10/9: Got a bit done in the garden today. Cut down the Pink Bumblebee tomato- got about 2 quarts of red and green tomatoes. At the very end of of the process, I found a tomato hornworm on the very top of the plant- and it was heavily infested with braconid wasp cocoons! This is a very good thing, because those little wasps love to kill tomato hornworms. The adults also love to eat dill flowers, which I have in pots right next to that tomato plant. This means my companion planting for pest management works there with zero pesticides needed. When I went and cleaned out the raised bed of Freds I looked to see if there were any more I could feed to the wasps, but no such luck, lol. Got the Freds cages torn down and plants cut back- I still need to go and pull the root masses out of both beds.
Also cleaned out the big lasagna bed of it's brassicas and weeds. It still needs a fork cleaning before I cap it with clear plastic to start solarizing- but that's ok, found out today I was out of clear plastic, heh. So now all three of those beds are cleaned up, the first one completely set, the second one almost set- still need to put in bulbs. Big bed got it's basic cleanup done, needs a good dig and capping.
The kennel beds still need some cleanup, but not much. Right now I'm happy to let the nasturtiums and marigolds grow out, and let those Beer Garden radish seedlings do what they want to do for now. The straw bed capping the area needs some weeding attention though.
The greenhouse is pretty much empty and awaiting some fresh setting up. I need to do a little tending to the walls and pin the top flaps down nicely. Right now plans are to just leave the top open- I can't roof it by myself, and honestly not sure how I want to roof it again at the moment. I also have a lot different overwintering into spring plans this year than I did last year.
Still need to clean up the stair garden. I think it's going to see some different use too. The shadier side is going to start getting planted in with some of those shade loving plants that I've let sit for too long honestly. Those will soften out the mowing edge there. I need to get one of the heavy RR ties down by the pole barn up to the garden to cap off the sidewalk side along the garage.
The cooler I used to trap and drown all those squash bugs showed no signs of life, so I dumped the cooler out. I hope I got them all.
Got the southern edge of the solarium beds cleaned out today- all the grape hyacinth patches are now clear and open, and a goodly outside border is cleaned out of the grass too. I now have a full walking path again. I'm thinking of getting out the old hexagonal concrete pavers I made a while back, and drop them in as stepping stones in that walkway. Probably would need to make more to make a full walk, but hey, I can get a start set in. I need to make some more pavers in general too.
Now it's time to be off to make some crispy chicken salads for dinner, then a town hall meeting tonight.
10/10: another round of clearing out the freezers. I happened to have 4 quart packs of ham stock, so that's now reducing down to another pint sized package of ham cubes. A couple random 2 packs of pitas leftover got made into some nice pita chips with a couple different seasonings. Those are now cooling and will get vacuum sealed into quart jars for snacking on. A half dozen various savory flavors bagels got sliced up and toasted dry in a 325 oven for about 25-30 minutes, and then into a couple more jars- those are gonna be used as soup croutons through the winter, yum. Since we still have a few stacks of large flour and small corn tortillas in the freezer, I think those might get baked into crisps too.
The peach pulp is still draining, so since the dehydrator wasn't being used for that- I did up a tray of the fresh ambrosia corn, 2 trays of regular corn, and a tray of peas out of the freezer.
Realized I still had those 2 quart bags of cherries in sweet juice that were canning fails last year, went into the freezer, and got lost. I thawed one of those out to try out a bit of an experiment. Since it was already in sweetened juice, I added in about 1/4 cup each of some cab and pinot, and a steeping ball with a cinnamon stick, couple slices dried lemon, a few hibiscus flowers, a few cloves, and a few slices of fresh ginger. I was out of dried clementines, so I figured the lemon/hibiscus would make that nice tang. That's burbling on high for now, then will get the steeping ball removed and turned down to low overnight to help reduce it all.. then tomorrow I'll do a spice check. Add in some spiced rum, maybe some of the peach juice that has drained off, and really reduce it down- I want to almost gel the stuff if I can. If the reduction works, that will make for some tiny tasty ice cubes- and those will get baked or used in drink goodies through the winter. We shall see how that goes, lol.
I've started tossing some stuff too- old somethings that didn't get labeled, and have enough freezer burn on them that I can't tell either.
I need to do a vacuum sealing of a handful of stuff soon- cubes of concentrated chicken stock, ham cubes, and a bulk of spring chive butter and garlic greens butter. The peach leather and cherry cubes will also need to get frozen. And now that I have got the seed stock sorted out and got the deep freeze pile done- that too needs to get sealed and tucked into the freezer. I need to repack and detail catalog the list to shrink out all the extra packaging, but I think I might have managed to keep within a quart or so space. Got a goodly round of dehydrated stuff in jars to do up too on the shelf.
A bit of Tippy and friends.. and gosh it's been a long time since one of these, right? This spring the McSwanums had their babies.. and amazingly enough, all of them survived to adulthood, including the ugly signet. There was one baby that stayed brown/grey so long after it's siblings had gotten their full white on and were on their flapping runs across the pond I had started to wonder if maybe a goose or heron or something managed to slip an egg into their nest.
Today I'm happy to say that that ugly signet has since then gotten it's full white, done all the strafing runs across the ponds and such.. and this afternoon is the first time I've seen the ponds clear of swans! I know the family is probably just in the next pond over and will come back so long as the weather is good.. but yay for junior.
With the cats.. over the last two years we have lost two of our bubbas to old age- Argent in 2015, and Pooks in 2016. Now the twins are hitting that senior mark and showing it, and I've been adjusting the cats diet for this. Tikki mostly don't care about food, she isn't finicky about dry food, and don't care much for wet food, and can be hit or miss with treats. Nova is my big boy, and will tuck up into pretty much anything I lay down. But Ocelot and Marbles are getting older, and need extra.
Since this spring, I've upgraded the dry food. I used to only use Purina indoors or Meijer brand in the 2 feeders. Now the office feeder has that since the cats still like to eat it. The kitchen feeder now has had Purina Beyond for a few rounds, and all the cats really like that. It's rare to catch a sale or coupon with this stuff, and it's a bit more than twice the price. Been giving out a can of wet food a day in the morning too. They all mostly like beef and poultry more, and can be hit or miss with seafood. But Purina Fiskies and One are their faves.
