Eating time

One thing about gardens... never be afraid to eat a young succulent plant.  There is always this idea that one will wait for the plant to become "optimum" for it's harvest.  This is a fools paradise in our personal gardening world.  For example if you waited for your spinach plants to become all "optimal" you would end up with more food than you could eat in a few days.  Why not start eating it early?

I have been eating my kohl rabbi  now and it is delicious... in past years i waited for it to get bigger thinking i wanted more yield, and then a few hot days and they split and got "woody".  Same deal with the peas... nothing is taster than young fresh peas, but you think oh let them get bigger and then you notice you have hundreds of peas and you can't deal with them all... don't fall into the concept of letting everything mature completely.  Last year i had beets bigger than softballs and many of them are in my basement pickled but for weeks i passed up on eating delicious  beets hoping to get more yield.

If you were on the case in the spring planting like a Man gardener your garden is now at a point where it producing food at an exponential rate.  Obviously you are not going to eat an unripe tomato but if you pluck your kale plants down they have the root system to replace that foliage in a matter of days. So by not eating it now thinking you are waiting for more you are actually going down the path of getting less.  It's like living your life going after money passing up all kinds of opportunities so that you will be "set" one day... and then that day comes and you may not be of mind to realize it.

Don't get me wrong... money is important and you should always be on the right side of the interest conundrum, but that's another blog.  I harvested about 30 peas today and most of them were small and tender, much like you might pay top dollar for in a high class restaurant and the truth is there will be 35 tomorrow.  Of course being a pro i have 4  pea patches each growing like an invasive weed species these days.  It's good for the plant too.. the plants get the message that "holy cow we need to make more seed because some maniac keeps plucking us dry".   It's like milking a mammal... take the milk and the mammal will see a need to replace that milk at that rate.

Clearly there are  a few types of home gardener plants at work here... a spinach or a kale or a pea will keep producing fruit so you need to keep on these plants now.. the younger and more tender the tastier.  Then you have plants like beets, kohl rabbi, carrots that are one off plants.  If you planted 90 beet plants then you can start eating young tender beets early and continue until the beets are larger and older eating the whole time, or you can wait until they are all big and you will have more than you can deal with.  If you go the second route there are donation options (see produce for people), or perhaps bartering options with other gardeners growing different crops, but sadly what i often see is plants in the ground that missed their time to nourish the human that planted them under that idea that they would be nourished.

Now being a Man Gardiner i strive for maximum yield always... it's the way i roll, so what i am saying, and i hope i am making sense is that now is the time to make your dinner out of what you have.  We are into the extreme growing season and soon things will bolt and you will find you missed it.  I missed some leeks this year... they started to flower and when i pulled them up the center of the the stock was solid... or "woody" as they say in the business.  I missed it, so now i will let the remaining ones flower... something for the bees, and perhaps some free seeds, and it might look pretty... onion like flowers are kind of pretty.

Also noted, is that the garlic i planted in the fall is now ready... last year i let it go too long and i suffered some rot on the bulbs. In life often times when you act to want more you end up with less... it's all in the poetic blinding power of greed.  We have too much in our society, where we can let food go to waste... don't commit to that cycle... get what you can while you can... some smart ass songwriter said that once... ahh! it's true.

I look at gardening as practice for the apocalypse... to be self sufficient  you need to be smart... growing plants are like an exponential graph... soon you will be overwhelmed so why not harvest a bit early?  It is a matter of staying on top of things, being ahead of the curve as they say... i realize i am hammering this point but it is a point that i believe needs to be hammered.   It's not  just the rum talking, although it make the points flow in a more fluid manner from my perceptive right now. 

It is now that garden can feed families... with of course the proper meat supplements... I have these canine teeth that dictate the diet of an omnivore... a meat and vegetable eater... but that's just me... in some ways i see the virtue of the vegetarian diet, but in another way i see the need for meat in my diet.  To each his or her own, on my front i try to buy organic, sustainable,  plastic free packaged meat to send my message to our society.   But that's just me, the more vegetables the better... may they be young and tender all the better.

