The Garden Thread - November, 2024

November 1, 2024 | Diana in WI/Greeneyes in Memoriam

[Diana in Wisconsin]

I was surprised at how much I like roasted Broccoli the first time I made it.

I make a pan of roasted veggies at least once a week. I use them as a side for a meal or two, and then chop them up and use them in an omelette or added to scrambled eggs. If I’m making soup that week, some go into that pot, too.

Very versatile and you get your veggies without much effort or extra calories.

[Liz]

Yes, roasting broccoli brings out the great flavor.

[Augie]

The mild fall weather continues here in Central Missouri. It was mostly warm and dry last week with some showers Friday night into Saturday.

Didn’t do much of anything with the gardens over the weekend. Sunday I got Nanner out and started getting the driveway ready for winter. I spread 15-ish ton of crushed limestone and probably need to put down that much more to have it in good shape.

Cleaned up a few dead trees that fell into the horse pasture over the summer. No chainsaw - I just shoved it all off into a heap at the edge of the woods. While I had the tractor out I turned the compost and moved a couple round bale butts from the pasture to the edge of the compost heap. I’m hoping to replenish the heap with stall waste from the neighbor lady’s horse stable this weekend. I don’t have enough compost on hand to give the new garden patch what it needs so it’s kind of important to bring more home soon.

There are still ten or so t-posts that need to be plucked from the ground where the old hoop house stood. It won’t take long to get that done and then I’ll be able to start on the raised beds when time allows.

[Liz]

Baba Ganoush
Serve w/ crudités and toasted pita chips, you can't go wrong with this easy eggplant appetizer.

Ing 1 head of garlic, plus 1 clove garlic 1 Tbl plus 1 tsp evo plus more for serving K/s-p
2 med Italian eggplants 3 Tbl lemon juice 1 Tbl chp fresh parsley Pinch crushed red pepper flakes

Steps Char/broil eggplant, roast garlic 30-25 min. Cool eggplant 10 min, then scoop out flesh.
Discard skin and set flesh to colander. MUST drain 30 min; stir halfway thru.

Transfer eggplant to bowl. Add fork-mashed roasted garlic and lemon juice, then continue to stir til eggplant is broken down and lemon juice is incorporated. Add Tbl oil; grate unroasted gar/clove into bowl. Stir/combine; season with salt. Transfer to server.

Top w/ parsley and red pepper flakes; drizzle with oil. Serve with toasted pita and vegetable slices.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Thread over here about the benefits of Watercress:

https://freerepublic.com/focus/chat/4278162/posts?page=1

[Pollard]

Getting ready to make this basic DelMonte chili recipe. I'm rotating out items in the pantry and have a lot of canned black beans, diced tomatoes and also have a tube of ground beef that's been in the freezer for a couple of years.

1 lb. extra lean ground beef
1 Tbsp. chili powder
1 tsp. dried oregano
2 tsps. cumin
¼ tsp. garlic powder
2 can (14.5oz.each) Del Monte® No Salt Added Diced Tomatoes, not drained
1 can (8oz.) Del Monte® Tomato Sauce
1 can (15oz.) reduced-sodium canned black beans, rinsed and drained
½ tsp. sugar

Been eating Shanghai Bok Choy from the garden every other day.

[TheErnFormerlyKnownAsBig]

I’m back!

[Diana in Wisconsin]

YAY! Remind us where you landed. I know you were in the process of a big move/life changes when we last heard from you! :)

[TheErnFormerlyKnownAsBig]

Texas hill country.

[Qiviut]

It’s a cold, gray & rainy November day ... looks just like what I think of November. My favorite month, October, didn’t disappoint with blue skies, balmy weather & a gorgeous display of fall leaves.

It’s cold enough now that there may be sleet on the mountain. The rain is needed - we got a shower last Sunday night & it was the first rain in 37 days. It’s DRY, very dry. The rain today has been fairly steady since noon - not a hard, run-off rain, so that’s a good thing.

I’ve spent most of the day in the kitchen, trying to cook. The power went out for about an hour just after noon. According to the electric co-op, a whopping 29 customers were affected (including us). I was very happy to see a repair crew across the road in the neighbor’s field with a bucket truck & someone up high working on whatever it was that caused the outage. Within 10 minutes of the trucks leaving the field, the lights were back on ... yay!!

Chicken corn chowder is in the crockpot. I’m trying to muster up the energy to put a casserole together for dinner - I don’t think the chowder will be ready. Mom found her recipe books unpacking boxes that are supposed to be ‘pantry’ items. She’s been putting pictures of gorgeous, mouth-watering desserts in front of me all day. I may have to take a swig of maple syrup or honey to satisfy the craving for something sweet that all the pictures have conjured up.

Lots done the last week & a half ... enough stress that I had a bit of a meltdown the other day ... I’ll spare you the details. We do have TV & a new driveway now, I’ll say that much. My brother’s bourbon that he stashed on his last visit is about an inch lower in the bottle (goes well with hot apple cider!).

[Pollard]

Aside from his tech genius, Massie's other passion if organic/regenerative agriculture. They raise most of their own food organically and he's been on most every organic/regen podcast you can think of.

In reaction to empty shelves in the meat dept during "2 weeks to slow the spread", he write the PRIME Act which has yet to be passed, that would allow local processors to sell to the public. I think there's also language in it to allow selling to people in an adjacent state but don't quote me on that.

I would imagine his biggest goal would be to level the playing field between Big AG and small to medium AG, most of whom are already getting away from chemical farming and headed towards regenerative.