10/13: ohhhhh, Friday the 13th. Only pretty much not, lol. Today was a south shopping day, had a random handful of oddbits to pick up. Got a new HotShot water heater, ours was screaming to death. And after yesterdays dinner and scrubbing out the large deep 6/7 quart nonstick Calphalon pan.. I finally decided to make a dedicated effort to finding a replacement pan today. Ended up getting a 8 quart stainless steel Calphalon dutch oven. It was a bit pricey at 40 bucks, but it will last for ages since it's stainless, and the cheapest comparison at Target and Meijer was nonstick 5 quart at 40 bucks. It's about the same size and shape as the old one, but a bit deeper with straight sides, and two helper handles instead of one with a long handle. And it came with another 12" lid. I've already chucked the old pan along with the screaming hotshot into the garbage.
Hit Michaels- had a 25% off total coupon, a rarity around here for them. Wasn't much of interest, though the Lemax Christmas collection has one thing that's cool- Sugar Shack Maple Hut. No power, stand alone, pretty neat. I did get to pick up a couple packages of findings on clearance that will make for an excellent stack of pots and plates for mini-food.. I'm finally getting up enough of a collection of this stuff now to start really making stuff.
Hit JoAnns. Had a couple 40% off full price, plus a 25% off total purchase coupons. Got another pair of the 60" 3 pack clear plastic gift wrap for cheap. This is the clear plastic I use for my windows- I've covered this before but.. with the coupons the plastic ends up cheaper than regular window plastics, even when they are on sale- plus it's thicker, comes in rolls instead of trying to unfold compressed squares, works beautifully to fold out and tack into place so long as you understand how static electricity works. I have some 4 mil sheet plastic on hand too- time to start seriously capping off windows and such to prep for winter. And that roll will give me my clear plastic to start solarizing the big lasagna bed.
I'm still not feeling Halloween really. Just a couple weeks out, and Nightvale is still just in some basic setup- and I'm already thinking about tearing some of that out in favor of some more Autumnal theme. Main street is already pretty much spooky free. I think the Alley might be packed back up too. Just feeling slaggy this year.
10/16: Last couple days were dreary and wet- the rain promised late Friday night came in and kept coming in...
On Saturday my love advised me that the siphon somehow got left on suction out, and pretty much drained the big tank. But over the course of the weekend, the big tank was pretty much filled up again. Watering needs on the outdoor gardens are down, so now I need to be bringing water indoors while the weather is dry over the next couple days. Got most of our summer/winter wardrobe swapped out and cleaned up too... It's supposed to be spectacularly sunny, warm, and nice for the next couple days, so a lot of line drying will be going on.
I got around to tinking around a bit with the village... I decided to go ahead and just pack back the alley, and the Orphanage, and most of the backstreet. I got so much other going on right now I just ain't fussing, lol. But Main Street, Scarry's Amusement Haunt, and the Drive In are wired in and getting mostly set up. The lower level of the Amusement Haunt is slow- both because of inspiration of distributing maze, and because Sheriff Nova keeps insisting on raiding the maze, lol. But a lot of the living room is cleaned up now. It was rather an explosion for a while there.
Today was fine and clear, and even warm in the sunny upper 50's. Did the final crisping off of the peach leather into dryness for peach powder- a few pounds dried down into a nice 8 oz jar. So I pulled off the 3 bags of Jen's Apple Pie Filling from the freezer and tossed them into the fridge to thaw out for trying out for dehydrating next. Why not? I still have a quart of cherries in liquid in the deep freeze too to do something with. I also tossed a bunch of stuff from the deep freeze into the garbage- some various things not really labeled and frosted and it was time anyway, lol. Along with that came a shelf clearing up- and realizing that we have about 6 tubs of ICBINB for mom and sis to pick up- we don't use as much as they do, and we have a full big tub in the fridge already. And a clear shelf on the bottom meant I could do some other cleanup... candles.
I got a lot of jar/crock/ect candles. And some cleanup is due. I got a couple batches of wax built up from previous cleanups, and a lot of glass to clean for anything..
So some greatgrans cleaning tricks..
For soot removal on glass. Take a cleaning cloth and lightly dress it with vegetable oil to quickly swipe away soot. Be sure to take a couple goodly swipes with a clean cloth after the oil and soot removal too to try to get as much out as you can. After that, repeat the same process with a lightly dressed rubbing alcohol cloth to really remove the oil and soot remaims.
Freeze your candle holders for cleaning. Those bits stuck to the bottom and so on. Freezethem and the wax shrinks and will crack apart easier.
10/18: gosh, this entry is getting pretty long, guess I better get my typing done and post this. We are into what is likely to be our last few days of warm and sunny weather- got a lot of linens on the line yesterday. I also got the raised beds dug out of the tomato roots and the roots into the compost, and a nice thick heap of leaves and pine needles for the compost pile- buried the raised beds under pine needles. I also got the little molly alliums planted into the center lasagna bed- just the pink and yellow mix and the white ones. I ended up not using the bag of yellow molly's because I didn't need to :) Got some of the porch furniture down to the pole barn, and some more stuff from the pole barn up to the house. A bit of tinkering on the workbench getting some stuff organized for making some minis finally. Sat down and really figured out how to set up the snow fence for this year- it ended up not happening last year. This winter we are planning on using the pole barn for parking since the other vehicles aren't there anymore- makes keeping the end of the driveway easier than clearing the whole darn thing every time it snows. I can deal with a few hundred feet of sidewalk down to the pole barn, lol. Makes me wonder why we didn't do that years ago before the pole barn had stuff in it.
Today I relaxed for a while this morning- as in some zen stretching stuff. I've lost touch with myself for a while now, with sickness and injury really throwing an extra wrench in there. I want to get back into meditating more, maybe pick up tai chi again. Then I hit the hall to take care of paperwork... then it was time to tackle another round of bulbs- this time the big alliums. I've been working on keeping the side section of the herb garden relatively weed free and buried under leaves for a while now.. and the trample pattern is emerging on that side for how walkway is going to shake out. So today I cleared out the leaves and as much weeds as I could. Popped in the butterfly bush into the middle with 3 lavenders along the walkway side. They are some of the big heldover ones that needed to get into the ground. Then somewhere around 100 various alliums around the whole area. Some from growing out last year- and I have a bunch of tiny baby bulbs to pot up to grow out from those. Purple Rain and Wild About Mixed, which give the large classic balls of purple and white. Christophii, a reddish large start type globe, and Drumstick, a tight budded egg shaped head. I was tempted to put in a few other things too, but figured that was probably plenty to fill in for now and if I got some spots open next year, then I'll fill then.
