The Garden Thread - August, 2025

August 1, 2025 | Diana in WI/Greeneyes in Memoriam

[Augie]

The counter surfing thing... When #1 Marine Daughter’s Doberman was young she was a one-dog wrecking crew if there was food on the counter. Ten seconds of inattention from humans was all she needed. She’s 7yo now and will still try it every now and then if she thinks nobody is watching.

Booger the Aussie jumped on top of the kitchen counter a couple times when she was young. She’s a very tender-hearted thing and only had to be scolded a few times to break her of that behavior.

A buddy of mine has Beagles that live in the house and they do pretty well. He always gets them as young pups which makes things easier.

I’m going to attempt it with Howard. I can shut the stairway door and confine him to my office in the basement while I’m working. If it doesn’t work it doesn’t work, but there’s only one way to find out.

I’ve got roughly a month before Mrs. Augie is officially retired from the DoD to work on it. If I suddenly stop posting here you’ll know it went badly and she’s killed me and taken Howard to the pound. lol

[Pollard]

Just noticed the different sizes in Lodge Dutch Ovens and more than one blue. That and a huge price range due to walmart website being like amazon now. Looks like 5.5 qt in Indigo blue is the one I can get from WM. They do make a 7.5 qt in indigo but wm doesn't carry them. Amazon has them for $120. Maybe later. I have a 6 qt Instant Pot but I want something I can use in the smoker or on top of the wood stove.

Will be heading that way shortly. Grab some lunch on the way. Maybe we'll get lucky and the Mad Moose BBQ guy will be set up in town. Mobile trailer and has the best wings ever.

Probably won't get any cattle panels from TS but will grab a flat of the wide mouth pint jars and look at their air hoses. Gonna drop my son off at WM and let him roam the food aisles with a cart. We're trying to expand his menu. I'll kill time at TS, hit GW Foods for a few racks of ribs, check out the discount grocery store and then head back to WM and hit the kitchen aisles. Meet up and check out and then hit the local grocery stores on the way back. One of them has wings for $2.49/lb which is a deal and we like our wings too.

Lodge makes Dutch Ovens in a lot of colors and sizes.

From Lodge on Amazon

From WM

Oddly, Lodge website doesn't show the 5.5 qt. Specially made for WM? Might be inferior if that's the case. WM tells suppliers what they'll pay and they can either figure out a way or not get the WM volume orders. Must be some quality difference if it's $100 for non WM Lodge 6 qt or $45 for WM Lodge 5.5 qt.

My Presto pressure canner was like that. It's 16 qt iirc and the one from WM has weights while the one available elsewhere including direct from Presto had the dial gauge. Even before starting as a machinist I could see that the machining wasn't great on mine. I've never gotten a chance to look at the non WM version but if I had to guess, I'd bet they're a little better. Mine has always worked just fine though and I prefer the weights. I grew up with that sound. It was usually green beans from the garden.

I might have to have an Indigo Dutch Oven selection, SM, MED, L and XL.

[FamiliarFace]

*** If I suddenly stop posting here you’ll know it went badly and she’s killed me and taken Howard to the pound. lol***

🙏🏼 Good luck, Augie! 🤣

[FamiliarFace]

I think you’re right, Pollard, about the 5.5 qt being made exclusively for Walmart. That is a decent price, too.

My blue 6 qt Dutch oven looks like the blue that is 3rd from the left, top row. On Amazon, it just says “blue” for the color. I’m glad it was purchased when it was, 5 years ago.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Could go EITHER way, really...YOU might be the one sent to the Pound, LOL!

[Diana in Wisconsin]

I noticed that Walmart has expanded their listing for items! I wanted a particular cookbook, and they also had a used copy listed for half the price. Since I’m not picky, I ordered that one, and it was signed by the Author. Score!

I also discovered two tricks:

If you want to save $ on food, do a search for ‘foods under $2.00’ and you’ll see a LOT of unadvertised sales items. I do that, and also $1.00 items, which are usually canned meals (Chef Boyarde, etc.) that I buy for the Food Pantry.

They also have a tab for ROLLBACKS which are all kinds of discounted items; food, clothing, household, soap, shampoo, junk from China, etc. ;)

I wouldn’t go any smaller than the 5.5 quart Dutch Oven. Get the 6 quart if you can swing it. You won’t regret going bigger when it comes to those.

