Homesteading Catch-Up

I haven't really had space this summer for gardening and home-improvement posts.  I suppose I could have started posting more often, but being bombarded with too many post notices is worse than going a week without.

This summer's garden was not as productive as I hoped.  Only Artie produced any buds.  The other two artichoke plants spent the summer as decorative weeds.  I'm going to try to replant some of Artie's pups instead of letting the extras die off.  If they take root, I might have more buds next year.

The many eggplants I grew from seed made lovely bushes, but not so much as a single eggplant.  Part of the problem was these tiny green locusts that I can't seem to eradicate.  I might have also been overwatering them.  At least they did better than the butternut squash, which all died.

I'm experimenting with saving eggshells for the garden.  You let them dry, bake them at 350º for a couple of minutes to kill any pathogens, then pulverize them in the blender or food processor.  Worked into the soil, the calcium breaks down over a couple of months.  This amendment is best for nightshades like tomatoes, eggplants, potatoes, peppers, etc.  Too late for this year, but maybe they will condition the front yard planter a bit.

The Pond did much better.  The scrap garden items did very well, and I now have reliable celery.  I'll definitely replant green onions from now on.  The two pumpkin vines in the pond bloomed and fruited on cue, as opposed to the three in the front yard that looked like I never watered them.  It doesn't seem to matter how much bagged soil I work into the front planter, those plants are never happy.  But, I did manage to grow two lovely pie pumpkins; and really, how many do you need in a year?

I got one good pickling cucumber out of the lettuce patch though.  Obviously not enough to can, which was annoying since I finally found Pickle Crisp.

My best harvest turned out to be seeds.  I let all my cilantro bolt and got half a cup of coriander seed.  Some of that will be planted next year.  The rest will be used as spice.  I really love freshly ground coriander, now that I have a grinder that is much easier to clean.  I have enough basil seed for the neighborhood.  Maybe I'll also try to plant some of my old fennel seeds, just to see if any sprout.

Dried coriander stems full of seeds

What I'm really disappointed in is that I didn't have any time this summer for home improvements.  I wanted to paint the wood fence.  I really need to hire termite services.  Eventually, the house needs painting.  I did manage to remove a small wasp nest above my bedroom window, but only because it was abandoned after a light rain flooded it.  I still want to repaint the hall closet, now that I'm storing canning supplies and pie filling in there.

I don't know how Papa Smurf found the energy to do all these things on the weekends when he still worked full time.  Maybe it was different because his job was largely desk work and I'm on my feet all day.  He also had a housewife to do the cleaning, cooking, and everyday errands.  Getting the brakes on my car done requires setting aside half a day that I can't spend doing something else.  This is why it always seems like retired people are so busy; they're just catching up on postponed to-dos.  I did max out my vacation hours at six weeks.  If I could get off two weeks in a row, I could probably knock out my entire fix-it list.

Perhaps the reason I didn't have extra time and energy was all the canning.  I've never canned this much in a summer before, but I've been going through jams faster since I decided to buy plain yogurt and spoon my own jams in instead of buying fruit on the bottom.  That way, I have plain yogurt in the fridge for other recipes.  Plus, commercial fruity yogurts have too much sugar for my taste.  When the last of the 10 lb bag of sugar went into the kitchen canister, I realized how much I had really been canning.

One thing I did pick up was a new apron.  Yes, another one, but I'm putting four in the garage sale pile.  The problem is all my aprons, including the original Yellow Apron, sling around the neck.  I'm prone to terrible neck spasms and lost a day of work recently because the pain was so intense.  I just can't wear a bib apron anymore and bought a pinafore/smock-style.  Since they came in 20 colors, I just had to get the yellow one.  It's more of a mustard, but close enough. It goes on like a sundress over whatever I'm wearing and has pockets so I'm not constantly leaving my glasses somewhere.  They're cheap enough that I might order a less pretty color to wear while doing housework or gardening.

Now, I just need to get motivated for those postponed home improvements!