A Comparison of WWII and Today.

Instead of just telling you how to do something. I'm going to begin explaining more of our motivations for what we do. I prefer to think of our journey as trying to become more enlightened. We try to be realistic and see things for what they are. The past prepare us for the future and gleaning things from what once was make us more whole. Some would call some of our thoughts - doomsday but I prefer to think we are realistic. We may prepare for disaster but we pray it never comes.Yet, we know that history repeats itself and that patterns tell us that rocky roads are ahead.

What will happen when WWIII arrives? Will life at home be the same as the last world war? These two questions have been roaming around in my brain for a long time. I’ve done some research over the years about WWII and how the home front fared in England and in the USA. Most of you probably have heard of Food Stamps and Ration Cards that were in effect with price controls placed on goods in WWII. But did you know that twenty million Americans were on the verge of starvation despite a greater number of jobs and higher wages? One has to wonder why especially when we were having bumper crops despite a 17% reduction in numbers of people on farms? One reason was that the food we produced was spread between US civilians, the military, and our Allies, the military taking priority. Another is many of the ships laden with food were lost to opposing forces whether sank or stolen. And 5 million widows were left alone to care for their families and that took its toll.

 A total of 12,209,238 Americans were in military service by September 2, 1945 which is 9 percent of the 131,028,000 population.  Interestingly, Germany had a grand total of 22,000,000 serving in some capacity out of 69,850,000 and that was 31 percent. I'd say the difference being war was abroad and not on the home front despite the battle in Hawaii. 

Today our population in the USA is 324,910,953. So doing the math if things were the same, there would be 8,610,140 million near starvation. But things aren’t the same. Today, gardens are simply a summer treat or a money making project. People want served. Even mechanics have their oil changed by someone else. In my childhood days, dad’s changed their own oil and fixed things around the house. My dad did and I can remember how that made me feel – secure. Later like everyone else, he hired everything done. It is the fashion.

No doubt WWIII  won’t be the same as WWII in a vast number of ways. IN part because Wars are not fought in the same manner as before. How will this change things? I don't know. I do know that the mindset of the people during WWII was different. They had done without during The Great Depression and knew how to sacrifice. They were humble, appreciative, and they were from the do-it-yourself era. These people had confidence. “I have done hard things and I’ll figure out how to make it through this too.”, was an attitude that I see now only in older farmers and ranchers. Replaced is a sense of fear. Ask someone what they would do if they had to be responsible for any or all of their own water, food, warmth, clothing, road repair, transportation, sewer, protection etc. if war came to America? See the panic flash across their face especially if you ask in detail. I pray it never reaches our shores but realistically know, it could come.

In WWII Washington Carver, in an agricultural tract promoting home food production, encouraged citizens to grow a garden. He called it a Victory Garden in an effort to boost morale. Twenty million gardens were planted creating 40% of the vegetables eaten by families. Many ate healthier than before the war. Lawns were tilled up, flower boxes converted to vegetables. Today, how many would grow a garden especially of the magnitude to produce 40% of their vegetables?  My observance is that people are happy to eat poor quality food as long as they don’t have to produce it themselves. 

In WWII 95 percent of the clothing we wore was being manufactured in the United States - now, none.  Even of the 2 percent some claim is made here, parts like fabric, button, etc. are still purchased elsewhere. Even if something is totally American made, the parts are manufactured from all over America and shipped to one spot to be assembled. Great now but if like in WWII gas and tires are rationed, then those goods all of a sudden become expensive and scares. Today, “Made in the U.S.A.” is most often stamped on heavy equipment or the circuits that go inside other products than on televisions, toys, clothes, and other common items found on a store's shelves. Companies have moved toward high-end manufacturing. Less costly goods have moved overseas where the labor costs are far less. This is the items we use most. It (seems like) China makes most of what we buy. China is even finding their way into our food market. We know of their low standards especially in food and yet we buy. What if in WWIII we went to war with China- a scary thought? As this thought passed through my mind, I was curious so I looked at various country's military and how they were ranked and why –interesting and unsettling. Some of the most unstable countries are the most prepared for war.

No, things won't be much like WWII. Far fewer of our needs are manufactured in America and even fewer created in our homes. Americans do not have the same mind set. What exactly will come to pass and when, I don't honestly know. I do know that the more we prepare, the more secure we feel. Peace of mind is worth a lot. It matters not whether it is a loss of job, health, natural disasters, or war, we can "ride the river" as John Wayne says and stay afloat if we are better prepared financially, skills wise, and have stores laid up for a rainy day. So I don't think it hurts to think, 'What if?' if it motivates us to create a more personally secure future.

Dragon's Tongue

 They look like Easter or some women's tea party bean don't they? Pretty in pink I'd say and yes, not every one of these beauty's in the photo is a Dragon Tongue for you bean connoisseurs can see one imposter in there but hey, I'm in a rush to get things done. Looks like the weatherman has changed his mind again and we are forecast today to get not .06 inches of rain but .93 and those temperatures he was warming up must have been wishful thinking because we are back down to freezing for tomorrow night and the next with just 40's in the daytime. Plus that snow forecast they took away is back in a greater measure. He hasn't a clue. 

