As summer goes along, time to harvest stuff from the place. Wednesday, I plowed out a couple 100' rows of potatoes. We got 175lbs of 'keepers' and maybe another 20 or so of little ones that will be next year's seed. They are now on drying screens in the garage curing out a bit before we move them into the adjacent root cellar. Then today, we spent the day putting up a bushel of Moon Glow pears off a tree we have of that variety. Got 33 pints of slices, and the pigs got a 5 gallon bucket of peelings/cores, which made them quite happy.
Remember when there were shortages of canned food a few months ago? And the media blamed prepers and hoarders? Yeah you better be storing food. Washington state department of agriculture spilled thr beans on who really bought up all that food.
I just canned milk. First time trying that. Got siphoning on every jar in the canner lol ugh what a mess to clean up.
The government will hord all these supplies and then conveniently "lose them" like they did with all of the the shipping containers of hurricane relief supplies that went to US VI, which were found later rotting and rat infested.
The gov doesn’t even have to try that hard to lose the supplies...just have them in a government building near a ‘protest’ area...either it will get stolen or burned (probably both).
Nice, Andy. Don't mind telling you how envious I am. We tried growing some stuff in our back yard this year, but the blazing SW summer sun pretty much did most of it in despite an automated irrigation system.
Gardening is one experiment after another. Even the best gardeners fail some years. I remember what a shock it was to move to the desert. We dont garden in the summer. Plants are just barely surviving at temps above 90 degrees. So we garden in the fall and late winter and early spring
Our problem is way TOO much rain this year. Last week, a couple inches during the week total. Saturday, we had 5".....most of it in a couple hour period. Last night around midnite, another 1.8". Water is pouring off the mountain like early spring. Got 12" culverts under some of my roads that won't handle it.
These are the lagging effects of an extended deep solar minimum. We went years between minor solar storms. Last solar storms we had were late 2017, early 2018 as the last gasp from solar cycle 24 popped off.
Same here Andy. In some spots our place looks like a jungle. So much rain then high heat makes the grass grow by the inches every day. But still too wet to get a tractor in to cut it. It honestly bothers me as I like the place well groomed and neat looking. I have had to resort to cutting it by hand(weed wacker) in the hopes the sun will get to the ground and dry it up some.
Tully you are becoming a guerrilla garden by default... lol Lighten up the best food forests look like a jungle. That way it's more difficult to steal your food. Look up food forest. They are fairly easy to manage and you dont have to mow
Tell you what, guys, this is my first year using shade cloth and I'm sold. Usually our plants take a dive midsummer because of the heat but this year everything kept going strong. The strawberries quit setting fruit during the few weeks that it was 95+ but everything else kept on rolling. Used a 40% blocker over the sweet peppers and it's been a bumper crop year. I know it's not feasible to put them up over tractor sized gardens but for the backyard garden it's a good option. Our temps are beginning to drop now so I just took them all down this morning, but we've already made plans to use more next summer.
Well, yes it is possible. Connecticut Valley shade tobacco was acres and acres of tenting, at about a 50% reduction in sun intensity. Someplace on the site there's a discussion about that, complete with pix. I know it's there, 'cause I put it there. Problem is, I can't remember where, but will look and post the link if I can find it.
Well, couldn't find the thread, but did find a pic in my files. Herewith, a tobacco field. The tents are 8 feet high, about 10 acres in this pic.
New law in china. Girls can have 1 bowl of rice, boys get 2. Not sure if that's per meal, per day or both.
