Gardening

Starting hard crab apple cider: a long night!

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Last night, my daughters and I got some hard crab apple cider going, with some minor changes from when we made it before.

I started on the apples while my daughter’s sanitized the 5 gallon carboy and set up the juicer. Each apple got cut in half, the stem removed, and any damaged bits cut off. We were able to get to the apples faster than when we made it before, so they had noticeably less bits to cut off this time around. The cut pieces went into a giant bowl with water and lemon juice while waiting to be juiced. We had a small colander set up over a bowl that we would scoop batches of pieces into, that could be kept close to the machine while I continued cutting apples

My younger daughter did the juicing again. We knew we would have more juice this time, so she set up the sanitized carboy with a funnel on a chair under the juicer nozzle; fresh, raw juice went straight into the carboy, instead of first into a pitcher, then into the gallon glass carboy.

The juicing took such a long time.

The machine could only handle getting a couple of pieces put in at a time; far less than when juicing other fruit. These are small apples that don’t have a lot of juice in them, so we didn’t get a lot for the work. After a short while, the sound of the juicer would change, and my daughter would have to stop it, open it up and peel off the shoe-leather strip of accumulated pulp that did not go into the collector, like it was supposed to.

It was past 2am by the time we were done. Which was fine for my daughters, since they are still up at night and sleeping during the day.

This is what the more than 5 gallons of apples got us.

We got about two and a half gallons of juice. We calculated roughly 5 cups of sugar for the amount of juice we had (the ratio is 1-1 1/2 pounds of sugar per gallon of juice). The handy thing about it being only half full is that, once the sugar was added, it was easy to just pick it up and shake it to dissolve the sugar. A half packet of yeast was hydrated, then added and it got another shake before being set up with the airlock.

I didn’t bother taking a hydrometer reading.

This is how it looked this morning, after having roughly 9 hours to settle.

The airlock was bubbling about every 23 seconds when I checked it, and the temperature of the liquid is 20-21C/68-70F. We’re supposed to reach 28C/82F today, so it’s definitely going to get warmer.

I’d hoped to have more juice, but it’s still more than we had last time. We do still have lots of apples on the tree to pick, if we want. We don’t have another large carboy, but we do have the 1 gallon ones, if we want to make more hard cider. I think I’d rather make more cider vinegar, but we don’t have more of the large, wide mouth jars right now. For the amount of apples we’d have, I wouldn’t want to use smaller jars. It would be a waste of jars and space. There are other things we could do with the apples, too.

Now that it looks like making hard crab apple cider is a thing we will continue to do, we want to acquire a cider press. The juicer is great for other fruit, but does very poorly with these little crab apples. There are table top versions that are reasonably priced. Building one is another option. It’s something we wouldn’t for another year, so we have time to figure it out.

I’ve been asking my mother about how my dad made fruit wine. I remember him using the same crock my mother used to make sauerkraut. I remember watching him one year, as he layered sugar, then raspberries, in the crock until it was full, then … I can’t remember. Most likely, he weighted it down then covered it with a cloth, but did he add water to it? And how much sugar to fruit did he use?

I described what I remember to my mother, and she just brushed it off. They just combined fruit with sugar, covered it and let it sit, she told me. They didn’t add water. That’s how she’s got the cherries she picked while here set up, right now. She didn’t have a lot of cherries, so it would be just a small jar. She couldn’t tell me how much sugar they used; apparently, they just winged it.

Well, whatever my dad did, his raspberry wine in particular got rave reviews. I remember picking pin cherries (those trees are now gone) that he used to make wine, as well as the hard little plums that are more stone than fruit, that we still have in the yard (though the trees seem to be dying). My parents had no wine making equipment. They used no commercial yeast (yeast for brewing was not something that would have been easily found back then). I wish I could ask my dad what he did. I don’t think my mother paid too much attention to it, and what she’s doing now is not what I remember seeing him doing. Maybe one of my siblings remembers more than I do. I should ask them. 😊

For now, though, I’m content to make hard cider with our crab apples. I prefer that over wine, anyhow. 😁

The Re-Farmer

Our 2022 garden: wind damage repair, and an unexpected harvest

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This evening, I headed out to see what I could to about fixing the wind damage in the garden. Particularly with the corn. I ended up stealing some bamboo stakes running across the hoops in a couple of other beds, but that still only gave me four. I did have one more, plus a stick, already in the sweet corn, supporting a couple of stalks that had fallen over previously. They were still standing, while the corn around them was flattened!

I ran twine between the poles from end to end of each row, wrapping the twine once around each stalk in that row to hold it up. Even as I was working, I had the wind pushing the stalks, so I scrounged up another pair of sticks. I set them up on either side of the middle, then ran twine between them, catching the support twine in between. This way, whichever direction the wind blows, there will be some support.

Some of the stalks where still trying to fall over, but I could only find one more stick. It was enough to add extra support to the twine in the rows.

The cobs are actually filling out quite nicely! Some of the silks are even starting to dry up, and they should be ripe soon.

The hard part while doing all this was trying not to step on the poor little bean plants on either side of the corn. Since I was there, I checked them over and found a pretty decent little harvest!

I didn’t have a container with me, but I managed to shove them all in a pocket. 😄

There was have it. Our very first harvest of green bush beans, planted late to replace the ones that drowned out.

