wild winds

[George Shirley]

To bad you're not nearby, we love picking FREE fruit. Around here we have to go to a berry farm and pay to pick, still cheaper than supermarket prices. We miss all the nice people in Louisiana who allowed us to pick muscadines, pears, persimmons, oranges, grapefruit, and other fruits for free. They got rewarded with jellies, jams, and multiple goodies for their generosity. We will probably go back there this fall and pick a hundred lbs of canning pears and stay with friends while we do it. Nice folks those Cajuns.

George

[songbird]

George Shirley wrote: ...

4 cups of sugar instead of 7 per batch and a better overall flavor (not cooking it leaves a lot more of the strawberry complexity intact).

we don't have much freezer space either and i understand the conundrum, but for the strawberry jam supply for the next year we do have that space.

i've already given away most of the jam that didn't quite set right.

songbird

[bluechick]

My husband has something similar and loves it. He scoots all over the place. Ran over my foot with that thing too!

You and songbird have been busier than the rest of us put together. :D

[bluechick]

I wish you were close by too. You would be welcomed with open arms. I'd even shove a basket at you so you'd have something to carry the blackberries in. :)

Giving them jellies and jams is a nice payback. I hope you get to pick tons of fruit this fall and visit with old friends. Have you been back since you moved to Texas?

[George Shirley]

At least twice a year we go back, lots of long time friends there. A couple of them are coming here next weekend. You stay close to people for 24 years and you sort of get attached at the hip. That 24 years in Louisiana is the longest we have lived anywhere in 54 years of marriage. We've live in at least three states and two foreign countries over those years and have made friends in all of them.

George

[George Shirley]

I buy strawberries at the market for my wife, I do not like the taste and texture of modern strawberries. The one's my mother grew back in the forties and fifties were small with lots of flavor. I guess, as we age, our tastes change. Some things I used to love to eat now are not so tasty to me. Dear wife loves mangoes, I despise them but love papaya. First time I ate a papaya was in Bangkok in 1981, fell in love with them and still buy one at the market every once in awhile. Most fruits are enjoyable to me as I eat a lot of fruit.

[George Shirley]

Our garden does weird things, one day there is a tiny zucchini, two days later it weighs over two lbs and is still seedless. Harvested and shredded half of that one for zuke bread and casseroles. The other half will get cooked into a casserole today. Same with Ichiban eggplant, maybe three inches long today, eight to ten inches long tomorrow. I guess it our watering cycle that pumps them up. I'm still waiting for the Hopi lima beans to fill up, anxious to try them, may end up drying a bunch and put them in a big jar for winter beans and cornbread or beans and rice. Staples here in the souf'.

[bluechick]

Ours goes in cycles as well. I guess it's from lots of rain or after a good watering. Then the plants go completely wild. For example, we planted a luffa in one unused corner of the garden and it sat there, all meek and mild. Then we had a fairly heavy rain one morning. I'll swear that the next day it was three times its size, sending tendrils all over trying to climb a bamboo pole, the fence, anything that was standing still. FrankenLuffa! Maybe that kind of growth spurt is normal for a luffa (this is our first time growing it) but I've never seen anything like it. If it doesn't produce huge bath sponges I will be very disappointed.

[David Hare-Scott]

And supermarkt strawberries are grown for looks not flavour. It may not be you that has changed.

Dear wife loves mangoes, I despise them but love

Odd, I have never before met anybody who despises mangoes. Some are indiferent but most love them. But we give the seeds to babies as teething aids.