Still got the solarium bulbs to put in- all those grape muscari, lol. Got 100 of them in the packages. And after cleaning out the current border real well recently, I realized the muscari blocks from 2013 are still very much blocks, and need breaking up more than needing more. So I think instead of putting in more blocks I'm going to dig out the whole border edge and just set in all the muscari at once to re-distribute them nicely. Nice and plush. They will make that whole walkway edge very well filled in very quickly. Then it's time to tackle the space around the little maple tree- and that little maple tree is getting cut down soon while it's still little and not endangering the house yet. It's taken several years of mowing and walking around to really figure out where some of these borders are falling around the house, heh. On the other end of the solarium in the wee folk garden I'm going to be putting in crocuses, snow drops, and eventually more muscari- this time Magic Carpet Mix- it's all the other shades and colors the muscari come in, and I got a bag I can pot up for propagating this winter.
Got some other bulbs for potting up this winter too- mostly fritillaria, including a tiny chocolate and yellow one I'm extra excited bout- weren't cheap since it was Milager's and such- 90 cents a bulb! But they are dear, and I couldn't resist- and till I know where they go outside I'm happy to grow them out in pots for a while.
Still got the front bed to dig up, clean up, and set in with bulbs- and plant markers. Got all the bulbs, but the plants won't be going in till next year. I'm going to use some of the small lavenders that are growing well and will set nicely as second year plants in the spring. The mums suffered a bit this summer, and look shaggy as hell. And what I thought was a bronze last year turned out to be a delightful pink with creamy yellow center instead, so some plans have shifted, lol. With the bronze I picked up this year, I now have mothers of sunny yellow, white, pink, and bronze to grow out- plus a handful of first year whites, yellows, and pinks that survived the summer. All of them are blooming now, so I can re-tag them so I can tell them apart again more reliably than just foliage shapes. Then they will start getting trimmed and such for cuttings and shaping again. By the time they are ready to go in next summer, the bulbs will have died back and the lavenders should be established.
And ugh.. need to tackle the mint hill, seriously. I let it run rampant last year to give the mints more time to establish and crawl- but now it's a bit too rampant and needs serious cutting back. No pulling out anymore- now I want those weedy root masses to stay in place to keep the hill in check while the mints keep stabilizing in. But now the mints are ready. And some of the smaller woody tree weed crap needs it's final killings- not just cutting down this time, but also painting the stumps with kill solution. I'm tired of fighting the damn things, and it's time to move on. I'm going to whack down that weedy thing growing in the bed of Jay's Sky Irises too and give it a kill painting. I got enough chemicals left to do another round of spraying the driveways too- but between all of that, it will use the chemicals up, and that's not a bad thing. I really hate using chemicals, and these have been around for a while now and need using up.
But enough with ramblings, time to publish this entry and go make some dinner- doing breakfast tonight :)
Welcome to Growbox Hill
Welcome to Growbox HIll!
Wednesday, October 18, 2017
Sunday, October 8, 2017
And October is here
10/2: Warm breezes and clear skies herald in the month.. and I kind of wandered aimless and cleaning puttering around the house today with the windows open to bring in the last warmth of the season. I said a goodby to family yesterday and today that is too painful to relate.
But the show must go on, right? Even aimless and lost, gotta get stuff done.
Consolidated the two deep freezes into the one standing one and turned off the chest for defrosting and cleaning up, pulled the tomatoes for salsa to the fridge to defrost. There were several packets of squash and pumpkin pulps in the chest freezer too. Those are now draining to dehydrate. I'm almost out of squash flour and can use some more.
Got the chicken stock reduced- cooked it with a gallon, got 3 quarts, reduced it to a bit less than a quart, which I poured off into 2 9-cube trays for the freezer. Had leftover Italian for dinner.
10/3: Ran a load of dishes early, and more into the dishwasher. Catching up on cleanup can suck up a lot of space, lol. Got another Urfa Beiber out of the solarium- got quite a bag of those piling up now, gonna need to run the smoker this week.
Got the garlic bed planted in- 72 of the Bardens softneck, and 20 of the softneck I grew out this year. A couple of red hot pokers in each back corner, and the blue eye grass made for 3 nice divisions for the front strip. Up yet is planting in bulbs. I had 15 healthy garlic starts I had put into pots earlier this summer out of the very last of the mixed garlic I was given last year- those got planted into the first bed to mature out for next year. I hope there's at least a couple different types in the mix.
Sat down and went through coupons, and the local sale ads for a bit of shopping. It's time to stock up on some canned and dry goods, especially since we are losing all the good freezer space, lol.
10/4: Glad I set in the garlic yesterday, we had some nice tamping in rain this morning.
Shopping day. And it takes hours to do a good round. The downside of living 20ish minutes away from the big stores. Aldi was pretty quick, but Meijer took a while. Picked up about a winters worth of winter squash today- half dozen butterkins, 2 delicatas, and 2 sweet dumplings that can serve 2 per squash, and 4 lovely single serve gold nuggets, about 28 pounds in all. I was tempted by the hubbards, but they were still too big for even a generous 2 person squash. I'll still probably pick up a few more before the season is done if the price is right and there's other varieties to pick up. But these were on sale for 69 cents a pound with a lot of right sized squash to choose from, and I had an additional buck off coupon to apply to my total produce purchase. Meijer also had those seafood entree packets that I've been looking at but too expensive- 6 bucks for a serving, ouch- and made with alcohol to boot. But today they were on clearance for 1.78, so I picked up a few for us to try out. Hardings had good sale action too- picked up 3 bags of taters for the price of 1. And since I found out my favorite snap lock lid containers for flour were discontinued, I was happy to find a pair of them on clearance- I wanted a pair for my bread and wheat flours. I also picked up a set of sealing lid containers on clearance from Aldi today for 7 bucks- three sizes. Used the medium one right away to store quinoa in, not sure what the small and large ones will hold yet, lol.
Tonights dinner is going to be some meatball stroganoff, I haven't made that in a million years, and we got frozen meatballs that need using up- and Hardings had a couple nice tubs of large caps on clearance for 99 cents each.
Got the last batch of ham stock started up- had a whole smoked ungleaned bone, a gleaned smoked bone, and 5 small smoked hocks in the freezer. Got the Nesco set up with about 2 1/2 gallons of water to burple up into stock, then I get to reduce the result down to just a few cube trays of what will essentially be smoked pork demi-glace for the freezer. I typically package the stuff in it's original gelatin stage in quart bags, but this time I gotta shrink that by a lot.
The tomatoes are still defrosting in the fridge- those will start getting skinned in the morning and all the peppers pulled out of the freezer... salsa tomorrow to burple up. Tomorrow I get to uncap and taste the hot pepper sauce too, and adjust it's vinegar if needed during it's final burple up- tomorrow is supposed to be fine and clear, so I'm going to be canning it up. It's as matured as it's going to get in the fridge, and now it's time to make space in the fridge and get the hot sauce shelf stable.