When watering this bed, I do try to make sure to water the beans more directly, but as I was harvesting, I could feel that they could really use more water. We’ll have to focus in them a bit more!

The next area I worked on was the group of ground cherries that had been flattened.

I managed to find a couple more sticks – I think my daughters intended them as walking sticks! – and grabbed a couple of short pieces left over from hula hoops we used to make row covers last year. The ground cherry plants are a lot more delicate than other plants, and I felt the twine might damage them more, so I threaded it through the pieces. As careful as I was, I could hear branches cracking as I lifted them. I’m not sure all of it will survive.

They are, however, still covered with many flowers, so we’ll still be getting more berries developing.

Once these were done, I started on the kulli corn. I completely forgot to take pictures, though.

One side was fairly easy to do. I lifted the netting up, then used the existing scavenged T posts to hold the twine, which I wrapped around stalks to hold them up. This was on the north side of the bed, and the gust of wind had come from the north, so it was pretty easy to reach things.

The other side was far more difficult. We did lose the top of one stalk completely, and the others were leaning onto the nearby bed of tomatoes. If the net wasn’t there to hold it, they would have fallen onto the other bed, but instead they created a sort of arch.

The tomatoes themselves were outgrowing their supports and falling over. I had to add more support to those, just so I could keep working on the corn without breaking tomato branches. Some of the stakes were leaning over from the weight of the tomato plants, so I just zig zagged some twine between them to pull them together, which gave me enough room to work on the corn.

With the corn, I ended up doing much the same thing; zig zagging twine bank and forth, wrapping it around the top line of twine that was already there, to support the netting. I was able to wrap twine around a couple of the bigger stalks in the middle of the bed to give them extra support, but there really wasn’t much I could do for them. I can’t even guess how well they will recover from this. 😔

Then I went back to the tomatoes and added higher support from end to end to catch the newer growth. They’re looking much better now. There were even a few ripe tomatoes to harvest!

That done, I checked the late garlic in the next bed and decided it was time to dig them up.

The two by themselves on the left are the only two survivors transplanted from the bed the tomatoes are now in. I didn’t bother keeping them separate when I moved the bundle to the canopy tent. We’ll let them dry a bit, then brush the biggest dirt off and either lay them out or hang them up to cure. I’m kind of impressed by them. They’re pretty big, considering what a rough time they had of things! It’s a shame. The bed where only two survived had 90 cloves planted in it. The other one had over 80 cloves planted in it. This is all that made it.

This fall, the garlic will be planted elsewhere. I kept the biggest bulbs from the one bed that did so well, but would really like to plant more. We shall see how it works out, when the time comes.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2022 garden, and a follow up

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My mother wanted me to check her out of the hotel as late as we could, so this morning I actually got to sleep in a little bit before doing my morning rounds! I’m happy to say, my mother is now settled in at home and really hoping not to have to go through this again! While helping put fresh sheets back on her bed, I noticed the exterminator left a trap in the corner, to monitor things. We shall see.

I had done a small harvest from the garden yesterday, so I didn’t have to pick any beans this morning – though I did find a couple of cucumbers I’d missed!

I was able to do some hand pollinating, which is nice. Not with the luffa, though.

We still have only female flowers blooming. The clusters of male flowers are forming, but are still just tiny buds.

The nearby dancing gourds have so many flowers, I don’t even bother. What few pollinators we’ve got right now are more than able to get those ones done! There are many developing gourds, hidden among the leaves, to show for it.

The G-Star patty pan squash are really getting big and healthy, and I finally spotted a female flower today. When they were still struggling, I did see one squash starting to form, but there were no male flowers to pollinate it, so it fell off. Since then, until today, there have been only male flowers.

This is how they should have looked by the end of June and the first half of July. Not at the very end of August!

There were other summer squash I was able to hand pollinate. Most of them are not as far behind as the G-Star, though the green zucchini is sort of in between. I could have picked some summer squash this morning, but left them to get a bit bigger. I should be able to pick at least a couple of them, tomorrow.

Mostly, though, I wanted to pick tomatoes!

There are only 3 or 4 of the rounder Sophie’s Choice in there, and the rest are the Cup of Moldova. Most of those went into the freezer with the others awaiting processing, though I kept a few for fresh eating.

This is the first time we’ve grown determinate tomatoes. I kept hearing about how they ripen all at once, so be prepared to do a lot of canning and processing in a very short time. I was kind of counting on that, since the main reason we were planting these was to make tomato paste. A lot of tomatoes will cook down to a fairly small amount of paste. However, they seem to be ripening little by little, like indeterminate tomatoes do. Even with what I’ve already got in the freezer, I really don’t think there’s enough to fill the dozen 125ml jars we have waiting for them. (From what I’ve been finding, because tomato paste is so very dense, they should not be canned in even 250ml jars, as it’s so hard for the paste to come to temperature all the way through.)

We’re going to have to process them soon, though. In a couple of days, I’ll be doing the rest of our monthly stock up shopping, and we’re going to need the freezer space taken up the the bin with the tomatoes! So whatever we’ve got now is going to have to do.