RE: PM -- Thank you!

[SE Mom]

I follow a couple of regenerative farming guys on YouTube- I’ve learned so much from them and really would like to see a way some of their ideas can be integrated into “Big Agriculture”. Massie is great! But, this would mean another House loss- will his district elect a good rep?

[Pollard]

will his district elect a good rep?

Yeah, it's a small rural district so it would be a repub regardless and the district loves Massie so much that if he recommended someone, they would go with that person. He just ran unopposed because running against him would have been futile. If one of his kids ran, they'd be a shoe in. Hell, if one of his cows ran, they'd win.

Of course still no word from President Trump, Karoline Leavitt or Massie on this yet but so far, every rumor from a legit person has been true.

There are people doing several hundred acres of corn with regenerative and reducing chemicals down to almost nothing and making more profit because of it. Some of them drop crop insurance and don't accept subsidies. They show one guy towards the end of Kiss the Ground documentary I think. Could be the follow up to it, Common Ground.

[Pete from Shawnee Mission]

Sounds like the year is winding down. Its nice to get inside in the winter and take a break.

I picked the remaining green Picus Roma type tomatoes today and brought them in to ripen. Its a determinate commercial variety that I am pretty sure is normally picked green or just at color break and treated with ethylene to ripen them when they are shipped. I put them in a small bushel with bananas and covered them. I have been pulling the ripe ones out for most of last week. Not as good as Heirlooms, but better than Mexican store bought tomatoes.

[Pete from Shawnee Mission]

Here is something about the possible benefits of Stevia Leaf. Sound like you need the actual leaf, not some manufactured product. This is preliminary research, but would be great if true.

https://vigilantnews.com/post/stevia-kills-lyme-disease-pathogen-better-than-antibiotics-preclinical-study/

Health Stevia Kills Lyme Disease Pathogen Better Than Antibiotics (Preclinical Study)

This article originally appeared on GreenMedInfo and was republished with permission. Guest post by Sayer Ji Lyme disease is exceedingly difficult to treat, due to its well-known shape-shifting (pleomorphic) abilities, with conventional antibiotics often failing to produce a long-term cure. Could the commonly used natural plant Stevia provide a safer, and more effective means to combat this increasingly prevalent infection? A promising preclinical study has revealed that whole stevia leaf extract possesses exceptional antibiotic activity against the exceedingly difficult to treat pathogen Borrelia Burgdorferi known to cause Lyme disease. The study found, “Stevia whole leaf extract, as an individual agent, was effective against all known morphological forms of B. burgdorferi.”

At present, the CDC acknowledges that at least 300,000 are infected with Lyme disease, annually, with the conventional standard of care relying on antibiotics that are not only toxic but increasingly coming under scrutiny for addressing only surface aspects of the infection, often leaving antibiotic-resistance Lyme disease deep within the system to continue to cause harm.

B. burgdorferi has a complex life cycle, and can exist in radically different forms: spirochetes, spheroplast (or L-form which lacks a cell wall), round bodies or cyst form (which allows for dormancy and escaping PCR detection), and highly antibiotic-resistant biofilms. This pleomorphic property makes conventional treatment exceptionally difficult because while some conventional antibiotics are effective against forms with a cell wall such as spirochetes, they are ineffective against those without a cell wall. This enables B. burgdorferi to change form to evade eradication through conventional means. Also, biofilm formation creates a significant barrier against most conventional antibiotics, even when used in combination, and has been recently suggested to be the most effective mechanism of resistance."

More at link!

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Good news about the driveway! Post pix when you have time.

I’m surprised brother’s bottle isn’t half gone - at least - with all you’ve been dealing with! ;)

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Good info. Ill ask the Vet next time I see her if she’s heard of this.

Neither Beau nor I have gotten Lymes, but we’re vigilant about dousing the dogs with flea and tick meds. This year he started giving some of them flea/tick shots (through the Vet) but at $100 a pop, only the Top Dogs are getting that additional treatment.

I’m constantly tick-checking anything that moves around here. They were out in greater numbers this season with it being so dry - all BUGS like it dry, it seems. And it’s been relatively warm all this fall. I have a SIL up in Norwalk, WI and she has seen ticks in early spring with snow still on the ground. They’re getting to be as indestructible as cockroaches!

He spent a lot of money on Frontline this season, too. Beau doesn’t have a single ‘cheap’ hobby - though to his credit he NEVER questions me when a big box of yarn shows up at the kitchen door. ;)

[Qiviut]

It’s 3/4 gone. The inch lower was from the previous level.

There are 20 cows in the field across the road. They are all lying down this morning - a very peaceful scene. It’s mid-forties & the ground is wet so I am surprised they are down on the wet ground. I have never seen them all (or any of them) down before. The calves they are carrying are getting pretty big by now, so maybe their feet needed a rest! :-)

[Augie]

Any time you can have home-grown tomatoes in November you’re doing alright.

Things are winding down but I’ve still got a mountain of stuff to do to get ready for spring planting. If the weather is nice every weekend until the 1st of March I might make it. lol

Mrs. Augie is going on a girls’ retreat this weekend so I guess I’ll see if I can put some venison on the hook while she’s gone. I’d rather spend the time working on garden projects but I like my freezers better when they’re full of meat.

[Pete from Shawnee Mission]

Gardeners, hikers, campers, hunters, and fisherman are most likely to be affected by Lyme disease!

The main point is that its Stevia Leaf that provides the protection. Of this group gardeners can easily grow it for themselves for them selves.