Got the tub of chestnuts drained off and into the dehydrator at 105- not sure how this experiment will turn out, but the soaking in vinegar water then drying is supposed to cure them really well for eating storage. Either that, or they will turn out in-edible, lol. Either way, it was time for them to get dried. Squash is coming up tomorrow for the dehydrator. The packages have defrosted in their tubs, and are getting pressed to drain in the sink now today- the mass will get repacked into the fridge overnight, then repressed tomorrow while the chestnuts finish up before I set up the dehydrator with the pulp.
Still need to figure out what to do with those bags of frozen whole peaches- letting them sit whole till Thanksgiving and they get used up in desserts is now out. Think I might need to can up a couple jars of peach pie filling- I also have a couple bags of cherries that can be thawed and cooked up into canning, and a bag or two of strawberries.
Over the moving time, I cataloged up the seeds- deep freeze and keeping on- 91 deep freeze, 173 keeping on. 83 packets went into the toss pile. Roughly 60ish packets of flower seeds I haven't fully catalogued yet.
And a small wish list- geez, I just weeded out beans, squash, tomatoes and peppers. A heap of other stuff too. But the Dwarf Wild Fred and a couple of seasoning peppers are making list- and an array of nasturtiums.
10/5: Another nice day weather wise. Got the door in front of our buddys car cleaned up- he called us Tuesday to tell us he was having it hauled off, and today was pick up day. That and some laundry was early chores. Wandering around sorting and cleaning stuff kind all day too.. weird.
10/8: Another right fine fall day. Friday I dinked around with setting up a lot of village stuff. That whole mess needs to be finished, but here it is a week into October already, and still pretty meh. The rally Friday just wasn't up to snuff. I'm starting to think I should just set up the mantle in autumn seasonal at this point. Maybe the back of the couch too. I do want to keep working on Scarry's Haunted Farm though- I think I kind of just want to get to dinking with building stuff more than setting it all up, ya know? Honestly, Fortunes Turning hasn't been right since April. Yesterday was cleaning up stuff again, and more sorting. Lots of crying over this and that. Being kind of aimlessly productive.
Today got the Ham demi-glace in the freezer, and the squash flour done and jarred up. 8 quarts of heavy ham stock reduced to about a quart, now in 32 squares in the freezer. It takes up about the same space as 1 quart bag usually does. Used up 5 smoked ham hocks, 1 stripped bone, and 1 unstripped bone, used about 5 gallons of water through the whole process. Kind of almost screwed that one up. Set up the nesco with 3 gal water in the laundry room, and cranked up the heat too high to bring stuff up to a boil for turning down to a slow simmer. Hours later hubby was telling me it was stinky, and I was like yeah, it's stock, and nope.. it had gotten too far, and had to add another 2 gallons of water to let burple overnight on low. Oops. But the resulting stock was extra rich and heavy to start with, and I normally would have bagged that up into 8 quart bags for the freezer. This time I reduced those 8 quarts to 1 and poured the stuff into a pair of 6" square aluminum pans and off to chill in the fridge-and made it all into 1 little quart space, lol. They were the consistency of very hard jello.
The 6 quarts of various squash and sweet potato pulps from the freezer and now dried down into 12 ounces of squash flour. After defrosting and draining, pressing and draining down to a 2 quart brick, that got pressed into 7 dehydrator jelly roll trays and dried at 135 overnight- this morning I flipped them and let them dry some more while the peppers were smoking. All the extra work with the pressing was worth it- the brick was easy like clay to smooth out, and already really dry since 4 quarts of water had been removed first.
Got the 2 quart bag of Urfa Beibers out of the fridge and onto the smoker, and now they are on the dehydrator. Been using disposable pie plates I got 10/10 per 3 pack, and man those have been nice. I can use them 2-3 times before they get kind of icky. Next up is the couple bags of sweet and hot fresh peppers to do up. Everything that comes out of the Tobago Seasoning and Aji Limon peppers in the solarium at this point will be used in straight dehydrating, no more smoking this year for that. Got all the smoked ones I want now, and since I will have a "surplus" of the Tobagos, I'm gonna keep off the pint or so I will want to use whole, and grind up the rest into a nice batch of pepper flake.
Then on to the whole frozen peaches. They just can't stay in the freezer, and I'm pretty much shut down on big canning for the season, and ain't making pie filling or jams this year. So I'm going to dehydrate those down too for later use. We shall see how much shrinkage I get, haven't dried peaches before. I'm hoping for a much pair smaller vacuum sealed freezer bags at the end of this.
Unfortunately, no salsa this year. I had pulled the big bags of frozen tomatoes and peppers out of the freezer to thaw, then totally forgot about them- and by the time I remembered today, they were bags of totally deflated tomatoes floating in their water, and the peppers weren't any better, so I had to scrap the whole lot of them ;(
So right now, I only have one more batch of canning to do, and it's a small kettle doable batch- the hot sauce that's curing in the fridge. Since it's a half gallon, and I want to do up 4 oz jars.. I think I might do a couple of different flavors depending on what the whole batch tastes like. I'm pretty sure I will need to add some vinegar/acid again during the reheat. It was a bit shy when I jarred it up, and I wanted it that way- better to undervinegar than over right off the bat. Found out the salt measurement I used was a bit overboard too- ah well. I want to sweeten a batch with some of those urfas, and maybe do a batch with extra garlic. Depending on the heat level of the batch, I might round that out with some smoked Aji Limon and lemon juice adjustment. That way I can break the canning into 2 days worth of batches, and not capsaicin the eff out of myself all at once, lol. I figure with the liquid additions to each batch, each flavor will probably make 6-4oz jars. Plenty enough of smalls to have a couple, and give a few away.
On a bit of a seeds note.. We do have a few new seeds to add to the list already. The Canterbury Bells were full dry and ready to clean the seed from. It was pretty easy- but since they are prickly pods, gloves were needed. And a glass seed tray to knock the seed into- not plastic. And a cotton ball.
Tip them stem up and gently roll between your fingers, and tons of seeds roll out. You get some plant crumbles too. After all your seed is knocked out... shred up that cotton ball and gently run bits of it over the seeds to lift out those prickly bits that want to stick to the cotton ball, leaving the smooth small seeds behind. Using glass instead of plastic is important here because the glass lets you slide smoother than plastic does, and you want to smoothly lift the pickles out of the seed.
Up on the needs cleaning list are some morning glories and beans :) .
But the show must go on, right? Even aimless and lost, gotta get stuff done.