Before we can do that, though, we need to finish processing the crab apples and get the hard apple cider started. At least the girls got the cider vinegar started, while I was helping my mom. When I told my mother about what we’re doing with the apples, she asked for a small bottle of cider vinegar to try, which I had already been planning to do – or at least offer. That she’s even asking to try new things like this is pretty surprising, after all these years since our move with her being so angry whenever I did something different from how she did things! 😁 She is still upset with me because there were cherries still on the cherry trees when she came out here with my sister. I was supposed to pick every single one of them, and make all the things she would have made with them. Any left on the tree is apparently a real tragedy. Just the fact that I froze the ones we did pick, rather than processing them right away, ticked her off. I told her I had other things to do and, since they’re frozen, I can do them at my leisure. All that got me as a grilling on what could I possibly be doing to keep me from processing them right away. I don’t have cows to milk! (That’s her current thing: we don’t have cows to milk, therefore we have no work to do.) When she was on the farm, she always processed this stuff right away. I reminded her that back then, there was seven of us, so she was able to do this stuff and the rest of the work still got done. Her response was to ask, what did I do while growing up on the farm? I started listing out how I helped in fields, in the barn, with the cows, with the chickens, and in the garden. I just wasn’t allowed to help much with the pigs, because I was so young, and they were so potentially dangerous.

She didn’t remember me doing any of that.

I told her that just because she didn’t see or remember something, that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen!

I can’t really complain about her digs too much. It has actually gotten better compared to when we first moved here, and she was so very angry that we didn’t instantly do all the things she thought needed to be done (never mind what actually needed to be done), and didn’t immediately recreate the garden she had some 40 years ago, in exactly the same place (though much of that space is now taken up with trees or the shade from trees), and in exactly the same way she did it (never mind that we don’t have the equipment she did). It’s taken a lot, but she’s at least less critical, even if she still doesn’t understand the how or why of what we’re doing.

And even interested in trying new things, like asking for a Red Kuri squash, and some crab apple cider vinegar!

That’s some pretty huge progress, there! 😊

The Re-Farmer

Long day, garden damage and a fiscal heart attack

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Oy, what a long, draining day!

While waiting for a call from my mother, I figured I should just go over to her place early. Better to be there and know what was going on, than having to stick close to the phone and not being able to start anything useful.

My mother had got up early to prepare, expecting the exterminator to come fairly early. By the time I called her, she was ready for a nap! So I took my time getting there, stopping to gas up her car and pick up some chicken and wedges for an eventual lunch.

I did try to let her sleep, but conversation kept happening. I found out she’d called my sister about coming over – at 8am this morning, rather than last night, when I suggested she call. My sister works until 1am, and her husband is retired, so my mother woke them up with her call!

She told me she also called someone to try and find out when the exterminator would come, but they didn’t know and asked her if she’d called a different office. I eventually found out she had called the senior’s centre, and I had to explain to her that they have nothing to do with running the building my mother lives in. It’s owned and managed by the provincial government. My mother thought that, because they do so many things in the building (mostly centered around social activities), they were somehow part of it. I had explained this to her the last time her place got sprayed for bed bugs, but it was all new to her again. :-/ Then she wanted me to call the appropriate office, and I had to explain again that the people in the office don’t now where the exterminator is at any given time, because he goes from place to place within and area. She was not impressed by this.

After a couple of hours, my mother suddenly remembered her daily Mass was on TV, so she got up to watch. I suggested we have lunch, but at first she said no, but told me to go ahead. I had had a very early breakfast (I actually remembered to have one!), so I started putting a plate together for myself.

Of course JUST as I took my first bite, there was a knock at the door!

Yup. At almost 2pm, the exterminator arrived.

When he saw the food on the table, he said he would do the apartment next door so we could finish eating. My mother quickly joined me and we hurriedly ate a bit, then put the rest away. My mother also quickly put some other stuff away including…

Putting her toaster in the fridge.

It took me a while to figure it out, but it actually is a great idea. They have to spray in the kitchen, too, and by putting it in the fridge, there is no chance of the spray getting into the toaster and coating the parts and pieces as would still be possible if she, say, put it in a cupboard. It’s not like you can wash the inside of a toaster!

I had a chance to meet the exterminator, and he was such a sweetheart! The most gentle mannerism, and so very kind. He was apologetic about how long it took for him to get there, and when I mentioned my mother needing to be away for 12 hours, and he realised she had respiratory issues, he said that if he had to come back, he would make sure to start with her. My mother was asking if this could be the last time her place got sprayed, but all he could say was that it depended on what he found today.

Then we were off, along with my mother’s overnight bag – just in case she ended up staying the night with my sister. Which, from what I could tell, she had not brought up with her; just the possibility of a visit. We were leaving so late, though, I knew my sister would probably be getting ready to leave for work. My mother had an errand with the office for the department that runs her building – it just happens to share the building the courts and court office area in, so I was quite familiar with getting there. Meanwhile, I was trying to send message to my sister to let her know what was going on, and if I was right about my mother not saying anything to her about it, warn her that my mother was expecting to spend the night. My sister has tomorrow of, so my mother thought it would be quite convenient for her to take my mother home – but it turned out my sister had company coming. I passed things on to my mother as I was able, and she eventually decided it would be just too much to go to my sister’s, so we went to the Walmart to do a bit of shopping. By then, we were literally about to go to my sister’s place, so I was happy to park and message her that she was in the clear!

