With just a little effort people can grow a few things in pots
or small areas in their lawn. Tomatoes, onions, radishes, peas
beans, carrots, greens, etc. And actually have enough to freeze
for later use during the fall/winter. I was raised out in the woods
so we did much more than that as it included animals, birds,etc.
One of my old friends who is now gone had a beautiful Castor bean plant growing next to his house. it was more like a tree than a bush and was nearly gutter height. It was so beautiful with it’s red, green, and purple leaves. I plan to grow one this year. I’m sure my memories of him and our adventures in Appalachia will come to mind. The things we saw...
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=castor+bean+plants+images&iax=images&ia=images
Mrs. Augie and I survived our annual New Year’s Eve pilgrimage downtown last night.
The natives were on good behavior - I haven’t seen a single local news report of any shootings or stabbings. That sort of thing happens pretty much every weekend here. It was nice of them to take a night off so we could enjoy our evening out. lol
I’m in Florida.
My cape honeysuckle bushes are blooming rather well. They produce orange flowers in the late fall and winter.
https://verdego.com/product/cape-honeysuckle/
Unfortunately, they spread by horizontal suckers extremely vigorously.
I have a few blooms on my Christmas cacti and my orchid appears to be healthy.
Happy New Year, Happy Gardening, everyone!
Happy New Year, all! Greetings from southern New Hampshire.
The “January Thaw” is about over here…arriving a couple of weeks early. Freezing will return this evening and the daytime highs are in a coast profile back to winter. I am going to take the next few days to do some garden cleanup that dropped off the list.
I generally start my seeds in February. I’m scaling back due to age and health reasons but I will have one.
Been a productive one for me already. Got most everything formatted and looking consistent and linked some more data. Link to the Planting event is the big one. Location will help with bed rotation. I have Land(location) Bed Block 1, Bed 3 etc, linked to Plantings so I can see a history of what's been planted in any given bed, bed block or field.
The Land assets are hierarchical so I have the 8 Acres and then inside that, Field 1, Field 2 and Ugly Little Triangle. The 8 acres is a triangle and the sharp corner is ugly and separated from the rest by the driveway. Field 1 is where the Tunnel is. Field 2 is a bigger flat area that needs cleared of trees.
Speaking of Tunnel. I have it in there as a Structure asset but that's it. Just one post basically. The tunnel will end up having a lot of records kept with this farm app thing. Wiring Diagrams for one. The sensor logs are log.txt but are csv format so I copy, paste into a text file and save as 01-01-25-log.csv etc and I can import them into wordpress and make tables and charts. I'll have to make another content type for Tunnel Notes too. And here I thought I was about done.
Happy New Year everyone! I’ve a nice mess of blackeyed peas and ham bones on the wood stove.
Any cure for wild strawberry plant that has taken over my front and back yards - sprayed heavy in the spring with a vinegar - epson salt - dawn soap - but it came back with a vengeance
I’m in zone 6b and during a stroll through my local Menards yesterday I was surprised to see several seed racks already on display. (For those not familiar with Menards imagine that walmart and home depot got together and had very large baby.)
Tropical cacti native to S Mexico and Central America. I doubt one would survive the upcoming 1 degree mornings.
Blmk
Plenty of quick replies about what a prepper is.
Had to put down a goat just now. He’s been under the house for two days with the other bucks constantly going under and beating up on him. Woke us up at 4am bumping up on the floor of the cabin. Guess he got sick or just was just chosen by the rest as being defective enough for them to want to delete from the herd.
Either way, he was never going be accepted back into the herd and they were never going to let him eat or drink so I had to do what I had to do. It’s not like anyone wants to take on new animals in the middle of winter when they have to feed them. Not knowing if he’s got a transmittable condition, I wouldn’t do that to someone else anyway. Only the one doe has ever been vaccinated for anything.
Nice quick take down. As good as it could have gone. Can’t eat him because he might have been sick with who knows what.
Can’t wait til Spring when I can get rid of all of them. The buyer will be made aware of the vaccine status. If I have the freezer fixed by then, which is a cheap fix, I’ll put a couple of bucks in it. Bring it down to 1-2 bucks to get rid of. Probably just the big boy.
Belated Happy New Year to everyone! What a wild year so far...
Other than trying to keep a few plants I move indoors, going, and keeping our chickens alive through the cold spells, I’ve not been very “garden oriented” for a couple months. But, I do have an ignorant (my ignorance) cooking question:
When my wife cooks one of our free range (part time) chickens, she usually makes soup from them. The meat is really tough. (Store bought chicken drumsticks or leg quarters come out tender in her soups.)
So... One of our old roosters was on the way out and I harvested it early this AM. I decided to try our old style pressure cooker. No controls - you just put it on the burner and adjust the burner. It doesn’t seal perfectly any more though, so while the (very modest) whistle at the leak point at one edge indicated “some” pressure, the little weight on the top of the lid allowed less steam out there than at the leak. Not really knowing how to proceed, and wifey was at her job, and never uses the pressure cooker anyway, I figured I’d try a cooking time of 40 minutes. (The instructions indicate 15 minutes.) The chicken was completely covered in broth at the start, and still was when I pulled the cover off after letting things cool down to, oh, about 140 deg. F., I’d say.
Sheesh. If anything, the chicken is even tougher, including the skin. (The skin is almost like a mummy. After cooking in hot broth for 40 minutes???!!!)
Now what? Try slow cooking it for several hours at a slow boil (”simmer”)? Cover on? Cover off? For sure checking the broth level fairly frequently, I assume?
Thanks in advance!