I was watching our youngest granddaughter all day yesterday, 'she is a cutey paooty', and then of course church activities in the evening for the kiddos who stay here. That means putting the pedal to the medal today on getting the garden stripped, in the rain if necessary.  I figured when I picked these Dragon's Tongue that I had better make shell beans of them. There is no way they will make dried bean stage and they were past the fresh eating phase.

Dragon's Tongue is our children's favorite bean for fresh eating especially just picked from the garden to munch on. When canned it looks kind washed out, blah and not as appetizing as the traditional bean of that is my opinion anyway. I've grown these beans many times but never have I been able to get them to reach the dried bean stage.

So as a last hurrah, I used up the last of my seed and our kids can grow them if they wish since they are all grown up now.

We ate some fresh and then I let the rest of the Dragon's tongue beans go develop to the shell stage. I had three other fresh beans going with two kinds on a trial basis so I wasn't in great need of fresh beans. 

The bean in the photo on the right is fresh stage and the one on the left is shell. 
 

As a shell bean when blanched, they are gorgeous in looks but how will they taste? We shall see as I chose to blanch for 3 minutes and then freeze this time instead of can because there were so few. I've never frozen shell beans. I've never done much of anything with the shell stage. In fact, I'd never even heard of shelled beans until a few years ago. There apparently is a whole different taste to them. Since the dried bean varieties I have chosen can be eaten fresh, shelled, or dried; I may just have to try each variety at all of those stages. You never know what the weather will bring. The Weather Channel said we are going to experience temperatures to 25 degrees lower than normal this week. 

Many believe the weather will become more unpredictable in the years to come. The scriptures foretell of it and it is a no brainer that the earth has weather cycles. We had far more snow in my grandmothers childhood than in mine or my children's. A mini ice age may be around the corner. It has happened before why would it not happen again? Or on the flip side, the earth may experience a global drought. Change is inevitable. I just figure we had better change with it and not get stuck thinking beans can only be eaten dry and green. 

Experiment With Egyptian Onions

 

When a Colorado friend said that I needed Egyptian Onions. I didn't have a clue what she was talking about. But since her goals are essentially the same as mine, she had my interest. Especially since I've failed miserably a number of times trying to start onions from seeds. Oh I can grow the seeds really well and collect them just fine but all the plants that come up are super spindly. I don't know what I'm doing wrong but I've done it four times now. I figure if you are going to make a mistake at least you could make a different one each time so you can learn but  yet make progress. I'm still stuck at ground zero.  That is what made this onion that keeps going on its own sound almost too good to be true. When a friend of my husband, who adores my peanut butter cookies, said he had some and offered a few plants. I figured a trade was in order. His parting words of, "Be careful or they will take over the garden." left me a bit nervous but not detoured. Was this like Spearmint?

 

Rest assured they are not and I've decided I want more, and more, and more of these. They really are yummy! A bit strange since they clone themselves forming multiple onion sets on the top instead of seeds but strange can be good. When the sets are too heavy to hold up, the stalk bends over allowing the new plants to touch the soil and form roots. Thus one plant becomes many more and from this propagation method comes the name walking onion. The top set of tiny onion plants gives this plant the name Top Onion and for others they may know it as Winter Onion because it is good from zone 3, which is us, to those in zone 6 where you can pick this hardy onion all year. I've read that there are differing types of these onions but then not all relatives look alike so I'm not surprised. They do all have the strange propagation method.

 With so few plants, I did not cook with any of the onions until this year mainly due to confusion on the subject. I saw lots of recipes for pickling of the little onion sets on top and learned that you pick them when they are at least a half inch in size. But seriously people, I'm not growing these things for a few tiny little onions on top so I kept researching. Meanwhile, I removed the sets off of the tops of a couple plants like you would the flower bulbs that begin to form on traditional onions. 

As I suspected, the energy in the plant went to the bulbs instead of onion top sets. In fact, they gave up growing top sets of onions all together and the bulb increased in size. Now were talking something I can really use.

How big they will get I'm not sure. Like a kid with a pocket full of candy, I had to sample. Everyone on the Internet I listened to said the onion is a bit zesty. I did not taste that. Maybe it is because we live in zone 3 and heat has a tendency to make things hotter in flavor but these onions just tasted like... onion. Maybe a hair, and only a baby hair stronger but to this onion aholic, it was yum dilly ishush. I cut up a couple bulbs and cooked part of them with potatoes. There is nothing like fried potatoes and onions. They are soul mates.

Now I'm thinking why oh why did I not clip the tops of more of the onions while the sets were just beginning to form? I think I'll pretend it is so I'll have lots and lots of Egyptians Onions to do it to next year and you can bet I will. 

As for the rest of you, you can pick the top sets if you like to pickle but it takes a whole heaping lot to amount to anything, so for me, I'm going for the bottoms. If you are harvesting enough bottoms, you can be sure these onions are not going to take over the garden and how could you not. They are too yummy to let walk away.