After we got what we wanted, my mother told me to take her to the hotel she had stayed at before. Which she had told my brother she was going to do, but then told me she didn’t want to. Frankly, I think the hotel, so close to home and with a 24 hr convenience store right next door, was better for her, anyhow. If nothing else, she wouldn’t have to take stairs to get to the bathroom!

By the time I got my mother settled in and I was heading home, it was coming up on 6pm. Traipsing around with my mother is very draining, even though everything did go very well. I mean, she’s 90, and I’m no spring chicken, myself, so we were both pretty tired!

When I had left home this morning, we’d already had some heaving rains, and some periods of high winds. When I did my evening rounds and checked out the garden, I found some of our whirligigs to startle deer had been blown away. Then I found the sweet corn looking like this…

The stalks aren’t actually broken, though, thankfully. If I can find something to use as supports, I will see if I can run lines through to hold them up again.

Then I got to the ground cherries.

Again, they don’t seem to be actually broken, but one side of the patch is quite flattened!

The super tall kulli corn, meanwhile…

… also had stalks blown down.

On the other side of the bed, the corn was pushed over enough to create an arch over the path!

It would have been knocked flat, where it not for the netting around it!

From the looks of the things that got blown down, it seems they were hit by sudden gusts of wind. Even one of the winter squash vines got blown around, and a single Chocolate Cherry tomato plant got broken, but not the ones on either side. Even sections of tall grass in the outer yard showed patches that were newly flattened, while others were not. Aside from the one broken tomato, though, it doesn’t look like anything in the garden was actually broken and killed off.

I hope I’m right about that!

Things are supposed to get hot over the next few days; even hot enough to match a record high of 30C/86F, set in 2007. Which I much prefer over the record low for the same day, of 4C/39F.

Along with all that, I came home to find a message on the answering machine from one of the roofing companies we got estimates from, back in 2019. When I emailed them, I mentioned the 2019 estimate and asked for an updated one. The guy that called remembered the place, and even remembered talking to me when he came out here. In 2019, the estimate was just under $9,000, plus whatever amount it would cost to repair any rot they found that can’t be seen yet, which gets charged by the square foot. That’s why I rounded up to $10,000.

I didn’t think to ask what the square part was. I was somewhat distracted by the new estimate. Based on what he saw in 2019, the job will now cost just under $16,000 – for now! Their suppliers are saying the cost of materials will go up another 20% in November.

My mother couldn’t accept a 10K estimate, 3 years ago. During a conversation we’d had fairly recently, I told her that today, it would probably cost about $15K, and she didn’t believe me. It turns out I was under estimating.

She has told my brother (not me) to find out the cost and she would pay for a new roof, but I don’t know if she would still be willing. She is so convinced that everyone is trying to cheat her, because she’s an old lady (never mind that they’d be dealing with my brother).

One thing that could be done is to accept the estimate and put down a deposit. Once a deposit is made, the price is locked, even if the work doesn’t get done until spring – though having it done before winter would certainly save us on more roof damage, and heating costs. He did ask if there were leaks right now, and I said yes, there are two of them (though one leaks only when the snow melts in the spring). He then said that they could do a patch job, instead, if that works out.

I’ve passed this on to my brother. We still have the other company to hear from.

I will be going to check my mother out of her hotel room and bringing her home in the late morning. Hopefully, they will call while I am home, but if I don’t hear from them, I will try phoning them myself.

My mother actually can cover the cost of a roof replacement; the question is, will she do it, or is she just teasing us again? The most she does that, though, the more expensive it will ultimately be, and the more hidden damage there will be.

The Re-Farmer

Morning kitties, small harvest, preserving – and another change in plans

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I had plans for today.

Honest. I did.

But first, the cuteness.

My plans for yard work would have had to change, anyway, as we are now getting a steady rainfall right now, but there was plenty to work on indoors instead.

The kitties were getting pretty wet, so I left the sun room doors propped open. I’ve discovered why I’ve been finding things knocked out of the top shelf of the shelf shelter. Despite the two bottom shelves being set aside for the cats, some of the little kittens have been climbing up into the top shelf, where all sorts of miscellaneous stuff are kept, and sleeping on some pieces of rigid insulation in one corner! So I am leaving the sun room available for them to shelter in, more comfortably.

Because I’m a suck, when it comes to the kitties! 😁

Yesterday, I had a chance to talk to my brother on the phone, in between his attempts to call my mother. He started trying early enough to catch her before she went to church, but she wasn’t answering. It turned out she was watching her religious programming on TV and wasn’t answering the phone. Then she went to church, and stayed out for hours after.

*sigh*

I got a message from him after he finally got through to her, well into the afternoon. My mother’s apartment was going to be sprayed for bed bugs again.

Today.

She was wondering about staying in a hotel again, since she has to stay away for 12 hours.

*sigh*

So I called her, but her Polish program was on. It was almost 4, so when she said she would call me back when it was done to talk about the bed bug spraying, I said fine.

An hour later, I finally called her myself. I could hear the TV still going, and there was another Polish mass about to start. She wouldn’t have called me back until ALL her Polish shows were done! Meanwhile, I’d delayed working on supper so I could answer the phone without being in the middle of cooking – and I’d already skipped lunch (I lost track of time and forgot to eat).

*sigh*

My mother has zero respect for other people’s time, but expects everyone else to respect hers.

Ah, well.

