OT Might be problems with our food chain this summer or fall, so thinking about planting garden

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Okay. Had to get in on the action again. Some updates to the garden. Strawberries had a rough start but have been looking better as of late. Beans have all but died. I think they dried out too quickly on me when I missed a watering a few weeks back and I haven't been able to get them to recover. Im getting overwhelmed with Zuchinni, Cucumbers and peppers and the tomatoes are goign to be overwhelming soon also I can see.

But What I cant wait for is the watermelon!!

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So I'm in the studio the other night working on some music and Alisha comes in and says I need to get outside now. Damn apple tree split and fell. It had been rotted inside(though way more than I realized) with birds nesting in a hole. Luckily I see the birds nest is cobb webbed out, so they have moved before this happened.
 

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Just harvested 3 tomatoes. A ton pending. What do I do when I am not going to gym or to volunteer shift to give away excess? Leave tomatoes on all my neighbors' porches?

A ripe pumpkin. Soup, stuffed, or roasted as vegetable. Not sure.

Kale, chard, lettuce continue. They are pretty year round.

Beans and corn disappointing. Apples pending. Lemons coming out my ears.
 
Orion Bailey said:
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Okay. Had to get in on the action again. Some updates to the garden. Strawberries had a rough start but have been looking better as of late. Beans have all but died. I think they dried out too quickly on me when I missed a watering a few weeks back and I haven't been able to get them to recover. Im getting overwhelmed with Zuchinni, Cucumbers and peppers and the tomatoes are goign to be overwhelming soon also I can see.

But What I cant wait for is the watermelon!!

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So I'm in the studio the other night working on some music and Alisha comes in and says I need to get outside now. Damn apple tree split and fell. It had been rotted inside(though way more than I realized) with birds nesting in a hole. Luckily I see the birds nest is cobb webbed out, so they have moved before this happened.
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We had an old apple tree in the yard of our last house. I was afraid it was rotting and would fall on our house so I cut it down. Damn thing was healthy throughout and I just cut down an apple tree that grew gravensteins, my favorite cooking apple. Damn, damn, damn.
Love the size of your garden. Also, love hearing about the zucchini and especially the tomatoes. Not wild about peppers although my wife loves them she especially loves cayenne and jalapeno. Never had much luck with bell peppers or other types.
We grew lots of bush beans simply because I was too lazy to build a trellis. We use to have raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, peas, yellow crook necks, slicing cucumbers, zucchinis, string beans, corn, tomatoes, parsley, basil, mint, chives, shallots, green onions, red leaf lettuce, sage, concord grapes, apples, pumpkins and acorn squash. Occasionally we would grow some Korean vegetables. One time we tried our luck at Italian egg plant but can't remember how that turned out. We had hard clay with gravel mixed in over many years for soil but my wife, mother-in-law and I spent what I can only describe as countless hours over many years slowly digging all the rocks out of our soil and working in fertilizers, lots of rich compost and lots and lots of peat moss until the soil was great. The grapes loved the hard packed clay and rocks for some odd strange reason and they thrived giving us tons of grapes off one 30 year old plant.
This house is a much more expensive one with an even larger lot but it's packed with trees, landscape bushes and a small lawn in the front and a small lawn in the back also a large deck and a patio. Almost no place for any kind of garden. We are able to plant just a few things though. A very few things.

I really miss gardening, one of my favorite pass times. I also miss camping, fishing and traveling none of which I can now do.
 
crandc said:
Just harvested 3 tomatoes. A ton pending. What do I do when I am not going to gym or to volunteer shift to give away excess? Leave tomatoes on all my neighbors' porches?

A ripe pumpkin. Soup, stuffed, or roasted as vegetable. Not sure.

Kale, chard, lettuce continue. They are pretty year round.

Beans and corn disappointing. Apples pending. Lemons coming out my ears.
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It's impossible for me to have too many tomatoes and I use lemons every day. I put them in my coke when I was allowed coke. Squeeze copious quantities over all my seafood including oysters on the half shell. Squeeze some lemon juice in my ice water. You can't drink a Mexican beer without a wedge of lemon. My wife always uses it in her hefeweizen. Use it whenever we make a margarita. Homemade salsa. So many uses. We always have lemons on hand and often have limes on hand.