While I was eating the bottoms, I tasted the top sets too. One has to compare and after all it is what everyone is talking about. Very mild in flavor like I suspicioned - similar to traditional onion stalks. For me that is what this onion is missing. Good tender stalks. The mature stalks are rather tough and woody. They say you can use these onions in the early spring like bunching onions and the stalks at that stage are tender but alas, I did not. Seems to be alot of that this year.  Maybe next year I'll feel I have enough to use these as spring onions. They should be ready just about the time my stored onions run out or the last few are getting soft. How perfect is that? Thank you dear friend. These are indeed a must have for my garden. 

I've Discovered Cutting Celery

Photo from Jonny's Seeds , one of the seed companies I order from.

Our goal to grow as much as possible of what we consume is challenging here where the growing season is short and cool. I'm finding this challenge quite often involves doing without or finding substitutes. One area I'm working on is celery. We do not use very much and though I've come up with better ways of storing it in the refrigerator, it still wants to go bad before we've consume it. Out to the rabbits it goes. Sadly this long storage time means the celery is depleted of nutrition and so it is rather wasted. So what is the solution since there are a few dishes I really like celery in?

Photo from Johnny's Seeds -- Celeriac

As I debated this question, I looked into growing celery in our garden, since we had a friend growing it about 25 miles from us. Alas, the weather and elevation are just different enough from there to here that it is not possible without a greenhouse. Yet it did not seem wise to take up our future greenhouse space to a plant that was only edible during the harvest time. Dried celery stalks to me are hard and woody. I've tried it.

Could there be another plant that tastes like celery but would grow here? I discovered Celeriac in a seed catalogue and gave it a try a couple summers ago. Nope, the tops were lovely but there was no bulbous root by the time Jack Frost came to end the gardening season. The seed packet said 90 days to harvest but our summers are not terribly warm and the sun goes down early being next to the mountains. Those two things put together equate to needing more days than the packet recommends. I'm not completely ready to give up on Celeriac though. Whether it be this year or next I will start plants indoors first and then transplant. Maybe that will work. 

As I contemplated the what shall I substitute for celery dilemma once again, I happened to find Cutting Celery in a seed catalogue. (It is not a common thing offered.) The idea intrigued me. A celery that was grew more like parsley but had thicker stalks and an abundance of leaves. I decided to try this variety in the house under grow lights this winter. AWESOME!!! Though the stalks were smaller than the photo in the seed catalogue, it tastes wonderful. Then again the catalogues plant was grown outside and I think I spread the seeds too thick causing over crowding. I've divided the pot into two and I'm watering a little less as the leaves have brown spots. (I have a tendency to over water.)

Beware if you want to try this variety that the flavor of Cutting Celery is a slight bit stronger than traditional celery but not unpleasantly. I rather like the more intense taste. The ability to have it fresh, full of nutrition, and within reach of my kitchen counter makes this a permanent addition to our indoor gardening project. I can't wait to dry some and create ways to use it that way. I've got some ideas already. Celery salt comes to mind. I really like that stuff in potato salad, deviled eggs, and sandwich spreads. What if I dried Cutting Celery and added salt. The kind of salt that does not cause my tastes buds to disappear off my tongue leaving a sore spot. Yes, I'm allergic to the chemicals in highly processed salts.

If this works I can eliminated two things I presently buy, celery, and celery salt. A win, win!


Oh and by the way I'm still waiting on comments on what you want from my blogs in the future. Talk to me please.

Dried Bean Trials

Five years has passed. I've tried eleven different kinds of dried beans trying to come up with ones that complete the cycle to the rattle in the pod stage. I'm finally having a little bit of success. Our soil is better than our former location but now we have cooler temperatures and a sun that goes down early because we are by the mountain. That means less daylight hours and more hours of cooler temperatures. A bean may say 90 days to the dried stage but it is  more than 90 days under our conditions.

 

One sure fire winner this year was the Kennearly bean. It matured and the pods turned yellow faster by far than the other seven types of beans I had growing. I learned that if I want dried beans I need to space my plants further apart. If I want green beans closer together works best. It was something that just naturally happened in different parts of the rows and the performance difference was quite profound. Where they came up thick, the pods stayed green. Spaced further apart, they turned yellow and matured faster.

 

My husband says I am possessed with beans. Yes, I have spend a great deal of hours on this project and I've learned that I love shelling beans. It is so relaxing for me. Just a repetitive motion that allows my mind to wonder unfettered. With the hectic schedule I find I am naturally drawn to them.  Kirk also told me that I would have a great deal to talk about with my diceased grandfather who developed a type of yellow wax bean. I can't wait to compare notes with what I've learned and what he learned. That same bean, Kinghorn Wax, will undergo trials in my new location next year. It did wonderful where we lived before. It just put on more and more beans as the summer went on. This bean that was a staple for Del Monte in my grandfather's time, now has to be ordered out of  Canada. This tells you how fast our seed diversification is dwindling.

