I get why people are talking about the whole submarine titanic thing.

It's awful.

But I'm here to address a different boat related tragedy.

One that absolutely breaks my heart.

Where a boat of migrants sank off the coast of Greece.

This boat had 300 Pakistanis and more than 500 Syrians.

The boat was carrying migrants from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria and Egypt who were fleeing their countries dire economic conditions.

And we're trying to reach relatives in Europe.

What happened with the submarine is a terrible thing.

I just wish this story got the same coverage.

One is about billionaires the other about people escaping economic disasters.

Both about people losing their lives.

David Szymanski, creator of Iron Lung, on the unfortunate nature of it's recent surge in popularity.

Advice from 4500 years ago.

I like ths translation. “it would be wise of you to remember this”

Which is why it’s important to not be mean.

Their cult teaches them that the world is full of scary monster people who hate them for being so good and loved by god. If you swear at them and call them names or get in their face you’re just doing the cults work for it.

I’m not saying you have to listen to their presentation or try to debate them (and really getting into a debate without thoroughly understanding what they’re being taught will just make things worse)… I am just saying to be polite and say no thank you like if they were trying to hand you a flyer for something you don’t care about.

It’s easier for them to see the world outside their bubble as less scary if they see everyday people just going about their business and being as nice to them as you are to everyone else. This goes doubly for anyone who happens to dress modestly, not swear, and not drink or smoke because whatever you believe, they’ll see you as a “good” person who happens to strangely have no interest in their “message”, and that might be enough to get some curious about the possibility of themselves living in the real world.

It’s sometimes hard to be nice to people who seem to represent something you dislike. Just remember these “elders” are sheltered young men, some of which are getting their first real contact with people of other/no faiths.

They are not your enemy. They are victims.

They aren't being sent out to actually convert people, they are being sent out hoping that they will be harassed and treated poorly so they view those outside the cult as dangerous and evil and stick to the safety of the familiar group.

You being mean to some teenager isn't sticking it to anyone, you're doing exactly what their church elders want to happen.

PLEASE READ THIS.

Please read this.

Don't do the church's work for them.

If you're kind to enough of them, they put you on a block list.

They were such sweet kids, they'd turn up at my door with the thatch of raspberries out front and try to share their word with me, and I'm me, so, I fed them.

Then it was one of the wee 'elder's' birthday, so I made him a cake, and all the little lads came, and they asked about my books and board games and CCGs, I was just a nice frumpy middle aged Jewish lady, I was no threat, so I fed them and made them cakes and took them to the local gaming store and listened when they talked.

One loved yu-gi-oh cards, and it turns out, one of the other wee lads, we'll he loved him back, so I got them in touch with some resources so they had support and a different way to pay for college, they're still together 15 years later, they have dogs, they send me ecards on their birthday. No-one figured out I'd.helped them, I was just the nice lady who made them tea and listened when people were slamming doors.

The next one really wanted to be an artist, so I left out art books and resources, my eldest shared their coptic markers, they draw comic books now, no idea why his folks were insisting he needed to be a dentist, but, he's not a Mormon anymore, (not a Jew either before anyone makes any counter conversion claims).

The first 2 lads were the only dramatic ones, the rest went back into the network but, like Hugh of Borg, they spread the word, sometimes I'd get Mormons from other cities come and make the journey to break bread at my Sabbath table and be seen.

I still think very fondly of that time.

Many of those boys still email me now and then.

Most of them aren't Mormons anymore.

Someone higher up spotted the pattern and suddenly no more Mormons at my door.

I was blacklisted, for kindness.

So there you go, if you don't want Mormons at your door, just love those kids for a couple of years, feed them, help them, and eventually, no more will be allowed to visit

Ah yes tumblr’s ability to expose your heart fully in a series of reblogs

Which is why it’s important to not be mean.

Their cult teaches them that the world is full of scary monster people who hate them for being so good and loved by god. If you swear at them and call them names or get in their face you’re just doing the cults work for it.

I’m not saying you have to listen to their presentation or try to debate them (and really getting into a debate without thoroughly understanding what they’re being taught will just make things worse)… I am just saying to be polite and say no thank you like if they were trying to hand you a flyer for something you don’t care about.

It’s easier for them to see the world outside their bubble as less scary if they see everyday people just going about their business and being as nice to them as you are to everyone else. This goes doubly for anyone who happens to dress modestly, not swear, and not drink or smoke because whatever you believe, they’ll see you as a “good” person who happens to strangely have no interest in their “message”, and that might be enough to get some curious about the possibility of themselves living in the real world.

