Processing the Harvest

We get a few problems from creatures, this one I worry about - cotton mouth moccasin. Fortunately my bayou is salty so they are scarce; they are a water loving snake with a reputation for aggression. They have rally bad effects on dogs, anti venom is $800 and even then they get bad injuries. I kill them if I see one; usually with a shovel or stick but if I know one is about I wear a gun. (I am surprised how few get away.) I have had lots of dealings with venomous snakes in my life. This is under house.

 

Sheal the pound stores do cheap seeds,

These are a seed selection, a seed starting kit, and a 3 pack of fruit bushes (blue berry, currents, raspberries) All the ones shown are a pound.

I live on The Gulf of Mexico

right at the top. We get several freezes during the winter but still can grow the hardy citrus, and bananas in protected areas. Form June through September the day temp reached 90F, 32C. Nights stay warm, high 70s to low 80sF, - 27C. The sun is very strong as it is one gets closer to the tropics - tomatoes cannot fruit in August because it is too hot.

The water is actually very warm to touch. Wading into the water is like going into a warm bath. My pond is very warm and then three foot down the thermocline happens (where hot water floats on the cold in lakes - a distinct line - not gradual. Then the water is ground water temp and lovely cool. It is a nice effect. With the heat one is sweaty, working outside you are wet with sweat so we just take your clothes off, hang them on the dock railings, and have a swim in the pond. You do not even need to dry off, in the heat you dry right away, just shake like a dog and then get dressed.

 

I have a bit more time to use so here is some dried stuff, carrots and onions - and a jar of marmalade I made from my kumquat tree and some sour orange juice - not great, I used some British TV chef's recipe and would do away with the water and stick with juice. But it is good - and I use a lot of marmalade; I use it in my cooking all the time.


I have more stuff to dry today but it is raining - again.



I need to buy another case of a dozen wide mouth quart jars - the standard mouth one is beside it ($9 for 12) and the wide is much better. $10 for 12! Not bad, and a dozen additional lids is only $3 when you want to actually can with them and need fresh ones. The lids seal completely with the rubber coating on the inside. Pint marmalade - us pints/quarts, not imperial. 16 oz and 32 oz.

The incubator in the store room - the turner really works great, the fan too. I opened it to add water for the humidity and was amazed how long it took to get back to the right temperature. And that is how they are supposed to be turned twice a day - by opening it and hand turning. I should market my turner and make money. See the handle sticking out? it turns the eggs by pushing and pulling that, without opening the lid.

 

You wouldn't get me near the water with those snakes lurking! The only venomous snake in Britain is the adder but rarely seen. I came across one that was 4 feet long in Scotland a number of years ago while I was walking my dog. My dog was off his lead and heading straight towards it so I had to distract him and managed to get hold of him before he spotted it. The venom could kill a dog and make a human quite ill. I don't like snakes at all they revolt me, luckily there are none on the island.

Your incubator is handy, what sort of eggs do you have in it, they look too small for chickens eggs?

Our shops are limited here but there are a couple of pound shops, they rarely stock anything regarding seeds and fruit bushes etc. and by the time I've driven either seven or fifteen miles to get to either one it doesn't make it viable with the price of petrol. I buy all my seeds on the internet.

 

Hi Sheal, I do not mind snakes - I have lived around wild animals a lot - when I was young a couple times I would catch venomous snakes with my hand - but they will really hurt a dog so I keep the moccasin removed. I am incubating some orphington / banti crosses for meat. The eggs are Orphington eggs mostly so are large chicken eggs.

I am just back from buying a Roma tomato 4 pack, which I switched 2 with Rutgers from a pack that had one missing, so 2 of each actually. I wanted some determinate tomatoes for canning (jars).

I have an ethical question. sometimes at the big places I will buy a 4 pack of small plants - say 4 jalapenos, and switch 1 of the jalapenos with say a cayenne. If I do it I leave both tags - I realize some people will be upset, but I would not - if one of the three turned out to be a different variety from the other three - from the type I was trying to buy.

If a pack has a missing one, then I have no qualms at all. I only do it rarely, and mostly when one pack is already damaged, and I feel guilty - but wonder how others feel (common type veg - $2 for 4 packs.)

I only grow for us so rarely want 4 of the same kind - but then others may feel differently.

 

I'm not the right person to ask this question Colne, I'm to honest and besides, knowing my luck I would get caught. If I wanted both I would buy both packs, or ask someone else that was buying them if they would like to swap a couple after purchase. In effect you are stealing whether the items are the same price or not.

 

In effect you are stealing whether the items are the same price or not.

Not really. I also suffer from an extreme sense of honesty - but I class it more as a shopping mischief. Also I look for a damaged one to mess with, one that has one plant of the 4 missing. But then I have taken ones from good packs.

life: no simple answers - is the phrase "all property is theft" true? as the 60's left hippies used to say. I have seen starving people, people suffering and dyeing from simple wants - does that make every waste and non-necessary consumption in our lives wicked; to begin the walk into reducto ad absurdum; but also getting a sense of proportion on the 'crime victim's' harm when only three of their green bell peppers turn out to be green peppers - and the fourth is a hot banana pepper.

