frustratedearthmother
Sustainability Master
Very pretty!
the little wild kingdom
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- #302
flowerbug
Sustainability Master
tomato canning season is done. probably a few hundred more lbs of tomatoes out there that will get eaten, given away or eventually buried. so far on the per tomato plant scale of things we're at about 43 lbs per plant which is well above our 30 lbs average. plants are still putting on new flowers and small fruits but i don't expect to get any bigger tomatoes now that the season is getting closer to the end.
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- #303
flowerbug
Sustainability Master
last night my brother sent me an e-mail asking if we had any more tomatoes as a friend's Mom wanted to do some canning. i sent a note back saying we'd give him a ring this morning after we scoped out the situation. as i had very little inspiration for getting things done this morning other than picking some melons and burying the tomato scraps from Sunday and then had plans of getting the worms fed so Mom got out there herself to pick tomatoes and ended up with 5 buckets worth. Mom called my brother and he passed along the news that we had them so the people came over and picked them up within an hour and a half. 
so glad to have them be put to use instead of wasted.
the total per plant then becomes 43 lbs + 100 / 16. more out there to go but i'm going to be off in beanland for a few weeks at least so not too many plans to really keep track of them. gardens to keep after and a few projects to try to finish up and then gardens to try to get put up for winter. i'm good now for a few days of sunshine and nicer weather and the worms are fed so i have room in here for more bean pods and places to dry more beans down and to get them shelled out.
this time of the year is purely one day at a time. it's the most fun and interesting in that i can see what the bean plants have done and often find new beans or results of continued experiments.
so glad to have them be put to use instead of wasted.
the total per plant then becomes 43 lbs + 100 / 16. more out there to go but i'm going to be off in beanland for a few weeks at least so not too many plans to really keep track of them. gardens to keep after and a few projects to try to finish up and then gardens to try to get put up for winter. i'm good now for a few days of sunshine and nicer weather and the worms are fed so i have room in here for more bean pods and places to dry more beans down and to get them shelled out.
this time of the year is purely one day at a time. it's the most fun and interesting in that i can see what the bean plants have done and often find new beans or results of continued experiments.
frustratedearthmother
Sustainability Master
Glad you were able to help those folks out!
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- #305
flowerbug
Sustainability Master
in shelling out some odd pods yesterday i came across these so i had to try to get a picture while they were fresh.
probably a relative of a bean called Huey.
in shelling out some beans yesterday i picked from a certain area i figured out that these beans are not as likely as related to Huey as i thought they might be. they came out of a row of plantings where i was growing out some seeds from a blend called Peregion.
the seeds when dried look more like watermelon seeds than beans, the size and shape is smaller than most beans. i do like the shape and coloring so now i have at least 25 seeds to work with for these into the future. the problem as usual is that how i'll find time and space to grow these again, but now i have several years to figure it out.
...one of the other likely parent beans would have been Red Ryder as i do normally grow those each season and have for 10 years. Huey is likely a RR and Peregion cross too.
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- #306
flowerbug
Sustainability Master
today i had other plans (garden club meeting) and so when Mom mentioned this morning that she was going to do more tomatoes i said that she was on her own because i had things to get ready and also needed to take care of a few other things besides...
she decided she wanted to do tomato juice for a change. so i got the food mill out and showed her how it fit together and came apart and since the handle broke off it worked pretty well by wedging it down in a large plastic food storage container i had on hand.
i did have to get involved more than i'd have liked but they got done - i had to do some smashing and quality control (looking for things she didn't see).
7 & 1/2 quarts of tomato juice. good job Mom!
we're still out of quart jars so we have some plastic containers and going to freeze these. somehow. dunno how she's going to make room in the freezer... not going to watch...
she decided she wanted to do tomato juice for a change. so i got the food mill out and showed her how it fit together and came apart and since the handle broke off it worked pretty well by wedging it down in a large plastic food storage container i had on hand.
i did have to get involved more than i'd have liked but they got done - i had to do some smashing and quality control (looking for things she didn't see).
7 & 1/2 quarts of tomato juice. good job Mom!
we're still out of quart jars so we have some plastic containers and going to freeze these. somehow. dunno how she's going to make room in the freezer... not going to watch...
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- #307
flowerbug
Sustainability Master
i was just told they all fit. i can look now...
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- #308
flowerbug
Sustainability Master
did get some outside work done today, perfect day, picked through the bean gardens to get all the dry pods i could find before the weather goes back to wet again. not too many but enough to keep me busy for a bit.
also was able to use the new shovel and found it worked well. very happy as i was wondering if it would not work as well as the last one. perfect weather for doing something like a bit of digging.
also was able to use the new shovel and found it worked well. very happy as i was wondering if it would not work as well as the last one. perfect weather for doing something like a bit of digging.
