Freemotion's food journal: Expanding the gardens, pics p 53

[Henrietta23]

I spent the entire hot day working on the computer with a friend who offered to help me with marketing. It took all day because she was fascinated with my food preservation and fermenting. I sent her home with a bottle of kombucha, a scoby, a bottle of homemade vanilla, and my famous chai tea mix. Another one over to the dark side! BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Best part of it is that she then had a bazillion new marketing ideas, stuff that I NEVER would've thought of on my own but will really enjoy doing....it involves food! Making up a bunch of one-batch chai tea mixes, attaching a pretty card with instructions and pointing to my website, and getting them out there as small, inexpensive gift ideas for other professionals and just anyone, really. I just might whip up some batches of soap, too, and maybe some salad dressing mixes. Hmmm.....what else?

:/ I might be just a little bit envious here.........

 

[freemotion]

H23, I won't be able to meet with you the first two weeks of class, but maybe the third week. Oops, I may be taking a class myself that day....well, it will happen. The semester starts this Saturday.

 

[FarmerDenise]

Congrats on the grinder. I would think that pillow cases would work fine. For clamps you might consider plumbing devices. I think there is some sort of doohicky that fits around pipes to hold things together that might work for a sack.
If you can sew at all, a sack would be easy to make anyhow.

 

[freemotion]

I guess I forgot to post...or maybe I mentioned it on another thread....I made a small bag from some muslin I had and used two rubber bands to hold it in place. Worked great! I made up some cornmeal in it to test it out. Perfect! I think this winter I'll look through my scraps and make a couple more out of a nice printed material, just to make grinding that much more enjoyable.

 

[freemotion]

I'm off to pick free raspberries today! I got a couple of gallons yesterday, and am going back for more. I hope to eat some, freeze some, and make a five-gallon batch of wine with some...need three gallons for that, so I'd better get picking!

I had stopped to chat with the farmer next door a few days ago, and somehow the conversation ended up at 9/11 and Ground Zero. I told him the story of how I met John Randall and his famous search-and-rescue dog, Gunner, and gave Gunner a massage at Ground Zero. Then I came home and got my first puppy ever and named him Gunnar....I was walking Gunnar for his knee surgery rehab when we had this conversation.

Something shifted in the farmer's attitude towards me....we were always friendly, but something changed. He offered to throw leftover corn and squash and pumpkins into my pig pasture instead of his woods, by the bucketful. He said I could glean any of his fields. He approached me and said he wasn't selling the raspberries fast enough and I could pick them out if I wanted.

I want to!

In other food news, I was at the lake yesterday, at the boat launch, swimming the dogs (more rehab for Gunnar!) and no one was there. I walked the dogs around the empty parking lot to dry them off a bit before putting them back in the car, and noticed grapevines growing over the fence of the house next to the lot. I assumed they were wild grapes, but then spotted a small, rotting cluster of grapes with one good grape....so I tasted. Mmmm!!! I broke off four vines, each about 6' long, and put them in the car. These were vines growing into a wild, weedy, unkempt area of the parking lot, so my conscience is clear.

I'd remembered reading online something about how to propagate grape vines from cuttings. Well, it really should be done in the spring, but it is worth a shot. I used rooting hormone and made twelve good cuttings and planted them in a flower bed by the driveway where I wouldn't forget about them. I'll be thrilled if one or two survive and grow in the spring...if so, I will transplant them/it to a better location.

I also noticed two apple trees growing under one of my non-producing trees. It is the full-size tree, not the dwarf. I will be moving those to the front yard, I think, this week. I have been wondering if the proximity to a gigantic black walnut tree is preventing fruit from forming on those trees. Two of them (dwarf apple and dwarf pear) were planted eight years ago. I got eleven apples one year off the apple, and there are four pears on the pear tree this year. Not impressive! But there is a walnut nearby, so that may be influencing these trees, or so I've read recently.

Off to pick raspberries!

 

[~gd]

I'm off to pick free raspberries today! I got a couple of gallons yesterday, and am going back for more. I hope to eat some, freeze some, and make a five-gallon batch of wine with some...need three gallons for that, so I'd better get picking!

I had stopped to chat with the farmer next door a few days ago, and somehow the conversation ended up at 9/11 and Ground Zero. I told him the story of how I met John Randall and his famous search-and-rescue dog, Gunner, and gave Gunner a massage at Ground Zero. Then I came home and got my first puppy ever and named him Gunnar....I was walking Gunnar for his knee surgery rehab when we had this conversation.

Something shifted in the farmer's attitude towards me....we were always friendly, but something changed. He offered to throw leftover corn and squash and pumpkins into my pig pasture instead of his woods, by the bucketful. He said I could glean any of his fields. He approached me and said he wasn't selling the raspberries fast enough and I could pick them out if I wanted.

I want to!

