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Topic: Fall harvest thread
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M. Spector
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 8273
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posted 19 September 2008 06:13 PM
Mmm. That was delicious.Where was I? Oh yeah. Here's a close-up view of Lyle's Golden Syrup:
Notice the picture of the honey bees who have made a hive in the carcass of a dead lion, and the slogan "out of the strong came forth sweetness"? It's a line from the Bible™ (Judges 14:14). This page gives you an explanation. Weird, eh?
From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005
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Fidel
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 5594
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posted 19 September 2008 10:51 PM
I paid an arm and a leg for a can of maple syrup in the market downtown Ottawa this summer. Quebec syrup so it was good enough for moi. They really know how to do pancake breakfasts in Trois Rivieres. Only they don't resemble pancakes i knew as a boy in Ontario du Nord. Ayup, I remember Lyle's on porridge in the morning. And butter tarts. MMmm, the best. I go to me grand's in Maltby Yorkshire when I was a kid, and sure enough, there's a can of iron tit on the table and Cadbury's cakes for 4 o'clock tea. Oh aye
[ 19 September 2008: Message edited by: Fidel ]
From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004
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al-Qa'bong
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 3807
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posted 21 September 2008 08:27 AM
I was out at the allotment yesterday and came home with five boxes of tomatoes. We had a frost warning the night before, so I thought I'd better not take any chances.I have about the same number of tomato plants in the back yard that I'll have to pick before Wednesday - the next possible frost date. The corn would be ready in two frost-free weeks. We picked a bowl of September Ruby apples from the tree we planted last year. They're OK, I suppose, although they taste something like Red Delicious, and I'm a MacIntosh guy. There's no way I'm going to see any aubergines on the plants this year. The flowers still look great, though. Maybe the bees don't like them.
From: Saskatchistan | Registered: Feb 2003
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Boom Boom
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 7791
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posted 22 September 2008 03:19 PM
I have a table set up for tomatoes in my living room facing the sun. Fortunately they're not all ripening at once. I can't decide whether I will try tomatoes again next year or not - our growing season is only from mid-July to mid-September, and September is slow because of the cold. Root veggies, on the other hand, do great here. I have been enjoying the best carrots of my life this year - from my garden! Lettuce does really well here, as does cabbage. My neighbours grow ridiculously large heads of cabbage, then salt the leaves and sell them for extra income. I haven't tried cabbage yet because they take far more space than I want to give them. I'm not sure what I will do with the (small) greenhouse next year. Maybe spinach and cucumbers.
From: Make the rich pay! | Registered: Dec 2004
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al-Qa'bong
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 3807
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posted 24 September 2008 07:04 PM
I covered tomatoes for the second straight night tonight.I picked all the courgettes that were ready, some ripe tomatoes (for some reason I think they're less hardy than green ones), cucumbers and basil. We had pesto last night and I froze the rest of the basil. I also picked my cayenne peppers. Some are now on the stove, simmering with garlic in vinegar. I'm trying to make this tabasco sauce: http://www.pepperfool.com/recipes/hotsauce/homeade_tobasco.html The smell is rather powerful; my throat gets constricted when I approach the stove.
From: Saskatchistan | Registered: Feb 2003
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Tommy_Paine
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 214
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posted 26 September 2008 06:34 AM
Our tastes change over time. For years and years, I used to crave acidic foods. Anything with vinegar, for example. Now, not so much.For about a decade or more, I couldn't even think of eating an egg-- unless it was a pickled egg. Eating an egg would make me nauseous to the point of vomiting. For the past couple of years I was unable to digest peanut butter, after eating it with no problem all my life. Recently, a few test sandwiches were processed okay, so it seems I can go on enjoying it. I have a half baked hypothesis that when our body needs certain nutrients-- or has too many of them-- we crave certain foods, or become inexplicably adverse to others. I think that is more in evidence when we are younger, but I think it continues through our lives.
From: The Alley, Behind Montgomery's Tavern | Registered: Apr 2001
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Tommy_Paine
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 214
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posted 26 September 2008 03:18 PM
There are only five degrees of separation between us, Blairza. Of latitude.We have wine here in SW Ontario, too. Not sure if they are harvesting now. Ontario wines used to be a running joke, like California wines years ago, but there are some nice ones now. At least for this uneducated pallet. And of course, our climate favours ice wine, which is a late harvest. You'd think that ice wine would be cheaper here, because it is local. But, think again.
From: The Alley, Behind Montgomery's Tavern | Registered: Apr 2001
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Tommy_Paine
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 214
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posted 27 September 2008 04:51 AM
quote: Originally posted by lagatta: Boom Boom, you are decades out of date. There are excellent Ontario wines now - yes, especially the whites (reds will take a bit more global warming), some quite pricey, some decent accessible ones. I always pick up a bottle or two when I'm in Ottawa.
