This is a sweet potato that I harvested this week just to check on progress. It is of edible size, so I am confident that we will have a good harvest. But seriously, that is quite the shape.
Well, sometimes the garden produces funny shapes.
Category: Food
Inflation…Offset it with a garden!
I worked a good bit in the garden today and had to share some of the pics. Our winter veggies are starting to get too hot. The lettuce is bolting, the last of the turnips were given to a neighbor and I pulled some of the old Tabasco and Jalapeno’s that didn’t make it through the short freeze.
The good news is that I have been planting lots and lots. Tomatoes, peppers, seminole pumpkins, eggplants, cucumbers, some old cantaloupe seeds and watermelon.
The blueberries are on their second year of growth. I bought them as twigs and most are now about 2′ high. Next year will be the year for getting berries off of them. They take so long to get into production, but well worth the wait.
Lastly, I put in 2 peach trees as bare roots making good on my plan for citrus, peaches and figs to extend the fruit harvest over different periods. The peaches are actually flowering and now have a good set of leaves. I was a bit worried as I bought them from TyTy in Georgia which has some mixed reviews. In this case, I would give them a thumbs up. They came well packed and are so far fairly healthy.
I’ll end with this thought: in Florida you need to have a plan to battle the sugar sand. It seems like it is just swallowing everything that we put into it. I am making more of an effort with mulching in the walkways to get some humus underneath. I’ll rotate the humus into the gardens when it is broken down a bit. I also want to experiment a bit with biochar as a way to re-charge the sand and store nutrients like a battery. When folks in the neighborhood trim trees, I’ll collect some of the wood and start the biochar project. Sound like a good thing for a late summer night. I have been excited to see the work from David the Good and have taken a good bit to his teachings. They are practical and centered on food production.
Added a metal bed, many plants are starting to grow well.
Since the price of wood is now nearly equal with the cost of sheet metal, I tried my hand at building a metal bed. I should have leveled off the spot a bit better, but it will do. Filling a 12″ bed is a lot more work than a 6″ bed.
We are now getting a few snow peas to nibble on. My experiment with the overwintered tomato plant seems to be working out. The cutting is still green in its planter. If it works, I think I’ll start using the cutting method to get a quicker start on the growing season.
I also installed a rebar panel down the center of the tomato bed to give some decent structure to the tom’s as they get bitter.
The blueberries seem to be happy as well in their permanent bed. They have all been leafing out and growing. I hope to get them to a big enough size that they will produce a crop for me next year. We clipped the flowers on them this year to give them better growth. 6 of them were barely twigs when I picked up for $5 a piece.
We need to get a good watering solution in place. The hand watering starts to become a bit of a burden when you get more than 2 beds.
Get growing.
Mr. SNH
Chicken coup nearly ready
I spent the weekend building the chicken coup. The ladies are getting too big and need to have some room to roam. Vertical beams are sunken to 18″ with a concrete footer. The max height is 6’6″, but tapers to 6’3″ at the rear. I planned on originally roofing the top, but now think we will just put wire on it for now. If it rains, they will have access to the inside of the shed. This will also help keep the structure around during a hurricane. If I put a roof on it, it might just sail away.
I did not get as far as I wanted to since it is V-day weekend and Mrs. SNH’s birthday weekend. This is always a very busy time of year.
Fall wherever you are…
I do love the fall and miss the days when I could go to the local park in Oregon and grab a nice harvest of apples and walnuts for free. I would then fill the house with the cinnamon infused scent of cockpot apple butter and enjoy a great treat after it had cooked down to a jelly like spread. Here are a few pictures from those fall Oregon days.
Meanwhile in the present, this rainy Florida Saturday yielded a surprise when I went to check on the plants. I cannot believe it is near Thanksgiving and there are still tomatoes producing in one of my garden bins. We kept one of the roma plants when we moved to the new house. It has continued to grow. The Florida weather has held up and the plant now has about 5 tomatoes on it. It would be great to harvest them before Christmas! Other plants that seem to keep on ticking are kale, blackberries (which were once just a small twig) and the Seminole pumpkin which is now about 8 feet long with several flowers on it.
