Greenstorm's Journal

Potatoes, beets, turnips need to come in

Dry peas that are left come in

Frosted beans examined for any that ripened and need to come in

5 rose bushes planted

3 oak trees planted

asparagus planted

garlic planted

Then:

raspberries pruned back

anything ploughed that can be

valerian and sweet ciciley seeds moved around


Still no rain. Clear warm days, clear cold nights. Soil like dust.

I do not understand how I can have so much trouble with most transitions, but also do so well with seasons. Still, I do well with seasons. I love the seasonality of this place. I'm fully ready for each season in turn to shift my focus and my activities. Maybe it's the predictability, the feeling of processing through familiar sets of activities and so I can improve or alter what I did previously but don't need to start again from nothing. Maybe it's the feeling of building on last season's work so I never feel disconnected from the past, and knowing next season will build on this season's work so I don't feel that abrupt slicing loss of transition.

Either way, gardening is pretty much over and I'm ok with that (!?!!!???? !! ? !). I have turnips, the last of the soup peas, and some beets to bring in. I have the favas to look over, and the beans to see if any pods ripened. It's been too dry for me to plant winter grains, I daren't run the tiller or I'll turn my soil into dust, so I'll till once the rains start and wait to plant grains till spring. Maybe I'll do a test patch of barley. I've dug one hole for next year's as-yet-unordered apple trees, and I'll try and at least half-dig the holes for all of them, so when they arrive in the thick of spring planting I can just bang them in the holes and be done. The freeze/thaw will loosen the soil at the edge of the holes and help prevent circling roots in my clay, too, and I won't have to remeasure my circles of protection.

I do still have a couple roses to put in the ground, and the garlic that isn't yet arrived, too. But still, hoses and nurturing and watching and trying to guess what'll happen-- that's over. I have a half-dozen dairy crates of corn drying in the woodstove room. There is another dairy crate of corn (saskatoon white) waiting to be shucked, and a crate of melons (none ripened on the vine, but I'm going to let them ripen as far as they can and take seeds from those that have fully formed seeds), and maybe 4 flats of green tomatoes (many of which ripened in the last couple days, gotta get on that). I have two shelves of squash, and outside there is half a bucket of beans and a bucket of cucumbers that need to be pickled.

The barley crop is in, a fact that needs its own post to describe how much of a joy and a relief it is. I don't grow barley but the farmers one town over do; that's why I mostly fed my pigs until this year's shortage. Straw is available, $55 per large bale (that's the 3 x 3 x 8' bales) and I'll be getting some the week Josh comes up and we'll figure out how to unload (normally it's tying the bale to a tree and driving the pickup away from the tree, but I'd like to stack them two deep).

With straw comes the ability to lay in my king stropheria mushroom bed for next spring. I need to put it in the shade, somewhere that doesn't flood. Problem is, the shade is what stays frozen till late in the year, I might split the block and try two places.

With the barley harvest comes barley. Rolled barley, or barley and oat chop, is $450/ton this year. The bagged feed I've been using is $1100/ton, and in the last month I went through a ton and a half of feed. So, just financially, this is a relief. I've been running a negative balance on my credit card the last couple months, just absorbing the higher feed costs, because I can't not feed the animals and I couldn't butcher while it was hot.

It's also a relief to have the barley, and soon the barley and oats, because feed makes a big difference to the texture of the animals' fat. Barley and oats make a firmer fat, while the bagged feed make a softer fat. I prefer the firmer fat. I've read a bunch on this, I guess feeding on acorns makes a softer fat which folks like more in prosciutto but which is not so great in bacon, for instance. Acorns also supply tannins, which keep the fat from going rancid as quickly (smoke does the same thing, which is why so much rustically-preserved pork is smoked). Soft fat is hard to manage for slicing thinly, it's hard to butcher with, and I'm not as fond of the texture for eating. I'm of half a mind to give the pigs a full month on barley before I butcher so the fat can convert a little, rather than get the butcher in as soon as possible. Honestly I may not be able to get the butcher up sooner anyhow, it's a busy season. And my mind may change once it starts freezing enough to put the hoses away and I need to carry water by hand for over a dozen pigs.

I also have four little uncastratated suckling pigs I need to slaughter as suckling pigs shortly. Three of the four are living in the lean-to greenhouse and associated enclosure in a life of luxury as of yesterday; I need to catch the last one and put him in there. I do hate catching piglets, they scream at just the wrong frequency for my nervous system and then the whole herd of pigs starts barking and grunting menacingly and following me around trying to rescue the babies. I understand why the bears stay away. I wouldif I could, my heart is always pounding by the end of it and it takes awhile for the adrenaline to dissipate.

I always tell myself I'll set up a big carrier with feed in it just outside the main pigpen so the escapee piglets get used to it, and then I can just close them in and carry them away. Maybe I'll actually do that this time? There is a new set of piglets this week, and one mama sow I'm very impressed with, she'll be a keeper.

So I suppose this is the season where my attention is turning from garden to animals, from harvest to slaughter, and then from there to seed sorting once the seeds are dried.

