Gardening

[Dode]

By monitoring my basement last night, I found the holes in the rock walls where the water was gushing through. As soon as the ground dries enough, I will get some concrete in those holes. Might have to wait until August, when it is bone dry.

[Dode]

I saw this pic and thought of you all.

GardenRain.jpg

[Betty Buckshot]

It rained like that here last night too, w/ hail

[tk]

Another 2 inches of rain last night and more today and tomorow my garden is doomed . I went up tonight and pulled my onions . The tops where dead but they didn't brake over. Normally I would have bent them over and left them in the ground a while but I was afraid of them rotting in the water . Here's the swamp tonight.
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I got enough cucumbers and zucchini to make a gallon of shaker pickles tomorrow. The sweet onions don't look to bad but they may not cure good. I got them drying in the shed if they start to rot i'll just have to freeze them. My big garden is thinning out fast with what has drowned and pulling onions. I'm glad I planted all my peppers in the raised beds this year.
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[tk]

I got a gallon and a half of shaker pickles made yesterday making use of my cucumbers, onions and zucchini then shredded another 5 quart of zucchini to freeze for bread and fritters. I got to go back to work . This kitchen stuff sucks. Hats off to you lady's who have done this stuff for ever. My wife usually has done all this stuff I would only help a little in the evenings . Cooking is a lot like cleaning the whole time I'm doing it I'm thinking of what I would rather be doing outside. Oh well she done it all the first 30 years a guess it's my turn.
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We got 2 inches of rain Wednesday night and another 2.5 inches yesterday . The sun is supposed to shine now for the next 3 days. Hopefully things will dry out and the farmers can get some hay made. I would be happy just to be able to get my grass cut. TK

[Dode]

No doubt about it, food preservation is a lot of work for a little bit of food. However, when the garden produces really well, then the days in the kitchen are even longer. I don't know how my Grandma did it all her life. I do recall there were many times that she exclaimed, "I wish I was six feet under!" Sorry for the bit of reality, folks. (She had 12 kids and every year she had 3 big gardens to weed and harvest..... I wish her life could have been easier.) Honestly, I don't know how the settlers of this country ever survived.

[kickstand]

Dode, they were a heardy breed of folks who were, for the most part, left alone by the government and allowed to flourish. And they all carried guns and knew how and when to use them.

[tk]

Well just as I figured the steady rain quite about 2 weeks ago and my big garden dried out. But it was to late to help . I got about 6 pounds of green beans should have been about 20. My tomato's got blighted bad . My potato's that didn't rot look bad and are small and the sweet corn that pulled threw are now under deer attack . Thank goodness my peppers and cucumbers in my raised beds are booming or I would have had a total loss this year. Even my zucchinis that were really producing stopped putting out. The pumpkins look like they may pull threw but time will tell.
I got tons of pickles made a bunch of Hungarian wax peppers stuffed with either hot sausage or sauerkraut and a bunch of green bell peppers froze and plenty of onions.
This is why I feel that gardening and canning is a big deal. You must can or preserve in the good years all that you can even though you think its to much to make up for the bad years like I'm having this year. We have plenty of tomato's canned from last year to easily get us threw this year. But just think if you couldn't go to the store and buy the things you need . Veggies is just a small part of things we need but an important part. SHTF I want a little more to eat than wild meat and fish.
I think I have made up my mind that I am going to build about another 40 feet of raised beds for next year so I can control the environment (excess ground water and drainage and weeds) and predator ( deer groundhogs and rabbits) a lot better. Plus with my bad back I dont have to bend as much.
Hope you all had a better season . TK

[Dode]

You said it, KICK.

TK.... sorry to hear about the dismal production due to all the rain. Seems like a couple of years ago we had such a hard drought that even the weeds died. The only other time I remember it being a drought around here in MO, was back in the early 60's. I could be wrong, since I did live out of state for many years. However, you are dead right about producing enough to keep a couple of years worth canned.