I also have a Moringa tree that we cut down when we first moved in. It is back to a height of about 10’. We cannot kill it! Moringa is widely hailed as a miracle tree for its edible leaves. We may just decide to manage it and if you are a local and want a cutting for your own yard, feel free to contact me. I will gladly propagate for you. Here is a picture after we cut it down in August. I’ll try to get a pic up this weekend of how it has grown.
Lastly, I wanted to report that the first shed is fully removed so we can start building our raised beds for the spring season on this portion of the yard. Cocoa the wonderdog has to be fenced off first, so that project will take me through December to properly section off the yard. I did manage to put up part of field fence during a lunch break, but it cannot compete with the size that we now have available. I will solidify the sketchy back fence by using some 4×4’s with a concrete footer and extend a 4′ high section to where the field fencing is now (just in front of the Moringa tree shown in the picture above. I am still debating about how I would like the gate. I think a nice arbor would make a great entrance. Maybe my ambitions are bigger that my capacity.
Cheesy Garlic Muffins, need I say more?
Mrs. SNH whipped this food network recipe up like a pro. She kneaded the dough by hand instead of using a dough hook. It turned out great!
This is how they turned out!
Blueberries Planted!
Greetings SNH’ers,
Today, I had a nice bit of cool weather and planted some of the blueberries that I received for Christmas. Sams club had a great deal on some whiskey barrel look-alike planters. Berries are one of the best “smarter not harder” things you can plant because the cost of berries in the grocery store are very high. Blueberries and Blackberries can bring between 4 and 6 dollars a pint!
The first step was to plant them with some basic soil, add some manure and acidifier since blueberries enjoy a slightly acidic soil. I then added a top layer of planting/potting mix with some decent drainage. Lastly, we used an organic fertilizer to keep the plants fed for a bit.
If you are in the southern part of the US, it’s time to start making your spring planting plans. I am planning to plant tomatoes in starter pots with the kids as a way to push some extra funds into their 529 plans. I’ll do a post when we get those going!
4 days to Christmas Update
Happy Christmas SNH’ers,
It has been a pretty crazy couple of weeks, thus my lack of posting. Let’s run down the list:
* I suffered a severe back injury that laid me up for several days and had to go to the emergency room!
* Little SNH’ers got sick before the Christmas holiday.
* Christmas school events were attended.
* Santa’s lap was attended by the youngest SNH lady.
* Lots of good home cooking was done – chili information below.
* Cabbage ended up getting a leaf miner and will likely die out completely unless it is treated and tended.
* Grow bag seems to have 2x growth versus standard plastic planters.
* I had an injury to my foot, rather, an attack of psuedogout. It swelled my right foot to double the standard size and needed some quick treatment. I am currently on the mend, but will likely take about 5 days to be really walk-able again per the fine staff at the walk in clinic.
The Garden has had some interesting items happen to it. First, Little SNH’er #2 planted a cabbage for a school scholarship progress. The winner was to submit the cabbage for a chance at a $1000 scholarship. Unfortunately, it has secumbed to leaf miner and the growth is very slow. Likely not a winner. Here is a picture of the leafy pathways it has made through the plant:
I have battled with leaf miners before when living in Florida about 15 years ago. They can be treated effectively with organic solutions, but can damage plants to a point that they cannot recover. With my foot being out of commission, it may have gone too long. I plan to get some this weekend to try.
The grow bag with the turnips are outgrowing the plastic bins with Parris Island Romain and Beets. I think the water regulation (soil drainage) of the grow bags is far superior to that of the plastic bins producing a better environment for soil consistency in a container garden. I removed the water retainer in the beets to allow more water to flow out of the container in hopes it will regulate better. I have never done will with beets.