It’s sometimes hard to be nice to people who seem to represent something you dislike. Just remember these “elders” are sheltered young men, some of which are getting their first real contact with people of other/no faiths.

They are not your enemy. They are victims.

They aren't being sent out to actually convert people, they are being sent out hoping that they will be harassed and treated poorly so they view those outside the cult as dangerous and evil and stick to the safety of the familiar group.

You being mean to some teenager isn't sticking it to anyone, you're doing exactly what their church elders want to happen.

PLEASE READ THIS.

Please read this.

Don't do the church's work for them.

If you're kind to enough of them, they put you on a block list.

They were such sweet kids, they'd turn up at my door with the thatch of raspberries out front and try to share their word with me, and I'm me, so, I fed them.

Then it was one of the wee 'elder's' birthday, so I made him a cake, and all the little lads came, and they asked about my books and board games and CCGs, I was just a nice frumpy middle aged Jewish lady, I was no threat, so I fed them and made them cakes and took them to the local gaming store and listened when they talked.

One loved yu-gi-oh cards, and it turns out, one of the other wee lads, we'll he loved him back, so I got them in touch with some resources so they had support and a different way to pay for college, they're still together 15 years later, they have dogs, they send me ecards on their birthday. No-one figured out I'd.helped them, I was just the nice lady who made them tea and listened when people were slamming doors.

The next one really wanted to be an artist, so I left out art books and resources, my eldest shared their coptic markers, they draw comic books now, no idea why his folks were insisting he needed to be a dentist, but, he's not a Mormon anymore, (not a Jew either before anyone makes any counter conversion claims).

The first 2 lads were the only dramatic ones, the rest went back into the network but, like Hugh of Borg, they spread the word, sometimes I'd get Mormons from other cities come and make the journey to break bread at my Sabbath table and be seen.

I still think very fondly of that time.

Many of those boys still email me now and then.

Most of them aren't Mormons anymore.

Someone higher up spotted the pattern and suddenly no more Mormons at my door.

I was blacklisted, for kindness.

So there you go, if you don't want Mormons at your door, just love those kids for a couple of years, feed them, help them, and eventually, no more will be allowed to visit

Ah yes tumblr’s ability to expose your heart fully in a series of reblogs

Which is why it’s important to not be mean.

Their cult teaches them that the world is full of scary monster people who hate them for being so good and loved by god. If you swear at them and call them names or get in their face you’re just doing the cults work for it.

I’m not saying you have to listen to their presentation or try to debate them (and really getting into a debate without thoroughly understanding what they’re being taught will just make things worse)… I am just saying to be polite and say no thank you like if they were trying to hand you a flyer for something you don’t care about.

It’s easier for them to see the world outside their bubble as less scary if they see everyday people just going about their business and being as nice to them as you are to everyone else. This goes doubly for anyone who happens to dress modestly, not swear, and not drink or smoke because whatever you believe, they’ll see you as a “good” person who happens to strangely have no interest in their “message”, and that might be enough to get some curious about the possibility of themselves living in the real world.

It’s sometimes hard to be nice to people who seem to represent something you dislike. Just remember these “elders” are sheltered young men, some of which are getting their first real contact with people of other/no faiths.

They are not your enemy. They are victims.

They aren't being sent out to actually convert people, they are being sent out hoping that they will be harassed and treated poorly so they view those outside the cult as dangerous and evil and stick to the safety of the familiar group.

You being mean to some teenager isn't sticking it to anyone, you're doing exactly what their church elders want to happen.

PLEASE READ THIS.

Please read this.

Don't do the church's work for them.

If you're kind to enough of them, they put you on a block list.

They were such sweet kids, they'd turn up at my door with the thatch of raspberries out front and try to share their word with me, and I'm me, so, I fed them.

Then it was one of the wee 'elder's' birthday, so I made him a cake, and all the little lads came, and they asked about my books and board games and CCGs, I was just a nice frumpy middle aged Jewish lady, I was no threat, so I fed them and made them cakes and took them to the local gaming store and listened when they talked.

One loved yu-gi-oh cards, and it turns out, one of the other wee lads, we'll he loved him back, so I got them in touch with some resources so they had support and a different way to pay for college, they're still together 15 years later, they have dogs, they send me ecards on their birthday. No-one figured out I'd.helped them, I was just the nice lady who made them tea and listened when people were slamming doors.