New and improved blog with photos

This is the garden, my best garden to date... i have tweaked some things from last year on the power of new knowledge and the simmering rage of last years defeats.   Speaking about defeats... perhaps i should have titled this little post "new and improved blog with Pics".   By using the word Photos and not pics, i am dating myself as an old school, out of touch and un-hip type of chap and that's no way to blossom a writing career... one needs to identify with the lingo of the kids today... do u hr me?

Houston we have a problem.   I could have started this blog with a nice fuzzy little statement about how many people have commented on how nice the hops look, and how every morning a hummingbird sits up there and sings... quite a nice song by the way.  But that didn't happen... i had to take a few shots and now we are here.  Keep on going... as a leader who leads by example i will now argue how proper gardening mindset states that it is the only option.

Obviously i could just delete and start again, but then where am I?  Paralyzed in fear on what to do and how to continue... IS IT THE RIGHT WAY????   The thing is you can't take back the past... you can only learn from it and presenting a false and calculated image of what you are doing deserves a serious kick in the balls.  If that's your game go get in the entertainment business where every pile of manure is polished until it's shining like a new dime.  In gardening manure is free fertilizer... food for the prize... not decorated like the prize. 

OK lets get serious... i have a new Garden neighbour... a plot mate so to speak... and the good news is she is aware of this blog and as a result of it wanted to be next to me.  Her style is what she calls "free gardening"... anything that is free.  This is the way it should be... people should never have to go to the nursery to buy plants because plants make seeds which make more plants.  To make a long story mid sized i have been deputized "plot manager in charge of errant brainstorming operations, seed distribution and orphan tomato relater".  I know it's a long title, but we revel in being weird here in Portland... for me it's kind of like taking candy from a baby.

 I'm kind of like a plant broker in many circles... i find spots for free plants.  How does one become a plant broker? Let me put it to you this way... i have my ear on the ground and my finger on the pulse of the neighbourhood.  I know what's going on... i know who's doing what... I'm not afraid to ask or tell it like it is.  I have about 20 people around here i keep up with on recurring gardening talk... always looking for a tip... always willing to give some advise.   Good times for comedy too... For example you can be in the school and see Ramsey and yell "what the heck are you trying to disguise your garden as the Sahara desert Ramsey!"  Next thing you know other parents are looking at Ramsey talking under their breaths about the total lack of plant stewardship as Ramsey sweats and tries to utter an uncomfortable and lame excuse.

Check out the beets... a nice cool wet spring has been good to our little red friends at the community garden, and with the absence of the ass hole squirrels (that i have at home) one can actually grow beets. I see squirrels as a notch more annoying as waving inanimate cats... at least the cats can only look annoying as something that is totally useless can.   The squirrel is an oily little devil of a nuisance destroying all kinds of things just in the simple manor of existing.  I like this idea but i imagine the appetite for a venture of this sort will be strong and unfortunate. 

The carrot patch next to the Walla Walla onions is finding it's groove.  Make sure you really soak the soil so the water gets deep so the carrots will reach down to get it.  Of course the key to gardening is good moist soil and full sun.  Now we get full sun at the Mt Tabor community garden, but the soil that is there is a little heavy on the clay which will really interfere with your ability to get the water deep. You really want the clay under your good soil so that your moisture is retained.  I am getting to the point in my garden where the plants are putting up some shade on the soil which really helps to keep the moisture in the soil.  It's funny, in all this talk of global warming and CO2 levels there is so little emphasis on the re greening of the earth.  Think about how much a road or a roof heats up in the sun over what a forest might.  The forest absorbs the light energy and uses that energy to turn CO2 into growth.   Obviously I'm for reducing CO2 production and usage, but there seems to be a rather large other thing we could be doing... but who makes money off letting a forest grow?

I put 2 more panels on this potato box the other day and filled the space with good soil.  I'll take a pass on the straw dream this year... i got about 7 potatoes in the straw box last year, while my man down the street got about 50 lbs out of his dirt box.  Now one test does not make a conclusive experiment... unless you are a corrupt government looking for an answer to support you ideology... in that case it should be fine.  I am careful not to choke out the plants this year... perhaps last year i put too much straw at one time and then went away on vacation in the heat of the summer.  It's important in Gardening to be honest about everything going on... it's the only way you can learn to get it right.  Just another one of those fine life metaphors... maybe you are lucky things are working out... or maybe you have all sorts of little micro adjustments dialed in... ahh the plot thickens.