It really is time to get my metered gardening solution up and running. I have 1 more major component to order, a vegetronix VH400 meter (https://www.vegetronix.com/Products/VH400/). It is in my scientific and engineering opinion, the best option for long term soil metering. It uses TDR to read moisture vs corrosive annodes as are most of the low cost solutions. TDR ignores the salt content (a big issue in coastal Florida where I am at) as well as maintains a long lifespan sitting in the soil.
I made a great chili and seem to be honing in on a style that I really like. I apologize, but I put beans in mine. Here goes the latest version:
- 1 lb micro cubed steak
- 2 serrano peppers, finely chopped
- 2 jalapenos finely chopped
- 1 poblano finely chopped
- 1 can tomato sauce
- 5 cloves garlic
- 1 white onion finely chopped
- 1 can of black beans
- 1 can of red kidney beans
- 1-4 cups water depending on how soupy you like.
- Saute the onions, peppers and cubed beef together until brown and creating a lovely “spicy” scent through the house.
- Add your favorite chili spices. With this recipe, the peppers do a pretty good job, but some paprika, 2 tbsp of generic chili powder, 2 tbs salt work well.
- Add in your tomato sauce and beans and simmer on low for about 2 hrs.
- Serve with sour cream and cornbread.
Have a blessed Christmas, praise Jesus.
Mr. SNH.
Speed up your meals and get more free time
I was realizing today how much more time we have during lunch breaks if we use what we have in the fridge for a quick meal. For example, this weekend I used a crockpot for some delicious adobe style chicken which fed the family a great dinner on Sunday. On the flip side, we were left with about a pound of chicken in leftovers. I simply wrapped those in a tortilla for a quick lunch yesterday and wrapped 2 up for a late-night dinner tonight. The amount of time saved by having such a quick meal was great! I got to spend more time with my 4 year old at lunch after she returned from preschool and I got to spend some extra family time with the kids this evening by opting for a delayed burrito wrap with the leftovers after the little SNHers were in bed.
The savings is two-fold too! Not only do we gain the time, but also save on our food costs. We are nearly at crisis level with how much food we (Americans) throw out in the trash each year. According to this article (https://www.marketwatch.com/story/this-is-why-americans-throw-out-165-billion-in-food-every-year-2016-07-22) we waste about 40% of our food! That is simply astonishing considering how much we pay for that food. In my household, our food budget is about 30% of our monthly spending.
The more we eat our leftovers, the more we do for our food system, our time and our wallets! Have a good night.
The high cost of Blue Apron, just go to the grocery store!
Greetings SNH’ers
I was listening to a millennial rave about how much money they are saving when using Blue Apron to cook their meals. Having gone through a revelation in cooking with my family (1 gluten free child, 1 vegetarian) in recent years, we really had to start analyzing our eating habits and how much impact it had on our budgets. We no longer eat out like we used to and we also started to cook “real food“.
The Blue Apron does have some great meal ideas, but the reality is that these meals are extremely expensive at the estimated $9.99 per serving. These meals are largely dinners and after looking at our budget for the family on a monthly basis, we are at about $3 for our dinners and $7.50 per person per day.
Here is an average family Friday night meal. 2 pizzas serves us pretty well with little waste. Now, these days, we may make a gluten free crust, but you’ll get the idea with this info-graphic.
As you can see, the $1.69 per person for this recipe is an excellent way to suggest you roll your own with your local grocery store and forget the boxed meal services. At 9.99 per serving, they are 6 times more expensive. They are costing you massive amounts of money that could otherwise be put into your IRA or other investment vehicle!
I am not saying that you shouldn’t enjoy those meals, just don’t do it as part of your regular meal plan for the week unless it brings you a certain satisfaction that you can’t get by heading to the grocery store and sourcing the ingredients yourself. They do often have unique ingredients and flavors that you may not stock in your pantry. I find however, that as you cook more, your pantry grows with many of the items that are used in those recipes.