Fun fact about black pepper: The exceptional nutritional benefits of turmeric are becoming more widely known. But far less well-known is that cucurmin (the primary phytonutrient in turmeric) is only slightly bioavailable. However, if turmeric is consumed with black pepper, the piperine in the pepper boosts bioavailability of the cucurmin by 400x!

After a big snow, when the sun comes out and seems to melt away sunny patches even though the air temperature remains well below freezing, some of that snow that goes missing is not melted, but returns to the air via sublimation (phase transition directly from solid to gas without going through liquid first). Thanks for the video. I learned a few things I didn't know.

My COVID project was the installation of a terraced garden on a slope where my wife was always wanting me to weed-eat it. Of course I spent FAR more effort building the garden (a pro had estimated $90,000 so it instantly became a DIY thing) than a lifetime of weed-eating, but in return I got a garden. Melanie, one thing you might consider: I had learned about the benefits of hugelkultur and realized that with a terraced garden I didn't have to build mounds to take advantage of the principle: I simply laid dead logs in the bottom of each terrace and piled the soil on top of that. And then, of course, compost on top of the soil. My garden is entirely for food production; I do grow a few flowers but they're mostly to attract pollinators. My focus is on experimenting with self-sufficiency. As long as there's a grocery store my garden will not be big enough to do more than supplement my diet. I love the idea of self-sufficiency a lot more than I love the amount of work that is necessary. But if I ever have to live without a grocery store, I'll have at least some experience and some seeds. Aside from the terraces, I have a spot where I grow yacon (as a sideline for my business), some corn, buckwheat, and raspberries (and soybeans starting this year), as well as a handful of young fruit and nut trees. I'm also experimenting with growing ginseng from seed, in a wooded area.

@Melanie Weird I make a syrup from the juice in the tubers. It tastes a lot like molasses and is used the same way. But instead of a glycemic index of 58 (molasses), it has a glycemic index of 1. So it's a good natural sweetener for anyone with blood sugar issues. It is also packed with inulin and fructooligosaccharides (prebiotics). It's very easy to grow until harvest time, when it takes a LOT of work plus about 100 plants to make just 1 gallon of syrup. You can occasionally find yacon growers selling the rhizomes for propagation, and in some parts of the world, the dried leaves are consumed as a "tea." I once calculated one might be able to make about $500,000 per acre selling syrup and freeze-dried powder from the tubers and rhizomes and "tea." I thought I was going to be a big-shot farmer! But just because you can find someone selling an obscure product for astronomical prices on the internet, that doesn't mean there's actually a decent market at that price! Even so, as you said, it IS a very interesting plant, so I keep a patch each year just for that reason, and I love being able to occasionally sell a bottle of the syrup (even though it's not cheap) because it means I'm providing something uniquely useful to someone.

I've never used any, but have collected usnea for a while, thinking someday I might get around to doing something with it. It seems to have a really good shelf life. I believe I read somewhere that ALL lichens are edible (not to say nutritious, necessarily). Is that true?

Oh, I also meant to comment that the partnership aspect is fascinating. Something I had never heard about. So thanks for that.