We talked about her apartment being sprayed again. She did not want to stay at a hotel again, because it’s so expensive (it was actually very cheap, but she doesn’t know what hotel stays usually cost these days). So, she asks me… What was I going to do with her for the day?

Seriously?

What we finally worked out is that I will wait until I get a call from her, letting me know the exterminators have arrived – which I am doing right now, as I write this. They can show up any time between 9am and 4pm. I will then go pick her up, and we will run an errand for her in the city near my sister’s place, and then she wanted to visit my sister.

Who works a 5pm to 1am shift today.

I told her to call my sister first, to make sure stopping by was okay.

Then we’ll have to figure out what to do for the rest of the day. Even then, she’ll end up having to hang out in the lobby or something before she can go back into her apartment. Unlike her neighbours, who can go back after 6 hours, because they don’t have respiratory conditions.

But she won’t stay at a hotel again.

*sigh*

I also had a talk to her about letting me know right away, if her apartment is going to be sprayed again. She got the letter last week, and just didn’t bother telling anyone. I have no idea what she planned to do, had my brother not gotten through to her and then told me.

So my day today is completely gone. I can’t even start anything, unless I can drop it as soon as she calls.

One of the things I wanted to do was get crab apple cider vinegar going. I ended up having to ask my daughters to do it overnight which, of course, changed their plans, too.

They were sweethearts about it, though, and we now have three 1 gallon jars in the big aquarium, safe from cats, fermenting. This time, not only did we stick with just cheesecloth to cover the jars, but the apples are weighted down with slide lock bags filled with water to keep them submerged.

They didn’t use up even half of the apples I picked yesterday!

If I had more jars like this, we’d be making more. As it is, I did have a fourth jar, but after talking to my mother about what we were planning to do with the apples, she asked for a gallon jar so she could make sauerkraut. She wanted one of her old jars in the basement, but those have been sitting for more than a decade. I’ve actually gone through and washed the dozens of jars I found down there, and those particular jars are only being kept because we will used them to make bottle bricks for the walls of the cordwood shed we will be building. I would not consider them food safe anymore. So I’m bringing her one of our newer jars, instead.

So the apples will be used to make hard crab apple cider, instead – though that won’t be started on until probably tomorrow.

Meanwhile, I still did my morning rounds, which included a small harvest.

I had not yet washed these. They are wet from the rain.

There were some summer squash I could have picked, but I decided to leave them to get a bit bigger. I was able to hand pollinate some other squash, though. Which is interesting, when the flowers have puddles of rainwater in them!

According to the long range forecast, we’ve got at least a couple of weeks of hot, mostly dry weather. After that, the overnight lows are expected to be just a few degrees above freezing. I’m hoping that changes. If we have the month of September with no frost, there’s still a chance for some things to mature.

We have more red tomatoes that I should pick later today, or tomorrow morning. The paste tomatoes will go straight into the freezer with the others, until there is enough to start making tomato paste. The others will likely be dehydrated.

Our first attempt at dehydrating them worked, but took a long time. We kept needing the oven for other things. Though my daughter did not slice them super thin, they shrank so much, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to get them off the rack they were on. They came off surprisingly well, though.

It was just one tray of tomatoes, so it’s not a lot, but I definitely think it is worth doing again.

Along with the red tomatoes, the Yellow Pear tomatoes have something to pick almost every day.

I did break down and taste on of them. After all, I’d been able to eat the tiny Spoon tomatoes without gagging. Maybe I could eat these ones, too?

*shudder*

Nope.

The Chocolate Cherry tomatoes, meanwhile, are finally starting to turn colour, but it will still be a while before we can harvest any of them.

We most definitely need a mild September. Hopefully, a mild October, too!

Ah, well. Whatever happens, happens. We’ll deal with it.

Hmm. I really should be making myself something to eat before going to my mother’s, but… Murphy’s Law. The moment I start something, the phone is sure to ring! 😂

This is going to be a very long day.

The Re-Farmer

A morning harvest

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While the girls worked on the cats’ house, I did my morning rounds. No harvesting in the garden today, but check out this pumpkin!

It’s almost completely changed colour! The second one is just beginning to show the tiniest change in colour at the blossom end, but is otherwise still very dark green.

Once the regular rounds were done, I headed out with some buckets and started our first harvest of crab apples. Mostly, I just shook the branches that I could reach, then picked up what fell.

I got about 10 gallons of crab apples that way. There are still lots on the tree, but I couldn’t reach the branches to shake them. Plus, I don’t have any more buckets available.

After bringing the buckets to the house, I used the hose to fill them with water to do a cursory wash.

I had curious company.

I help!

Then the apples got transferred out of the buckets.

These corrugated plastic bins are the handiest things!!

They have holes cut into the bottom, like what you can see on the sides, but a good layer of shredded paper made sure no apples fell though, while also absorbing water from their rinsing.

Shredded paper is something else we’ve been finding very handy. We shred only paper that is compostable, like fliers and the like. Printers switched to vegetable based inks decades ago, so they’re fine. Just no glossy paper or anything like that. Those go for the burn barrel.

We’ve used the shredded paper as mulch, as compostable layers buried in new garden beds, as a base under tomatoes ripening indoors, and now for crab apples. We even keep the shredder, sitting over a recycling bag on a wire frame holder, in the dining room all the time for convenient shredding.

