That’s the basket of goodies I dropped off at Tammy’s today (she said I have to post it because she took such a nice picture- BTW MY CHERRY TOMATOES ARE SO PERFECT THEY LOOK FAKE). The cukes came from the farmers market, the peaches from the orchard, and the eggs from my friend down the road, but the rest came from the back yard (the bag is mint). At any rate, one of the problems with preserving everything you grow and then canning stuff from the orchard is it is a lot of work. In return I got sourdough starter, frozen watermelon, a bunch of pickles she made, some chicken stock I need to preserve, and something else I am forgetting. Division of labor, yo.
Basically every other night for the last two weeks I have been cleaning, cutting up, and freezing a gallon bag of tomatoes, and right now my freezer has 14 jam packed bags of tomatoes in them. On Monday, I am picking Tammy up, and on Tuesday and Wednesday we are going to make sauce, salsa, tomato paste, and we are going to take some of my unsliced tomatoes and use the dehydrator and make sun dried tomatoes and then freeze some and preserve the others in olive oil. I’m going to use the skins that we cook off the sauce tomatoes and dehydrate them and then use a mortar and pestle and turn it into a powder to put on top of dishes as a seasoning.
Tomorrow I have to put up another bushel of peaches, and on Saturday the kraut will be done and I have to can all eight gallons of that. I’m also going to finally use the chicken carcasses in the other freezer in the basement and make stock this weekend. I have to trellis the cucumbers I put in two weeks ago, harvest the green beans and can them, pull up the first run of tomato plants and put in the second run of pole beans, and put in another run of beans where the first run is. Also have to thin the beets I put in two weeks ago, and pickle the okra.
It’s been a fun experiment this summer, but it is a lot of work. And even while it is a lot of work- I am thinking about how to do it better and get more out of it. I think I am putting in two peach trees and two pear trees on the side of the house and another apple tree inside the yard, and next summer I think there is room for another raised bed. On the left side of my deck there is an unused 25′ long by 5′ wide space that is nothign but mulch, and next year I am just going to run trellises along the fence and do the beans there and squash on the ground. I want to experiment on a better schedule on when to put things in and may try three sisters and square-foot gardening. I also, swear to goodness, am going to start writing things down so this isn’t just all in my head and I have to remember what I was thinking two months after I started, so I don’t plant something and two weeks later swear and remember it was supposed to go somewhere else. Also, I need to look into drip irrigation, at the very least for the tomatoes to try to nip this leaf blight in the bud.
satby
Jesus, just reading that made me exhausted.
Yarrow
What you’re doing sounds exhausting but this:
is absolutely above and beyond.
John Cole
@Yarrow: NO WASTE. I use the skins from the peaches to make peach jelly and this time I am going to use that mashed residue and put it in a 3/4 full bottle of vodka and make peach cordial for Tammy.
Yarrow
@John Cole: I don’t waste anything either. What I don’t use goes into the compost and then back into the garden beds. I just don’t have the energy or long chunks of time to do what you’re doing.
SiubhanDuinne
That photo is gorgeous. I saved it, just so I can look at it admiringly every now and then.
SiubhanDuinne
@John Cole:
My aunt used to make brandied peaches every year and give jars of them to friends and neighbours as Christmas gifts.
Yarrow
@SiubhanDuinne: It really is a gorgeous photo. Thanks, Tammy!
Mary G
Wow. My grandmother did all this during the Depression. My mom said nobody in the neighborhood went hungry. She even bartered for a cow she kept in the backyard half the size of yours just a couple of miles from the state Capitol in Austin. August was a horrible month with the canning in the heat and humidity.
joel hanes
My aunt, a wonderful gardener, was reduced every summer to stealthily depositing brown paper grocery bags of zucchini on the front steps of her friends and neighbor’s houses.
Every summer family gathering, her (wonderful) tomato/onion/zucchini casserole, and fresh sweet corn from the garden.
dmsilev
@joel hanes: I wonder, is it illegal to smuggle zucchini into grocery stores and leave them in the produce department?
mrmoshpotato
In these fucked up times, we can at least be sure Cole’s getting his recommended daily amount of fruits and vegetables.
Steeplejack
Okay, I’m taking this as an open thread.
Got home from surgery about 9:30 tonight, but that was after a detour to Sighthound Hall for dinner (takeout Chinese). I was ravenous after not eating since last night. Got out of the med center about 8:00.