Consolidated the two deep freezes into the one standing one and turned off the chest for defrosting and cleaning up, pulled the tomatoes for salsa to the fridge to defrost. There were several packets of squash and pumpkin pulps in the chest freezer too. Those are now draining to dehydrate. I'm almost out of squash flour and can use some more.
Got the chicken stock reduced- cooked it with a gallon, got 3 quarts, reduced it to a bit less than a quart, which I poured off into 2 9-cube trays for the freezer. Had leftover Italian for dinner.
10/3: Ran a load of dishes early, and more into the dishwasher. Catching up on cleanup can suck up a lot of space, lol. Got another Urfa Beiber out of the solarium- got quite a bag of those piling up now, gonna need to run the smoker this week.
Got the garlic bed planted in- 72 of the Bardens softneck, and 20 of the softneck I grew out this year. A couple of red hot pokers in each back corner, and the blue eye grass made for 3 nice divisions for the front strip. Up yet is planting in bulbs. I had 15 healthy garlic starts I had put into pots earlier this summer out of the very last of the mixed garlic I was given last year- those got planted into the first bed to mature out for next year. I hope there's at least a couple different types in the mix.
Sat down and went through coupons, and the local sale ads for a bit of shopping. It's time to stock up on some canned and dry goods, especially since we are losing all the good freezer space, lol.
10/4: Glad I set in the garlic yesterday, we had some nice tamping in rain this morning.
Shopping day. And it takes hours to do a good round. The downside of living 20ish minutes away from the big stores. Aldi was pretty quick, but Meijer took a while. Picked up about a winters worth of winter squash today- half dozen butterkins, 2 delicatas, and 2 sweet dumplings that can serve 2 per squash, and 4 lovely single serve gold nuggets, about 28 pounds in all. I was tempted by the hubbards, but they were still too big for even a generous 2 person squash. I'll still probably pick up a few more before the season is done if the price is right and there's other varieties to pick up. But these were on sale for 69 cents a pound with a lot of right sized squash to choose from, and I had an additional buck off coupon to apply to my total produce purchase. Meijer also had those seafood entree packets that I've been looking at but too expensive- 6 bucks for a serving, ouch- and made with alcohol to boot. But today they were on clearance for 1.78, so I picked up a few for us to try out. Hardings had good sale action too- picked up 3 bags of taters for the price of 1. And since I found out my favorite snap lock lid containers for flour were discontinued, I was happy to find a pair of them on clearance- I wanted a pair for my bread and wheat flours. I also picked up a set of sealing lid containers on clearance from Aldi today for 7 bucks- three sizes. Used the medium one right away to store quinoa in, not sure what the small and large ones will hold yet, lol.
Tonights dinner is going to be some meatball stroganoff, I haven't made that in a million years, and we got frozen meatballs that need using up- and Hardings had a couple nice tubs of large caps on clearance for 99 cents each.
Got the last batch of ham stock started up- had a whole smoked ungleaned bone, a gleaned smoked bone, and 5 small smoked hocks in the freezer. Got the Nesco set up with about 2 1/2 gallons of water to burple up into stock, then I get to reduce the result down to just a few cube trays of what will essentially be smoked pork demi-glace for the freezer. I typically package the stuff in it's original gelatin stage in quart bags, but this time I gotta shrink that by a lot.
The tomatoes are still defrosting in the fridge- those will start getting skinned in the morning and all the peppers pulled out of the freezer... salsa tomorrow to burple up. Tomorrow I get to uncap and taste the hot pepper sauce too, and adjust it's vinegar if needed during it's final burple up- tomorrow is supposed to be fine and clear, so I'm going to be canning it up. It's as matured as it's going to get in the fridge, and now it's time to make space in the fridge and get the hot sauce shelf stable.
Got the tub of chestnuts drained off and into the dehydrator at 105- not sure how this experiment will turn out, but the soaking in vinegar water then drying is supposed to cure them really well for eating storage. Either that, or they will turn out in-edible, lol. Either way, it was time for them to get dried. Squash is coming up tomorrow for the dehydrator. The packages have defrosted in their tubs, and are getting pressed to drain in the sink now today- the mass will get repacked into the fridge overnight, then repressed tomorrow while the chestnuts finish up before I set up the dehydrator with the pulp.
Still need to figure out what to do with those bags of frozen whole peaches- letting them sit whole till Thanksgiving and they get used up in desserts is now out. Think I might need to can up a couple jars of peach pie filling- I also have a couple bags of cherries that can be thawed and cooked up into canning, and a bag or two of strawberries.
Over the moving time, I cataloged up the seeds- deep freeze and keeping on- 91 deep freeze, 173 keeping on. 83 packets went into the toss pile. Roughly 60ish packets of flower seeds I haven't fully catalogued yet.
And a small wish list- geez, I just weeded out beans, squash, tomatoes and peppers. A heap of other stuff too. But the Dwarf Wild Fred and a couple of seasoning peppers are making list- and an array of nasturtiums.
10/5: Another nice day weather wise. Got the door in front of our buddys car cleaned up- he called us Tuesday to tell us he was having it hauled off, and today was pick up day. That and some laundry was early chores. Wandering around sorting and cleaning stuff kind all day too.. weird.
10/8: Another right fine fall day. Friday I dinked around with setting up a lot of village stuff. That whole mess needs to be finished, but here it is a week into October already, and still pretty meh. The rally Friday just wasn't up to snuff. I'm starting to think I should just set up the mantle in autumn seasonal at this point. Maybe the back of the couch too. I do want to keep working on Scarry's Haunted Farm though- I think I kind of just want to get to dinking with building stuff more than setting it all up, ya know? Honestly, Fortunes Turning hasn't been right since April. Yesterday was cleaning up stuff again, and more sorting. Lots of crying over this and that. Being kind of aimlessly productive.
Today got the Ham demi-glace in the freezer, and the squash flour done and jarred up. 8 quarts of heavy ham stock reduced to about a quart, now in 32 squares in the freezer. It takes up about the same space as 1 quart bag usually does. Used up 5 smoked ham hocks, 1 stripped bone, and 1 unstripped bone, used about 5 gallons of water through the whole process. Kind of almost screwed that one up. Set up the nesco with 3 gal water in the laundry room, and cranked up the heat too high to bring stuff up to a boil for turning down to a slow simmer. Hours later hubby was telling me it was stinky, and I was like yeah, it's stock, and nope.. it had gotten too far, and had to add another 2 gallons of water to let burple overnight on low. Oops. But the resulting stock was extra rich and heavy to start with, and I normally would have bagged that up into 8 quart bags for the freezer. This time I reduced those 8 quarts to 1 and poured the stuff into a pair of 6" square aluminum pans and off to chill in the fridge-and made it all into 1 little quart space, lol. They were the consistency of very hard jello.