 

 I have research and researched dried beans on the internet the past few weeks. Yet with all the hours spent looking things up, I'm still observing things amongst the seven different kinds of beans in my garden that I've not read anywhere.

 

It is frustrating but the university sites don't give enough detail. If it is not a very large commercial crop they don't study it. When they do study things it is only for a year or so and hence, a whole lot gets left out because the weather is not the same from year to year so those changes are not reflected in the study. Last year we had frost on the 23rd of August. This year it has yet to freeze. As for blogs people seem to grow them where they are easy to grow so nothing is said about really tough regions like ours. My frustration has been huge. I'm determined though because dried beans were a pioneer staple.

One thing I learned from my research is that beans have a load capacity. They stop adding beans when the limit is reached. That is why they tell you to keep your green beans picked. Picking allows room for other beans to grow on the plant. I'm going to pay attention to this of different kinds of beans.

 

This is Ireland Creek beans. Not only are the pods really long with on average six beans per pod but the load capacity is impressive. They have earned a spot in our garden next year. I only planted one seed packet full.

 

The other thing I noticed is that the Kenearly beans had most of their pods turning about the same time on a given plant. The Ireland Creek beans came in second in this area. Some other types of beans had everything from really green beans to dried and leathery looking at the same time. With our short, short season this is a huge plus to mature all at once and early.

 

This has to do with genetics I suspect. I quit raising Kentucky Wonder because the green beans came on in a small picking and then two large pickings and then were done. A great thing for the commercial field but not so good for a home gardener who wants the harvest spread out over a long period of time.

 

My Contender beans have a very long growing season and since I start harvesting the end of July I had weeks of picking before frost. When the beans slowed way down, became small, and curled badly I quit picking. I should have kept picking as the plants blossomed again and when I pulled them today to feed to stock they had lots of over mature beans and quite a few blossoms. I would have gotten quite a few more green beans to can in a later harvest time - live and learn.

 

The lovely Scarlet beans from my sister, you remember the pretty orangish red blossoms I showed you, barely gave me any beans. This is the sum total of beans that dried on the plants. There were tons of blossoms and hardly any bean pods. I ripped them out in disgust and canned 8 pints of shelled beans. That was one of my goals this year was to do shelly beans. I had never heard of canning at this stage until this year. I thought it might come in handy on one of those early frost years. It was a guess as you go experience since I could not find detailed information on how to do shelly beans until I read a garden forum where people chit chat back and forth. You know a university did not do a study on it as they aren't canning a field of half grown beans. 

 

 I was smart with these Ireland Creek beans. I used only one package unlike all the space and seed I used on the Scarlet Runners. What a waste. The Ireland Creek beans did alright. I just have to get used to the strange limy yellow coloring. Dried bean varieties that do alright here are rare indeed and they have a chance to acclimate and do better with selection.

They earned a right to a second year of trials. We shall see what the weather does to them next year.

 

I also learned in my studies that dried beans at the store can be up to six years old. Older beans take longer to cook and are less shiny but just how old the package does not disclose. Even if you store your dried beans in #10 tin cans, with oxygen removing packet thingies, they will not retain vitamins. Proteins and carbohydrates yes but after 2 to 3 years the nutrients are pretty much lost. Who knows if the store beans have any vitamins by the time they reach you. This is another push for self-sufficiency as a steady supply is worth far more than a vitamin deprived stock pile. The stock pile might keep you alive but barely. 

My Tomato Plant Experiment Just Became Bigger

 

I went to see our oldest daughter. Unbeknownst, I seem to have included her into one of my experiments. One of my tomatoes grown from seed needed a home. Our oldest grows a few vegetables in pots wherever she happens to be renting. This time she has a lovely enclosed back porch that has two big windows flooding the place with warm sunlight. Her lemon tree is there and I figured it needed a companion.

That tomato plant has grown like crazy. I swear the thing has doubled in size in one week and not just up but out. She thinks she can actually tell a difference each day. It is gorgeous. I was feeling rather guilty as none of mine look that good or big. Then reality set in. There is no way I have room for pots that large let alone eleven of them for just the tomatoes. A closer inspection of the lush plant revealed that it had only three blossom clusters in the earliest stage of development. Is all the energy going toward the plant and not fruit? When I gave it to her it was one of the smaller tomato plants. Question - will the larger, healthier plant of our daughter's produce more fruit in its lifetime compared to my own smaller plants? Even if it does, I do not have room for such a large pot let alone eleven such pots. I have a few round pots and I think I will try and use a few on the porch but round does not fit in as small a space as square or oblong. With trying to grow plants in the house to eat and a number of plants started for the outdoor garden space is a big problem. It is why I do not recycle pots such as cottage cheese containers and vegetable cans.

 

With her inspiration I took three tomato plants started from seed in a big pot and set it in front of the side window by the front door.  I put them wa....y down in the pot to bury more of the stem so as to grow more roots and give the plant more support. The tomato plants from seed get tall and bend over especially when loaded with fruit. To only allow it to grow more roots but give them more support. The plants are suppose to get only 12 inches tall but mine from seed are more like 20 inches or they were last year. Right now we are at 15 inches.