I'm also feeling the pull towards sewing, towards warm snuggly clothing. It's still a fairly recent revelation that clothing doesn't have to hurt my body as long as it's made of the right materials and tailored right, and I'm looking forward to playing around with that this winter. The gears are in motion for me to approach that activity in a seamless transition, nosing around at patterns, clearing a table for a sewing table, cutting out patterns, making a mock-up for loose leggings and one for a short sweater or wrap dress to wear over leggings, just a little bit of something every week as the snow comes and everything else subsides.

Meanwhile Tucker is here. I had wanted to do a bonfire with him, as I've intended to do every year for the last five or so, but the burning ban is still on despite the frost -- did I mention it's dry out? -- so maybe we'll try to just arrange the pile for his next visit. In the meantime I get snuggles and doubtless a shared brunch of two, which are much-needed.

Usually when I'm working (except sometimes when I'm in the bush) I'm super unaware of my self and my body, maybe some level of dissociated.

Today I'm working from home after staying up until midnight last night bringing in a ton of garden stuff and then finishing some apple canning (all 4 vanilla applesauce batches done, 2 different caramel applesauce batches done, lime apple jam and saskatoon apple jam done, slow cookers on pause a couple days for apples since I'll be canning dilly beans, cucumber pickles, and maybe maybe jumble relish of some kind tonight). I had a listen-only meeting and had skipped breakfast to finish a little more canning, so I fried up some fatty coppa pork chops, then sliced a couple corn muffins and fried them in the pork grease, then made a cup of dark coffee-substitute (I can't do the caffeine but love bitter and roasty flavours).

I had lunch on the couch in a slightly chilly room, clothed head to toe in good smooth wool with the cool of the room just outside it. The sky is dark and threatening and wind is tossing the silver undersides of the aspens around and making them sing a silvery static song that turns the shifts in movement of air into sound. The pork was crispy, juicy-fatty, and salty. The cornbread was crunchy, moderately sweet, and warm with that particular taste of grain corn. Cutting through both sweet and fatty was the dark hot roasted bitter flavour: everything warm against the room's coolness, the whole a moment of indoor stillness as the perfect counterpoint to outside's constant windy motion.

What a lovely moment.

Done: caramel applesauce, ugandan vanilla appplesauce, tahitensis vanilla applesauce, saskatoon apple jam
In process: lime apple marmalade, mexican cure vanilla applesauce
To do: bourbon cure madagascar vanilla applesauce, spruce tip apple jam or marmalade, apple BBQ sauce

This morning I woke up from a dream about the end of all things and cleaned out the quail house. This meant moving all the cardboard from the front yard to the side yard, where I broke down the boxes and lay it down between berry bushes in the haskap and sour cherry patch) the next strip up the hill is planted this year with apples, roses, and ribes).

To do that I had to cut down a bunch of aspen suckers.

Then I shovelled the bedding out of the quail house on top of the cardboard, a nice light dusting of duck-poop-soaked straw and woodchips that hopefully aren't too much nitrogen and can age into the cardboard's carbon over the fall.

Cut aspen stems went on top of that, to keep the rain from washing the bedding downslope atop the slippery cardboard.

Then I hauled fresh woodchips into the quail house, just in time for it to recieve 9 extra roosters from a friend of mine, they'll get butchered and canned over the next month or so.

I went back around to the front and broke down some more cardboard boxes, clearing out my A-frame that had been holding them; I'll use it for my tillers and the snowblower this winter. I need to do more lasagna bedding in the front, around the burr oak, apple, and couple berries in the lawn. Bedding from the goose shed can go there.

But really all this is prep for wanting to build another shed, a feed shed, either down in the thistle patch between the muscovy shed and the chicken slaughter station or in the angle of the unsafe cabin with the wood foundation.

Instead, since my neighbour spotted a sow (bear) with two cubs in her yard, I'll probably work on apples.

I wrote this up for the short-season corn group, posting it for reference:

The crows left me some plants this spring, though not nearly as many as I planned to trial. It's been a late year, a cold spring, and I got everything planted very late in roughly mid-June, though the end of August has been warmer than is typical. Here are my thoughts so far, I haven't harvested anything yet:

Gaspe has been more-or-less reliable for me for three years now. This year the plants ended up relatively large, in the past transplanting them has stunted them, and some had as many as 4 ears that look well-shaped. It's more prone to weird hormonal things, like an ear that sticks out the top where the tassel goes, but even those were well-shaped. Planted June 10th, tassels showed up roughly July 18. I'm anticipating maturity shortly. My seed is from Great Lakes Staple Seeds, John Sherck, and Heritage Harvest Seed.

Saskatchewan rainbow is a hair taller than gaspe, and it is less than a week behind it. It also has the multi-ear form and looks happy and healthy. I'm anticipating a harvest before frost from this one. Seed from Heritage Harvest Seeds, does anyone have more information on this one?

Atomic orange & Saskatoon White are in the mid-range, maybe 5' tall. 1-2 ears per plant. Both tasseled in early August. My Saskatoon White is the only one the crows left alone; it ended up being quite densely spaced, comparatively, while the Atomic Orange was hit hard and thus very widely spaced but it did fill in some. These might squeak in to seed viability for next year but it'll be touch and go. My atomic orange was from two sources, Baker Creek and a friend in California; Saskatoon White is from Adaptive Seeds.

