Garden thread.

MountainDon · August 06, 2007, 08:51:51 PM

QuoteI can't even imagine how city folk who are living on fixed incomes survive.

.... rice and beans? :'(

glenn kangiser · August 06, 2007, 11:44:03 PM

We have a pretty big crop of tomatoes ripening now which made Sassy think we need a bigger or another freezer -- can't argue with that-- hate to see the tomatoes and other stuff go to waste or give it all away, but that may require improvement or addition to the solar system ( not the sun and planets, silly -- I mean our solar panels )

She says canning isn't fun in the hot summer. :'(

Will the circle be unbroken.... :-?

August 07, 2007, 05:17:59 PM

One year we had a bumper crop of tomatoes- Beefsteak- and made pasta sauce. I had read about Italian families having a weekend tomato sauce making get-togeter and just how good home made pasta sauce is, but did not really believe it untill after tasting the finished product, which is so much better than the store bought type it seems like a different food type.
The winter garden here is a sad sight..no rain in two months and the coldest winter in 50 years. Remarkably, stuff like brassicas and fava beans are still growing, but everything else is kaput.

MountainDon · August 07, 2007, 05:31:10 PM

Home canning / freezing....

makes think of my dear departed Mum. She stayed home and worked there. Canned, and in later years froze, lots of stuff, from apples through zucchini. Some things like sauerkraut and pickles of course couldn't be transitioned to freezing.

Uh-oh, look out! Thread drift.... for fourx...
Pete so you Aussies use the term Mom or Mum for Mother. In Canada we used Mum as in Britain. The US of course used Mom. You??

It's funny how I can switch forms depending on whether I'm speaking to my sister or someone else in Canada or someone here. :-/

MountainDon · August 07, 2007, 06:00:12 PM

Is anyone out there involved in the study of mycology?

Definition: The branch of botany that studies fungi and fungus-caused diseases - their genetic and biochemical properties, their taxonomy, and their use to humans as a source for medicinals (see penicillin) and food (beer, wine, cheese, edible mushrooms), as well as their dangers, such as poisoning or infection.

All the rain in the past few weeks has caused an explosion of mushrooms and various fungi in my NM mountains. Some are quite pretty, some I know could be quite delicious and some could cause at the least an upset stomach. Not seeing anything that looked like a market mushroom I played it safe and had a field day with the digital camera. I must learn more; a trip to the library is in order.

Some squirrels filled up on some... hauled them up a tree in the rain... too far away for a decent picture... need more zooooooooom, and then with more zoom I'd need to haul the tripod out.... no end to it all...

August 07, 2007, 09:30:22 PM

It's Mum, Don

.....and watch out for those ones with the gold tops- the mushies, not the Mums- they can give you a nasty day or even week...

John_C · August 07, 2007, 10:27:42 PM

Identifying mushrooms can be very difficult. In some cases they are identified by a spore print. The mushroom top is allowed to dry out on a piece of white paper. The size, color and pattern of the spores on the paper may be the only characteristic that distinguishes an edible from an inedible mushroom.

The Great Smokey Mtns. have a large number of wild mushrooms. Years ago I tried to educate myself in identifying the edible ones. I soon became confused and settled on eating the only the ones I found at the local supermarket.

MountainDon · August 07, 2007, 10:40:35 PM

Quote....I soon became confused and settled on eating the only the ones I found at the local supermarket.

That's what I was afraid of. Or rather it's the mistake I'm afraid of. The market still sounds good.

glenn kangiser · August 07, 2007, 11:09:52 PM

A friend took me years ago. I don't trust me and even some Asians around our area who supposedly knew what they were doing got sick -seems someone in CA died from it a few years ago. I'll just play it safe - bought lots of books about it too. Better to eat Cattails.

August 07, 2007, 11:15:09 PM

You can eat cattails? I mean the kind that grow in the ditch. What have I been missing all these years? :-/

glenn kangiser · August 07, 2007, 11:32:50 PM

I understand they taast like chicken --- just kidding -- everything is supposed to taste like chicken. I heard you eat the immature head kinda like corn and you can also eat the root.

MountainDon · August 07, 2007, 11:45:04 PM

http://wildfoodplants.com/article/100/curried-cattail-soup

The link above has a video... quote from the text...

"In this video you'll see how to identify cattails shoots (along with a poisonous 'lookalike' plant),"

Okay! I'll stop right there and go open up a pack of frozen beans, corn or whatever.

glenn kangiser · August 08, 2007, 12:10:12 AM

Dang -- now what will I eat -- wheres Euell Gibbons when you need him? :-? Oh yeah -- pushing up cattails.