The first thing we will be doing with the apples is to make crab apple cider vinegar again. That is the fastest and easiest thing to get started. Then we will be making more hard crab apple cider. We have so many crab apples on the one tree this year, we should be able to make more of both this time.

The “mother” left from our previous ACV is still around, but I don’t think it would be safe to use, so I bought some apple cider vinegar with mother to use as a starter. After experimenting with using an airlock or just covering the fermenting jars with cheesecloth, I’m just going to use cheesecloth this time.

The other thing we will be able to do differently this time is to use the big aquarium to hold the fermenting jars. It is already lined with rigid insulation from when we used the space as a greenhouse, so the temperature will remain quite even, and it has cat proof covers over it. It’ll be easier to keep an eye on it in the living room than in the old kitchen.

As for the hard apple cider, we should have enough crab apples to make it worth digging out the wine making kit and using the 5 gallon bucket and carboy for fermentation. We’ll make that decision after the vinegar is started, and we see just how many crab apples we end up with. We’ll probably need to break out the step ladder to pick more apples.

A good problem to have! Especially after having none, last year.

I’m quite looking forward to this!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2022 garden morning harvest and changes of plans

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This morning, the girls were able to haul wood chips over to the Korean Pine and give them a good mulching. They also got another coat of paint on platform bed frame that will become a litter box platform in the basement.

They fed the kittens early, to keep them out of the way, emptying the kibble bin in the process. Turns out I should have bought two bags last time, not one.

While they were doing that, I did my morning rounds. Checking on the garden beds, I found myself able to hand pollinate more Ozark Nest Egg gourds, Styrian pumpkins and summer squash, as well as get a harvest.

There was a surprising number of cucumbers to pick.

I don’t know what to do with them anymore! We planted adequate amounts of cucumbers for our own use, but with my sister being so very generous in giving us some of her own cucumbers we have more than we can use! We like cucumbers and pickles, but not that much of it! 😉

With the ground cherries, I’m just picking what is ripe enough to fall to the ground; there are many more on the plants that are still very green, and getting very big!

The beans might be winding down, but the yellow pear tomatoes are winding up. I’m hand pollinating the summer squash as much as I can, so hopefully we will be picking more those, soon, but sometimes, there’s just nothing to pollinate.

Whenever I pause to take a picture of our morning harvest, I try to get two set ups; one spread out like in the above photo, and one with everything back in the colander.

While I was working on that, I had two kittens that were very, very interested in what I was doing!

This one was ready to climb right into the colander! The little black and white one, whose paws you can see at the top, kept trying to play with the pea pods while I was trying to take the first pictures.

Silly babies!

My plan for after I finished my morning rounds was to head into town and pick up another bag of kibble, to last us until my husband’s CPP Disability came in on Monday. We got a nice surprise, though. It came in today. So I decided to do a Walmart trip at the nearer, smaller city, instead. Costco can wait until the main pay comes in on the last business day of the month.

After seeing the Old Farmer’s Almanac prediction of a “glacial” January and February this winter, the girls have put together a stock-up list of non-perishables, on the assumption that we will have at least 2 months where we won’t be able to go anywhere. Every shopping trip, we already try to get a little extra for the pantry, but we’ll be working to step it up a bit for non-perishables, whether it’s case lots of canned soups, or extra Costco sized packages of toilet paper. We’re trying to figure out how to re-arrange the old kitchen to store things like paper products, since that room freezes in the winter.

With that in mind, while at the Walmart today, I did pick up some extra flour and a couple of cases of ramen noodles. I also picked up a small plastic storage shelf that just barely fits in the old kitchen space where the rocker is. I’ll need to find another place for the rocker, but the little shelf has already freed up space that had been taken up by cases of canning jars and paper products. We moved a plastic couch that had been in the sun room, into the old kitchen, where I pictured being able to sit in the cooler old kitchen on hot summer days, only for that to never happen. We’ve been using the room for too many other things. There are a couple of old wooden shelves that aren’t being well used, but I don’t want to move them, as they are strong enough to stand on, giving us access to the breaker panel. I guess we could move the couch to the storage house, but that’s already so full of stuff, there really isn’t anyplace to put it there, either.

We’ll have to figure something out, since we want to convert the old kitchen to a sort of walk-in pantry.

The thing that will take up the most space is going to be the bags of kibble. Today, I was able to find a couple of 10kg bags, along with the usual 7kg bags we get at Walmart. When we make our Costco run, we’ll get their 9kb bags, too. We have a hard time stocking up enough kibble to last one month, never mind stocking up enough for 2 months!

Ideally, we’ll be able to adopt out more kitties before winter, though, and won’t need to buy so much cat food!

While I was out, I got a message from my daughter, updating me on what they were able to finish before heading to bed for the day. I’ll have to make my way into the basement to see how much further my younger daughter got down there. During the night, I could hear large things being moved around. Meanwhile, her sister got the remaining fresh tomatoes sliced up, and they are dehydrating in the oven right now. Once those are dry, I’m debating what to do next with them. We can just store them dry, put them in jars with olive oil, or powder them. Eventually, we’ll probably have all three.

Since we will likely be dehydrating more often, I decided to look at dehydrators. There were none at the Walmart, so I went across to a Canadian Tire. After much searching, I did find one in the hunting section. A small one, way out of budget. Ouch!

