Wondering about recording all the food we eat that we have grown, foraged or harvested ourselves.
I did it a couple of years ago and found it was good to see how much we did provide for ourselves & was sometimes a reminder to check the freezer.
If you’re not interested -Feel free to mute #GrownForagedHarvested as I’ll try and remember to add it each time.
Join in if you fancy. #gardening#GrowItYourself
6 April 2024 food eaten by the family today, either grown, harvested or foraged by us. A busy day always seems to mean less homegrown ingredients (unless we prep ahead)
Red gooseberries, blackcurrants - frozen
Lettuce, sprouted lentils - indoor
Kale florets, cutting celery, parsley, sage, rosemary - gardens various
Apple, Tayberry & Elderberry jam in muffins (harvested/Grown/foraged fruit)
Last of the rhubarb crumble from yesterday. #GrownForagedHarvested
Gardening observation: after record rainfall in our area, my garden is going into "jungle mode" -- ie everything is growing very fast and large. Many volunteers!
In great contrast, the house I am staying at now (very close by) the garden beds are doing: nothing.
The difference is here they have removed all organic matter as a matter of course (previously thrown in the trash, now to the yard bin), and only used chemical fertilizers (for 50 years). Also used to regularly spray weeds wit weed killer.
At my house, every last organic scrap of food or plant trimming gets composted and turned into the garden.... Totally supercharges the garden beds.
"To fix the problems would cost an additional $11 per vehicle, and Ford weighed that $11 against the projected injury claims for severe burns, repair-costs claim rate and mortality. The total would have been approximately $113 million (including the engineering, the production delays and the parts for tens of thousands of cars), but damage payouts would cost only about $49 million, according to Ford's math."
I've never gotten over this. #Quince @ Pete's Frootique, for $3.99 ea. You think Apples are expensive, these aren't as big. I don't know why they are so expensive, they are difficult to use, they aren't edible like an apple, they are extremely hard, usually peeled and cooked into Jelly.
I know fruit trees don't grow like the parent, from seeds, but I keep wondering if these giant varieties would produce from seed? I'd invest $4 to try.
@ForfarFairLady There are some hard apples out there too. My fave was colloquially named BAKING APPLE, because they were huge, tart and quite firm, hard even. They were KINGS, discontinued decades ago, and I have been trying for two decades to get the graft somewhere
@ForfarFairLady Oh, does it ever! So do wild pears. My Asian Pear trees produce but they are still thorny. All the others are too. Quince, if not thinned, is near impossible to pick. Thick sleeves and gloves.
🇩🇪 Wie labelt ihr eure Gehölze in eurem Waldgarten? Ich mache bisher laminierte Schilder. Aber nach 3-4a brechen die. Und von den Plasteschlaufen, die ich mit Edding beschriftet habe, geht die Beschriftung nach 1a ab.
🇬🇧 How do you label your plants in your food forest? I used to make laminated labels. But after 3-4a they start breaking. Then I have some plastic loops written on with Edding. But the writing has washed off after 1a.
@andrej@levampyre aber rosten die nicht schnell weg? Insbesondere weil durch das stanzen vermutlich eine etwaige Schutzschicht (verzinkt) beschädigt wird 🤔
@tuxflo Naja, die Rohlinge, die wir hier haben, sind aus Edelstahl. Das sollte schon gehen. Und zur Not müssen wir in 5 Jahren doch noch auf Aluetiketten umschwenken. Wir probieren es aus. @andrej
@ai6yr The compost empire. Currently I have 4 Aerobin 400's and the two black composters that hold the dry leaf/carbon stuff. 4 inches of veg waste, coffee grounds etc. the 8 inches of dry carbon stuff in layers till full. Then it sits for 9-12 months and I will harvest the next one and start to fill. All are riddled with earthworms. I always leave 2-3 inches there and the rest of the works are then relocated to the garden when harvested. I also will add some meat scraps and bones. Fish bones break down quick, chicken takes about 2 years and large beef bone last 5+
I have a variety of screens and the cylinder is a manual tromel I built with some old bike rims. The compost gets screened 1-3 times depending on where it is going. The bigger stuff like bones, mango pits, twigs, etc go back into the next batch
2 years ago, we bought a house that was being eaten (for real) by #bamboo. With several months of actual blood, sweat, and tears, we got rid of the bamboo and uncovered 1/8 acre of beleaguered, nutrient-depleted land just begging to someday be a #garden.
We keep citrus going all year in an uninsulated poly-tunnel with a 1kw heater for the bad nights. I'll be building a walapini-style sunken greenhouse with a solar powered climate battery (stores daytime heat in the dirt), and hopefully wont even need the heater.
Adding 2 new #SnapPea varieties to our #FoodGardens this year. Royal snap(deep burgundy) & honey snap(pale yellow) - both are edible raw or cooked. I have 6 of each in my starter pots & transplanting them into beds today.
My delayed #SaanichOrganics seeds vid will be up later today 👩🌾
@compost audiobooks. I can get into a flow state when I'm gardening and if I don't have an audiobook to end at some point I will completely lose track of time.
Very chilly and pretty miserable out there so have only planted a few things today - herbs on the windowsill, and some flowers to attract some bees and things.
I've got some chard, onion, marrow and Pak choi seeds to plant hopefully tomorrow although finding things to plant in is becoming a challenge, as you can see from what I've planted into today 🤣.
@levampyre@gardening I'd always done a bit, half-heartedly, but when Transport Canada grounded me from flying for medical reasons, I needed something new.
I saw an article about how the North American population of monarch butterflies almost went extinct, but bounced back when people starting planting native milkweed for them.
I'm concerned about 75%+ of insects dying. I thought "hmm I can probably plant some native wildflowers for insects in my balcony." Three years later we've crossed the mark of over 100 plant species in the balcony, including a micropond with swamp plants in a styrofoam box, and the balcony has become an insect oasis with a whole microecosystem in it.
It's a slug party,
and I've bought them all a beer
Let's invite them to come right over,
and have a great cheer
It was the cheapest beer they sell nearby
But for a party it will fly
The question is really,
Will they just get drunk, or die?
But not in the way you think, at least in my experiment (sample size n=1).
The beer attracts slugs, and saw dozens of slugs climb INTO the slug trap, drink beer, and leave much fatter.
The wood rat in the backyard (after swigging a bunch of beer itself) then ATE a bunch of those slugs... must have spent 15 minutes finding all the beer filled slugs and tearing them to bits and eating them.
So, the slugs are dead... but not DIRECTLY through the beer.