I feel very good except for a scratchy throat. They went with general anesthesia and intubated me with a breathing tube. Lots more cutting than I anticipated, and my right arm is in a sling! I need to keep my forearm elevated and not flex the forearm muscles (e.g., by turning my wrist side to side or up and down). As I (half) understand it, there are some areas where the skin is stretched thin to cover the carnage, so there is a risk of tearing until it heals completely.
That’s it for now. Not supposed to type much, so I’ve been hunting and pecking.
Thanks to everyone’s good thoughts from the morning thread. I feel like they really helped me get a good outcome.
Duane
@John Cole: You’re going to need a bigger freezer.
frosty
i’ve been square foot gardening in two 4×4 squares for a few years now. Some years good, some bad. This one is good. I realized stinkbugs won’t ruing the cherry tomatoes so that’s what I planted. Holy cow, you get a lot of those from six plants!!
Squash, the book says 3×3 ft for one butternut squash. Hah! I’m going to have to mow around it for the rest of the summer – I guess it didn’t pass the Confined Space Training course.
My mom had a book called “Too Many Tomatoes”. I think you can write the sequel at this point.
Lymie
@joel hanes: there’s a reason we lock our cars in August and September (and not any other time) here in northern New England……
mrmoshpotato
@Steeplejack: Quick and speedy healing to you.
SiubhanDuinne
@Steeplejack:
Glad all went well and that you’re back home. If you don’t comment much in the next few days, we’ll understand that you are fragile.*
*Pedant under glass
Yarrow
@Steeplejack: So glad everything went well! Definitely follow the directions for the healing. Frustrating but best in the long run.
satby
@Steeplejack: returned too late to wish you well this morning, but happy you’re home and on the way to mending! Take care of yourself!
Steeplejack
@SiubhanDuinne:
Ha!
Steeplejack
@mrmoshpotato, @Yarrow, @Satby: Thanks a lot!
Brachiator
I’m a fairly private person, and don’t often write much about my private life, but this little incident was a bit jarring. So, with your indulgence.
I commute and walk a few blocks from the last stop to get home. I am a pretty big guy, and people generally just leave me alone, or are pleasant and nod or say hello. But I also walk a little more slowly with a cane, after banging up my knee. Maybe this makes me appear more vulnerable. Don’t know.
Tonight, I got off the bus and was headed home, and thought this guy might be following me. I stopped and he stopped, keeping a little distance between us, but always behind me, never fully to my right or left. I kept in the light and in public and walked across the street to a nearby motel. I started talking to the desk clerk and figured that the guy would walk away. Instead he stood outside, blocking the door. We had to call the cops, who had to tell the guy to go away, with a little persuasion and the threat of arrest. He was homeless and maybe drugged or disturbed. But he offered an odd story to the cops, claiming to both be my friend and to have a room at the motel. I had never seen this guy before. One of the cops gave me a ride home. Everything turned out okay, but I guess it could have been a very unpleasant evening.
wasabi gasp
I wanna be your Tammy, bro.
Anne Laurie
Only way I’ve been able to keep track of what works & doesn’t work in the garden is to have an open tab on my desktop, and write a quick tally by date as soon as I come inside. You’re better at tech, so you can probably even keep a list like this on your phone as you sit back & contemplate the day’s labors. Far from perfect, but the next year(s), I can search-&-find when the first daylily bloomed, or when I fertilized a particular bed, or which tomato variety started fruiting by date.
Drip irrigation works well with tomatoes, in my experience. If you want a trial, I’d suggest buying a kit from someplace like Gardener’s Supply and seeing how it works in your situation, before you invest time & effort on a from-scratch full setup that turns out to be less than satisfactory.
Chacal Charles Calthrop
@Steeplejack: you made it !!! Now take care of that arm!
Mary G
@Steeplejack: Glad to see you have made it home and the procedure went well.
HinTN
John G [email protected]
I have one word for you with respect to fruit trees (in the city): rats.
I recommend visual beauty (flowering trees) in the yard and buying the fruits you want from the farmers who want to spend every year for the thirty year life span of their fruit trees doing the work the trees require of them.
V/R
An old fart
Otherwise, you go, guy.
Yarrow
@Brachiator: Wow, that’s unnerving. Glad it turned out okay in the end. Sounds like you have good awareness of your surroundings and did the right thing.
It’s a challenge to deal with people who are impaired or who have significant mental health issues. I want to be compassionate but it can be scary. There was a woman in my neighborhood who would go off her meds and start hitting things with a stick and screaming profanities. Mostly we just let her be but when she started railing about killing people who weren’t there we finally had to get the police involved.
HinTN
@Yarrow: He’s obsessed
lumpkin
Can I please come live with you when the apocalypse arrives? I promise I will work hard and never complain.