The plant on the left is smaller I  allowed the blossoms to develop earlier than the plant on the right. At this stage the plant on the left has more tomatoes. Will the one on the left end up producing more tomatoes or the larger plant on the right? I definitely won't have a problem with the plant on the left breaking because it is too tall. Right now it has over 40 blossoms or tomatoes on it. Some on the window side are turning red. Not bad when you think I started this plant the beginning of January. Definitely faster than tomato plants grown and set outdoors. The cloned tomatoes having a few more blossom clusters per plant than the tomatoes started from seed.

 

So really I have three experiments going now. Cloned versus started from seed, allowing blossoms to form earlier or later, and small pots versus large. I may end up deciding that a combination is best . That way the develop of tomatoes will be extended over a longer period of time.
 

Part of this experiment is how many tomato plants it will take to keep us supplied with tomatoes. Not sure it can be accomplished as how can one get enough of summertime fresh flavored tomatoes? 

 This is this years experiment but next year it might be too cold a winter to grow the tomatoes in the window and they will have to go under grow lights. Then I will switch to cold hardy lettuces in the pots in the windows. I started removing more BIG rocks from the front flower bed. It was truly a ROCK garden. Not much room for much else to grow. In will go a long box to transform into a cold frame. It was a box a heavy piece of equipment came in. I'm always looking around to recycle. One of those recycle projects is bent T-posts that will be changed and used in the garden. Another one is using feed sacks to make tarps for the garden. Things are truly a hopping.

 

 

Growing Peas, Carrots, Lettuce and Garlic Indoors

(Tomatoes growing in the sunroom. The flavor is divine. We may never be able to eat tomatoes from the store again.) 

Wednesday when I went to the grocery store. I became VERY motivated about growing our own food. Cottage cheese was over 5 dollars a container along with a significant price hike in all other dairy products. Unfortunately it did not stop there and one of the shockers was cereal up over 5 dollars a box. Boxes that keep getting smaller along with bags of chips.

This fall I tried bringing in more money with sewing and lets just say it ended in disaster and my Addison's Disease in full blown anger from the stress and lack of sleep. The slap in the face turned me in a new direction. Why was I trying to make more money when I will never keep up with inflation. Kirk's work income has not. The answer has to be to watch our spending more carefully and make more of our needs ourselves. 

(Garlic is peeking up their heads.)

The area in which this would make the largest difference is in food production 12 months of the year. 12 months of the year though in Wyoming with a zone 3 growing season is not going to be easy. Yes, I know what the map says, zone 4, but they have got to be kidding. If you look at just the area around us you can see a big enough difference in temperatures, elevation, and growing season length that you can quickly see you need to figure out your own growing zone. 

I am presently studying winter gardening. Something I am told was common in our great grandparents day. Most of my books are from  milder climates but they still have good information in which we can adapt to our situation. I admit when they talk about it being tough in zone 5 or 6, I laugh out loud. With books in hand and searches through the internet I have been scouring the seed catalogues and thinking on how we can economically put in cold frames and greenhouses. The actual building won't begin until summer because right now we have a calf shed to tin.

 What I'm doing right now is planning. I'm looking at cold hardy varieties of crops. There are very, very few. Not surprising if you think about it. How many people do you know that garden in the winter? Demand equates to supply and no demand equates to extinction.

(We are picking fresh lettuce right before we eat, YUM!! Who knows how many vitamins are left in the lettuce you buy at the store after it has taken the long journey to your table?)

I am looking at locations in the yard where we might push a zone 4 or 5 growing area like the front flower bed which is on the south side and protected on the north by the garage and west side by the house. The south side of the house under the kitchen window might be a second place. We grew tomatoes and peppers this summer in the kitchen spot and found the season was extended for them by the protected, south location and heat that radiated off the house.

(Carrots, I think I planted them a bit thick. The seed was older and I questioned how well they would sprout. Oh well, I can thin them.)

I am trying new seed varieties in the house and with the night temperatures in the fifties in the sun room, I am getting an idea just how fast they sprout along with having a taste test. We have decided that we like Arugula with its peppery taste. I have three lettuces going right now. One I grew last year, Tom Thumb Lettuce, and a couple new varieties. Cardinale I am not impressed with so I will use up the seed and not reorder but Cimaron is doing very well and with Tom Thumb will go into the winter cold frames next winter for the second leg of trials. They are suppose to be cold hardy. I have others I am going to try first in the house to see their growth habits, texture, and flavor; how close together I can plant them and how quickly they grow.

(These peas are to grow between 6 and 8 inches tall with leaves that are great in salads along with the peas themselves.)

This first stage of experiments will give us a small bit of immediate relief nutritionally and economically. Plus it will test the limits of what I can grow and how much I can grow in the sunroom. This still leaves quite a bit up to outdoor gardening.