I've always wanted to try pumpkin soup. We were always afraid of failure when we thought about pumpkin soup so we either used it on our front porch on Oct. 31 or gave it to neighbor kids.
 
crandc said:
Just harvested 3 tomatoes. A ton pending. What do I do when I am not going to gym or to volunteer shift to give away excess? Leave tomatoes on all my neighbors' porches?

A ripe pumpkin. Soup, stuffed, or roasted as vegetable. Not sure.

Kale, chard, lettuce continue. They are pretty year round.

Beans and corn disappointing. Apples pending. Lemons coming out my ears.
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Kale? What's that good for? I guess you could stuff an oversized shoe with it to take up the extra space. It might go in a mattress but sooner or later it would smell. Could you make a wallet out of it? I just can't think of any uses for kale.
 
My Oregon fig tree put out some beautiful figs this season...best yet....it's taken years to get to this point and I'm eating a few everyday now...fresh figs are the best! Planted two more this spring...they are only 3 ft tall but my old one is now huge...probably 18 ft tall and at least that big around.! I'm getting a freezer bag full of blackberries every morning now and they're really nice this year...I weeded a lot of ivy out of them last spring and they thrived without the competition..good thing because the blueberry farms shut down for covid protection so I didn't get any...only strawberries and blackberries and grapes this year
 
riverman said:
My Oregon fig tree put out some beautiful figs this season...best yet....it's taken years to get to this point and I'm eating a few everyday now...fresh figs are the best! Planted two more this spring...they are only 3 ft tall but my old one is now huge...probably 18 ft tall and at least that big around.! I'm getting a freezer bag full of blackberries every morning now and they're really nice this year...I weeded a lot of ivy out of them last spring and they thrived without the competition..good thing because the blueberry farms shut down for covid protection so I didn't get any...only strawberries and blackberries and grapes this year
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I love blackberry pie and blackberry cobbler but you need a few sour ones mixed in with the ripe ones to get that delicious combination of sweet and sour. I haven't had blackberry pie that was any good nor eny kind of blackberry cobbler in decades. People kill blackberry bushes around here. So sad.
 
crandc said:
Grapes can be made into jam.
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Never saw grape jam at any grocery store including the exotic ones like Stroheckers and others.
I just found several manufacturers who sell grape jam onLine. I suppose you could actually make grape preserves which might be pretty good. The skins tend to have an astringent flavor and a little bit of a sour flavor. These flavors go very well with sweetness from added sugar. I might try buying some concord grape preserves if I can find it.
My personal favorite is apricot marmalade. No. 2 is raspberry jam.
 
Apparently people are making preserves as well as bread, no pectin to be had in stores. Fortunately have tons of lemons so making my own from the peels.
 
crandc said:
Apparently people are making preserves as well as bread, no pectin to be had in stores. Fortunately have tons of lemons so making my own from the peels.
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I read where the peels have the most pectin.
Now, what's this about a pectin shortage? Can't they make that out of apple juice? There should be plenty to go around.
 
Lanny said:
I read where the peels have the most pectin.
Now, what's this about a pectin shortage? Can't they make that out of apple juice? There should be plenty to go around.
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Don't know, but tried two stores and no pectin. Actually pith has most pectin. You can use apple peels or quinces, but I have a lemon tree.
 
crandc said:
Don't know, but tried two stores and no pectin. Actually pith has most pectin. You can use apple peels or quinces, but I have a lemon tree.
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This from wikipedia:
"The main raw materials for pectin production are dried citrus peels or apple pomace, both by-products of juice production."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pectin

I did read where pith is high in pectin.

Another source that I read yesterday said that this is why orange marmalade is so firm.
 
While we're on the subject of food supply...

iu
 
Today's harvest.
 

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Trying to make a dent in tomatoes and figs. Made vegetable soup, minestrone, gazpacho and then put up five points of fig strawberry jam. A tray of figs dehydrating. Finally sitting down for a minute.
 
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