HinTN
@mrmoshpotato: And sweat equity.
rekoob
@Brachiator: For those of us who don’t comment frequently, I share your concern and am grateful that you were both attuned to the moment and able to find an appropriate refuge.
HinTN
@Brachiator: That, sir, is creepy. You done exactly right.
Eric NNY
Gardening was my zen, then I got livestock. Stop now while you’re still ahead.
Chetan Murthy
John,
Your post has me wondering: how close are you, to being 100% self-sufficient in terms of fruit & veg for the year? Probably still pretty far? I wonder how far you can get, with just your backyard, and how much more work it’d take. Perhaps not for some categories of fruit&veg (after all, you’re gonna want fresh fruit in Jan). So maybe one might set aside those sorts of things, and just focus on the parts that are in theory achievable …..
It might be an interesting data-point to figure out (not to actually attempt to achieve, I’m guessing). Just curious.
Suzanne
@Steeplejack: Glad you’re doing okay! I too am in typing purgatory. It sucks. I sympathize.
@Brachiator: That’s scary AF. I’m glad you had good enough situational awareness to figure out what was happening before it became a big problem.
Jay
@Yarrow:
It’s always a tough call. Cops in Texas killed a compliant schitzophrenic, who had called them for help, knowing he was off his meds, for help,
Then they joked about it.
Jay
https://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2019/08/but-she-got-it-out-there-didnt-she.html?m=1
The mechanics of RW telephone.
Suzanne
So Mr. Suzanne and I took a baby break (she stayed with SuzMom) and the two of us took Spawn the Younger to see Elizabeth Warren’s town hall in Tempe tonight. Spawn got to meet Warren and get a picture. It was such a great event. Warren came off much better in person than I think she does on TV….very warm and relatable and conversational to the point that I almost forgot that she is smarter than everyone in that room by a country mile. Some Trumpy douchebags showed up and started a fight and got dragged out of the venue, but we had left by then.
Mnemosyne
@Steeplejack:
Yay — glad it went as smoothly as possible. It probably says in the instructions that you should call them if you develop a fever of 101 degrees or more, but what I didn’t know was that I was going to run a mild 99 degree fever for, like, 2 weeks. It had something to do with the body’s natural healing process so I let it be, but it was a little irritating (and made me a little cranky).
Steeplejack
@ Chacal Charles Calthrop, @Mary G, @Suzanne:
Thanks!
I’m a 90 wpm typist, and this hunting and pecking is breaking my balls. Hoping I’ll be able to loosen up in a few days, but I haven’t read my voluminous post-op instructions yet.
Jay
Mnemosyne
@Brachiator:
Yikes! And, yeah, even when you did the right thing and it turned out okay, your annoying brain will keep giving you stories about what could have happened. Stupid evolution causing anxiety in the name of keeping us safe. ?
Suzanne
@Steeplejack:
I feel you on that.
I see my doctor next week and we are going to have a discussion about why my right hand is still numb and weird.
Mnemosyne
Well, I’ve taken one more step forward in getting my CPAP, which means I’m getting ready to battle the next set of obstructionist assholes. My sleep doctor’s office called and said that they’re requesting an authorization from my HMO to get a CPAP immediately since my sleep study showed severe obstructive sleep apnea. But she also apologized for the DME company I have to use because her patients have not had good experiences with it. Sigh.
And, of course, I get on a plane tomorrow for a weeklong trip to see my family, so there will probably be a lot of phone tag with the DME company. Argh.
(DME = Durable Medical Equipment)
Jay
So, not content with pawning their children off on lesser income “guardians” to work the College system to consume grants and scholarships for low income families,
The Wealthy are also abusing the disability systems so their kids get better SAT scores.
Martin
Cole is minmaxing nature. Good luck, buddy.
Cathie Fonz
I remember those August days on our Saskatchewan prairie farm — about now my mother would start getting flats of fruits from BC, peaches and pears and cherries, and she was also gathering the tomatoes and cucumbers and beets and peas and carrots and potatoes from her garden and crabapples from her own trees. My grandmother and the aunts would come out from the city to help and then the freezing and pickling and canning would start — day after day, clouds of steam in the kitchen as the jars were sterilized, then chopping and peeling and boiling and packing. All this in an old farm house with no running water, and it all had to get done before the harvest started later in August, because then my mother would have to spend all her time cooking three big meals a day for 5 to 10 men. So in just three or four weeks, she preserved enough food to last a family of five for the next 8 or 10 months. She did it because it had to be done, and she was good at if and proud of it too, I am still in awe of her and I still have her recipes.