The 6 quarts of various squash and sweet potato pulps from the freezer and now dried down into 12 ounces of squash flour. After defrosting and draining, pressing and draining down to a 2 quart brick, that got pressed into 7 dehydrator jelly roll trays and dried at 135 overnight- this morning I flipped them and let them dry some more while the peppers were smoking. All the extra work with the pressing was worth it- the brick was easy like clay to smooth out, and already really dry since 4 quarts of water had been removed first.
Got the 2 quart bag of Urfa Beibers out of the fridge and onto the smoker, and now they are on the dehydrator. Been using disposable pie plates I got 10/10 per 3 pack, and man those have been nice. I can use them 2-3 times before they get kind of icky. Next up is the couple bags of sweet and hot fresh peppers to do up. Everything that comes out of the Tobago Seasoning and Aji Limon peppers in the solarium at this point will be used in straight dehydrating, no more smoking this year for that. Got all the smoked ones I want now, and since I will have a "surplus" of the Tobagos, I'm gonna keep off the pint or so I will want to use whole, and grind up the rest into a nice batch of pepper flake.
Then on to the whole frozen peaches. They just can't stay in the freezer, and I'm pretty much shut down on big canning for the season, and ain't making pie filling or jams this year. So I'm going to dehydrate those down too for later use. We shall see how much shrinkage I get, haven't dried peaches before. I'm hoping for a much pair smaller vacuum sealed freezer bags at the end of this.
Unfortunately, no salsa this year. I had pulled the big bags of frozen tomatoes and peppers out of the freezer to thaw, then totally forgot about them- and by the time I remembered today, they were bags of totally deflated tomatoes floating in their water, and the peppers weren't any better, so I had to scrap the whole lot of them ;(
So right now, I only have one more batch of canning to do, and it's a small kettle doable batch- the hot sauce that's curing in the fridge. Since it's a half gallon, and I want to do up 4 oz jars.. I think I might do a couple of different flavors depending on what the whole batch tastes like. I'm pretty sure I will need to add some vinegar/acid again during the reheat. It was a bit shy when I jarred it up, and I wanted it that way- better to undervinegar than over right off the bat. Found out the salt measurement I used was a bit overboard too- ah well. I want to sweeten a batch with some of those urfas, and maybe do a batch with extra garlic. Depending on the heat level of the batch, I might round that out with some smoked Aji Limon and lemon juice adjustment. That way I can break the canning into 2 days worth of batches, and not capsaicin the eff out of myself all at once, lol. I figure with the liquid additions to each batch, each flavor will probably make 6-4oz jars. Plenty enough of smalls to have a couple, and give a few away.
On a bit of a seeds note.. We do have a few new seeds to add to the list already. The Canterbury Bells were full dry and ready to clean the seed from. It was pretty easy- but since they are prickly pods, gloves were needed. And a glass seed tray to knock the seed into- not plastic. And a cotton ball.
Tip them stem up and gently roll between your fingers, and tons of seeds roll out. You get some plant crumbles too. After all your seed is knocked out... shred up that cotton ball and gently run bits of it over the seeds to lift out those prickly bits that want to stick to the cotton ball, leaving the smooth small seeds behind. Using glass instead of plastic is important here because the glass lets you slide smoother than plastic does, and you want to smoothly lift the pickles out of the seed.
Up on the needs cleaning list are some morning glories and beans :) .
Sunday, October 1, 2017
Rainy day...
9/19: I awoke to rain gently tapping the roof.. so I decided to snuggle in for an hour and watch the morning news and hubby made coffee. Hung out with mom for a bit, then hit the solarium for a bit of indoor work while the pepper mash came up to heat.
Capped off 3 windows with the foggy plastic on the north wall, leaving the last one open for now to use as an exhaust fan for the mash- that shit is toxic. But some more cleanup and re-arranging done again out there to prep up for winter. Later on tonight we shall see where the taste is at and where the liquid level is at, I'd like to reduce it a bit because it's rather thin right now. And it still needs a good stick blending too, but that will come later tonight as well.
Got the last 2 quart packages of Toothache plant sealed up and on the shelf. Glad that's done for the season. One last round of big stuff to go, the batch of garlic salsa. I got all the tomatoes, peppers, and cilantro in the freezer. But that will wait till after I get the hot sauce done at least.
The rest of the week we are supposed to be coming into something of a heat wave, upper 70's and might even hit 80's. Yikes. But it's also supposed to be dry, so I will be able to get that last round of mowing done before the leaves start falling. It's actually been kind of nice to really keep pace with the garden this year. I've had some losses and successes, and overall good year.
9/22: The gentle tapping of Tuesday has turned into a heat wave indeed. Yesterday I got my Zen on mowing down some of the last mow of the season till that got done. Then went into town with a huge donation load with sis. Astonishingly enough, our first then second favorite resale shops weren't taking donations, and Goodwill got it all.
Early this morning I watered well and set in soaker jugs to the perennial bed I just planted in. Glad I hadn't really started into the other two beds yet. And cleaned out some beds early. And that we have saved up a goodly batch of water. Turns out the second harvest is hotter and dryer this year than the first harvest was.
Tomorrow is a moving day. Mom and Sis are taking a full truck to storage around the lake. Sunday is transport and dropping off and coming back.
9/28: Busy few days. First truck got unloaded Sunday, a couple dear friends and a new member to the crew helped unload, then we had lunch. Puttered around in town to kill time while rush hour traffic was going on came back home. Picked up an outstanding replica of the Alcatraz 1909 lighthouse complex- FT now has a prison, lol. Picked it up for 7 bucks, sells online cheap for 30+shipping, or more like 50-100 bucks regularly. I just thought it was cool as hell, then looked it up to see if it was really what it was labeled as, and got a steal.
Monday was getting the house straight and shuffling around some FT village stuff to blow off stress- there's going to be a large amusement haunt in Nightvale this year :) Then turned around and left for Wi again Tues morning, had a wake for a dear friend, came home Wed night.
Got a little shopping in while in Wi from a couple local old loved stored I know I can only find some thing in... picked up some more bulbs for the gardens, and 5 Dept 56 lights that were on deep clearance. I now am the happy owner of 7 pieces total of Dept 56- the stuff is sooo nice, but sooooo expensive I rarely can afford one piece, let alone pick up a few for a few bucks each- and holy crap it happened twice this year. Sis noted some tiny bat light strands that were inexpensive too, and it was funny- I had seen Dept 56 strand bat lights, they were around 20 bucks. I picked up 4 strands at the grocery store for the same price, lol.