It isn't just lettuce that the sunroom is growing but Tom Thumb peas are sprouting, the garlic has peeked its head up, the spinach is showing its first leaves, and the carrots are up. More of the herbs has poked their heads through the soil and I have a few more to start. I am for sure going to start a cucumber but which one is not yet decided. I also am thinking about a zucchini and an eggplant just for the sunroom, not ones for the cold frames. 

I am having so.... much fun with my indoor garden. I think the satisfaction and joy is much greater with the contrast of snow covering the ground outside. It is a reminder of just how bland the vegetables from the store are. My husband emits a loud, MMMM!!!! when he bites into the cherry tomatoes with their burst of summer. I don't think we will ever be able to go back to bland.

It is not easy to find miniature varieties that are cold hardy. The second concern is how to coordinate the growing of crops for us to eat and the starting of vegetables in the house for planting the first week of June. It could get rather crowded and complicated with a few years needed to work out the problems.

Will all of this come to fruition? The motivation is sure there for each bite pushes us forward. Some things may have to be postponed to a more distant future. Isn't that the way of things? Some other more pressing matters will raise their heads but as long as we keep moving forward, though at times at a snails pace, we are still moving forward none the less and year by year we are becoming a little more self-sufficient.

Stay tuned for an update on the tomato project. The pictures will tell it all amazing difference. Plus I grew my first wheat grass for the rabbits and with the knowledge I'm tweaking my second batch to hopefully perform even better. The stackable cages came and the rabbits are indoors in the chicken coop. You just have to see.

 

Tomato Experiment Update

Remember me?

Yeah, not looking so good. Though there were roots, the tomatoes and long branch took too much energy to maintain. It died, no great surprise.

Experiment number two was also a bust. The rooted spikes with a little leaf on it died also. That was a surprise. A wise goat appraiser once told me that I needed to do things myself to gain a true understanding. He is right. If the experiment is not costly, experiencing it for yourself does indeed bring a level of understanding one can not gain through words alone.

With a little research under my belt I tried propagating tomatoes or cloning which is another word for it. I took a short stem off one of the tomato plants and placed it in very wet soil. Putting it in soil instead of just straight water is suppose to work better. Also I gently scraped the bottom sides of the stem as instructed. They said it wasn't imperative but helpful. The top leaves look a bit pale but you can see some new dark green ones appearing. Roots begin to sprout at a week old I've learned. The sprouting of roots is due to the fact that the chemical auxim is present in tomatoes and in some other plants. Cut flowers die because the stems do not have this chemical.

This cloning method is something that allows you to keep your tomatoes, peppers, and some other garden plants going on forever from just one parent plant. 

I am disappointed that my tomato seeds have not sprouted yet. I think I might need to put a heating pad under them. Our house can be pretty cool. In this first stage of experimenting I have indeed learned that in the winter; propagating or cloning, which ever word you like, is the way to go.  My tomato plants look pretty rough right now since I do not have them under grow lights. That is one of the experiments is to see if they can make it on the naturally available light. Winter solstice is past so things should be looking up for them. My herbs last year looked pretty rough during December and January but really kicked into gear after that.

Stay tuned I have another indoor plant experiment in the works and several more I'm going to start next week.

Saving Seed and Tomatoes in the House

I canned pumpkins this past week and now can put a mental check on that project. I'm drying a few seeds to try sprouting next year. As a back up plan I will make sure I also sprout some from someone who knows what they are doing, a seed company. Mine are from the largest pumpkins. The ones that developed before the Buttercup squash came on. Sugar Pie pumpkins and Buttercup squash get all kissy kissy I've heard though I have yet to see it. The books say they are from the same family and will cross.

That means I have to figure out a rotating plan to grow certain kinds of pumpkins and squash in rotating years so I can save seed or force abstinence upon a few. You know where you tie up the blossoms just before they make their maiden flight, I mean open up. Then plan an arrange marriage and pollinate them with the chosen groom whom is also tied up until the wedding. Then tie them both up again so they can't change their minds. I have been going to be a wedding planner for several summers now but it just has not gotten done. That is why I want to try the rotation plan. Maybe I just am not cut out to be a wedding planner. Desire keeps getting booted out the door when other people's problems push their way in. And I must admit, I have trepid thoughts though why killing off a few blossoms with my bumbling ways would be such a crime is beyond me.   

Saving seed is one of my top priorities this year so life had better get out of the way. I am right now attempting to sprout seeds I saved from my miniature tomato plants I grew last spring in the sun room. The tomatoes that grew to over 20 inches tall instead of staying the miniature 12 inches the catalogue promised me they would be. The one that the top was accidentally broke off did indeed make around 12 inches tall so that is the plan for these new ones, whack off the tops if they even hint of aspiring to greater heights because there is just too much plant for the number of tomatoes formed. Whacked looked so cute and had more tomatoes per plant formation than the others so I quickly quit feeling sorry for it.  

Most of the house tomato plants have been thrown out into the field but I have the three Goldilocks candidates remaining: too tall,  down to a stub, and the one plant which has one of its limbs just hanging on by a few plant strands. Yes the spring tomato plants were sorely neglected over the summer.