This is a silver fir tomato in front of a kale and beside the carrot patch.  The silver fir is a unique tomato plant, defined by it's sharp narrow leaves, and the tomato itself is a thing of beauty.  My neighbour turned me on to this variety a few years ago... as a result my plot neighbour has a few in her plot.  Now you won't beat the taste or the elaborate beauty of a slice of this tomato.  This years exercise will be to pinch off all of the early flowers and lower leaves to allow the plant to grow large and strong for the July -August- September tomato season.    Sometimes it is hard to cut back plants... you think you are doing a bad thing when in fact you are actually doing a good thing.  I'd say most gardens i have seen are an overgrown mess of tomatoes rotting come harvest time, and that's not good... it's like parenting where a little tough  love can go a long way.

And now for the peas... i have 4 batches of peas going this year, three are in circular cages like this and one is in a linear trellis.  Now i have always been a linear trellis  kind of guy but i have to say in the circle the plants have an easier time climbing up.  I seem to spend a lit of time coaxing the plants to not reach for the sun and stay on the trellis when it is linear, and when it is circular these problems don't exist.  Now i imagine the linear trellis would be better for the plants getting more exposure to the sun, but it all comes down to yield of course.  I also imagine that the linear trellis might be easier to harvest from, but if there is a will there is a way.

Now what about the home garden? Well there is one king hell strawberry harvest going on now... i can't really measure the load with the kids constantly feasting all afternoon but i know it's a big one.  Between the gardens we have had fresh spinach salad and kale every night for the past week or so, and the peas and raspberries are coming in.   My kids had a bowl of strawberries, peas one blueberry and some raspberries for a snack after school yesterday... and that's why we do this.

off to the races

80 degree weather here this week, that will pay huge dividends for those that have had plants in the ground developing root systems that have been watered adequately.  If not don't worry we have a long season... but get on it!   My hops have reached the top of the line this week to give you an idea of the power we are dealing with.

I just came in from a slug an snail cull, another important thing to get on at this time of the season as you want to really get the population of these pests down.  Sure some softies don't like the idea of bumping off organisms, and i get that in a sort of philosophical way, but in another more harvest centered mindset it makes no sense.  That is why it was easier to sell pesticides to farmers back in the day... this chemical will take care of things and you don't have to witness the horror of the carnage.  The trick is to develop a healthy hate for your pest that will power a will to get out there and meet them Mano to Mano.   Obviously if i had a hundred acre farm i couldn't possibly be out there killing pests one at a time... i would have to choose my crops wisely, and learn.

I could never condone pouring chemicals on the earth... there has to be another way, and the chemicals can only come back to hurt you.  Like the bees... apparently conclusive studies have confirmed that pesticides are mainly responsible for the decline of the honey bee.  Imagine that... a chemical designed to kill insects is killing insects!  But if that chemical makes a lot of money for a said company then perhaps it's OK... that is the story we get apparently... but that is another dark rage to fall into at another time.  For now we need to bask in the glory of the 20 plus snail and slug kill i pulled off tonight... that is 20 less snails and slugs reproducing in my little micro ecosystem.  I get the story all the time from other local strawberry farmers... all my strawberries get eaten by slugs they say... they say.  You see my strawberries have a patrol Sargent with a heart full of hate and a keen eye for late night revenge... but that's just me, and remember I'm a weirdo.

Luckily for me i live in a city the celebrates weirdness... believe me it's a lot easier to be weird than it is to be "world class"... first of all what the hell is "world class"?  The dictionary tells me that it is "being of the highest caliber in the world"... does that mean arrogant, or just a term thrown out as a result of a marketing study to sell sell sell.   Getting off topic here... i love all of the cities i have lived in even if their choice of Mayors is bat shit crazy.

Apparently bat shit makes good fertilizer... most fecal matter does for that matter, bird guano is very good i have been told.  But as fun as it might be to have a colony of blue footed boobies  above my garden, i might regret it on other levels... and it's not going to happen given the geographical limitations.