But then that brings me to seed planting, and yesterday I planted a dozen kinds of flower seeds. The Dollar store had seed plants at 10/$1! And with them were habanero and Serrano pepper seeds, ones I would have not seeked out, but hay, ten cents!



my small raised bed is ready for something but I am not sure what - the bad chickens make occasional forays this far through the woods from their base and can run amuck on some things. Some kind of thorny pumpkin would be good.

And there are the flower seeds just potted. Seen in this picture is (from left) cannas, day lilies, onions, a tiny, new apricot tree in the frame with lilies, a Myers lemon, rose, with blackberries behind them and some irises in the pond.



And look how the pond and gardens have greened up just since I have been posting here! Those are blackberries, at the water edge are the 13 Navaho thornless blackberries in a long bed but they do not show up as they were just salvaged this winter and were in terrible shape. cannas in the water, rt corner, and the inevitable white lab that is in most of my pictures - I always have one; one that is with me 24 hours a day so is my shadow.

And on the other side from those shots is where the two truck loads of leaves went - this garden was just started from red clay heaped up when deepening my pond - one year ago, but is coming on.



And in a few minutes I am off to a seed swap. Never having gone I did not know what to expect so did not go out and gather some plants (palm tree babies, gingers, 4'oclocks, and such) from the neighborhood.

Yesterday we went to the 'Blessing of the Fleet' at the harbor only to find out it was last week. We have a large shrimp and oyster fleet and go to the boat things a few times a year. The Christmas one is fun, with the boats decked in lights - one has a giant Santa sled pulled by reindeer in lights and a rented, concert sized, sound system which blasts out music as the fleet steams in a circle just off the harbor in the dark - police boats with all the lights on guide the mass. Good fun. Here are some of the shrimp boats lined up anyway.

 

The side of the pond that was worked on looks quite established Colne, you wouldn't think it's only been a year.

I would imagine the fleet is quite a spectacle at Christmas time. Quite an unusual idea to 'dress' up the boats.

 

How did the seed swap go?

 

Seed swap went well - lots of stuff. But I dried onions today, just stacked them on the drier trays till the trays were resting on onion instead of each other till some shrinking took place. Amazing how much could be crammed on it - I think 8 pounds wet.








And still more to dry.............But I am using them all the time, add color and some flavor to any soup, very nice I will have dried almost thirty pounds of them when done with the crop, not bad for a $2 bag of sets.

 

And to beat the onion theme more here are the onions dry. 8 pounds dried to 8 oz .



I am amazed how hydrophilic they are, just minutes out of an airtight jar and they will begin becoming soggy, but then the amount of water lost is also surprising, 20 to 1. One more big load to go, they are nice, if for nothing else to add some green element to soups and rice.

I really regret losing my collard crop! They make the best dried veg, just excellent in soups, easy to dry and store (my wife likes them as crisps). I have planted some seedlings in my pond side asparagus bed although it may well be too late in the year to get a crop - but collards are more heat hardy that other greens, if they will not bolt.

 

So waiting for the soup to finish, Moroccan inspired with lemon, cinnamon, fennel, turmeric, marmalade, three kinds of peppers, broccoli leaves, celery, carrot, onion. The carrot and onion and leaves from the garden - and to pass the time am going to post a picture:



this gator is kept at a local nursery (plant) and is 13 foot long, weighs over 900 lbs and is 54 years old - the father picked it up as a tiny thing that long ago - and they kept it.

You can walk up to it, it is just behind some chain link fence, and it will hiss at you. It has no wish to leave - It could when ever it wanted to though, but gators are not restless, and they feed it chicken leg quarters every week, 10 pounds of them. It does not move around much and has no real issues or need for much food.

 

Amazing! I don't think I'd want to get too close though! Is it true that they can move pretty fast when they want to?

 

It is am amazing gator! My wife took this picture and it captures his alligatorness nicely. The head you see probably weighs over 200 pounds! Their heads are massive, you could not come close to being able to put your arms around the top of the snout. Their gaze, and you can get within a couple feet of it, is pure alien - there is some consciousness inside looking at you, but it is so far removed from our experience. Go back and click on it and look into its eye, it lives in an alternate universe from humans.

And I have tried making my very first video. If you remember I had said how I thought of making a video of how to quickly and easily kill and butcher a chicken for the back yard chicken keeper who hatches some eggs and gets a rooster. (I could not find one on youtube when I looked for one to get any pointers - just serious butchering with big setup and a huge process for doing a whole batch of meat birds rather than someone with one bird who wants it quick (15 minutes start to finish my way, and no setup - no cleanup needed)

Anyway I made a video of my pond. A dig ordeal, took hours to download to Youtube. If anyone knows an easy way let me know. But here it is

 

That is one big 'gator!

I enjoyed looking at your video, it seems as if you can grow anything in the climate you have there. You said in earlier posts about the leaf gathering, why do you need so many, is it to keep moisture in the soil or create leaf mould, assuming they will rot down?