Blessings, Fronds!
I'm way behind in my blogging, because there's so much to do in the 'real' world off-line. I've been planting more veggies, I discovered a bee hive in my compost heap while trying to get compost for said garden, husband's and my home business has has issues including but not limited to the main development computer's hard drive going bad, I'm working on a line of Mastermind groups I want to give, and I need to get a real web site up (which means husband and I spend quality time debating the relative merits of WordPress vs Joomla.)
Meanwhile, I still have the Mastermind training classes I'm in, the regular business training classes, meals have to be put on the table, clothes have to be washed, spawn has to be nagged to do lawn and clean bathrooms and I've lost his shopping slavery because he's working with husband to re-install all the software on the new hard drive while husband works on content for the main home business web site.
AND
On top of all that, and the expected drop in income, and the extra expenses for computer and car repairs - at our current main client, another very small company, the head engineer is out with a life threatening heart problem. Which is messing up HIS life, his family's life, their business's income, and thus OUR income even more than it was before.
SO
While I should be using this blog to plug the Mastermind groups starting now, instead mostly there's going to be silence and short posts. Because I'm busy hanging laundry, baking break, learning Wordpress, creating web sites and web site content, and finding new and different weeds - er - wild plants to eat.
Tomorrow night is Dolmades for Dinner - greek stuffed grapes leaves. I ain't paying for the grape leaves, and the filling is mostly rice (storage food) and mint (herb garden supplied). Tonight's dinner is lamb stew (3rd meal from leg of lamb, lots of potatoes that were on GREAT sale last week) in home-made bread bowls. All leftover lamb is going to go into soup for lunches this week.
Frondly, Fern
Showing posts with label this year's garden. Show all posts
Showing posts with label this year's garden. Show all posts
Monday, June 15, 2009
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Brown Gold
Holy Liquid of All Life - coffee prices have jumped while I wasn't looking!
The Spawn went to Costco for me yesterday, as Costco is near his college. Among the other things I had him pick up was coffee since we've gone thru' most of the beans I had in storage. I was shocked at the bill - the coffee alone had gone up almost 15% since we had last bought it.
Why Was I Surprised?
I suppose I shouldn't have been. Maybe I've been suckered by all the recent chatter about deflation due to recession and all. At the very least, I'd not been following comodity prices lately.
Oh, I'd noticed that gas prices were up about 10% lately. Really up 33% over the lows gas hit last year. I'd noticed the jump in the price of oil. But I've not been watching other comodities.
It's a Finite Planet, Folks
I'd forgotten that this is a finite planet. I had become complacent. This has got to change, I have to go back to my paranoid .... er .... prepared ways.
Time for me to finally get the garden in. Even tho' I'm going to have to do it in the pollen (and the pollen led to the sinus and ear infection that stripped my will to blog over the past 10+ days). Time for me to grind my own flour again. Time for me to tell y'all all about it in vivid detail.
I'll bet y'all can't wait [grin]
.
The Spawn went to Costco for me yesterday, as Costco is near his college. Among the other things I had him pick up was coffee since we've gone thru' most of the beans I had in storage. I was shocked at the bill - the coffee alone had gone up almost 15% since we had last bought it.
Why Was I Surprised?
I suppose I shouldn't have been. Maybe I've been suckered by all the recent chatter about deflation due to recession and all. At the very least, I'd not been following comodity prices lately.
Oh, I'd noticed that gas prices were up about 10% lately. Really up 33% over the lows gas hit last year. I'd noticed the jump in the price of oil. But I've not been watching other comodities.
It's a Finite Planet, Folks
I'd forgotten that this is a finite planet. I had become complacent. This has got to change, I have to go back to my paranoid .... er .... prepared ways.
Time for me to finally get the garden in. Even tho' I'm going to have to do it in the pollen (and the pollen led to the sinus and ear infection that stripped my will to blog over the past 10+ days). Time for me to grind my own flour again. Time for me to tell y'all all about it in vivid detail.
I'll bet y'all can't wait [grin]
.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Tomatoes
Blessings, Darlings!