D

[songbird]

and they are not picked anywhere near when they are fully ripe, in order that they have a chance of surviving picking, packing, transit, storage, etc.

the berries i picked today, many of them were so ripe that another day they'd be too ripe. stacked in the sink they'll mash each other and drip, but they are very sweet and smell wonderful.

i'm trying to make my first batch of fruit leather tonight. not sure how it will turn out yet...

some people do not like resinous notes (which i do taste in mangoes when i eat them). i love 'em and wish i could have a mango tree.

songbird

[songbird]

and some plants can sit for a while looking like they are doing little, but they are quite busy under the surface in sending out new roots and getting established. like usually the tomatoes we plant look like they do nothing for the first three weeks after they've been transplanted. then we get some hot days and some decent rains and they start taking off. i think ours have grown about a foot the past week.

songbird

[songbird]

...

haha, noway! some days i'm getting less than two hours of tasks done lately out in the gardens.

might have to replant in some spots if the critters don't let up on their harvesting rights.

songbird

[Fran Farmer]

(snip)

My son in law shudders at the mere mention of mangoes and has told me that he will eat anything EXCEPT mangoes. And he was so darned emphatic about that EXCEPT, that I have to put it in caps.

He grew up in Qld and so can't stand the smell or the sound of them dropping on the roof or being expected to eat mangoes at every meal. I also have a neighour who will eat them but turns green if she mentions the smell of rotting mangoes - she too grew up in Qld.

[bluechick]

That's certainly true for bamboo. We have several varieties here and planted one last year that seemed to sit and sulk all through last spring and summer and set out only one culm in the fall. It resumed sulking during the normal winter dormant period and then went absolutely crazy this spring sending out many culms several feet distant from the center of the original clump.

We have one variety that's edible, but we don't have the heart to eat it. Its purpose here is to provide screening from the road.

[bluechick]

Yes, way! :D That's two hours more than we can do some days. We went out to water the veggies and orchard this morning at 7 and to check the new drip hose in the tomato bed. We decided to pick a few blackberries from the bushes close to the garden as well. One hour later we were both drenched in sweat and debilitated by the heat. By

8am it was unbearable. Summer is here on Saturday? Dagnabbit, I've had enough of the heat already and am ready for fall again! :)

Arg, I feel your pain. I'm battling some caterpillars in the tomato bed now and something stealthy is munching on one of my peppers.

[songbird]

it was hot and a bit humid yesterday. the last of the gardens planted (finally!). when i was done, i was done for the day. supposedly today will be a hair warmer. i'll be weeding, picking some strawberries, thinning and transplanting onions.

first though i have to wait for the fumes from the neighbor spraying his corn field to blow over.

our critter challenges are more furred and four- footed these days, the tomato worms come later in late July and August. looks like if i want to keep any crocuses at all i'll have to put them in cages when i plant them.

do you have pans of water out for the animals? sometimes they are chewing not for the nutrition but for the water.

songbird

[George Shirley]

Mangoes and avocados grow well here in Harris Cty, TX, except for the rare year when we get a couple of hard freezes. I put four dwarf Barbados cherry bushes in the front flower bed, both in hope of fruit and that they won't grow over three or four feet tall. That's so I can sit out and drink my morning coffee while watching the world go by. The cherries have been in the ground over a year and haven't grown an inch. Maybe they truly are dwarves.

George

[George Shirley]

I've never been to Queensland but can understand to much of one thing can be a big turnoff. My folks had a big garden and grew mostly corn and various beans. It was years before I could eat corn or beans after I left the homestead. I still don't like mangoes though, not even the smell of them. Our stores stock these tiny little Mexican papaya, I wish we could get some of those foot long ones from Thailand. Little lime juice on top and dig in.

Taking the day off from gardening, got a quarter inch of rain yesterday and the damned grass grew another two inches. It did help the squash and eggplant, we are being swamped by Ichiban eggplant, already have a freezer full of moussaka fixings and eggplant fritters. Gonna have to call in the grand kids to get rid of some of them. Stink bugs are into the tomatoes, been hosing them off and pruning tomato limbs to let in the sun. Tomatoes we pick are ugly.

[George Shirley]

Baby luffa are edible, sort of like okra, grew them one year and ate enough of them not to grow anymore. Still got some luffa sponges from that twenty year ago experiment. Also grew a gourd that tasted like squash, can't remember the name of it. Grew Armenian squash one year, they got huge but were tasty, just took up a lot of room. Back then we had 12,000 square feet of property and could afford the space. We've got half that now and it is crowded.

[David Hare-Scott]

best you wear a hat then .....

D