Today was a garden cleanup day. Got the whole batch of Tobago Seasoning and Trinidad Perfume peppers that were chilling in the fridge and fresh picked in the dehydrator to straight dry. Tomorrow I'm putting the last smoker batch of Aji Limons on- very happy that I will have a nice full jar of those for storage. I still have a good-ish flush of peppers on the 2 plants in the solarium, so I might still get a small batch for straight dehydrating too if I'm lucky.
Sis helped me out shuffling bins and big pots around- now the blue bins are boxing in the kitchen window bed, and it's filled with potted irises, first year lavenders, and a couple strawberries. That will get mulched in a bit to help keep them cozy through the winter. Since the next couple nights are supposed to bottom out into the upper to mid 40's, had to pull some plants inside. The 5 Tobago Seasoning peppers are now sitting on the basking edge of the pond in the solarium so their fruits can ripen in the warm. 3 coleus, 3 lucifers, and a couple other pots of small bulbs came inside too.
Moved the 5 gooseberries that might still be alive over to the kennel side.
Emptied out and cleaned up a lot of half gallon pots and other pots and added in some sweet feed to make a barrow full of mixed dirt- then used up all my half gallon pots repotting the asparagus. They had lived in those 3" pots long enough, and probably wouldn't have survived the winter well in such small pots. And this way, they have springtime to grow in happy again. I won't have their bed ready till later on next growing season anyway. I still haven't even fall cleaned it yet.
Picked up the first bucket of Chinese Chestnuts for this season- They are already in the fridge chilling, I'll pick out the best 6 for seed stock, then process up the rest for eating storage. It's only a little bucket, so no biggie. After this last weekend move, I'll start picking up more for bigger bucket storage. I want to try out a whiskey recipe and a sugar syrup preserve recipe, and a drying batch for nut flower. Probably only about 10 pounds total, if that. Each gathering will get another best 6 for seed stock picked out of it. Next spring I'll pot them up and start growing them out for planting somewhere. This fall the trees themselves are for sure coming down- I've already been talking to a guy I know about the removal. It just has to happen, that tree is really old, brittle, frail, and overhanging into power lines and over the solarium roof, causing extra damage to the skylight. I'm thinking I'd like to leave the trunks long if I can. Use them as platforms and posts for other stuff, like bird feeders and such. They have a lovely structure and I like the lilly of the valley pool around the base.
Sold the car- happened to be that the neighbor was interested in the car anyway, then his truck died and he needed a vehicle. So now that one is off the books. Need to figure out where to donate or slab the other one off to. It time to clear that space off too.
9/29: how time flies. Today I sealed up most of the windows in the solarium, and sorted out flower bulbs, cleaned up the solarium some more.. Popped off the Aji Limons into the smoker early, and then got them dehydrated off and into their jar today- I now have one whole pint! Took the plunge and waded through all my bulbs, and got some basic sorting done as to which beds they are going into. The front row where the hibiscuses are growing is getting some overdue attention in the coming weeks. All that's growing on right now is the hibiscuses, and I'm not sure where the daffs went, lol. The original bed was 3x14, and the original section isn't too bad. But it's a pain to mow around now, and the bed needs reopening and a bit of lengthening maybe. Might end up being more like 5x16 by the time I'm done churning stuff up around the outside edges. The wee folk garden area is getting a freshening of bulbs too.
There's bulbs going out into the herb garden, and a heap sorted out for the perennial lasagna bed switchover. And another pile for potting up this year because they are almost ready to split. Got one lone bag of something that didn't get it's ID tag included, and a couple missing small bulb tags, so I will have to re-pot that one to figure out what it is again, lol.
9/30: Had a town hall meeting this morning, followed by picking up a truck. Then a lot of tinkering and fussing with cleaning, and sorting plants, and so on. Got the first stall of the greenhouse cleaned up and stuff put away so I can start filling it with some leaves for me to nestle those 30 pots of asparagus I just repotted the other day into. Took some plant tallies, moved a few fruits- raspberries and jostaberries to the greenhouse porch. Culled out the last couple brown bags of seeds for their deep freeze.. I didn't bother with sorting flowers, because I always use those up pretty quick. But some of my seed stock is getting kind of old, or I know I won't be using for the next year or few while I use up some other seed stock. So right now from the total drawer, I've culled off about 10% as straight get rid of- it's all just things I've gotten in trade that I wasn't too interested in, or stuff I've tried that wasn't our speed. Of the 90% of whats left, about 15% of it is flower seeds. Of the remaining 75%, I culled out about 30% for deep freeze. Looking at the piles, I can tell I've reduced the overall stock by about 40% between the toss and deep freeze. All the seeds culled off for freezing will only take up a quart space at most by the time I'm done sealing down the packages. So now I need to catalog the freezer stock and write up it's list to have on hand and another in the package.
And ha, already on to more seeds. The other day in Wi I picked up a packet of spiderwort. Already starting a short wish list with Biquinho pepper. It's another seasoning pepper. And fresh stock on Dwarf Wild Fred- I just looked him up recently, and only a couple sellers offer it, and their pics do not match up with what I got. So now I'm on the hunt, lol.
Capped off 3 windows with the foggy plastic on the north wall, leaving the last one open for now to use as an exhaust fan for the mash- that shit is toxic. But some more cleanup and re-arranging done again out there to prep up for winter. Later on tonight we shall see where the taste is at and where the liquid level is at, I'd like to reduce it a bit because it's rather thin right now. And it still needs a good stick blending too, but that will come later tonight as well.
Got the last 2 quart packages of Toothache plant sealed up and on the shelf. Glad that's done for the season. One last round of big stuff to go, the batch of garlic salsa. I got all the tomatoes, peppers, and cilantro in the freezer. But that will wait till after I get the hot sauce done at least.
The rest of the week we are supposed to be coming into something of a heat wave, upper 70's and might even hit 80's. Yikes. But it's also supposed to be dry, so I will be able to get that last round of mowing done before the leaves start falling. It's actually been kind of nice to really keep pace with the garden this year. I've had some losses and successes, and overall good year.
9/22: The gentle tapping of Tuesday has turned into a heat wave indeed. Yesterday I got my Zen on mowing down some of the last mow of the season till that got done. Then went into town with a huge donation load with sis. Astonishingly enough, our first then second favorite resale shops weren't taking donations, and Goodwill got it all.
Early this morning I watered well and set in soaker jugs to the perennial bed I just planted in. Glad I hadn't really started into the other two beds yet. And cleaned out some beds early. And that we have saved up a goodly batch of water. Turns out the second harvest is hotter and dryer this year than the first harvest was.