OK, the garlic i transplanted that i mentioned in the last post is far behind the garlic that i didn't transplant... therefore my assumption about transplanting garlic may have been flawed, although i still say given the price of garlic if you need that space for a better cash crop go for it.  The garlic is alive and doing well, it is just not nearly as robust as the garlic i didn't transplant.  I mention this as a matter of scientific fact that came about from an ill planed man gardening frenzy, that said I'll take a man gardening frenzy over inaction any day.  Looking back i could have done a better job of transplanting taking more of the soil around the root base as i transplanted, but that is the thing... we learn as we go. Don't be afraid to make mistakes if the alternative is inaction, and of course do observe with a mind free of prejudice  to what you thought.  So many times in life people refuse to learn from things gone wrong because they can't accept they might have been wrong.  That's why the garden is the key to life... the garden teaches you how to live if you let it.  It is just life growing under your guidance and the cues and keys are all there if you choose to see them. 

Fluid Gardening

My community garden plot has plants that overwintered (garlic, leeks kale), there are also some annual plants... I call them Blueberries, although an egghead botanist might use the term Cyanococcus within the genus Vaccinium.  As a result, tilling the soil in one swell effort is not really in the cards.  Apparently the garden now has a tiller... which of course will be broken in a few weeks when some hammerhead puts the wrong kind of gas in it... but that's another story.  You have to be fluid. That sounds good too,  I can see a book on "fluid gardening"... it caters to the idea of dealing with the various things that happen... and that is so totally now.  Perhaps statements like  "Now I don't want to force my plants into being something they are not so i am just going to be open to the changes that they present to me over the course of this varied growing season" could be presented in a group setting and then discussed.  Selling points are everything, but i never cared for them myself.. mind , body and garden need to keep fluid.

 You see it's still Man gardening... focusing on techniques like "savage attack weeding", combined with fluid thinking... allowing nature to guide you.  What is this fluid thinking our man is dancing around? WHAT DOES IT MEAN? I'm getting there...

Now your Onions and Garlic and Leeks and such are plants that transplant very well... you need to get them in the ground (often to over winter), and that's OK.. it doesn't mean they have to be in that defined spot forever... you can move them to a spot in the garden where perhaps you need them once you have decided how your garden wants to Flow... get it!  For the record, you can't transplant peas.. they need to go where you want them, but you can transplant Beets with some success, carrots not so much.

Ideally it is best not to transplant... in a perfect world the plant would grow where it needs to grow with the right space around it.  But due to circumstance that can't happen right now, so you do the best you can and you get things in the ground and growing.  You know get the flow happening... start the process... just by getting the process flowing you will do yourself more good than you could ever comprehend from your static viewpoint.  Even if you went in and made a bunch of mistakes, you would do yourself more good than bad because you would be involved.  Just like a molecule of water flowing down the river drawing ever closer to the waterfall... but the waterfall can't hurt you... you are  together with your kind and you will all fall together.  OK lets stick to fluid man gardening and keep away from fluid existentialism gardening.

I started a bunch of beets indoors and put them out in my garden by the house and that little insufferable squirrel ass hole came and ate the tops... so i might have to start again with chicken wire all over that box... Fluid eh!  The squirrels and I are on better terms ever since the peanut feeding stopped, and although i was thursting to avenge the attack I'm OK with it.  I put the plant out there without proper protection, i need to be smarter, more fluid in my thinking.  I hit a block, it could be a rage trigger but perhaps i need to ride this river and flow to another avenue.

So you see, perhaps beets are the thing to grow at the community garden where the squirrel population is less absurd... fluid thinking... don't jam a round peg in a square hole... notice the energy, feel the flow.   So I threw about 50 beet seeds in a square area in front of the peas.. we need to get the beets going.  Now i am not sure if that is the ideal place for them but if it is not i will move them later when i get that sorted.  Most likely i don't move them but since i have embraced fluid gardening i am not afraid to plant them there given i am able to contemplate moving them if need be.   Sometimes think of your garden as one of those plastic tubs you buy vegetable starts in at your local store.  You take them out of the box and put them in your garden.... well get things growing.    I have some Tomatoes started but they will be a while before they get in the ground... perhaps a yield of spinach before that spot gives way to tomatoes... that could be planted in a field of spinach for that matter.  When you have a fluid gardening mind anything is possible.