My tomato seedlings are up and growing! This year I'm only growing one type, Rutgers. They are a home-canner-friendly tomato: 2.5-3 inches around, nice flavor, lots of fruit and determinate. For those of you new to growing tomatoes, determinate tomatoes have fruit that ripens pretty much all at once - great for harvesting all at once and canning. Indeterminate tomatoes have fruit that ripen one or two at a time, over a longer period of time.
Rutgers are also a heirloom tomato, and not a hybrid. It was developed during the depression at Rutgers University. The credit, of course, goes to the professor in charge, and his work was funded by Campbell's (of soup fame). I expect that the WORK was done by poor grad students, spending their days playing bee/cupid to the tomatoes, moving pollen from one of the parent varieties to the other, then between all the offspring of the parent varieties.
I'm not saying that Rutgers is the most flavorful variety of tomato I could grow - as you might have guessed by who funded its creation and my point about canning, it's a great tomato to PROCESS. A PRACTICAL tomato. That's what I'm all about in the garden this year, practicality. I'll blog on my favorite tomatoes for flavor some other time.
Right now I'm thinking I'll put in 6 to 8 plants, and that I'll sink the plastic jugs from gallons of milk between every few plants. I can then use the jugs to water the tomatoes deeply, reducing evaporation and being more efficient with water use. I'll also have to heavily mulch the tomato beds, because my area used to grow tobacco.
Which brings up an interesting point - it's REALLY useful to know the history of the land you live on/grow your food on. I grew up in the midwest - the land was lovely sand loam, you almost had to TRY to fail at growing anything. On the whole nothing nasty had built up in the soil - not even nematodes. Here in Marlboro Country, the soil is clay and acidic, and had been mostly horse breeding stables or tobacco farms. Tobacco farms have left the soil full of tobacco mosaic virus, and that can really mess up your tomato plants. Many varieties are RESISTANT to the virus, but it's still good practice to mulch so that during rain no virus is splashed up from the earth onto the plant leaves. At the organic CSA farm I volunteer on they grow their tomatoes under a shelter and have underground lines for irrigation to avoid the virus problems.
Catch you later!
My tomato seedlings are up and growing! This year I'm only growing one type, Rutgers. They are a home-canner-friendly tomato: 2.5-3 inches around, nice flavor, lots of fruit and determinate. For those of you new to growing tomatoes, determinate tomatoes have fruit that ripens pretty much all at once - great for harvesting all at once and canning. Indeterminate tomatoes have fruit that ripen one or two at a time, over a longer period of time.
Rutgers are also a heirloom tomato, and not a hybrid. It was developed during the depression at Rutgers University. The credit, of course, goes to the professor in charge, and his work was funded by Campbell's (of soup fame). I expect that the WORK was done by poor grad students, spending their days playing bee/cupid to the tomatoes, moving pollen from one of the parent varieties to the other, then between all the offspring of the parent varieties.
I'm not saying that Rutgers is the most flavorful variety of tomato I could grow - as you might have guessed by who funded its creation and my point about canning, it's a great tomato to PROCESS. A PRACTICAL tomato. That's what I'm all about in the garden this year, practicality. I'll blog on my favorite tomatoes for flavor some other time.
Right now I'm thinking I'll put in 6 to 8 plants, and that I'll sink the plastic jugs from gallons of milk between every few plants. I can then use the jugs to water the tomatoes deeply, reducing evaporation and being more efficient with water use. I'll also have to heavily mulch the tomato beds, because my area used to grow tobacco.
Which brings up an interesting point - it's REALLY useful to know the history of the land you live on/grow your food on. I grew up in the midwest - the land was lovely sand loam, you almost had to TRY to fail at growing anything. On the whole nothing nasty had built up in the soil - not even nematodes. Here in Marlboro Country, the soil is clay and acidic, and had been mostly horse breeding stables or tobacco farms. Tobacco farms have left the soil full of tobacco mosaic virus, and that can really mess up your tomato plants. Many varieties are RESISTANT to the virus, but it's still good practice to mulch so that during rain no virus is splashed up from the earth onto the plant leaves. At the organic CSA farm I volunteer on they grow their tomatoes under a shelter and have underground lines for irrigation to avoid the virus problems.
Catch you later!
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