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Posted by earthwalker (Member # 4177) on August 10, 2021, 11:24 AM:
Garden is finally producing.
Made a ton of dill pickles on Sunday plus 5 pints of salsa.
Started making lime pickles yesterday. Got them washed today from the lime mixture. Now in the sweet brine. Will soak all day today and can them tomorrow.
Just waiting on more tomatoes to ripen and will make more salsa when it happens. The whole town must be canning. Can't find hardly any jars to cilantro or dill (fresh). Glad the neighbors grew some and let me cut some.
Dog jumped up yesterday and took off running chasing the UPS truck with both hind legs. First time in 3 months. He must be getting better. Going to get an x-ray of the joint at the end of the month to make sure it is fusing and can then let him go.
Posted by Kokopelli (Member # 633) on August 10, 2021, 11:45 AM:
My wife got onto making fried green tomatoes. Pretty simple and I gotta admit, pretty tasty. Goes well with rabbit.
Posted by NVWalt (Member # 375) on August 11, 2021, 02:12 AM:
Tomatoes....We have a Mennonite farm store 1 mile from where I live and yesterday we stopped to get a few vegies and talk about tomatoes. I didn't think they grew so many different kinds, amazing the variety. Anyways they are selling them buy two boxes full and get a third for free at 12 dollars.They call them canning tomatoes. That's enough tomatoes to can and last for over a year. I was surprised. Around here I think it would be cheaper to buy enough vegies and fruit to can than to take the effort of growing them.
I know people take great pleasure growing their own stuff but for just canning and stocking up I don't think you could get a better return for your money than buying them from those families that farm for a living. And there is no comparison as to the flavor of the produce they produce compared to the local name markets we have here. Most of the stuff they sell is slightly higher in price but for a few pennies more you can't compare the flavor and quality.
Posted by earthwalker (Member # 4177) on August 11, 2021, 03:42 AM:
There is a Amish store south of Salmon.
I wish tomatoes were that cheap up here.
Oh well enjoy the frustration of learning to grow up here.
What else do I have to do?
Also feels good to grow most of what we eat and put up for the winter.
The store the other day had green peppers $1.00 ea. Then they dropped them to .89 cents ea. Don't buy many veggies from them.
My corn is slowly getting there. Might have a couple of ears ready to eat sometime this week.
Bought some corn from the store a couple weeks ago. 12 ears for $6.00. It wasn't too bad. So of the ears were on the old side. They don't bring a lot out at one time so you don't have much to pick over and they won't/don't want you pawing through the corn either.
With all the tourists on the road this year and all the summer home owners the store is getting freight twice a week and still can't keep the shelves stocked. It's getting frustrating trying to buy food.
Posted by Leonard (Member # 2) on August 11, 2021, 08:09 AM:
How nostalgic! My mom used to do all that stuff. Of course, this was pre-salsa, I don't think the word or the product had been invented at that time. Tomatoes! I come from a Italian cooking family even though they were mostly German and French, & always a few poles in "Little Sweden" Minnesota. Seemed like half the people in my neighborhood were Carlsons and Andersons. My mother liked to put up pears, both cinnamon and mint and we used to raid that stuff all the time; had a root cellar. My mother's spaghetti was well documented, even no in facebook they exchange her 100 year old recipe. I'm the one that does it now, it's instinctual, I do not measure, fuck "half a teaspoon of xxxx"! then taste it. We would make the sauce with mandatory meatballs but also left over chicken and pork chops and spare ribs and that will really add to the flavor. Mother always favored the "stovepipe" pasta....another word I never heard of back then. Now it's Rigatoni. But we ate tons of long spaghetti pasta, that was SPAGHETTI, as far as I knew? Now they have different numbers #.
And with my mom's sister's, everybody had a sauce that was a little different, of course, even Grandma Enna, who always served stovepipes, I guess because grandpa didn't have teeth? The thing I regret is I never asked why the hell she always had 20 or 30 teaspoons in a glass of some sort on the kitchen table? I'm not sure how to spell Rutabaga's but never ever developed a taste for them, but that reminds me of the rhubarb patch she would can and that was the closest thing you would get to a desert, in that house. Also, a little strange because the only bathroom didn't have a door, for some unknown reason? They lived in northeast Minneapolis which was miles away, culturally, from south Minneapolis (where we lived), where the yards had grass! I have to wonder if it's still in a time warp? We moved to California when I was 12 and I have never been back. Been to South Dakota and Missouri and Ohio but never stepped foot in the state of Minnesota since 1954. My high school with 2,000 students, I think there were just three other kids with a "ski" on their last name?
We had some Mexican Americans; maybe the biggest ethnic group, the kind that took Spanish and got a C! (that's an inside joke) Other than that, it was a pretty much Okie town, back then. El Monte is now about 95% English as a second language and these people weren't born here.
As far as canning, all I have ever done is jams and jellies and fruit preserves. Nobody ever returns the jars, of course. But we would get the wild berries for free, otherwise it's not economically workable, or worth the effort.
Okay, suffer through Memory Lane with El Bee!
Good hunting. El Bee
Posted by earthwalker (Member # 4177) on August 11, 2021, 02:38 PM:
Got the Sweet/Lime pickles finished and canned. That is a chore making sweet pickles. Two days in bath of some kind. A lot of rinsing and a lot of sticky sweet liquid all over. Don't think I'll get my stove top clean for a day or two. Glad it's over and done for now. Can't eat them for a couple of months. Dills take a couple of weeks before you can eat them.