In other food news, I was at the lake yesterday, at the boat launch, swimming the dogs (more rehab for Gunnar!) and no one was there. I walked the dogs around the empty parking lot to dry them off a bit before putting them back in the car, and noticed grapevines growing over the fence of the house next to the lot. I assumed they were wild grapes, but then spotted a small, rotting cluster of grapes with one good grape....so I tasted. Mmmm!!! I broke off four vines, each about 6' long, and put them in the car. These were vines growing into a wild, weedy, unkempt area of the parking lot, so my conscience is clear.

I'd remembered reading online something about how to propagate grape vines from cuttings. Well, it really should be done in the spring, but it is worth a shot. I used rooting hormone and made twelve good cuttings and planted them in a flower bed by the driveway where I wouldn't forget about them. I'll be thrilled if one or two survive and grow in the spring...if so, I will transplant them/it to a better location.

I also noticed two apple trees growing under one of my non-producing trees. It is the full-size tree, not the dwarf. I will be moving those to the front yard, I think, this week. I have been wondering if the proximity to a gigantic black walnut tree is preventing fruit from forming on those trees. Two of them (dwarf apple and dwarf pear) were planted eight years ago. I got eleven apples one year off the apple, and there are four pears on the pear tree this year. Not impressive! But there is a walnut nearby, so that may be influencing these trees, or so I've read recently.

Off to pick raspberries!

I suspect it is the lack of the proper pollen that is limiting your apple and pear production rather than the walnut tree. most pear trees need another pollen producer to bear fruit. Most but not all apples are self pollenators but even then tend to bear more when pollen from another tree is present the sex life of fruit trees is very varied. Walnut trees tend to prevent other trees from getting established in their area by a chemical produced by the roots (never plant tomatoes near a walnut!) I grew up on a commercial fruit farm. We had a windbreak of nut trees along the west side. the nut trees could take wind much better than fruit trees (except for pecans) I assume someone would have told us to cut the nut trees if they had a negative effect on fruit production. The place would be crawing with professors and students from Cornell every fall for field trips.

 

[freemotion]

I do have two apple trees and lots of blooms, but still no fruit.

Today I am ready to give all this ss stuff up. OK, I know by this afternoon I'll probably be excited about something again, but right now I want to throw in the towel.

Ya know those 35 tomato plants that I had grown from seed, turned sod to make a garden, hauled in load after load of compost and turned it in, fenced it (chicken wire and electric wire), planted it, mulched it, weeded-weeded-weeded, watered-watered-watered and watered again, and have been waiting anxiously for the loads of tomatos to ripen? I have jars waiting for spaghetti sauce, pizza sauce, salsa, and chili. I was starting to see some red tomatoes. I was planning on my first picking tomorrow afternoon.

Mya got to it first.

Flattened it.

Devastated it.

Devastated me.

Might be getting sick herself.

So I re-fenced this morning, also taking time to reinforce the new pen for Ginger to keep her separate from Peach as I continue to attempt to wean the big moose.

Peach went through the fence like it wasn't even there. I gave up and let all the goats be together.

Two hens were out this morning and had destroyed one of my flower gardens.

Verizon did something to their voicemail system and I cannot access my voicemail. Says my code is invalid. It kicked me out while I was listening and wouldn't let me back in.

I'm whining and need chocolate. But I have to work this afternoon, so have to be a good girl in the food department so I can last until 7 PM.

Whine, whine, whine.

The loss of all those tomatoes..... I was really counting on them. She ate all the beets, too, and the few brussels sprouts that the groundhog didn't eat. She left the peppers. The plants are completely trampled into the ground.

I'm left staring at case after case of empty jars.

 

[Javamama]

It just really stinks sometimes. And Mya

 

[freemotion]

I asked my dad to come over and work on the fence since dh and I both had to go to the office. Well, actually, I called and said, "Hey, Dad, I have those raspberries in the fridge and some eggs if you wanna come get them while we are at work. Oh, and guess what happened today....." Then came the offer to fix the fence.

When he got here, Ginger and the two doelings and two hens were in the tomato garden, munching away! I hadn't had time to see if I could salvage any tomatoes from the ground, and won't have time until tomorrow afternoon. Got home after dark, have to get up early as I am teaching a morning class on Saturdays this term.

Everyone was up and hungry and alert tonight, so I will be everyone involved once I know for sure that they are ok.

Dad found that the pigs had dug up stumps and roots from the big dirt pile that was bulldozed into a corner of the pasture, now in the pig pasture, when we had the land cleared. They had at least five of them leaning against the low wire inside their fence, shorting the fence out. I will have to start making fence testing a part of both morning and evening chores. Until those *$%#@ pigs are in the freezer and a bunch of canning jars!

ETA: A client brought me a jumbo Hershey bar. Ate the entire thing. Hope I am not sick tomorrow!!! If so, it was worth it!

 

[modern_pioneer]

I understand how you feel, I felt awful last year when the blight hit mine.

At least you can punish her, LOL.. Tie her to your bike and make her jog all those maters off!!!

And I leave this here to comfort you in your time of need.