Should we spend some time ridiculing the opposite... why not.  Probably better than raging on about the asshole cat that has been digging up my peas and then shitting on them.  Imagine that... say i go wandering into the house of that cat and into the kitchen where that cat has it's food bowl and i just take a shit in it... maybe i wipe my ass and drop the toilet paper in the water.  I bet you those cat owners will miss the irony and try to call me crazy and have me arrested or shot, rather than taking responsibility for this outrage.

The opposite of fluid might be rigid, good for a tool brand but not for a farming mindset.  As the old saying goes "things often don't go as planned" so if you are rigid in your gardening you are bound to miss opportunity.   So many people wonder why certain things they plant don't produce, and they try and try again.  There is a mindset that say's "i want to grow this", but if it's not working why box yourself like that.  The plants and the season's particular climate don't give a rat's ass about some vision you have about your garden... get things going and observe what is working and let those observations guide your process.

Fluid... what is the key fluid?  Please tell me you just shouted WATER at your computer screen.  Yes you need to water you garden like an obsessed badman.   Soak it down early every day.  Remember that is my secret... my secret that i typed in CAPS.  The secret that i have been telling people for years, but they manage to forget... It's OK i like being good at something, so thanks... a little thing called garden dedication.

Before we forget lets go over a few things from the previous years on Northwest gardening...  Now I'm not saying it can't be done but these are 7 things i have observed from many plots, my own included.

1) All Brussel Sprout plants infested with aphids... never seen a yield
2) Densely packed squash family plants overcrowded and covered in powdery mildew
3) Too many fucking zucchini
4) Bullshit avant guard forms of zucchini that suck
5) Water starved cabbage plants sickly and covered in aphids using that plant as a base to attack the garden.
6) Tomatoes rotting on overcrowded plants
7) Portland is a Bean and tomato town

I just throw this out because i happen to be a scientist at heart, and maybe you know a way to grow brussel sprouts, that i don't, but i want you to know it and not just think you remember somebody saying something about it one time.  Well of course you can do what you want, i just happen to want yield, and i hope you do too, and think about how nice it would be if the produce for people got some good beets rather than a 9 foot zucchini.   I know, i have been really giving it to the zucchini... I'll give you a tip.  Grow the yellow zucchini and when it get's ripe shred it and then salt it and let it sit... this will bring out the water... then squeeze it out and mix it with Emmental cheese and bake it on a pizza shell as you would a pizza...  It's a winner.

So yes be open to your garden, react to the climate of the summer we will have... we don't know that answer yet... it's OK. Get some oars in the water and some bets on the table, plant things you think you will use, or would be nice to give to somebody... you can never have too many tomatoes if you have the balls to do some mad canning come summertime.  I still make curries and soups with my tomatoes from last year... lots left still.

one more note... the massive kale plant in the left... has the yellow flowers.  The yellow flowers are awesome on salads... also a good thing to have to bring bees into the garden... i saw 5 bees on that plant today.

The October garden, triumphs and failures

It was thanksgiving in Canada last weekend, and i ended up in some Canuck's house down here in Portland and as we sat around the table talking about things we gave thanks to, i went with the old hat... Failure.  Yes i am thankful for failure, it gives wise lessons.

It was of course my potato box experiment that was a grand failure... I blame myself of course.  I got fewer potatoes out of a big box i constructed, at cost to myself, not to mention the shade tower effect, than i got out of the potatoes right in the ground beside it.  Of course i didn't lose my mind and kill the potatoes in the ground trying to get too aggressive with the straw all over the box, in effect killing the potatoes.  My man Murray down the street does it, and kills it with boxes and soil.  Soil or straw?  I believe my experiment was flawed by putting too much straw on the plants and just plain choking them out.  I got greedy trying to get more and i crossed the line and snapped the trap on my own paw.  It is especially poignant in my case because i spent many summer nights at parties crowing off about the beauty of the potato box.  It is a failure i can live with... if it happens next year i punch myself in the face.  But it won't happen next year because i go down with my ships, and when you go down with your ships it leaves a stronger impression on you.   You see i'm not one of those "Oh i'm not sure what happened, i think i had the wrong seeds" kind of person.   It was my fault, i thought killing potatoes was kind of impossible... they just keep coming back i thought... they will but you need to let a good portion of the green matter stay in the light for photosynthesis to happen.   I'm not sure i am sold on the straw over dirt argument, but i will monitor the various other potato boxes people i know have and get to the bottom of this.  Failure means you tried, it also sings to the fact that you had a goal in mind when you tried... the failure means you didn't reach your goal, you can still learn.