We're partial to a Pele Island Gamay Noir, (zwiegelt) that has a flying squirel on the label. I think the current vintage on the market is 2006, and it's good. There was a bad year, I'm guessing 2004, where we bought a bottle with the usual anticipation and thought "what the hell is this?". And here, I thought all this talk about "such and such was a good year" was just wine snob talk. But yes, good and bad years can be detected by an uneducated, working class pallet.
From: The Alley, Behind Montgomery's Tavern | Registered: Apr 2001
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Tommy_Paine
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 214
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posted 27 September 2008 05:02 AM
quote: Originally posted by al-Qa'bong: I have about ten clusters of grapes on my Valiant vine. I pick a few every couple of days, and am always surprised that they taste just like Welch's grape juice, even if the grapes are barely bigger than Saskatoons.The kiwis are not much bigger, and haven't ripened very much at all. They aren't any bigger than they were two months ago. I've had to cover the garden for the third night in a row. It got down to -2 last night.
I forgot, I do have tons of grapes in my back yard. Wild grapes. They aren't sour, but tend to be sweet. But, they are small, and all seed and skin. I have them for privacy, aesthetics and for the birds who enjoy them well into the winter. We have the phone and cable lines running in the back yards here, and the wild grape has climbed the polls and are now running down the wires. It creates a wall of green as a backdrop.
One does have to watch how they grow though, to keep them off bushes and trees you like. I have to use a ladder twice a season to make sure my lilac bushes don't get smothered by them. They are also embracing an accidental Chinese (more likely Siberian) Elm that grows behind my garage. I hope the grape vine kills it. What a pain in the ass it is to get rid of one of those trees when they sprout in a place you don't want them! Hmm. Maybe Chinese Elm would be another good candidate for coppicing? Not sure how it burns. Anywho. I am astounded, al-Qa'bong to hear you are growing Kiwi. I thought Kiwi demanded very specific growing conditions, like morning fog and stuff. Are you doing anything special? Or am I completely wrong thinking that they couldn't grow outside a greenhouse here? I'd love to have a tree or two of those.
From: The Alley, Behind Montgomery's Tavern | Registered: Apr 2001
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Tommy_Paine
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 214
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posted 27 September 2008 06:09 AM
You may remember or know I make truck wheels. Well, when we move them around the plant, we put them, and the component rims, on steel pallets. The good ones, anyway. We do put the odd reject on other pallets, eventually, but they are not allways handy.One day, a co-worker put a wheel on the floor instead of the pallet. "What's wrong?" I asked, "that one taste bad?" He gave me a lost look "taste bad....?" he said, looking for some kind of reason behind my remark. "Well," I deadpanned "you obviously found it unpalletable."
From: The Alley, Behind Montgomery's Tavern | Registered: Apr 2001
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al-Qa'bong
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 3807
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posted 27 September 2008 08:31 AM
quote: Anywho. I am astounded, al-Qa'bong to hear you are growing Kiwi. I thought Kiwi demanded very specific growing conditions, like morning fog and stuff. Are you doing anything special? Or am I completely wrong thinking that they couldn't grow outside a greenhouse here?
I don't do much that's special, other than see that the plants are covered by lots of snow during the winter. The spot they're in isn't ideal; they get shaded by my house , even though they face south (they're planted along a little fence that divides part of my back yard). I have a Cascade hops plated in the midst of the kiwis. You can actually hear that sucker growing in June.
From: Saskatchistan | Registered: Feb 2003
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Digiteyes
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 8323
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posted 27 September 2008 04:31 PM
Not one ripe tomato. Zero. zilch. nada. I planted 4 San Marzano paste tomato plants in my front garden (among my roses). They're an organic heirloom variety, a bit slow to ripen, and really slow this year. But I have seen them turn orange... and then *poof* they're gone. Could be critters. But I would expect a few broken leaves and stems if it were critters. I have some green tomatoes that have obviously been chewed by squirrels or raccoons: it's obvious that they've tasted them, and not liked the taste too much.I suspect it's two-legged critters. So much for front-yard veggie growing in Toronto. I think I'm going to harvest green (if I can do that -- they should be a fair size before harvested). Time to dig out some of those recipes I linked to for Boom Boom...
From: Toronto | Registered: Feb 2005
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Tommy_Paine
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 214
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posted 03 October 2008 12:31 PM
quote: Hey Tommy and Boom Boom, I thought the Working class Pallet line was a pun.
I am a nasty punster-- but also, if not a poor speller, one who is more often than not more eager to write than proof read. Occam's razor could have cut either way on that one, so don't feel bad. Although birds aren't normally associated with the fall harvest, this is a kind of back yard thread. And, I just had a Great Blue Heron in my back yard. Not bad for living in the middle of a city of about 400,000 people. I think my neighbours pool lured it in. Maybe it's migratory, or maybe it's local and raiding the back yard fish ponds. Either way, quiet a sight from the kitchen window.