Your family sounds interesting and fun.
Posted by NVWalt (Member # 375) on August 11, 2021, 02:41 PM:
I feel for you EW as when I was living in Nevada you didn't even think about starting a garden until after Memorial Day. And then you still could get snow or freeze so you crossed your fingers and said a prayer. 7000 ft was pretty chilly sometimes lol. Lots of straw and visqueen helped but not always.
Posted by Kokopelli (Member # 633) on August 11, 2021, 05:58 PM:
Here's a cheap thought;
Imagine sitting down at GranMa's dinner table ...... with your face in a Smart Phone. ![[Eek!]](eek.gif)
BwaaaaHaaaaaHaaaaaa ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
Posted by earthwalker (Member # 4177) on August 11, 2021, 06:01 PM:
Bought a hand held hoop bender. Haven't gotten any conduit to start making hoops for hoop houses for next season. The wind is a problem along with frost when ever it wants to. Only have a month give or take until the first frost. It went to 42* the other morning. Quite chilly walking with shorts on that morning.
The soil lacks nutrients up here finding out you need to feed the soil a lot and all the time. Need to feed everything tomorrow fun long morning.
Posted by Leonard (Member # 2) on August 11, 2021, 09:19 PM:
Grandma Ena was as retro as they come, dresses of course and rolled cotton stockings and the flat heeled shoes that Nuns wear. She had the Pennsylvania Dutch accent too. Family name; Steinager but not sure of the spelling, they were all from St Cloud and my dad’s people were from Anoka. Ena had 7 kids, outlived them all including Isabel who never married and was a governess of the Crosby boys at one time and Alfred Hitchcock previously. I remember she said he was very creepy. Gee, what a surprise!
Good hunting. El Bee 🐝
Posted by Paul Melching (Member # 885) on August 12, 2021, 05:05 AM:
If you have easy access buy from those that grow if not learn to garden and learn to do it well,
It aint easy and it aint cheap I had two organic truck farms back in the sixties sold to all the hippy dippy health food stores my first place was a simple ten acres and my second 475 acres with 10 acres of citrus. Never worked so hard or been so happy in my life.
Posted by earthwalker (Member # 4177) on August 14, 2021, 10:44 AM:
Haven't got the water to go any bigger than we are right now. With all the trees and lawn and garden we've maxed out. No way to get any irrigation water rights. Also don't think I have the energy to do much more than what we're growing right now.
Being new to the area most of the old timers keep their cards close to their chest and let you learn the hard way. So far I've been learning quite fast and doing as good or better than the old timers.
I do have an old timer here who is my chiropractor and we talk a lot about garden and fertilizer. He's given good tips and ideas and I have given them back to him.
Just dealing with ma nature up here is the big thing. Wind and more wind and never know when a killing frost will hit.
Posted by Paul Melching (Member # 885) on August 15, 2021, 07:32 AM:
I envy you EW I remember fondly the days of putting up food and how we all worked together the rituals of getting the jars ready and sterile! My mother was a pro she never had to look up anything she just knew ! one year I went deep sea fishing I came home and we put up 128 lbs. of BBQ'd Albacore .
Posted by Leonard (Member # 2) on August 15, 2021, 08:29 AM:
Boy, that albacore is hard to beat, no matter how it's prepared, (I guess) but the only way I know is flash frozen in vacuum bags. Fishing for albacore is mostly playing poker until you find them. I'm more lucky at the cards than ever making a big score on those tasty fish. But, at least when you do get into them, there is no limit.
Good hunting. El Bee
Posted by Paul Melching (Member # 885) on August 16, 2021, 05:45 AM:
The albacore was steamed and then put up in a mixture of oil a BBQ sauce just lightly it was soo good ! I went out of San Diego once and hauled in an 80 lb. Big Eye and a Large yellow tail when the yellow hit the deck the skipper pointed at his first mate who quickly came from below with wasabi and soy the skipper handed me a chunk of that fish and said that's as fresh as you'll ever get it, It was still flopping on the deck! p.s. just bragging skipper said that was the largest Big Eye ever on his boat.
Posted by Leonard (Member # 2) on August 16, 2021, 01:59 PM:
You are one lucky fucking fisherman! A yellowfin and Big Eye on the same trip and more albacore than most people could carry off a pier to the parking lot! You should have played the LOTTO on the way home!
Good hunting. El Bee
edit: I meant to tell everybody that I have seen a yellow oriole busy flitting around most of the morning. Maybe we got a nest around here?
[ August 16, 2021, 02:12 PM: Message edited by: Leonard ]
Posted by Paul Melching (Member # 885) on August 17, 2021, 04:03 AM:
Very cool Leonard I love to watch them in the bird bath they are so animated ~
Posted by Leonard (Member # 2) on August 17, 2021, 07:13 AM:
Yes, very cool! Western Orioles are a big bonus around here, and I don't ever remember seeing them ten years ago? They are so few that who knows, they could be the same ones?
I have probably mentioned before that my Moluccan Cockatoo, (named Pinky) (because he's actually a very light shade of peachy pink), with a bright orange crest & can live as long as 75/80 years! To me, that's astounding! Right up there with Desert Tortoise, in the longevity department. We never think of birds living a long time, at least it never occurred to me? But, tortoises are well known for living 75/80 years. Of course, mine didn't and I'm not sure why? they both expired about age 25 and I know because they were captive bred.
Anyway, Good hunting. El Bee
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