Anyway, today was supposed to be the day to start marinating my cukes, but that'll wait til tomorrow. I've decided to see if my beans that have been on the vine for a month are ok to eat, then can them. I love canned beans, not so much the fresh ones. I never have and still haven't found a taste for them. I figured if they were mine I would. No dice. Maybe if I can them they'll be enough like Del Monte's that I'm used to that I'll grow them again. Otherwise it's more trellis space for cukes.
Speaking of which, if I hold of pickling much longer, I'll have tons more to add to the pot. hehe
I also read today in my book that my corn is likely past maturity, meaning I waited too long to eat it. All that work for a stupid harvest error. You only have a 10-day window. Who knew that? I had expected to ask Judy when to harvest, but she's busy so I played it by ear. Bad idea. (yeah, I missed the pun, oh well). I also read that the small ears are proabably normal, and that commercial growers sacrifice taste for size (bigger is better). That'd just mean we eat 2 ears each. No biggie. Still not sure I'll do corn again next year. I was that thrown off by the bad taste. Ah well, some good some bad.
By the way, last quote from my book. I finished it. It had a lot of good information, but the guy is very much a traditional row gardener. That's great if you're field testing for Territorial Seed Company or homesteading in New Zealand, but gardening on a postage stamp requires SFG or the like. Anyway, Thanks Tim for suggesting it. I learned a ton!
On the bread front, I got a response from Eric at Breadtopia. 450 is fine for his recipie and I should just move on with the starter steps regardless of the bubbles. Today's addition was more flower than water so it's really sticky now. Elastic but sticky. Not sure why it's not working, but it's not great. Maybe it'll all work out. I'll keep you posted.
Lastly, it's not particularly garden related, but our blender is toast. Well at least the caraffe is. It comes apart into four pieces to be washed, but for some bizare reason, it's been impossible to come apart for the last week. My dad even tried his pistol-grip-belt opener. He lifted himself off the ground trying to break it loose. No dice. So we priced out a replacement and it's like $90 plus shipping. Right now we're debating on buying a new caraffe or a new blender. Smoothies are tough on blender motors. Several times using it on ice-crush I smelled something burning. Not sure how long it'll last. Besides, we've had our eyes on a Blendtec blender. It's arguably better than the VitaMix but still really, really expensive. Like $400. /cough Of course we do use the blender 4 or so times a week. And it does many more things that we may make use of that we don't currently because we can't. Like make hot soup, or ice cream, or if you've seen the cool promo videos, turn metal robots into powder, muahahaha! hehe
Ah well, since the weather's going to look like this this weekend...
| Thursday | Friday | Saturday | Sunday | Monday |
 65° F | 54° F |  65° F | 52° F | 59° F | 47° F |  61° F | 49° F | 67° F | 52° F |
I'm not sure if I'll get everything done I want to. At least Sunday and Monday will be decent and I get it off since I'm a banker. Maybe I'll do canning etc. on Saturday and work in the yard Sunday and Monday.
Enjoy your garden!
Another potato bin question? Now that the one potato bin's plants are getting withered & dying- can I start to dig the potatoes? Is it better to get them all out or leave them in the bin until needed? Needless to say- this is our first venture. Hopefully, we will want 3 bins next year if this is successful.
ReplyDeleteThanks!
Susan & Tom in WNC
I do enjoy your blog, you remind me of my early gardening adventures. Full of successes and disappointments. I sympathize with you though on the aged corn. It is so wonderful to pick fresh, tasty corn from your own garden but it is quite starchy if you leave it too long. Of course, the commercial stuff has a much longer shelf life. We gardeners have to eat ours when they are perfect...but it is worth it! On the potato front: we left a few potatoes in the ground by mistake but they started to grow really early in the year and by mid May we had lovely new potatoes that were absolutely delicious! I boil them with a sprig of mint and we slather butter on them. Anyway,. I am now planting my potatoes in late September or October to begin harvesting in May. One row 20 feet long has been feeding us for the whole summer. There are just 2 of us though. As to beans: we are in full honk too with buckets full of them ripening each week. My friends are absolutely delighted when I give them a bag full. Pay it forward. Bean people go gaga with fresh beans.
ReplyDeleteSorry about the corn, what a bummer. And the apathy, been there, done that. I am hoping to hear good things about the sour dough starter though, as it's one of the breads I haven't ventured to try yet. It always seems too, well sort of scientific. Ironically enough, I am into that of late. Will be hanging on to each of your reports about the sour dough.
ReplyDeleteWhat is it with all the kitchen appliances dying though? I have heard about "planned obsolescence" with the manufacturers hoping you have to go out and rebuy before too long. We had to buy a new micro last month, two months after the two year old coffee maker died. My 7 qt cooker cracked, was replaced with a vessel that was uneven and didn't make enough of a seal with the lid to retain moisture, was replaced again two weeks ago...and Now the dishwasher is leaking, what is up with that? These little annoyances really add up!
Well hang in there, gotta save your strength for the cukes!! Keep writing, we love to read it!
~Susan
hey, is your blender still under warranty? When ours expired, they just sent us a new one. However, if you get a Blendtech, can I come over and play Will It Blend? ;)
ReplyDeleteSusan: Sorry for not replying earlier, I must have missed this thread to reply to. Once the plants start dying, wait two weeks for their skins to toughen for storage. Otherwise you can harvest for use anytime now. Way to go! I'm not there yet.
ReplyDeleteDotty: That's great, thank you for your words of wisdom and sharing your experience. I appreciate it.
Susan: I learned about planned obsolescence in college. GE created it when they almost went out of business due to nobody needing their products. I do think that companies have taken it way too far though. Sorry to hear that everything's breaking at once. That is horrible.
Jen: Blendtec is HERE! Come on over and play Will it Blend anytime... just stick with the "try this at home" section, hehe I don't think their warranty works if you blend Transformers or magnets. /shudder And we got our blender for a wedding present, I doubt the warranty lasts THAT long. hehe