[Qiviut]

Howard might end up being a laid back house dog. My brother’s Brittany was totally different in the house. Other than scarfing food whenever he had the opportunity, he mostly just laid around & was pretty chill. Howard is smart - I’ll bet he figures out there are advantages to being allowed inside. It seems to me he enjoys your company, too :-)

[MomwithHope]

I think from what you have said about him that Howard will be good. He will learn and be happy just to be with you.

[Pollard]

Never noticed the roll back tab and will check the $1-2 items sometime.

Never made it to TC. I don't actually need anything they have on sale there. Still ended up being over a 4 hour trip with stops at 4 grocery stores, including WM.

Got a bunch of food, the 5.5 qt Indigo Dutch oven and a set of 12 Corelle dinnerware. That will get rid of at least one of four patterns in our current mismatched Corelle.

The Dutch oven is kind of a peachish beige inside. Didn't even pay attention to the inside pic online.

All this talk of kitchen colors. I'll be drywalling this place before Winter. Maybe I have a paint color.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

The inside of your new pot will be ‘seasoned’ soon enough. It will be various shades of whatever you’ve been cooking in it! ;)

Kitchen walls should be Butter Yellow. Just tuck that information away in the backside of your brain for now...

[FamiliarFace]

That’s the same color mine is inside. I like it. Not sure what you were expecting. I think you got a good deal.

[Paul R.]

Ha! My trip to town this morning dragged out by about 2 extra hours, too! And then I rushed home because I’m in the middle of repairing & repainting the post our mailbox is on and I needed to temporarily put the mailbox back up on the post until the carrier had been by.

[Qiviut]

My red one is beige inside, too. That is one ‘handy’ pot .... I made a lot of soup, stew & chili in that pot last winter. I’m probably going to try making at least one batch of pepper jelly in it since I need a large ceramic lined pot - if the test batch works, that will be my go-to jelly pot.

[Liz]

GARDEN SQUASH BREAD (uses yellow squash)
Serve w/ honey butter for a sensational taste treat.

ING 2 c sugar 1 c veg oil 3 eggs 3 c flour 1 tsp ea
vanilla, salt, b/soda, cinnamon 2 c unpeeled yellow squash shredded

Method Beat sugar, oil, eggs and vanilla fluffy. Mix flour, salt, b/soda and cinnamon. Add to egg mixture; stir well. Stir in squash and optional nuts. Turn into greased/floured 9x5x3" loaf pan. Bake 350°F 80 min til done. Wrap in foil when cool.

[Paul R.]

The biggest problem with the mailbox, actually, was that all but one screw holding it to the post had rusted away! The threaded portions were still in the wood, but, the heads were gone. So much for the protective plating on THOSE screws. The one that was left was simply a fatter screw - a #12, I believe - as it went in a hole that had stripped out So, more of that one was left. This time, I think I'll use deck screws.

All the wood is now cleaned off, primed, and painted. I also got some nice numbers on clearance @ Wally World, to put on the post itself. The ones on the north side of the box had almost baked off, and ditto for the paint (or powder coat?) on the mailbox itself. On the south / sunward / nearer oncoming traffic side, I had already put on heftier reflective numbers, and I'm carefully repainting black around them, B4 repainting the rest of the box. On the north side, the numbers on the post will (now) do.

I also need to move the house numbers on the side of the garage that faces the street, as tree branches are beginning to obscure them. My shop gets a ####-B labelling, and a new / bigger "Deliveries @ rear of house / porch under LARGER awning" sign, so delivery persons don't leave packages exposed out there @ my shop and in view of the road.

My trip to town this morning dragged out by about 2 extra hours...

But it was a very good trip. Ground Round beef in 1 lb. rolls @ Wally World for $2.91 (use or freeze by 8/29, so 4 are in the freezer and one gets cooked in a few hours. Picked up a huge (40 lb.) bag of cat food for my daughter's cats: The varied "colors" in it are gone, apparently a follow-up to taking dyes out of some foods. I wasn't sure how the cats would react to it, but, they seem to like it just fine. I also nabbed a nice gutter (or chicken feed?) scoop on clearance for 75 cents, and a few other clearance items. I might need to return the shirt: Nice orig. $19 shirt for $3, and I love the not too bright / just right red, white, and blue blocky pattern, but, it's 98% cotton, 2% Rayon, so, I'm afraid it will shrink, and if it does, it'll be too small on me. Also on clearance were a few dented cans items (not TOO dented!), a slightly bashed box of cereal, a 6 pack of orange juice (bought it mostly for the nice small bottles to re-use!), and then Aldi had a BUNCH of stuff on clearance, including me nabbing a last bottle of Korean BBQ sauce that was out. Wifey hopefully will like that one! 14 oz., 75 cents. The "mild" jalapeno ranch salad dressing looked interesting to me. (I think that was 75 cents, too.) Milk was $3.06 (ouch), eggs are "down" to $2.72. At least we don't need to buy eggs.