After a month of monsoon rains, i pulled my tomato plants to cull the blight population, and then we got a week of hot sun... perhaps i could have squeezed a few more tomatoes, but i did clear a good patch of the garden to work the soil and get some garlic in.  I find some of the late tomatoes don't quite have the flavor that the mid summer one have.  And there is only so many hours in the week these days to garden, so sometimes you have to do what you can when you can.

I got some massive bean harvests, i think i need to do what our friend down the street does and just shell the beans and dry them otherwise i will have soggy beans in the crisper.  We  have all the carrots and beats we can eat for a while, i leave them in the ground until eating time... same problem in that i picked a massive pile of beets and some are going soft in the fridge.

My kids collected a pile of basil seeds from a derelict garden, and i myself have a bunch of purple heirloom carrot seeds ready to harvest.  The seed harvesting is a new passion for myself... it really speaks to the old hunter gatherer spirit I have. Why not?  For the record hybrid seeds will often be sterile or won't produce the same plants.  That's why you want to save the seeds of heirloom varieties if you are looking to get identical plants next season.

Back at home the maple tree out front is shedding its leaves, as Dad would say "that's free compost".  Here in America you can opt out of the leaf collection tax if you clean up your own leaves, hey what's more American than getting out of a tax?   But seriously, now that the tomatoes are down i can dig some trenches in the garden and fill them with leaves.  This is how you work the soil, break up the clay and  make a garden.  Next year will be my 3rd season in this garden and i can really start to see the soil conditioning paying dividends.  Turning your soil is a fantastic exercise to get you back to the roots of what is important in life... i pity the people who think they don't have the time or don't have a place to work some soil.  In some ways it is a bit of a garlic dilemma... i have a great line of garlic i need to keep going but if i plant it now then i cant work the soil in that region of the garden anymore this winter.  So you have to pick your spots... come to think of it now i could probably plant the garlic in  pots and transplant it later, which would give a chance to work the soil some more... gewt the sand and the clay and the organic material all mixed up real good like.

When i was stomping the leaves into the trenches before i buried them i thought of Dad, and i remember how he wasn't the biggest fan of kids jumping in leaves.  Most likely because they were raked into piles ready to be transferred into the garden, so the jumping would be a setback to the effort.  I then thought that had i tried to sell it as an effort to break up the leaves, much like chewing breaks up the food for digestion i would have had a better chance of selling it to him... he probably would have gone for that, but a few years later what we did was hit the leaves with the lawnmower for just that purpose and then raked up the mulch and put that in the garden.  I don't expect too much of a freeze this winter in Portland so I'm sure we can get these leaves composted down by the spring for planting season.

I shall look into cover crops... i think crimson clover might be the ticket.

The September garden

OK folks, we are into blight, powdery mildew and aphid attacks.

Cut that blight out of those tomatoes and get the cuttings away from the garden and into the city compost bins.  Clearly you should be harvesting the tomatoes too and dealing with them.  Nothing disease likes better than a pile of overgrown neglected plants... it will spread like a wildfire.  You can cut back a lot of the tomato plant to give it some room to produce.  Now don't be shy... think about it, if you have a bunch of tomatoes rotting on an overgrown plant, then you have more than you can deal with... let the strongest most promising part of the plant shine powered by the large root network you have developed all summer.

If you have a squash type of vine and it is covered with powdery mildew you might be well advised to get rid of it.  The last thing you need is a concentration of powdery mildew in your garden coming into the fall. If it looks like you might get a lot more fruit that you will use and the mildew doesn't seem too bad you could perhaps leave it, but we are in that territory where you have to start thinking about getting what you can while you can.  Don't be a promoter of mildew in a community garden.  One thing you can do if you have a powdery mildew problem is ask yourself why?  Often times your plants are in too tight and are thus less healthy, or perhaps they were weakened by drought when you didn't get a chance to water, or they were shaded.  I did a walk around the garden and some had it bad and others not so bad.  Big healthy plants in good soil in prime sun spots with room to grow that received adequate water to the roots and not the leaves throughout the growing season often do much better.  So you missed it this year, it happens, but by leaving the mildew in your plot you will maintain a concentration of the mildew in your soil... something you don't want.