Jay
Steeplejack
@Mnemosyne, @Suzanne:
Thanks. I want to write more, but I’m seriously limiting my typing. It’s hard! Writing is linked to how I think.
One problem is that on my new phone—Samsung Galaxy S10e, which I love!—one of the few disappointing features is the voice-to-text function, which is pretty bad. On the phone I like to talk and then edit with a stylus, but the S10e is set to some weird pidgin English that sometimes doesn’t even make sense.
Suzanne, is your numb hand a new thing, or did it come from some other medical situation? Last thing I remember is your launching of Spawn III into the world.
Okay, I might have overdone it on the typing. Eesh. Discipline!
Steeplejack
@Cathie Fonz:
Please share some of the recipes!
Brachiator
@Mnemosyne:
Thanks to you and others for the kind words. I sent messages to my siblings about the incident, but otherwise have just been trying to unwind. I’m going to try to go to bed and get some sleep.
I try not to think too much about what might have happened. I mainly am happy that I didn’t walk directly toward the street where I live and that the guy didn’t have a weapon. I also feel good that I didn’t try to talk to the guy or engage with him.
BTW. The police officer who assisted me was very cool. We briefly chatted, and I learned that this was just his 16th month on the job. For some reason, this made me smile. I told him I hoped that he would have a long, happy career and that he could include this incident in the novel he might write about his time on the job.
ETA. Good luck with the CPAP. Sounds like the hassles are designed to prevent a good night’s sleep.
Emerald
John, you could get ducks.
Martin
@Jay: Yep. The SAT gaming is one thing, the financial aid another. Now, the latter is actually working against some of those families. Many schools, particularly many private schools factor financial aid into their selection process. They only have so many financial aid dollars so they only accept so many low income students.
The former problem with SAT gaming and the like is a more fundamental problem. There simply aren’t enough good university slots available so people are cheating. I’m at a not top tier but respectable public university, but we only admitted 28% of our pool. The average admitted GPA was a 4.27. And that’s with us working pretty damn hard to tilt the pool in favor of low income and first generation students. I could have justified admitting several thousand more students, but I just didn’t have the spots.
That’s why the free college for all plans make me nervous. Right now, cost is at least something of a moderating function. I’m struggling with my part of 110,000 applications per year, and if the cost friction comes off, then it’s going to be 150K or 200K. And free tuition will give me no more open seats, so I’ll be admitting 15%? And I’m a public university. How many more people are going to cheat to get one of these slots that they feel they deserve because they pay taxes.
I’m not opposed to free college, but there needs to be an equally large pile of money invested in expanding opportunities, because without that, this is going to get really ugly, really quickly.
Jay
@Martin:
In BC, we turned all the Community Colleges into Universities. What used to be 12 trailers in a gravel lot are now edifices. All the Universities now have adjunct campuses, the UBC one in Pentiction has a pack of 28, former shelter dogs as “stress companions”.
When I graduated from High School, I didn’t qualify for a University spot, because in BC, there were only 15,100. There are now 398,000.
Steeplejack
All day I felt like today (Thursday) was Friday and tomorrow (Friday) would be Saturday. Weird. That is all.
Jay
HalfAssedHomesteader
@Jay: Every accusation’s a confession with these people.
Suzanne
@Steeplejack: Toward the end of my pregnancy, I gained a bunch of water weight in my hands and feet (typical) and it resulted in some carpal tunnel pain and numbness/tingliness in my right hand. Since Spawn the Youngest was born five weeks ago, I have lost 40 pounds, but my hands are still a bit puffy and I still can’t put my wedding rings on. And the carpal tunnel discomfort comes and goes. I notice it much more at night, so I wonder if there is some climatic component to it. Apparently this is a less common but not unheard of pregnancy side effect, and it doesn’t always go away on its own. I would really like to avoid surgery.
Mnemosyne
@Suzanne:
Are you sleeping with braces on your hands? That’s important because it prevents you from bending your wrists in your sleep and making matters worse. I bought some blue sleep braces at CVS that work reasonably well.
Suzanne
@Mnemosyne: Yep. I have had carpal tunnel pain in the past, so I already had a brace. This pain shows up pretty much daily once the sun is down. It’s very weird.
Steeplejack
During my long day at the med center, the anesthesiologist and I had a brief conversation about the weird things people say coming out from under.
I concentrated and tried to make it happen, but this conversation did not happen:
Steeplejack
@Suzanne:
Okay, bummer. And amen on avoiding surgery!