The next one really wanted to be an artist, so I left out art books and resources, my eldest shared their coptic markers, they draw comic books now, no idea why his folks were insisting he needed to be a dentist, but, he's not a Mormon anymore, (not a Jew either before anyone makes any counter conversion claims).

The first 2 lads were the only dramatic ones, the rest went back into the network but, like Hugh of Borg, they spread the word, sometimes I'd get Mormons from other cities come and make the journey to break bread at my Sabbath table and be seen.

I still think very fondly of that time.

Many of those boys still email me now and then.

Most of them aren't Mormons anymore.

Someone higher up spotted the pattern and suddenly no more Mormons at my door.

I was blacklisted, for kindness.

So there you go, if you don't want Mormons at your door, just love those kids for a couple of years, feed them, help them, and eventually, no more will be allowed to visit

Ah yes tumblr’s ability to expose your heart fully in a series of reblogs

I promise you not everything has to be made into memes. basic human empathy is a good thing, some of y’all should try that.

I hope they find the idiot rich ppl I hope a teenager doesn't have to die a horrible nightmare death and then I also hope they immediately get slapped with a $500,000 bill to repay the taxpayer cost of rescuing them from their idiocracy and then also another $1billion dollars inconvenience fee of making us all hear about this for 3 days straight.

oh my god shrek is SUCH a trans allegory it's not even FUNNY

[ID: tags by tumtumchutzpah: "#you guys have to start elaborating on shit #i'm completely down with this but i need to know what you mean". "Know what you mean" is in all caps.]

"A submarine has gone missing" : Oh jeeze, I hope they find those people.

"A submarine visiting the wreck of the titanic has gone missing" : Well, that's a little ghoulish but I can't blame folks for a morbid curiosity, especially at a monument to white man's hubris.

"An experimental cobbled together submarine visiting the wreck of the titanic has gone missing" : Well at this point y'all were just taking your lives into your own hands and also how is 'slapped together submarine' a legal thing that's real.

"An experimental cobbled together submarine full of the absurdly wealthy visiting the wreck of the titanic has gone missing" : Okay now this just feels a little too on point someone has to be joking with me.

Costume. Chitons.

Marjorie & C. H. B.Quennell, Everyday Things in Archaic Greece (London: B. T. Batsford, 1931).

Wait, wait…. Is that seriously it? How their clothes go?

that genuinely is it

yeah hey whats up bout to put some fucking giant sheets on my body

lets bring back sheetwares

also chlamys:

and exomis:

trust the ancients to make a fashion statement out of straight cloth and nothing but pins

Wrap Yourself In Blankets, Call It a Day

Wear blanket. Conquer world.

That last one looks dope

Squares and rectangles: easy to weave!! No cutting means no hemming.

And easy to construct, you don’t have to have complicated seaming and patterning to turn fabric into clothing!

ancient Egyptian robes

This sort of clothing solution wasn’t just for the Mediterranean, or northern Africa, either. Behold the Belted Plaid:

(auto generated captions)

Has anyone already reblogged this with saris? It’s cool how many cultures have similarities like this hidden in plain sight.

https://kalaavarsha.com/how-to-wear-or-drape-a-saree/

Since we are here might as well share the dhoti and the lungi

https://www.wikihow.com/Wear-a-Lungi

https://www.wikihow.com/Wear-a-Pancha-Kachcham?amp=1

It’s only men in the photos but really anyone can wear them. I am wearing a lungi right now.

I also know Thailand and Sri Lanka have their versions of a lungi as well.

I worked very hard on this

hey uh what exactly is possessing you people to reblog a nearly 10 year old shrek meme that I made in high school

Your hard work isn’t going unnoticed

You gotta love that Tumblr is on the rise because of Twitter and Reddit going down, and not because Tumblr has actually done anything to really improve its website.

I personally kin with a website that accidentally and coincidentally fails upwards.

The site that wins simply by remaining upright.

We are literally this meme, posted eons ago, in our ancient texts.

800 years ago at All Saints Church in Hereford, England, a skillful carpenter carved this gentleman high up in the dark roof where nobody could see him. Five years ago they built an extra floor with bright lights for a restaurant.