- Thread starter
- #309
flowerbug
Sustainability Master
we ate the last "fresh" tomato today for BLTs. i put the fresh in quotes because we picked this tomato three weeks ago (it seems, perhaps it was two?)... i also ate the last melon that is likely to be edible. Mom didn't want to risk it from her last reaction to the melon some days ago. i didn't have any problems with it. ok, it was a small melon anyways, i ate it all, had to help it with some lemon juice and brown sugar.
otherwise it has been bean shelling and taking it easy while watching the clouds, rains, mists, etc. go by. today i did get out for a few minutes to bury some bean pods that were put out there from shelling. i needed room here as i'd had five bags of them waiting for me to deal with them. out they went. i'll have more again in a few days - the worms in the garden will take care of them and it's good to have them out of the room just in case there are any worms or millers in there trying to make more babies...
a few days ago i went through the ten worm buckets and made sure they were fed and watered and checked on them all. doing ok. a few minor fungus gnat outbreaks from what i did the last time i went through so i do need to change my next feed but that's ok, what learning is about. the gnat outbreaks are best managed by putting some more tiny spiders in the affected buckets so they can capture the gnats before they can reproduce. i'm glad to say i have a healthy supply of tiny spiders but they are in the other buckets so sometimes i'm having to go back to a previously checked and fed bucket to sprinkle some more spiders in there. i also found a bit larger spider in one bucket and don't know if it had babies or not (i'll find out eventually), but i don't want the larger spiders to take over because they may not eat enough gnats and they may instead be eating the smaller spiders that i do want... more to be learned...
so what did i learn? burying bean pods too shallowly and layering them on top of the dirt meant the gnats had access to food too easily so that meant they could get their population to grow rapidly - which was too fast for the spiders to keep them under control. some of the buckets didn't have many spiders in them to begin with. hopefully i've mostly taken care of that. we'll see...
bean rejects i bury down further, they won't be able to sprout and grow and instead will hydrate and then rot and turn into a very smelly form of worm food that the worms will swarm into. it's a very fungi/bacterial laden mash (the rejects include a lot of beans from pods that have started to rot or beans that have fungi or bacterial spots on them). if i had enough rejects left over in the spring i'd put them in the bottom of each worm bucket when i restart them.
i rarely do things the exact same way each time so i do keep learning as i go along. it keeps things interesting for sure.
otherwise it has been bean shelling and taking it easy while watching the clouds, rains, mists, etc. go by. today i did get out for a few minutes to bury some bean pods that were put out there from shelling. i needed room here as i'd had five bags of them waiting for me to deal with them. out they went. i'll have more again in a few days - the worms in the garden will take care of them and it's good to have them out of the room just in case there are any worms or millers in there trying to make more babies...
a few days ago i went through the ten worm buckets and made sure they were fed and watered and checked on them all. doing ok. a few minor fungus gnat outbreaks from what i did the last time i went through so i do need to change my next feed but that's ok, what learning is about.
the gnat outbreaks are best managed by putting some more tiny spiders in the affected buckets so they can capture the gnats before they can reproduce. i'm glad to say i have a healthy supply of tiny spiders but they are in the other buckets so sometimes i'm having to go back to a previously checked and fed bucket to sprinkle some more spiders in there. i also found a bit larger spider in one bucket and don't know if it had babies or not (i'll find out eventually), but i don't want the larger spiders to take over because they may not eat enough gnats and they may instead be eating the smaller spiders that i do want... more to be learned... so what did i learn? burying bean pods too shallowly and layering them on top of the dirt meant the gnats had access to food too easily so that meant they could get their population to grow rapidly - which was too fast for the spiders to keep them under control. some of the buckets didn't have many spiders in them to begin with. hopefully i've mostly taken care of that. we'll see...
bean rejects i bury down further, they won't be able to sprout and grow and instead will hydrate and then rot and turn into a very smelly form of worm food that the worms will swarm into. it's a very fungi/bacterial laden mash (the rejects include a lot of beans from pods that have started to rot or beans that have fungi or bacterial spots on them). if i had enough rejects left over in the spring i'd put them in the bottom of each worm bucket when i restart them.
i rarely do things the exact same way each time so i do keep learning as i go along.
it keeps things interesting for sure.- Thread starter
- #310
flowerbug
Sustainability Master
no bean shelling last night or this morning. sitting isn't ever really a thing that is good for my lower back so with the caulking yesterday and weeding was plenty enough - i'll get back outside today.
bean shelling can happen all winter as i get to it (but i will probably have it done sooner rather than later since it is one of my favorite things to do ).
sitting isn't ever really a thing that is good for my lower back so with the caulking yesterday and weeding was plenty enough - i'll get back outside today.bean shelling can happen all winter as i get to it (but i will probably have it done sooner rather than later since it is one of my favorite things to do
).
