Root Cellar Required

As you know, we're in the process of getting our house ready to sell, and then look for our dream home: at least an acre, in the boonies, room for orchards and berry brambles and gardens and animals. A must is also a root cellar.


Never more reinforced as it has been this week.


We're in the Denver, Colorado area. In the past week, less, since Sunday, we've had three tornadoes.

• Major damage on Sunday to a mall at Southlands where we used to visit when we lived in the area. Not just there - surrounding areas too.


• On Tuesday several large funnel clouds passed within a mile of our home. Tween and I were home alone and made great use of our basement, reading books and having a regular chit-chat.


• Today's tornado warning is happening as I type this and is slightly south of where Hubby's office and his mom's home is. Accompanied by major hail, and the storm system is moving quickly.

I don't remember this part of Colorado being prone to tornados but suddenly, here they are. We will, without a doubt, have a basement and/or root cellar in our new home. We found a house we kinda like but doesn't have a basement. We'd definitely built on - 2 more bedrooms and 1 bath on ground level, and a huge basement under all of that. We'll see.

Of course, I love having a basement here for storage purposes. We had a good harvest last year, and I dehydrated much of it. As for the winter squash, we still have several cushaw squash and pumpkins that are left from 2008 harvest, and they are still good! Can't imagine trying to store those in just a ground-level home. Not cool enough.

Be safe, everyone!

Nasturtiums As a Disinfectant?

I was reading and researching about nasturtiums: How the seeds, flowers and leaves are edible. How to grow them. How to use them. And I came across this little tidbit:

In ancient times in its native Peru the nasturtium was used as a wound disinfectant and taken onto battle fields to be used as a poultice and a disinfectant wash.

Wonderful! Another double (triple? quadruple?) duty plant. So... from what I understand, make a wash by steeping the flower heads and leaves in boiling water, probably for several hours. Dab on with fresh cotton balls, or make a poultice by soaking clean linen or cloth and leaving directly on the wound. Probably not for deep gashes.

Questions:

• I wonder if using the nasturtium-wash would help heal mosquito bites or sunburns?


• I wonder if drinking the nasturtium-wash would disinfect our innards? Perhaps ridding intestinal parasites?

Anyone?

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For recipes, go to: http://www.survival-cooking.com/2009/06/using-nasturtiums-flowers-and-leaves.html

For growing info, go to: http://backyardgrocerygardening.blogspot.com/2009/06/grow-nasturtiums-for-beauty-and-food.html