I had quit watering Stemmy, yes I gave him a name, (Or is it a her since there are babies but then there has to be a he too doesn't there?). Oh well, IT was going to be thrown out and then IT grew leaves on the stems. My brain whirled and Stemmy got a second chance at life yesterday. If IT does not blow it and creates a new productive plant from the stubby beginnings, then that will be a new discovery for me. To start tomato plants anew after cutting them down to just stubs makes sense that this would be a much faster way to grow a new plant. From seed takes forever to just grow a good root base. Stemmy has the root base established and should therefore take off more quickly. Will he or is it she grow into fruition?  Time will tell.

The plant with one of its branches that was just hanging on by a few plant strands just kept hanging in there, literally.  Weeks went by and still it hung on with no sign of wilting leaves except when I forgot to water it. Probably stayed alive I figure because I've learned that plants go into kind of a hibernation this time of year. Okay the winter gardening books did not use the word hibernation but plant's growth is almost stopped waiting for winter solstice to pass when they are suppose to take off once more. I noticed this with herbs growing in the window last year. Not enough hours of light. I severed the hanging limb and put it into a quart jar of water. Will it grow roots and take off. That is the question. Meanwhile the mother plant just got a trim.  

Tomato number three is too tall and when I replanted it putting in two paint sticks tied together for a stake I did an exaggerated S curve with it to keep it in line, pun intended. It now fits more upright on the shelf it must reside on rather than hanging over the edge.

The other phase of this experiment is to see how the plants do without a grow light. I want to see how economical I can go. They have not had a light since last spring.

My next experiment series began yesterday also. I have just planted a few seeds from the tomatoes of a previous harvest of these miniature tomatoes. The tomatoes that were wrinkled and old. You see I learned my lesson.

Late summer when I figured I had better collect seeds or call seed saving a wash for the year I had no or few old guys before the garden was saying goodbye--- hello cold. Then I discovered you want the really old wrinkled crowd to save seed from. U....t, Oh! Vegetables in their prime do not have good seeds as a rule. They are too small. See we old guys are the hope of the future. That meant only a few candidates made it to the learn how to process the seed stage. I did do some tomato and potato seed and learned more about fermentation to save seed. I am of course saving pumpkin seeds and one kind of pepper that put on the earliest so it had not crossed just like the pumpkin deal.

Not much but a start but a start never the less. "In all labor there is profit.", the saying goes and I learned that cucumbers have to be large, old, yellow, nearly dead guys from which viable seeds come from. I knew that great eating cucumbers have small seeds but it never really registered just how large, old, and nearly rotted they had to be before the seeds get large. Mine I tried to save from was on the path but had not arrived. I learned more about dried beans and  kept seed from the beans we eat green. One batch I dried on low in the dehydrator and one I let dry naturally. We shall see if the ones dried in the dehydrator will sprout. It was because of a matter of space that the experiment stemmed from. I learned that there can definitely be too many chickens in the garden. Maybe not my best gardening year but not a waste of time. My knowledge has increased and with learning do's and don'ts comes success.

I have several times grown, or shall we say attempted to grow lettuce in the house. This past spring I grew a miniature type of Tom Thumb and it was a great success. I was able to cut several times before the quality waned. I have another planting started yesterday. This time I put in a few other kinds also. Part of doing it right is getting the right kind of seeds for the situation. It just happens that this particular seed is good for winter gardening, something I will talk about more later. Now I am in the pondering and research stage.

Potatoes and Other Things

This has nothing to do with today's subject but let me introduce you to our newest member of the menagerie, his name is Duke. With Kirk setting traps, our older cat spending long hours hunting, they just could not keep up with the influx of mice so Duke entered the scene. He is already catching mice at his tiny size. One day I watched him kill a mouse in the morning and another in the evening. Don't know how many he scores a day but it is impressive for so small a kitten. My advice would be if you want a cat to cuddle, go to the shelter; if you want a mouser, find a barn cat's kittens. They have the instincts to hunt or their parents would not have survived. Our cats of course have a back up of cat food to keep them healthy but I would not choose a shelter kitten for a barn cat job. They have the wrong resume. Duke is beyond spoiled as the grandkids seldom let his feet touch the ground. Good thing the three oldest are in school most of the day and there is just our three-year-old grand daughter left at home or the kitten would not get any work done.

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Gardens are coming to a close here up north and ours for the most part came to a halt back on August 22 when we had a killing frost. Yes, even a bit early for here. I thought with all that I had learned the past 33 years gardening in our old home, same altitude, same growing zone, that the learning curve would mainly just be the change in soil. Boy was I ever wrong. Things that I could grow before like Brussel Sprouts just don't stand a chance up here. I even tried two different varieties. My first thought was they are a cool weather crop and hence should do pretty well up here? I've tried for two summers and they don't even come close to developing. Corn is another huge struggle and I have not gotten a crop in two years. I've not given up on it. I do love my corn and I have a few ideas to try. What I have learned from observation of the last couple summers is that we have far cooler nights and that halts growing until the temp raises in the morning. That means not only short season but cool season crops, really cool weather crops have to be found.

