Too early to think about winter?

I can hear the groans from way over here!

You don't have to think about winter weather or gassing up the snow blower but if you followed any of my advice (not to be mistaken for nagging) last winter about stocking up on a few essentials in the food and water departments, now might be a time to check them over.

The theory on buying some extra "grocery store" types of foods is to get things that you will eat. Sounds pretty basic but surprisingly enough many people (and, yes, people DO prepare) put in supplies of things that only an emergency would force them to eat!  The idea is to eat up your "preps" as you go along and replace them so they never get too old to use.  This way you have your emergency supplies always fresh and current.

But here some of us are several months later with a wonderful supply of brown rice and un-ground wheat and other rather less than appetizing sorts of foods.  Not to mention the 50 cans of kidney beans that are now nearing their expiration dates!

Before these things expire how about take a few minutes (depending on how many cans of those beans you actually laid in) and check for expiration dates.  Local food pantries and shelters could use them all up before they were officially not good (which really isn't real but that's another discussion).

So why not check through your stash (you DID put in a stash, right?) and take the almost obsolete items to a place that will be more than grateful to get them.  And on your way home perhaps buy a few things to replace them.  Face it, you never needed 50 cans of kidney beans but if you got 10 cans of the beans along with some canned tomatoes and tomato sauce all you would need is the meat and you'd be all set to make several batches of chili.

I am not going to go into whether chili should or should not contain meat - or for that matter, beans. That also is a discussion for later...or never!

I'll keep this short and sweet - my point is (here it comes) that the time to think about what you will have for supper when you are housebound and that damn nor 'easter actually arrived isn't just after you have shoveled off the porch for the third time in 2 hours.  It's now.  Take a look at what you have, donate the things that are nearing their expiration date or, in some cases, that you know you would truly rather starve to death than eat.

The whole process will give you a warm feeling of doing something for someone else along with giving your family a running start on the food storage for the winter!

Just sayin!

Nothing to do with gardening

Once upon a time we went on a road trip to nowhere in particular.  Probably took the dogs, I don't remember really.  At one point somewhere in southern Maine we came across this house.  Obviously fallen into total disrepair - even the mailbox was sad looking.

When I see abandoned homes I always wonder about the lives that were lived there - what were the hopes and dreams that didn't come true and what caused the families that lived there to walk away. Did they leave for a better place or did they just give up in frustration and grief?

Below is what the house said to me  -  actually it nagged at me until I put in down on paper (or a screen).  It's a snapshot of a day in the life and probably wildly inaccurate - but this is what the house told me to say:

This old house -

Pushing aside the faded curtain she looked out over the field towards the river.  Bending forward she leaned her forehead on the window pane - briefly enjoying the cool feel of the glass against her skin.  “If I just knew what happened to him”, she mused silently – “if I only knew”. 

The field had no answer for her – no more than the river ever did.  She remembered how in the beginning they’d chosen their building site together because of that river.  You could look down across the field in the morning and see it glistening in the sun – walk down in the evening and watch the fish jump or, if it was a hot summer, jump in.  She half smiled as she recollected how scandalized the neighbors had been at the idea of a woman actually swimming!  He hadn’t cared a bit what they thought – just told her to at least keep her shift on!

Turning, she looked around the kitchen – it looked shabby even in the dim light that filtered through the grimy window.  Time was everything was spic and span but, then, it was a lot easier when the boys were still home.  Gives you something to go forward for when someone needs you.  They were sad when it happened but young appetites still had to be fed, clothes had to be washed, chores had to be done and somehow you put on a good face just so they wouldn’t know how bad it really was.

Now, of course, one was in the Army and the other was God knows where.  An occasional letter with a smudged postmark arrived saying that all was well but to really know how he was –impossible.  At least with the Army you knew where a body was - even if there never seemed time to come home. 

She remembered how she had felt at first. Looking back through the lens of years it hardly seemed more than yesterday.  Grief had moved with her through the days and grief lay down by her side through the white nights of sleeplessness.  It was like a macabre dance that could never end – a healing step attempted, sorrow pulling her back.  There was no escape from the cycle.  Unable to sleep she had fantasized that she would eventually be consumed and all that remained would be a fragile envelope of pain with nothing human remaining within.