I didn’t get a dehydrator, but while wandering the store looking for one, I ended up getting a few other handy things, including an extra jar holder for canning, like we already have. When it comes time to make and can tomato paste, they will be in 125ml jars. The jar holder is designed to stack smaller jars on top of each other, which will allow me to can up to 12 small jars at once, which will save us plenty of time.

While on the way home, I stopped at a farmer’s market I’d never been to before. There were some of the same vendors I have seen at others, including one that sells fresh produce. They did not have a lot to offer; looks like they are having a difficult year in the garden, too. I did find the pie lady, though, and picked up an apple bourbon pie. I don’t know how large this particular market normally is, but it seemed there weren’t very many vendors. There are a couple of others I’ve been to last year and can compare, and those have most definitely seen a major drop in the number of vendors. The types of things being sold has changed, too. Not a lot of fresh produce, canning or meat products, but more direct sales booths, like Norwex or Pampered Chef, and hand crafts. I’m glad I stopped by, though. Along with a lovely pie, I found some excellent handspun yarn. I think I’ll give it to my daughter, though. I haven’t been able to crochet in quite some time. My fingers have become far too stiff, and the high humidity of late has been brutal on my arthritis. I do miss it, though. 😞

Ah, well.

Now that I’ve done the Walmart shopping, I find myself seriously considering making a trip into town. They still have that case lot sale happening, and a few cases of canned soup for the pantry would not go amiss.

The question is, do I have the energy for another drive into town today?

As I’m writing this, I’d have to say no. I do not.

We shall see.

The Re-Farmer

We have pickles!

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Today, I made my first pickled cucumbers, using a mix of our own cucumbers, and those given to us by my sister.

She gave us so many, they over filled my mother’s massive bowl that was left here. When I was a kid, I remember she used this bowl for making pickles, too!

My canning cookbook is still missing, so I found a recipe online – it was surprisingly hard to find a simple, basic recipe that didn’t require ingredients that we didn’t have, either because we don’t like them, or because they aren’t available locally. Or they required ridiculously long preparation – one recipe I found took nine days of preparation before the final canning and, after reading the instructions, I can’t for the life of me figure out how the cucumbers weren’t complete mush long before then! Or, they were for fermented pickles, and I wanted to water bath can these.

I just wanted to make basic pickles.

Who’d have though that would be so difficult? 😄

But I found one, and got to work. I had only 1 case of quart size jars, and I am very glad they were wide mouth jars! They are so much easier to fill than the regular mouth jars.

I filled the dozen quarts, and there was still lots of cucumbers left over!

There we have it! My first canning of cucumbers into pickles. I even got a 100% ping rate – all the lids sealed properly! Once they’re fully cool, I’ll remove the rings, put the jars in the case they came in, and we’ll need to find somewhere to store them. There’s the root cellar, of course, but that’s quite the oubliette right now. Things that go in there, get forgotten! At least it won’t matter as much with canned goods, and if we are able to harvest enough produce from the garden to store in there, that will help us remember we actually have food in there, and not just the Christmas trees and decorations. 😁 I’ll have to get the girls to take things down there, though. With my knees, trying to navigate the stairs while carrying glass jars is just not a good idea. 😉

I’m glad it’s done, though I left quite a bit for the girls to clean up tonight. At times like this, they get the raw end of the deal! They are sweethearts about it, though. 💕

The Re-Farmer

Morning progress, and a critter visitor

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So, yesterday ended up being quite a bit of a write off for me.

After I finished posting yesterday, I was going to sterilize some jars and make pickles. I was falling asleep at the computer, however, so I decided to take a short nap, first.

I woke up more than 3 hours later, wasting most of my day.

I did get some work done outside, while it was still light enough. This included raking up the nicely dried grass clippings from a few days ago. I was able to finish mulching the popcorn, and start mulching on either side of the sweet corn. The mulch is as much for next year, as it is to help the plants growing now. I was able to give the berry bushes a thorough watering, as well as the nearby trellises, but not much more than that. By the time I went inside, not only was I still frustrated by how far behind I am getting, but was getting a headache and actually felt ready to go back to bed!

So my daughters, sweethearts that they are, headed out at first light to do a few things before heading to bed for the day. Among other things, the Korean Pine got a deep watering. They also got a first coat of paint on the bed frame that my brother left for us when we moved in here.

It was actually built by one of my nephews. It came in very handy as a platform for hardening off our seedlings. I kept it covered with a tarp, but it’s been outside ever since, and I don’t want it to get water damaged. After it’s been painted, it’s going to go back into the basement, where it will be used as a platform for litter boxes, so if the basement ever does get wet like it did this spring again, the cats won’t be stuck using litter boxes in the middle of a damp concrete floor! We’ll put something under the legs to raise it off the floor slightly, to protect the legs from damp beyond what the paint will do.

One of my daughters sent me a picture of something they found when they first came out of the sun room.

Our province has 4 types of snakes.

This isn’t any of them.

Normally, the only snakes we ever see are garter snakes. There are two types that live here, but we tend to see only the red sided garter snake. The other two types look completely different, and I’ve never seen them before. As a child, however, I have seen a brown snake like this, a couple of times. Once, it got into the house and my poor mother flipped right out. They were both very tiny and slender. This one looks absolutely beefy in comparison. It kind of looks like the Red Bellied snake native to another province, except there’s no sign of a red belly that can be seen in the picture.