800 years ago at All Saints Church in Hereford, England, a skillful carpenter carved this gentleman high up in the dark roof where nobody could see him. Five years ago they built an extra floor with bright lights for a restaurant.

society's infantilization of decorated objects is honestly one of the greatest recent crimes against humans' innate desire for beauty

"the toothbrush/hairbrush/bike/vanity desk with flowers on it is For Kids! this plain beige one is For Adults!"

I am literally throwing you into a volcano

People will be confused when I dress up as Ghostface (I am mentally ill)

They wont be that confused if they know anything about horror fans

I recently discovered laundry stripping and y’all, no matter how much of a crock of shit you think fast fashion is, you’re underestimating.

[image ID: a screenshot of the notes on this post, featuring several people indicating they want to know more. End ID.]

OKAY SO. You know how we talk about how one way fast fashion has made itself “necessary” is that the clothing looks like shit and feels horrible after just a few washes?

Let. Me. Tell. You. Something.

Laundry stripping is a process where you load your laundry into a tub or bin (I’ve been using my bathtub) with warm water, half a cup of borax, half a cup of washing soda, and half a cup of laundry soap (not detergent, SOAP, there’s a chemical difference). Leave it there for at least eight hours. I’ve been going for 12-24.

What you will come back to is a tub full of nearly-opaque black-gray-brown water that absolutely REEKS. This is normal. You are looking at (and smelling) hard water buildup, body sweat and oils that were embedded in the fabric, dead skin, and just regular grime.

Wring out your clothes. Throw them in the washer. (I like to do a spin-only cycle before going any further, because I have one of those washers that determines by weight how much water any given load needs.) Wash as usual.

You will notice I didn’t suggest any further pretreatment, and that’s because 1) you don’t want to layer too many chemicals on top of each other but also 2) you may not even need it.

When your clothes come out, check each one as it goes into the dryer, and if anything else s still stained, set it aside to run again with a regular pretreatment. One of the sweaters I did this with apparently did need a second treatment…to deal with what appears to have possibly been a hot chocolate stain that was previously invisible due to “well, it’s old” dinginess. I was planning to throw this sweater out. It looks almost new now. I need to wash it one more time for the probably-a-hot-chocolate stain, and then it needs to have the hem weighted to block it and bring it back to evenness, but dude. I wear my clothes to rags and I thought this thing was unfixable. “I need to reshape it” is nothing.

Remove clothes from dryer when done. Fucking MARVEL at the colors and how good the fabric feels. Give them a smell. Get righteously and royally angry that you can rejuvenate this stuff so easily, with a process that does take awhile but is 90% hands-off, but we’ve been trained to believe it’s all got to be binned once a year because discoloration and gross fabric is “normal wear and tear” and can’t be fixed.

It’s utterly unreal! I just pulled a seven-year-old work undershirt out of the dryer and this thing looks NEW!! It FEELS almost new!!! One of the shirts I hung up from the last load is older than some of the people on this site and it went from “I keep this to wear on laundry day, for sentimental reasons” to “I could actually wear this out of the house, it looks old but respectable”! The pajama bottoms I’m wearing were from Goodwill and they have BRIGHT YELLOW in them! I thought it was goldenrod!!

I do not know how often you’re supposed to do this (doing it every time can strip the dye out of your clothes, not to mention it’s way too much work to do every time), but once or twice per season seems respectable. I don’t wear white, so I can’t test the “it will make whites look almost-new as well” claim, but I’ve seen a lot of people on the cleaning subreddit attest that it works.

Just remember: WASHING soda. Not baking soda. I tried baking soda and a little bit happened, but not a lot.

Go forth. Rejuvenate your clothing. Strip your laundry.

I have a question about the "set it aside to run again with a regular pretreatment" bit: What is your regular pretreatment?

For grease: Dawn dish soap and a toothbrush. For blood: soak in peroxide, rinse, apply more peroxide. For ink: alcohol. Rubbing alcohol is best, vodka is an acceptable substitute. Do not use colored liquor like tequila or whiskey. Aerosol hairspray will work in a pinch. For red wine or grape juice: white wine. For "what the fuck is that, anyway?" stains: OxyClean Max Force Gel Stick. For "oh shit, there was a red shirt in with my whites" stains: I'm very sorry. Try bleach? Spot-apply all of these. In other words don't just toss your period panties into a sink full of peroxide, pour some peroxide over the crotch. Apply alcohol with a cotton facial pad or, failing that, a washcloth or kleenex. Let it sit for five to fifteen minutes, then throw it in the wash. Try to use cold water; hot water will set stains.