Can be ordered through John's Amazon book link.

tanya · August 08, 2007, 09:29:21 AM

Has anyone ever made hypertufa? I am planning on making some hypertufa troughs for planters and I am wondering if it can be used for a fountain pool?

August 08, 2007, 10:22:45 AM

Hypertufa, sometimes incorrectly referred to as hypertofu (really anxious tofu ? :-/ )

I would think that the porosity might be a problem if used as a fountain pool. Unless that would be no big deal. (If I understand correctly the reason for using hypertufa for a planter is that they grow moss on the exterior surfaces rather well... because of the peat in the mix allowing transpiration of water?? That's just my take on it having no real life experience with the material.)

glenn kangiser · August 08, 2007, 08:54:11 PM

I have seen this on Charmaine Taylor's site. She does a lot of things like this. She put it on CD now. She is always great to deal with.

http://www.dirtcheapbuilder.com/tucrcd.html

glenn kangiser · August 08, 2007, 08:59:59 PM

More links from Charmaine's Papercrete site. Here's her site for tons more information - much or most free

http://www.papercrete.com/

Tufastone &HyperTufa links
http://www.flash.net/~blhill/pages.aux/pond/recipes.html
http://www.backyardgardener.com/tufa.html
http://pages.prodigy.net/airs/rocks/making.htm
http://www.flash.net/~blhill/pages.aux/pond/hypertufa/hypertufa.html
http://www.minerals.net/mineral/carbonat/calcite/calcite.htm

tanya · August 09, 2007, 04:24:09 PM

Thank you for the sites to check out. I have read a lot of those sites already and I think I saw one wehre it says you can use the concrete waterproofer to seal it for a pool or fountain but I can't remember where now so I guess I better start taking notes!!!

glenn kangiser · August 10, 2007, 12:35:04 AM

Hope you can use some of it,Tanya.

Found a big ripe melon under some leaves , along with about the end of the corn and a steak off the barbie.

The cucumber was called a slicing cucumber. Not sure if it is tha same as the Lebanese or not. A bit stronger flavored than the Armenian.

glenn kangiser · August 16, 2007, 01:49:59 AM

More reason to garden - the economy is unraveling. Food prices are increasing.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/18902.html

glenn-k · September 06, 2007, 12:23:55 AM

Jonesy has been in New Zealand for a while at his sons? place. It would be great to hear from him again.

Looks like your spuds did better than mine but we still have tomatoes, a few mellons, squash - winter squash - okra, peppers and misc other stuff.

tanya · September 07, 2007, 04:56:48 PM

I have a nice south facing wall of windows so I brought in my cherry tomatoe plants and set up a trellis for them to grwo on along one wall. I also brought int he green peppers they love the warmer climate. I plan to plant some more spinach and lettuce too. I also have some chives going and I want to get some mroe herb seeds parsely and basil for sur but in this part of the country it is hard to find seeds this time of eyar. I might be able to find some in a bigger city though. I love having the plant room st up, I don't know why it took me so ong to get it done. I have been reading a lot of books about solar heating though and event houghthe land lady isn't going to let me tear outthe carpet and put in bricks for solar heat retention I figure the big pots of dirt will soak up some of that heat. I sure hope so i am gong to put in as many plants as I can fit in that space ands till have my little spot where I lay in the sun in front of the windows that is the best part about this house in January. I still haven't got the hypertufa projects started yet though. I have to get the perilite and that is also going to take a trip to the big city. I have put off the cottage building until spring I could build the panels but it looks like it will be easier to move all the lumber and supplies and then build them on site. Plus if I can I want to go with the straw bale at least for part of the project. So for now I am sticking with little projects here in this house until spring. Oh I made some cute little candle lanterns too taht was easy and fun and will make great garden decoration when the garden is done.

PEG688 · September 22, 2007, 11:10:35 PM

Biggest strawberry we've ever grown,

Late but still the plants are producing about 12 to 20 every few days, this ones been hiding , even the bugs/ snails didn't find it

glenn kangiser · September 23, 2007, 12:39:05 AM

That's a beauty, PEG. I think we may have a few but I've been too lazy to go up on the shop roof to check.

We will soon harvest our winter squash --if I build a root cellar. We have lots of them. We also bought a 20 cu ft freezer to store the extra harvest this year. Seems I mentioned that already, Lots of tomatoes and peppers to freeze. Working for a couple months now I think and solar electric power has been doing fair.

Time to plant winter vegetables now too. Cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, carrots, parsnips (we have some year round ) trying to get full time self sufficiency here.

Garden thread.

John_C

peg_688

glenn-k

tanya