I had a couple of Romanesco broccoli plants in my plot that were illegally creeping out onto the paths... they were massive with large leaves that shaded my beans and some tomatoes... i wasn't getting a lot of broccoli actually none to be exact, but my regular broccoli plants have been stomping balls. I did a closer inspection tonight and noticed a good aphid colony growing where the fruit was coming, so i manned up and ended their reign in the garden.  For sure they sucked a lot of good nutrients out of the soil to get so big, so i was at a loss... do i try to hold out in hope of something?  It is the gardeners dilemma... you hate to kill plants, but then there is reality... you need to think in terms of absolute yield and if some silly plant is is putting a hole in your boat then clear sailing is not in your future.   You would be much better off with some lettuce seeds in the spot dominated by aphid ridden cabbage family plants.   Now i realize that there are many armchair wizard gardeners out there that will go on about miracle herbal cures for aphids and yes with massive effort you can reduce an aphid infestation... i would liken it to taking out a loan to buy a lottery ticket to get yourself out of debt.   Not a smart money bet... if you are infested with aphids then you are on the wrong track to begin with... now it might not be your fault but it has happened, it is your responsibility as caretaker of the plants to make these executive decisions.  Another gardening as an analogy to a good life scenario... sometimes if an aspect of your life is not working it is because it wasn't meant to be and perhaps putting more energy into this aspect is not the right thing to do.

My father had lists of plants that did well in his garden and others that did not... as time went by he grew the things that worked in the garden he had.  Gardens are weird beasts you have to let them communicate to you by listening to what they are telling you.  For the record the garden doesn't actually speak to you in words, although i sure you could find a few humans that would argue that... you need to look for the signs... a good sign is a plant doing really well, a bad sign is a plant doing really poorly... sorry for the tutorial on the obvious, but...  You know why ointment says on the package "do not ingest, for topical use ONLY"?  It is because some moron ate ointment to try to cure their skin disease and then tried to sue the doctor because the doctor never told them.

So now... if your garden is now fast becoming a cesspool  of disease there is another option... mow it down and try a winter planting. That's right it's not failure, it's opportunity... the time is always right for something... the wall street genius is always ahead of the pack... so should the granola street gardener.  There is nothing wrong with what happened unless you fail to learn from it.

harvest season is upon us... time to preserve

A light picking of tomatoes tonight shall give the fruit flies a good time tonight... not really i put them in the fridge.  I wasn't up for stewing them down to add to my can collection tonight.

For canning i used this resource for reference.  The key thing i learned was to add lemon juice, a tablespoon per pint, as the acid is important for preservation.  That's why the first batch is in the fridge cause i did some "Man Canning"... Man Canning is like Man gardening... you just do it using your wits, passed down knowledge and a little bar stool wisdom.  Apparently botulism is a painful experience, but that's how you learn right.  I was never really a textbook guy rather more of a make it and then re make it kind of person.  For sure it is a long road learning life through a series of mistakes, but i have always been a fan of long roads... i like the scenery.  There is always the remote chance of stumbling on something unique, a weird kind of lottery prize.

I was actually on a beach the other day with a good man, it was a naked beach and we were a few of the only people there.  Now not a lot of men would sit naked beside each other on a beach but we did, as natural nudists would... we talked about many things, like making arrow heads out of glass melted in bonfires, and we got on to canning... and i heard the Parker theory on canning.  If the stuff in the can changes colour or shows activity over time, then this is a bad thing.  Indeed you can rely on observation skills, and you should of course when you are canning.  As a trained scientist my sterile senses are well honed, and of course liable centers on food preservation will error on the side of caution.  However i will not give away any of my canned tomatoes this year since it is my first time... i will give away my pickled beets, and my pickled kohlrabi as there is enough salt in sugar and vinegar (the acid) that I'm not too worried about poisoning people.  If i poison myself then it is a lesson to me, if i poison somebody else, then yes it still is a lesson to me, clearly a less painful lesson to me, but it just wouldn't be fair.

I still like my chances, i believe the thing to do is eat the batch i did without following the instructions early in the fall out of the fridge rather than let it hang around on a shelf for a few years.

