In article ,
Omelet wrote:

In article ,
Jan Flora wrote:

[...]


Okay, now go read the stuff on Filaree, figure out which "types" will
thrive in your climate, then go hit the Seed Savers site and see if they
sell what you want. They're way cheaper than Filaree. (Not to diss
Filaree, but in this economy, we have to be frugal if we aren't rich.)

Absolootly. Might be fun to try one of the elephant varieties if I can
get them to grow.

Nichols in Oregon is a great source of elephant garlic. They're really
neat people. Google them and get on their mailing list.

Seed Savers won't tell you if they're hardnecks, softnecks, etc., so get
variety names from Filaree and look for them by name at Seed Savers.

Shipping from Filaree to you guys down there in the small states may be
cheap(er). It's expensive as hell to get them to ship to me in Alaska,
but I've done it and their stock is first rate.

It's expensive to ship anything to Alaska. Are you greenhousing up there?
What about growing indoors?

'Maters, squash, cukes, everything tender goes in the greenhouses.
Broccoli, cabbage, kale, peas all grow outside. BUT this year, we're
still having killing frosts. It's never happened before this late,
according to my SO who was born here in 1955. We had a killing frost
last night. Ice on the windshield that he had to scrape. I told him that
he gets up too early. If he'd sleep later, he wouldn't notice the ice.
We're having the coldest spring/summer ever up here. We normally get
90-100 days growing season. These frosts are trashing everyone's gardens.
And I'm worried as hell about the price of fuel trashing the national
food distribution system. Alaska has two days worth of food on our
grocery store shelves.

[...]

PS: If you eat a lot of garlic all winter long, you won't get sick,
because people with germs/colds/the flu won't get close enough to breath
on you and share their germs. Works for me!

I work nights. That helps me avoid a lot of it since there are not
nearly as many people. Good handwashing practices will remove a LOT of
exposure to the cold virus. Did you know that the majority of flu' and
cold viruses are passed hand to eye? I learned that in our annual
infection control inservice. I work in health care. :-)

Thou shalt wash thy hands every time you come home from shopping! It's
not paranoid to keep a container of hand disinfectant in the car and
clean the steering wheel from time to time... Doorknobs and telephones
at work get cleaned nightly.

I wash my hands so often that people think I have OCD. My mom was an RN.
I can't afford the downtime to be sick.

It never occurred to me to clean the steering wheel on my car. Thanks! I
do the phone, computer keyboards, doorknobs, coffee pot, light switches,
etc. all the time.

I mostly stay at home on the ranch. The SO has to go to town every day
to sit at the Old Timers Coffee Table and talk shit with the other old
farts. He brings the germs home with him. ****es me off.

When I fly down to our state capitol or to DC to talk to legislators,
many of them have hand sanitizers on their desks or in their offices
now. You can tell in Juneau, Alaska who the RN's are in the Lege. They
all have sanitizers handy, because they have to shake hands with germy
people all day long. (A staffer in Juneau told me that the Capital
Building is just one big Petri dish -- everyone has the Capital Crud by
mid-session every year. It's true.)

Jan