I walked out of ALDI wishing I'd gotten a cart!

Rural King has "Imperial Maran" (large, dark brown eggs) chicks, among others, for half price - $2.25. I passed, but, dang, I may go back, today. We need more hens like a hole in the head, but, ours ARE almost all getting a little long in the tooth, er, beak, and the Marans are really nice birds that lay gorgeous eggs. I have already prepped (re-prepped!) for chicks anyway, as our little black (part bantam) hen sometimes hatches a couple chicks in the Fall, and she's gone broody again.

In the late afternoon I had to pick up wifey from work, as she wanted me along to go over to a friend of hers to help with care for their animals while they are out of town. She has roughly a dozen quail, maybe 3 dozen chickens, a huge turkey, and a most "impressive" (but "knows" my wife well) German Shephard. Wifey takes care of "Inga" while I sit in the car, then after doing her business Inga goes back into the house, and I feed, water, etc., all the birds. So, each day this adds a ~ 50 mile trip, unless I needed to go to town anyway - then it's just a few miles extra.

I ran out of time yesterday, but, I noticed Lowe's has 1 cu. ft. bags of garden soil 3 for $10. So, I've shoved my Lowe's gift card in my wallet and will pick up 3 bags to try out. When my rebates card arrives from Menards, I'll try out their composted manure too, and compare. (It's cheaper, for one thing, but the nutrients may be more "unbalanced?")

Rural King had a couple sizes of light duty Wolverine Boots, $50 reg. (they say) marked down to $20. Wolverine footwear isn't what it used to be (!), but, for $20, they were fairly comfy, not too heavy, and roomy, supposedly waterproof - might be a decent moderate use winter boot. Hopefully they don't fall apart quickly, like the Wolverine boots my Dad gave me B4 he passed! (A glue incompatibility problem, I think - hopefully they have fixed it.)

Gas has jumped up by 25 cents - yikes. Apparently a BP refinery in Indiana flooded in a t'storm. Hopefully that spike will be temporary, but I needed gas & at the time didn't know why the spike so... Ouch - ouch - ouch...

Last night wasn't quite so cool, so I opened up the windows, and in the middle of the night was woken up by a bunch of noisy owls. I went out, and they seemed to be all along the treeline along road, passing the east part of our property. There were at least 5 of them -- a whole "parliament" of owls, it is called. And just as noisy, so, I get the connection. (It can't be "wisdom", human parliaments are much too dumb!)

I've never witnessed that before: SEVERAL noisy owls together in the wee hours. Their eyes reflecting back at me was pretty cool, but, I needed to sleep! I finally threw a hickory nut at one, and they shut up, and I retired back to bed...

Well...! Ya' can't have them arrested for disturbing the peace!

[Paul R.]

Midnight(?) snack is over, back to bed... :-)

[Pollard]

The pic of the inside was hidden down under the (+4 View all) and I guess I didn't click through them all so I never saw it.

No complaints. Guess I was expecting blue like the outside.

[MomwithHope]

My red one is white white white inside. Older I guess.

[Pollard]

Lodge instructions give three methods of cleaning. Also very forthcoming about where they’re made. Admit they use China because they couldn’t get the colors they wanted done here. This one was made in Vietnam.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

“Please note: a small amount of staining is to be expected with enameled cookware and does not affect performance.”

That would be my pot, LOL!

https://www.lodgecastiron.com/pages/cleaning-care-enameled-cast-iron

I have a dishwasher, but I never use it. I like washing dishes. Very ‘Zen’ for me. I’d like to convince Beau to pull it out so I can have shelving in there for pots and pans, instead of storing them in the adjoining pantry room.

Oh, well. You can’t have EVERY wish you make come true. ;)

What will you make first? Chili? Soup? Bread? A Roast? The possibilities are endless for you now! :)

You will want to make this bread all winter:

https://anaffairfromtheheart.com/no-knead-crusty-dutch-oven-bread/

My note: Use a piece of parchment paper in the pot when you are ready to bake the bread. No clean-up!