It's weird how we have an innate mistrust of our abilities to preserve food... clearly an conspiracy to help convince consumers that the best and safest food is the one canned in a mega factory by people working minimum wage and sold in a reputable store that is trying to bust unions.

My point is we can do it, pioneers did it without running water, we can do it... have faith in yourself and continue, even though their not with you.  I have been making beer for a few years now and never had a bad batch... well there was that vanilla beer that was horrible, but it wasn't bad like make you sick bad.  Now my sister who is a classic consumer told me you can't make good beer at home... she said the same thing about pizza... i beg to differ.  Actually i differ and i am right.  You can't do anything if you believe you can't do it before you start... that is of course why gardening is the perfect introductory sport to self sufficiency.  Plant needs water, soil and light, it takes care of the rest.

Now why all this talk in a gardening blog?  I see it like this... the only thing more annoying than somebody who doesn't grow food is the person that grows it and then wastes it.  Think of it as preparation for the apocalypse... you know it's coming, of course the earth will be a toxic wasteland, but just in case it isn't you need to know how to survive.  You could also argue that if we all did this perhaps we could feed each other and be done with this insane consumer society, which of course isn't going to happen either given that our species is polluted with self serving hair trigger responding half wits.

OK, so we have to find a happy place as our planet goes swirling down the toilet, and it feels good to grow and preserve food.  Trust me on that one... make food not war, share food not hate, build food connections not walls, grow food not indifference, can tomatoes not shitty pop songs fronted by gyrating salespeople.

Go show up to a party with a big vegetable dish that you grew and people will say  "Oh my God that is amazing"... but really it is simple stuff, but next  to the consumer that brought high fructose cupcakes in a plastic container you can hold your head high.

Lets get back on point here...  how to attack your tomato preservation.  Some are just frozen in bags, some are reduced and canned and you will season it into what you want it to be when the time comes... will it be chile, will it be a minestrone soup, will it end up in a lasagna, on a pizza, on pasta.  My wife tells me you can salt and bake them and then freeze them to add flavour to a dish down the road.  Clearly you will want options down the road.  Sometimes it seems kind of silly because canned tomato products are pretty cheap, and given the labor and costs you might actually be losing money, but remember never let money be your barometer to happiness.  This is all just education for when you live on a farm in isolation and you don't have the options of buying what you want when you want, it's about the pride of being a maker, a doer, somebody who is not afraid to take their destiny in their own hands and pound something out.  Every year you do something you get better at it, it becomes less of a confusion and more of a fine art.  Always experiment... go down with your ships, it is the only way you really learn.

You see i set out this year to have a king hell tomato harvest, and this i accomplished... i have been giving lots away, but to me it would be the failure of failures to not see how far i can stretch this harvest to feed the family.  I often think how much farmland do  i need to feed us for the year... clearly i like the processed snack treats... i am a natural glutton.  But in my mind i see myself as an organic sustenance farmer... all i need is a forest, a wood stove a 10 acre farm and a 1000 acre barley field, and a 14 acre hops plantation.  I was joking a 100 acre barley filed should be sufficient.

How do you eat chard? Do you steam it and hit it with butter and parmesan cheese, or do you hit it with soy sauce?  I have chard by the truckload... perhaps i should pickle it.  Can you do that?  Of course you can do anything.

My purple heirloom beans are coming in now... i grabbed the seeds from a neglected garden last year... some silly fool just never picked them... i witnessed most of them just rot into the ground but i grabbed a few pods and that is what we are eating now.  I was late on the beans because i filled the garden with peas early in the season... i like the combo. I planted the beans when the peas died down and now is their time.  You have to love this long Oregon growing season, being able to space your crops out like that.

Also i noticed that my blueberries are really growing now that my house is not littered with squirrels who have the bad habit of chewing off the fresh growth.   It has made a huge difference... so remember if you have a neighbour who feeds squirrels you can stop that nonsense by trapping the bastards... just make sure the neighbour sees the squirrel in the trap... this will horrify the said neighbour and they will call the authorities and the authorities will tell the neighbour to make sure that the trapper kills the pest on their own property, which will in turn motivate the neighbour to make a plea deal to free the rodent on the condition that the stop feeding the rodents and your problems will be solved. 

Also never give up on killing slugs... if you were to call somebody a slug that would be an insult right? I rest my case.