From: The Alley, Behind Montgomery's Tavern | Registered: Apr 2001
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Boom Boom
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 7791
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posted 07 October 2008 03:39 PM
I sat in the clinic almost half a day waiting to see the doctor, and then he only took fifteen minutes with me. That's how it goes here on the coast - you wait, and if you don't, you'll have to wait until another doctor comes in two or three weeks.The rest of the day I got a dirty job done - I peeled, cut, rinsed, parboiled, put into 25 freezer bags, carrots from my garden. I gave away an equal amount, so that's about 50 pounds altogether, and I've been snacking on them as well while doing the work. Nothing like carrots straight from the garden.
From: Make the rich pay! | Registered: Dec 2004
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ElizaQ
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 9355
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posted 07 October 2008 04:34 PM
I had a weird thing happen today. Woke up, grabbed my coffee and looked out the window. "Gah!" Frost all over the lawn and meadow and me not having all my tomatoes picked yet. Durn it, that wasn't what the weather said. So I threw on some clothes and ran outside. Frost was everywhere, except for the actual garden. It literally came up to about 3 feet from the edge and just stopped. It was bizzare, like the whole area was shielded and everything was fine. So I came back in and rechecked the weather. It's actually warming up this week again so I'm just going to leave the green ones a week longer. I didn't have time to do anything today because we had to take a 7 hour trip to pick up next years gardening labor force. So now I'm sitting here listening to 20 peeping, day old chicks that are in a box in my dining room. Spent the last few hours making sure they figured out where the water is and jumping up at every over loud peep to make sure they're okay. What a total trip. I've never had chickens before and I'm a total nervous nelly. LOL. I've learned one thing today. That when chicks fall asleep they just drop where they are, splay out and look totally dead. We were sitting here and it got really quiet so I went over to check. The whole bunch were just spread out everywhere and I freaked out a little. For a few seconds I thought I had somehow killed them all. LOL [ 07 October 2008: Message edited by: ElizaQ ]
From: Eastern Lakes | Registered: May 2005
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Bubbles
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 3787
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posted 07 October 2008 06:46 PM
quote: didn't have time to do anything today because we had to take a 7 hour trip to pick up next years gardening labor force.
How do you use chickens as a garden labour force? In my experience, chickens will totally demolish small garden plants. They love the young green leaves. Keep track of the temperature you keep your small chicks at. If they are splayed out, it could be an indication that they are too warm. Also avoid putting them on a smooth surface, such as news papers, especialy if you have meat birds, they get easily leg damage from that.
From: somewhere | Registered: Feb 2003
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al-Qa'bong
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 3807
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posted 08 October 2008 05:03 PM
quote: I've got about half and acre of field...
Field? Back on the farm, my kitchen garden was about half-an-acre. I was out in the allotment digging up my last carrots and chopping up corn stalks this afternoon. I had to wear a bunny hug and a hydro parka. Exactly one week ago I was out there wearing nothing but shorts, and even that felt too hot.
From: Saskatchistan | Registered: Feb 2003
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jrose
babble intern
Babbler # 13401
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posted 09 October 2008 08:43 AM
I went on the most fabulous bus tour in Hamilton last week. It completely gave me a new meaning to the phrase “Field Trip.” It was a tour of different sorts of fields in the Hamilton area, starting at an organic farm, then the Dundurn Castle vegetable garden, which was recreated after gathering information about the original 2-acre plot that fed the family who lived there, and later to a place called West Avenue Growers, which was the small backyard of a few twenty-somethings who turned began to grow all sorts of crops, feeding their neighborhood. It culminated at a community centre where we ate local foods, prepared by Hamilton’s chapter of Food not Bombs. It was an absolutely fabulous event run by OPIRG McMaster.
From: Ottawa | Registered: Oct 2006
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al-Qa'bong
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 3807
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posted 20 October 2008 08:51 PM
We have three lavender plants that have survived our Zone 3 winters. I keep them buried under four feet of snow, which might help.My weekends are now spent canning tomato sauce, although I got away to Regina to see the Riders yesterday. We had to cut out right after the last field goal because I had to be on the air in Saskatoon in three hours, so we were outside Taylor Field, listening to the final minute's cheering as we walked towards Albert Street and our car. I couldn't believe how noisy it was! It was kinda scary; all you hear inside the stadium are the few people right next to you. The racket must be something else at field level. When you wrote about the noise in your neighbourhood, Timebandit, I didn't think it could be too terribly bad, but now I see...er, hear your point.
From: Saskatchistan | Registered: Feb 2003
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