It had amazed her that a loss could trigger such actual physically blinding pain.  You think of crying and you think “tears” – but you should be thinking “scalding” or “burning” or “bitter” because that is the way the acid tears of grief feel on your face.  You think “loss” and you imagine emptiness in your life.  You do not imagine an abyss that has swallowed up everything meaningful while threatening your very existence.  Grief was a void that opened under her feet until the very act of walking seemed to endanger her. 

A bit of then and now

Sometimes early in the season it's hard to visualize how things are going to progress.  It's part of the reason that I sometimes end up with plants too close together.  As long as I've been doing this I just can't imagine they are ever going to fill in that whole space.

So how about we check that out:

Started out looking pretty sparse - cucumbers and peppers

Hiding behind cucumbers now

Cucumbers overtaking 

So my thought at this point is if the cucumbers come to fruition I can cover the world! Cause they are growing out front too!

Started out looking pretty controllable:

Now they are exploding like the ones out back!

No telling if every blossom will produce a cucumber but I tend to plan as if they will.  My highly regarded and extremely sought after Bread and Butter Pickles look to be a good bet for this Christmas - and well into the new year!

The tomatoes appear to be following the same pattern although I see signs of the leaf yellowing that sometimes can overtake an entire plant and destroy it:

Freshly planted tomato plants and hot peppers - looks like a lot of room for not much!

And now my biggest worries are finding the actual tomatoes 

And for a last look - how about those spindly little onions lurking next to the peas?

It was an experiment and I really didn't expect much at all

 They are actually onion-ing!

If it appears that I am bragging it's that I sort of am.  Things can still go south on me - there are a lot of factors involved in gardening.  But so far the combination of the water cannon and the Epsom Salt watering have produced some amazing results.  Last year the bed where the beets are growing got eaten to the dirt by the woodchuck (I do wish I lived farther from the police station and my 22 had a silencer) but this year:

Just look at them suckers!  Three meals of greens with beets so far and hopes of a lot more

I may even have enough home grown beets for pickled beets to can - pretty cool, I'm thinking!

So if you are still traveling along this trip with me now we just have to wait and see how things go.  Judicious watering and the addition of a lot of compost from my bins have carried me so far -  hopefully the plants will continue to play on the winning side of this game!

In a world where the bad news and confusion and angst sometimes seems to be all there is - cruelty to man and animals alike - some days you just need to go weed the garden.

And now it begins...

Been quiet lately - actually have been just standing back and watching the garden chugging along.  One of the nicer parts of this sometimes labor intensive hobby is that time after everything is in and mulched and growing but before the avalanche of product starts requiring you to actually DO something with it!

I'd already gotten quite a lot of lettuce and assorted greens out of the brown box but lately the other leafy stuff has started to really produce.

We've had three meals of beet greens - and now there are little beets included - as well as several servings of Swiss Chard.

Swiss Chard

Beet greens with little baby beets

Look past the dirt (hey, it's what it takes to make plants grow) and just enjoy the view.  It's food, guys, and I made it myself.  Well, with the help of the aforementioned dirt, the sun and some water, but I grew it.  And there is no satisfaction like it in the world - knowing that whatever comes along I have a skill that is useful and produces yummy stuff!

I find it interesting (and amusing) that when I put pictures of greens on Facebook mostly I get "yuck" faces as comments.  What makes it interesting is that I'm betting most of the yucks come from people who have never even tasted what is triggering their yucks.

It's totally awesome to go to the garden and find out what is for supper!

Beating the same old drum here but I know what is on my food (and what is not!) and it doesn't get much fresher than garden to table the same day.

So far this has been a banner year for the garden and if half of the blossoms on the tomatoes and the cucumbers come to fruition I will be set for relishes and salsas for the whole winter.  All that and fresh vegetables at every turn.  Doesn't get much better than that.

Stay tuned and perhaps stay inspired to try the game yourself!

He says it's not okay and he's right

My nephew Peter Greene normally blogs on education but, as he says, this time he has nothing new to say but he just can't say nothing so I will let him speak for me also.



http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2016/07/not-okay.html