For myself, I think dehydrating the surplus veggies will be a good idea. I didn't make a garden this year, due to the rain getting in the way, but I was toying with the idea of turning my big metal shed into a 'drying shed' for the veggies. No way I could do it with 2-3 electric dehydrators, but if I had a wall of drying racks 24' long, 7' tall and 3 rows deep, then that would handle a lot of garden produce. I've been using dehydrated veggies in soups and rice dishes and they are quite astonishing in their flavor. Canning entails a lot of prep work and gas/elec/wood to do the canning. Dehydration would entail the prep work, letting the hot metal shed and fans provide the energy for drying, and then just scooping it into the jars with a tight lid and vac seal, if necessary.

[airdrop]

No doubt about it, food preservation is a lot of work for a little bit of food. However, when the garden produces really well, then the days in the kitchen are even longer. I don't know how my Grandma did it all her life. I do recall there were many times that she exclaimed, "I wish I was six feet under!" Sorry for the bit of reality, folks. (She had 12 kids and every year she had 3 big gardens to weed and harvest..... I wish her life could have been easier.) Honestly, I don't know how the settlers of this country ever survived.

Kids grow up working on the farm ,had to help to survive . This for the most part created a strong work ethic or created the desire to do it better , better plows , tools , things to make the labor lighter . In my family tree one man had 22 kids by 3 wives over the course of his life lol but big families spread the work load to . I think this pushed the young west to find new land as land was to expensive , the Westward movement . The westward movement stop for my family in Oklahoma with the land rush ,by then free land was just about over .

[Dode]

Many of the pioneer men and later ones had 3 wives in their lifetimes, due to the fact that the wives kept dying from the constant child birthing and hard labor of life. The movies like to portray the women as 'giving birth in the fields and going right back to work within a few hours'. What a load of Hollywood hogwash! The women were flat out used up and dead by the time they had their 5th child. Many historic records will show the death of a wife about 2-6 months after the birth of the last child. That's usually due to septicemia from a tear, after the birth of a child.

My paternal great+ grandfather homesteaded 500 acres and was given a Spanish Land Grant in the late 1790's. Back then, 'homesteading' meant if you improved the land, then the gov't would deed the land to you. It was the incentive to get people to leave the cities and populate the vast wilderness. Great(+) Gramps got in on it during the last couple of years that homesteading was available. 160 years later, out of pure spite, my grandfather sold his portion out of the family. (There's no explaining sociopathic tendencies.) Last year, I drove out to the old home place and took pics of it before it changed hands again and a lock was placed on the gate.

[tk]

Well the growing season is just about over here in western PA. I pulled the tomato plants Sunday although they were still producing the tomato's just didn't taste good and were watery. Picked the pumpkins then mowed every thing off. I left the zucchini their still alright they will grow till it frosts. wanted to plow it under and seed it down in rye but it has been raining sense Sunday night. In my raised beds my banana peppers were full and I pulled all the big ones Monday and canned another 12 pints of hot mustard relish. When the rest of the them get bigger I will can hot pepper rings out of them and cut up and freeze the green bell peppers and garden season will be over.
I Got 2 baskets of apples from my one tree that produced this year . I don't spray so their kinda ugly but will make good pie filling . I will can those next week.
I built an arbor for my tame black berry plants my neighbor started for me when this rain quits I will get them in the ground and straw them down before winter then I'm done. The pantry is full and will keep us and the kids for a while so not to bad of a year after all.
Fall is fast approaching and its time to do some woods time and put some meat in the freezer. I'm still not working I wish hide prices were up I would defiantly trap and hunt some coon this year. But there is no sense people cant give last year's pelts away . That's what you get when you live in a plastic and polyester world . Once again I was born 50 years to late. TK

[redman2006]

TK,
We just planted blackberries this year and got the running ones by accident. What kind of arbor do you grow these on? I was just going to cut some cattle panels like I use for my tomatoes, peas, beans etc. but I am not sure if they would be high enough.

[dangerdan]

Fried green tomatoes
hot pickled tomatoes


Oh the humanity


DD

[roach2654]

Happy Hunting tk !