My sister has a kind of bean I am unfamiliar with that did well for her and she lives at a even higher altitude but I think their nights are warmer. She promised to send me some and said if I like them she will send more for seed. Like the taste I'm thinking is less important than if they will grow in a survival situation.  My dried bean experiments that has been going on for 6 years is taking a very different turn but I'll talk more about that later.

Short season, really cool weather crops will take priority and cold frames, tires, and row covers are going to have to be a big part of our plan. The greenhouse frame will have to go up next summer and since the tomatoes and peppers did well up against the house on the south side, we will work on a frame that can cover that area also. Anything that tempers the cool weather and holds warmth is going to be a biggy.
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Since it is the time many will be digging their potatoes I thought I would update you on my experiments. I would not have my tators so early in September with the unusually warm weather we have had after the killing frost but when I dug up a few hills for eating, I discovered some rotten were rotten. I was shocked! My potatoes don't even rot when I hit them with a shovel while digging. They just scab over and remain firm. I'm blaming the ghostly pale, BIG fat worm lurking amongst my crop. Anyone know who it might be? He looked like a pretty shady character and I didn't like the look of him. The bites out of the potatoes were pretty good sized and I wasn't about to take a chance loosing the whole crop, so I dug.

At the encouragement of my sister, the same one with the beans, I tried Pontiacs since I LOVE red potatoes but they failed. I put Dakota's back in and they gave me a puny crop. They did better last year but not a terribly impressive show. The King George potatoes came through as they have through disease, drought, hail, and every other adversity. They even produced potatoes on plants that did not blossom last year. I never knew that was even possible. I get some pretty big ones too with quite a few per hill. More than anything else I've grown.

                                               Photo is of a King George Potato
I was thinking when I stabbed a few Dakotas, "Now these are going to turn to mush and I will have to put them in the mulch pile. There are too many of them to have for supper." Hmmm......" What shall I do to not waste them?" Here is where the brain fart enters in. "What if I took all the damaged potatoes and made potato flour from them?"  You know this brain never rests.  I hurried, washed them, boil the potato pieces, cut them up into smaller pieces, dried them in the dehydrator, put them through the blender to chop them up even littler, and I will put them through the wheat grinder when I get it out to grind wheat. The guilt of wasting food is gone and I am feeling pretty smart. Something I savor whenever possible. Especially since I have been doing some carpentry work lately and that always leaves me feeling and looking pretty dumb.

I have decided to halt my potato diversity plan for now and move on to my next experiment in the form of figuring out how to work with true potato seeds. Something the plants don't produce every year. Some of you don't even know what that is probably. I sure wondered what the clusters of green balls that produce where the blossoms were? That is them, true potato seeds. Potatoes that I had saved, put in the ground, saved some from that crop, and put in again produced the potato seeds. Not sure if that was what it takes or if the weather was just right but I plan to find out by keeping records. I've been wanting true potato seeds to begin my next experiments because of the  "What ifs?", which send surges of panic through me. "What if we were in a survival situation and my potato cropped failed? What would we put in the ground the next year to get a crop?" It isn't like you can keep tiny potatoes in storage for years. There were thousands who starved to death in Ireland from a potato famine. It could happen again as history repeats itself.

Don't know how long true potato seeds last but surely longer than small potatoes. I can see I have more research to do but now I can begin to learn for I have some seeds to grow into plants and begin the next phase of experimentation.

It is my understanding from research that it is the true potato seeds which harbor the genetic crosses that become new strains of potatoes. I'm not at the moment interested in producing a new kind of potato as I only have one kind that is doing well but I am hoping that the seeds remain viable for a few years giving me a back up safety system. First I have to plant them and see how long it takes to produce plants large enough to put in the garden. Well actually first I had to try to remove the seeds from the green firm balls. I'm hoping unlike peppers and cucumbers that there isn't a specific age development at which you have to do this. I just picked a few off of plants that were dying and a few more off the ground where they had fallen.

I followed directions that recommended you put the balls in the blender with water and chop them up. This left me with a mess, too much pulp per tiny seeds. Wondering how to separate this mess I put them in canning jars and waited to see which seeds floated, they are the bad ones, and which seeds fell to the bottom. The seeds just didn't want to fall because they were held up by all the pulp. I shook the jars now and then and tried skimming off pulp from the top. There were just too many seeds that ended up coming with each scoop and I felt wasteful. There has got to be a better way. If you know of it please share. I dried the seeds and pulp that I wasn't able to separate both ended up on parchment paper together and I figured the pulp will just rot away when I plant the seeds. That is plant them next spring under grow lights. Answers just don't come quickly when it involves gardening. It takes years to sometimes to find the answers and gain the skills needed.  It is one area I would gladly pay to be an apprentice to speed up the process. There are just so few that have the knowledge in my area
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 Have any of you tried working with true potato seeds?