We like snakes. They eat slugs and other garden pests, so we try to protect them as much as possible. I’ve seen all of 2 garter snakes this year, and they were crossing the road both times. I suspect our horrible did a number of their population. In September, they start going back to their dens for the winter, so I hope we will see more of them.

I harvested from the garden yesterday, but today I grabbed some of the ripest tomatoes.

The under ripe ones we picked before are fully ripe now. There isn’t enough of the Cup of Moldova tomatoes to make yet, though. They will be cooked down to about a quarter of their volume, and with what we have so far, I’d end up with maybe 2 or 3 of my little half-pint jars full.

So I went over all the Cup of Moldova tomatoes we have so far, and put the good ones in the freezer. I’ll keep adding more to the bin they’re in until it’s almost full, and then I’ll have enough to work on making tomato paste and canning it.

It seems like we were growing SO many tomatoes this year, and yet I’m realizing that we actually aren’t growing that much at all! At least not for what we want to use them for. Mind you, the chocolate cherry tomatoes aren’t even ready yet, and the yellow pear tomatoes are still just starting to ripen, but when it comes to canning and preserving enough to supply us until the next harvest, we could easily double how many we plant.

Next year, we’ll be shooting for an even bigger garden! 😄 The good thing is, we do have the luxury of space, even if we do have to do massive reclamation to use it.

Little by little, it’ll get done!

The Re-Farmer

Morning in the garden and, photobomb!

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Things are getting cooler in the mornings, that’s for sure! At about 7am, we were at 9C/48F – quite a bit less than the low of 16C/ that was forecast!

And that is why I don’t allow myself to hope too much, when I see mild temperatures in the long range forecasts. Even forecasts within a 24hr period can be wildly off.

Still, things are working out okay. Along with the cool mornings, we’ve been having high humidity, resulting in very heavy dew that the plants are quite enjoying. Unfortunately, if it’s too cool, it slows down maturation. Our chocolate cherry tomatoes are only now starting to turn colour. We also still have only one kulli corn showing tassels, with none showing silk.

While looking for beans to pick, I spotted this at the bottom of the one stalk that has tassels. I think it’s neat that corn develops these.

The yellow bush beans are pretty much done, but I’m leaving the plants be, rather than pull them up. They act as a living mulch for the corn, and shade the ground, so they still serve a purpose.

The sweet corn, on the other hand, is suddenly doing very well! There are so many cobs developing. This area is pretty breezy, so there are nor worries about adequate pollination, here!

There was finally a new Lady Godiva baby pumpkin to hand pollinate – the one you can see in the background is still the only pumpkin from the 5 plants. I did see another female flower bud, but it won’t be ready to pollinate for a few days yet – assuming it makes it that long.

While checking the beds, I could see bees busily doing their work in the squash blossoms, but I’ve noticed that while all the male flowers are wide open, the female flowers tend to have there blossoms already closed!

As lovely as it is to see the luffa gourd, it’s not going to make it. Do yo use that sort of star shape on my finger in the background? That’s a cluster of male flowers, nowhere near blooming. Meanwhile, the female flowers that have emerged so far are already losing their blossom ends, so there is no possibility of pollination.

These shelling beans may be tiny and delicate, but they have SO many developing pods!

Still nothing on the red noodle beans.

There are, however, a LOT of dancing gourds! It looks like they’ll be able to reach their full mature size, too. We had lots last year, but they were all much smaller than they should have been.

Once I finished gathering a harvest, I paused to hose it all over, then set up for…

… a photobomb, it turns out!

What a cheeky little bugger.

It looks like the pole beans are winding down now, too. There is still lots on the vines, at various stages of growth, so we’ll still be picking every 2 days, but there was a lot less of them, this morning.

The peas were a surprise, though. I didn’t expect to find very many, especially at the first planting, so I started off just eating them. Then I just kept finding more. Peas should have been done producing, long ago!

I tried thinning by harvesting some carrots, but that just doesn’t work with the Black Nebula carrots. They’re such a long carrot, though, it’s hard to pull them up, so I’m just leaving them for now. Those will need to be harvested with a garden fork.

I hand pollinated some more summer squash, and even had a few to pick. That one yellow zucchini was looking like it was going to ripen unevenly, so I just grabbed it. I also grabbed a few of the smaller onions for today’s cooking.

Once done my rounds, I headed to town to pick up some missing ingredients to do some pickling. We really need to do something with the cucumbers my sister gave us. They are so huge, though! It’s a good thing I did pick up a case of wide-mouthed quart jars a while back. I usually get 500ml or 750ml sized jars. There are cucumbers that would completely fill one of those, all on its own! I plan to pickle the smallest ones, and leave the larger ones for fresh eating.

While in town, I also stopped at the wine making supply shot and picked up more yeast, and a couple of spare bungs for the gallon sized carboys. We’ll be making hard apple cider again, soon, and it’ll be nice if we can get four carboys started this time. We had only two, last time. It turned out so well, I’ll happily double the amount. We should have more than enough apples to do that, plus make apple cider vinegar, too.

But first, the cucumbers need to be taken care of. They’ve been scrubbed, and it’s time to start sterilizing the quart jars! 😊🥒

The Re-Farmer