The wild blackberries and dewberries this year didn't get enough rain to
plump up. We picked a few at each of our picking hide-outs and they were
small and seedy. Because of this we will be picking at a local berry
farm in order to preserve some for the winter.

Since we have a plenitude of both blackberry and dewberry jellies and
jams and the freezer is full of vegetables from the fall garden, I am
planning on canning the berries in quart jars. I'm in the process of
learning how to do that again as it has been years since I put up whole
berries. Reminds me of old days when I had to look up how to do
everything I was putting up. I finally copied the recipes I had been
using and put them in a three-hole notebook in a plastic sleeve, made it
much nicer to use. Well, at least the plastic was easier to clean juice
and sticky stuff off than trying to scrape it out of a cookbook. <G>

Our spring/summer garden is doing well, we've been putting up Swiss
chard and spinach in vacuum bags in the freezer and eating as much as we
can. Now we're down to giving it to the few neighbors who eat fresh food
versus canned. Just how much chard and spinach can two people eat
anyway? Of course nearby children and grandchildren get their share too.

A late frost got the blooms on our blueberries and the pear tree and the
kumquat is still recovering from a freeze. We have been harvesting and
dehydrating herbs but we have a plethora of herbs now so will start
offering fresh herbs to neighbors. The fig tree is putting out figs so
will be out there tomorrow setting up the netting to keep the !@#$%
birds from pecking them. In addition I saw a squirrel on our back fence
the other morning, it is a half mile to the nearest forest so I wonder
where that tree rat came from. The air rifle is now cocked and locked
and sitting next to the back door. May end up with a bite of squirrel gumbo.

Radishes are coming in like gangbusters, gave several to the SIL when he
came by this morning, middle grandson will get some this afternoon.
Yellow squash is producing and we picked a couple this morning. We have
very small tomatoes in sight and also sweet chiles. Lima beans,crowder
peas, and cucumbers are starting to climb their trellises so it won't be
long before we are harvesting those vegetable. We had tossed the seeds
from a winter squash into the compost barrel a few months ago and, when
we emptied the barrel and put the compost into a long flower bed we
found out that the seeds didn't compost. We have a great many acorn
squash plants up in that bed and we gave away fifteen or twenty plants.
This happened once before and we harvest fourteen squash off that
mistake. We're hoping for another nice mistake this fall.

George

George Shirley wrote:
....
> long before we are harvesting those vegetable. We had tossed the seeds
> from a winter squash into the compost barrel a few months ago and, when
> we emptied the barrel and put the compost into a long flower bed we
> found out that the seeds didn't compost. We have a great many acorn
> squash plants up in that bed and we gave away fifteen or twenty plants.
> This happened once before and we harvest fourteen squash off that
> mistake. We're hoping for another nice mistake this fall.

it's been a while George, but glad to hear things are
going reasonably well.

i used to put the insides of squash into the worm
bins to be processed, but most of the seeds end up
sprouting so i've now taken to just squeezing most
of them apart from the pulp and drying them. this
summer i'll be planting them in various places and
also may venture into the field on the other side
of the large drainage ditch.

we have not liked the taste of acorn squash for
years bought at the store as it had very little to
it. last year we grew some from volunteer seeds
in the vermicompost and they were excellent so i
now have several hundred seeds to plant along with
several hundred from the other squash we like.

good luck with the hunting, here it is rabbit
season, must be a dozen about - keep hoping the
cats/hawks/owls/coyotes will thin them out...
more likely it will be cars and then crows that
get some of them.


songbird

On 5/1/2014 10:40 AM, songbird wrote:
> George Shirley wrote:
> ...
>> long before we are harvesting those vegetable. We had tossed the seeds
>> from a winter squash into the compost barrel a few months ago and, when
>> we emptied the barrel and put the compost into a long flower bed we
>> found out that the seeds didn't compost. We have a great many acorn
>> squash plants up in that bed and we gave away fifteen or twenty plants.
>> This happened once before and we harvest fourteen squash off that
>> mistake. We're hoping for another nice mistake this fall.
>
> it's been a while George, but glad to hear things are
> going reasonably well.
>
> i used to put the insides of squash into the worm
> bins to be processed, but most of the seeds end up
> sprouting so i've now taken to just squeezing most
> of them apart from the pulp and drying them. this
> summer i'll be planting them in various places and
> also may venture into the field on the other side
> of the large drainage ditch.
>
> we have not liked the taste of acorn squash for
> years bought at the store as it had very little to
> it. last year we grew some from volunteer seeds
> in the vermicompost and they were excellent so i
> now have several hundred seeds to plant along with
> several hundred from the other squash we like.
>
> good luck with the hunting, here it is rabbit
> season, must be a dozen about - keep hoping the
> cats/hawks/owls/coyotes will thin them out...
> more likely it will be cars and then crows that
> get some of them.
>
>
> songbird
>
I started hunting cottontail rabbits when I was about six or seven years
old. We hunted them at night, using a headlight and a .22 rifle. What we
didn't eat we sold to an old fellow in the nearby town and he barbecued
them and then sold the meat. Was legal in Texas back then but not now. I
think I'm getting to old to chase them on foot. We also raised domestic
rabbits for many years. Had several restaurants and a couple of men's
clubs that bought all we could raise. Plus we went to rabbit shows
around our area and brought home money for having good breeding stock. I
miss raising rabbits but there's hardly any land available anymore for
that sort of thing. Most people nowadays think of sweet little bunnies,
I think about fried wabbit.

We harvested nearly a bushel of various herbs today. Mostly leaf celery,
sage, oregano, thyme, two types of parsley, and a little rosemary.
They're washed now and drying on ancient towels, tomorrow I will
dehydrate them and package for long term storage. Our little herb garden
is very prolific.

The sweet chiles are going crazy, we're already harvesting those and the
yellow summer squash. I went a little overboard and planted sixteen
cucumber seeds, they all survived and are climbing the trellis and are
covered with tiny cukes. Looks like pickles on the horizon, maybe try
some new recipes but I do need several jars of pickle relish, everyone
in the family likes it.

The crowder peas and the Hopi limas are climbing also, no blooms yet but
it has been a little chilly here the last few days. A cold north wind
has been blowing through with temps in the high fifties-low sixties
where it is normally in the eighties here. Weird weather over the last
several months.

George