freesewing.org has a boxer briefs design if you’re interested in making your own.

:D glad to hear it!

Loofah/luffa is so fun! I’ve posted pictures of mine here before, but I recently did a writeup of my experience growing them on the little personal website I’ve been making for fun - https://xylemphloem.xyz/blog/luffa/

This week I brought in a pot from outside to plant some pothos cuttings, forgetting it was the pot I had grown dill in last year! So now I have some baby dill seedlings popping up alongside my pothos!

I was just reading your post on solarpunk games - thanks!

I just completed my first substantial sewing project, using a pattern from this site! My hems aren’t the most even and the neckline was really tricky but I’m pretty happy with it. This is the Sven sweatshirt design, and I used a somewhat heavy knit cotton/polyester fabric. It fits great (as you’d hope!) and will probably become my new winter pajama shirt.

The site is great to use - there are good pictures for how to take each of the measurements you need, and I liked the ability to manually optimize the part layout to minimize the amount of paper it used. I saw a tip on YouTube to piece the pattern together by taping it to a large window or glass door so you can see the overlap between the sheets, and that worked great for me.

My next goal is to do a Simon shirt in flannel - decent step up in complexity so I might do a few other simpler projects first.

Good to know - thanks!

FB marketplace may be where I end up - I’ve seen big fluid totes on there when I’ve looked in the past.

Good to know! A contractor we had doing some work on the house last year left behind a roll of thick poly sheeting so I was thinking about using that to make some floating row covers anyway.

I’ll be sure to post lots of pictures this year! I also started a personal website recently for fun so I’ll probably be putting stuff there.

I’m curious where you got your rain water containers - I’d like to get something around that size this year.

I’m planning to devote about half of my fenced garden space to trying a three sisters patch, and this year I’m going to be more strategic about where I put my potatoes so they don’t shade out everything around them early in the season. I haven’t grown beans or corn before but my squash did great last year so I’m looking forward to more of that!

I didn’t have great luck with brassicas last year so I’m hoping to do better by starting earlier and figuring out how to fight the cabbage moths.

I also have tentative plans to build out a patio/fire pit area on the site of a pool and deck I tore down last year. I want it surrounded by raised beds with various perennials like blueberry bushes, and maybe someday a grape trellis. I have plenty of wood from that deck so I may also build random stuff like a bench to go inside my squash tunnel (:

This was a good reminder that I should start putting together a planting schedule and a seed order soon!

I use these at night if my feet get too cold, but this was a great reminder I can use them at other times too! Turned down my heat but am very cozy with a blanket and a hot water bottle.

Also, making covers for them was a great beginner crochet project.

Tea is the goal! It’s been growing from seed since February of 2023. I’ve made all of one cup of tea so far, from some prunings last spring. It was nice (:

I don’t expect to be able to harvest in any sort of quantity for a couple years yet, so for now I guess it’s mostly decorative. The flowers were pretty!

Only just seeing this now - thanks for the response! Your blog is one of my favorites.

The permacomputing site looks awesome, I know what I’m reading tonight

I’ve been following you for a while on the mainstream socials, super cool to see you here! I love everything you’ve got going on! Good luck with the irrigation system, I’d love to do something similar in the future, and Home Assistant + ESPHome is certainly what I would use to control it.

Some luffa pics -

Sheets drying

Four gourds

Luffa growing on the fence - I had to add some extra support here, the weight of the gourds was pulling the fence down!

_aesthetic

I recently harvested and processed my luffa! Four good gourds, plus a few smaller ones that’ll just be compost. All but one were very green still, so I roasted them in the oven at 250F for an hour to make the skins workable, squeezed out the pulp and seeds, cut them into a flat sheet, and then soaked in a bleach solution overnight to kill any mold/bacteria before leaving them to dry. I’m excited to make some sponges!

I’ll be definitely be planting more next year, the super long vines are very fun, especially the one that grew along the top of my garden fence this year.

• Clickspring - gently narrated master craftsmanship, in this case watchmaking. His Antikythera Mechanism series is particularly awesome
• Adventurous Way - previously RVing content, now building a house in Vermont

Harvested my sunflower heads this week! I probably waited a bit too long since they had worms and a bit of mold, but lesson learned for next time. I took all the seeds out, sorted out the bad ones, and I’m going to let them dry for a while longer in mesh bags before roasting and shelling or whatever.

Any advice on processing sunflowers?

I was in NM for work and didn’t get to explore too much, but I definitely got some great night skies! Desert ecologies are always interesting to visit as someone from the northeast, I especially liked seeing a bit of the riparian ecosystem around the Rio Grande.

I’m definitely doubling the number of sunflowers I plant next year! Might try some of the varieties that have multiple blooms as well, as fun as the mammoth ones are.

First time here as well! Currently away on a trip and hoping that when I get back the sunflowers will be ready and the birds will have left some for me.

I was just visiting New Mexico, and I enjoyed seeing all the wild sunflowers growing everywhere in the desert.