Tomorrow is a moving day. Mom and Sis are taking a full truck to storage around the lake. Sunday is transport and dropping off and coming back.
9/28: Busy few days. First truck got unloaded Sunday, a couple dear friends and a new member to the crew helped unload, then we had lunch. Puttered around in town to kill time while rush hour traffic was going on came back home. Picked up an outstanding replica of the Alcatraz 1909 lighthouse complex- FT now has a prison, lol. Picked it up for 7 bucks, sells online cheap for 30+shipping, or more like 50-100 bucks regularly. I just thought it was cool as hell, then looked it up to see if it was really what it was labeled as, and got a steal.
Monday was getting the house straight and shuffling around some FT village stuff to blow off stress- there's going to be a large amusement haunt in Nightvale this year :) Then turned around and left for Wi again Tues morning, had a wake for a dear friend, came home Wed night.
Got a little shopping in while in Wi from a couple local old loved stored I know I can only find some thing in... picked up some more bulbs for the gardens, and 5 Dept 56 lights that were on deep clearance. I now am the happy owner of 7 pieces total of Dept 56- the stuff is sooo nice, but sooooo expensive I rarely can afford one piece, let alone pick up a few for a few bucks each- and holy crap it happened twice this year. Sis noted some tiny bat light strands that were inexpensive too, and it was funny- I had seen Dept 56 strand bat lights, they were around 20 bucks. I picked up 4 strands at the grocery store for the same price, lol.
Today was a garden cleanup day. Got the whole batch of Tobago Seasoning and Trinidad Perfume peppers that were chilling in the fridge and fresh picked in the dehydrator to straight dry. Tomorrow I'm putting the last smoker batch of Aji Limons on- very happy that I will have a nice full jar of those for storage. I still have a good-ish flush of peppers on the 2 plants in the solarium, so I might still get a small batch for straight dehydrating too if I'm lucky.
Sis helped me out shuffling bins and big pots around- now the blue bins are boxing in the kitchen window bed, and it's filled with potted irises, first year lavenders, and a couple strawberries. That will get mulched in a bit to help keep them cozy through the winter. Since the next couple nights are supposed to bottom out into the upper to mid 40's, had to pull some plants inside. The 5 Tobago Seasoning peppers are now sitting on the basking edge of the pond in the solarium so their fruits can ripen in the warm. 3 coleus, 3 lucifers, and a couple other pots of small bulbs came inside too.
Moved the 5 gooseberries that might still be alive over to the kennel side.
Emptied out and cleaned up a lot of half gallon pots and other pots and added in some sweet feed to make a barrow full of mixed dirt- then used up all my half gallon pots repotting the asparagus. They had lived in those 3" pots long enough, and probably wouldn't have survived the winter well in such small pots. And this way, they have springtime to grow in happy again. I won't have their bed ready till later on next growing season anyway. I still haven't even fall cleaned it yet.
Picked up the first bucket of Chinese Chestnuts for this season- They are already in the fridge chilling, I'll pick out the best 6 for seed stock, then process up the rest for eating storage. It's only a little bucket, so no biggie. After this last weekend move, I'll start picking up more for bigger bucket storage. I want to try out a whiskey recipe and a sugar syrup preserve recipe, and a drying batch for nut flower. Probably only about 10 pounds total, if that. Each gathering will get another best 6 for seed stock picked out of it. Next spring I'll pot them up and start growing them out for planting somewhere. This fall the trees themselves are for sure coming down- I've already been talking to a guy I know about the removal. It just has to happen, that tree is really old, brittle, frail, and overhanging into power lines and over the solarium roof, causing extra damage to the skylight. I'm thinking I'd like to leave the trunks long if I can. Use them as platforms and posts for other stuff, like bird feeders and such. They have a lovely structure and I like the lilly of the valley pool around the base.
Sold the car- happened to be that the neighbor was interested in the car anyway, then his truck died and he needed a vehicle. So now that one is off the books. Need to figure out where to donate or slab the other one off to. It time to clear that space off too.
9/29: how time flies. Today I sealed up most of the windows in the solarium, and sorted out flower bulbs, cleaned up the solarium some more.. Popped off the Aji Limons into the smoker early, and then got them dehydrated off and into their jar today- I now have one whole pint! Took the plunge and waded through all my bulbs, and got some basic sorting done as to which beds they are going into. The front row where the hibiscuses are growing is getting some overdue attention in the coming weeks. All that's growing on right now is the hibiscuses, and I'm not sure where the daffs went, lol. The original bed was 3x14, and the original section isn't too bad. But it's a pain to mow around now, and the bed needs reopening and a bit of lengthening maybe. Might end up being more like 5x16 by the time I'm done churning stuff up around the outside edges. The wee folk garden area is getting a freshening of bulbs too.
There's bulbs going out into the herb garden, and a heap sorted out for the perennial lasagna bed switchover. And another pile for potting up this year because they are almost ready to split. Got one lone bag of something that didn't get it's ID tag included, and a couple missing small bulb tags, so I will have to re-pot that one to figure out what it is again, lol.
9/30: Had a town hall meeting this morning, followed by picking up a truck. Then a lot of tinkering and fussing with cleaning, and sorting plants, and so on. Got the first stall of the greenhouse cleaned up and stuff put away so I can start filling it with some leaves for me to nestle those 30 pots of asparagus I just repotted the other day into. Took some plant tallies, moved a few fruits- raspberries and jostaberries to the greenhouse porch. Culled out the last couple brown bags of seeds for their deep freeze.. I didn't bother with sorting flowers, because I always use those up pretty quick. But some of my seed stock is getting kind of old, or I know I won't be using for the next year or few while I use up some other seed stock. So right now from the total drawer, I've culled off about 10% as straight get rid of- it's all just things I've gotten in trade that I wasn't too interested in, or stuff I've tried that wasn't our speed. Of the 90% of whats left, about 15% of it is flower seeds. Of the remaining 75%, I culled out about 30% for deep freeze. Looking at the piles, I can tell I've reduced the overall stock by about 40% between the toss and deep freeze. All the seeds culled off for freezing will only take up a quart space at most by the time I'm done sealing down the packages. So now I need to catalog the freezer stock and write up it's list to have on hand and another in the package.
And ha, already on to more seeds. The other day in Wi I picked up a packet of spiderwort. Already starting a short wish list with Biquinho pepper. It's another seasoning pepper. And fresh stock on Dwarf Wild Fred- I just looked him up recently, and only a couple sellers offer it, and their pics do not match up with what I got. So now I'm on the hunt, lol.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)