Probably doesn’t apply to you, but I think a lot of people’s carpal-tunnel problems arise from typing on keyboards at desktop height (29-30"). Really should be about 26-27". I made a huge desktop out of a solid-core door and cut out space for a dropped-down platform that holds my awesomely clicky Das Keyboard. (Okay, I made the desk long before I got the D.K.)
Suzanne
@Steeplejack: You are correct about the best typing elevation. Also, the keyboard should be inclined so the top of the keyboard is sloping away from you. Of course, it matters if you are sitting or standing.
Mrs. D. Ranged in AZ
@Suzanne:. I developed carpal tunnel in both arms back in 2003 with my first kid and still suffer symptoms today due to pre-pre-eclampsia. It also didn’t help that I have been a computer programmer typing 9-10 hours a day for 20 years. When I first experienced the symptoms and went to a specialist for it, the doctor acted like I was stupid–basically pregnancy is one of the most common causes of carpal tunnel–he acted like, duh, why don’t you know that!? Since none of the women in family experienced any of the complications I did, how the hell would I know that!!!!! Just another reason why I despise doctors. Best advice I can give you to avoid surgery is take anti-inflammatories and get some decent braces for wearing at night. The braces will keep your wrists straight while you sleep and give them the needed rest they need for the swelling to go down. Surgery is truly the last option and it doesn’t always work. Try the braces and be very militant about wearing them every night for the whole night. It’s hard but worth it.
Steeplejack
I am still wide awake and sort of hungry. I think it’s the “I cheated death!” phenomenon.
Mrs. D. Ranged in AZ
@Steeplejack: Or its the “I was under anesthesia and had the best sleep of my entire life and am not sleepy now” phenomenon.Or good, old fashioned insomnia that I am experiencing right now. :) Hope your recovery is swift.
eclare
@Steeplejack: So glad to hear! Now rest and heal!
Steeplejack
@Mrs. D. Ranged in AZ:
Yeah, probably your #1. LOL.
Think I’m crashing now.
Jak
Drip irrigation sources.
Gardeners Supply
Dripworks
DripDepot
DripStore
Lee Valley (solar powered pump drip system)
Recommend parts that can be easily disassembled and reconfigured. Some connectors can be pretty permanent
Lee Valley 10 year Garden Journal (not digital, requires pen or pencil). 10 year entry for each day of the year. Let’s you see what you did or what happened in the past on any day.
Karla E Marz
One think that could save you some work (and wear and tear on your wrist/arm/shoulder) with the tomato powder would be to buy an inexpensive coffee grinder to use as a spice grinder. I don’t drink coffee, but I’ve been told to have a separate grinder for spices, and one of the things I do with mine is make chile powder out of dried chiles for marinades and rubs. Mine is from 2010, so the model may not still be around, but it is a Proctor Silex Fresh Grind coffee grinder, and was $13.
Kattails
@Cathie Fonz: that is absolutely awesome. I’ve actually worked with only water from a hand pump and it’s a bear, you need so much for cleaning everything. Agree with Steeplejack, it would be great if you could share a couple of your favorite recipes.
@Chetan Murthy: I remember reading that the most efficient farm size is 10 acres. Enough for animals, growing veggies, hay and all. It was in a book railing against the rise of agribusiness. I realize you’re not quite talking about that level, but the number is interesting, it’s not really a lot of acreage.
John, this reminded me of a book on my shelf called “The Self-Sufficient Gardener” by John Seymour, backyard gardening on a super-productive scale, my copy is falling apart from use. Although you are probably up to your ears. A nice volume though, with info on herbs, fruits, plant diseases.
ZeeLizzee
John I use soaker hoses in my raised beds with a snap-on attachment gizmo to the main hose. As with all hoses you can cut them to the proper length and tie off with inexpensive hose thingys from the hardware store. Also the bent outer ends of wire hangers make great stakes for holding the hose in place, or keeping garden fabric in place.
bluefoot
John, I highly encourage you to put in the fruit trees. You wont regret it! My father and I put in fruit trees in our backyard when I was a child (I was the cheap labor), and it fed our family of seven plus friends and neighbors fresh fruit summer through fall. Plus enough apples and pears from just a couple of trees to store or can and eat through the winter. 40+ years on, my mother still gets fruit from the trees that have survived (upstate NY winters are no joke).
SWMBO
@Mnemosyne: Check the online cpap companies. Our DME charged $750 per machine and there was a deductible that needed to be met. Then my husband finds out the entire thing should have cost around $450 online. They can not only jack you around they can jack up the price.
J R in WV
Love cooking like that, bulk prep for big canning lots. Haven’t really got the vigor to do it any more, but used to do a lot.
Beautiful fruit and vegges.