Painted mountain and what I understand to be selections from it, Montana Morado and Magic Manna/Starburst Manna, will squeak in under the line in most cases or at least some ears from each planting will. Starburst Manna is the earliest of the bunch, Painted Mountain is uneven as expected in such a diverse mix, Montana Morado is last and may not quite make it. My Painted Mountain was sourced from 4 locations and there was a significant difference in germination and emergence speed between all 4, then the crows ate all but two types. The Glorious Organics source came in earlier than the Sweet Rock did. Magic Manna is from Adaptive and self-saved, Starburst Manna is from Snake River seeds and self-saved, Montana Morado is from Siskiyou Seeds and I expect would have done well if planted early into cool ground.

Cascade Ruby Gold Flint (Adaptive?) is going to be just too late for me, and Open Oak Party (Adaptive) will be a hair after that.

Early Riser (Yonder Hill), New York Red and Homestead Yellow (Great Lakes Staple Seeds) are only now starting to tassel. They have maybe three weeks till frost. So, the trial weeds them out for future plantings.

Inaugural run of the smoker yesterday and I've pumped a couple things through it today, and that led to some rearranging of the charcuterie fridge. So:

Two 1.6% salt bacons were smoked and are equalizing

A berbere and a spruce bacon are on the smoker right now (cool smoke) and will go into equalization

A guanciale with 2% salt and 1% sugar and some black pepper was cool-smoked and is in umai

A pork shoulder with cure #1, 1.6% salt was smoked and is in umai (but because it has cure #1 it could be fried like shoulder bacon)

A prosciuttini with seville orange, whiskey, and spruce was smoked and put into umai

A prosciuttini with sichuan peppercorn was smoked and put into umai

A lonzino that had previously been smoked and dried down pretty dry got vacuum sealed with some seville orange liqueur to equalize

A coppa seasoned with juniper and sichuan peppercorn that had dried down too far was vacuum sealed with my a nice sake to equalize

I notice I'm building up a bunch of smoked cured meats, when they're ready I hope I like the smoke. That's the challenge with this hobby; if something is neat it takes a couple years to finish so I need to be careful not to let my enthusiasm run away with me and have *everything* smoked when maybe I won't want smoked meat on some of those days.

On the other hand, smoke reduces rancidity so they'll keep longer and I won't have to pare as much/be as careful with light.

Saskatchewan rainbow corn in full pollination mode yesterday. 

Second gaspe is developing some nice tassels and dropping pollen

First gaspe was doing a ton of pollen and silks were starting to brown

A couple morden had silks but not much pollen yet

The first saskatoon white tassel was looking like it might drop pollen by tomorrow

Cascade ruby gold was showing the first hint of tassels deep inside their crowns. 

Magic manna tassels emerging, is definitely faster than cascade ruby gold

Painted mountain had some tassels starting to emerge. 

Last night I took most of the floating row cover off the garden. I left it on the new gaspe, on the montana morado/gaspe, on one patch of early riser/gaspe, and on the oaxacan green/gaspe beds: they still had young gaspe in them and I wanted them to be safe.

On the other hand, I took it off of my bouchard peas (interplanted with a brassica I'd forgotten about... maybe turnip? I don't think radish?) and they're looking nice in there, short (my other soup peas are a couple feet tall, these are a couple inches, but they're a dwarf variety so they never get that tall in the end). The turnips or whatever they are have some pest damage but the peas themselves are pristine.

I uncovered the painted mountain and it is gorgeous. There are two beds (actually three, but I didn't give my deep attention to the third) and they were both crow-picked and interplanted. They're on a south slope but they get some midafternoon shade for a bit and they are big and fast and robust. The seeds I added have grown in quickly. The surviving original plants are beautiful, and especially the seed from glorious organics produced very robust stalks.

Magic manna had poor germination, perhaps as expected, but some of the plants are tillering nicely.

I also planted a bunch of seed last night. I tossed some mixed brassica seed in with open oak party corn. I put in rows of a lettuce mix: lettuce, some mixed chicories, a little arugula, and a couple diakon seeds. I put in amarant cabbage seed which will hopefully head up over frost, it's supposed to be aphid resistant. I put in napa king F1 seed, just a few, for kimchi. I also should put in some more beets and turnips, another cabbage, some more napa cabbage, the orach I was given, and maybe some fall peas?

Up on the horizon I should figure out when to plant my barley, oats, and favas. I'd also like to fall seed tomatoes, brassicas, parsley, and just see how they'll do.

The benefit of growing my own seed is that seed is no longer a scarcity. I can put a couple thousand tomato seeds in the ground in fall and still have plenty left for spring sowing indoors in the traditional way. I can plant some favas to overwinter and if the plants don't make it, well, I can replant in spring without it costing a million dollars in wasted seed. It's a relief; money is tight right now and will be in the forseeable future.

The acorns I planted are not yet up, a couple may be peeking through the soil a little. I planted them a little deeper than acorns naturally grow, normally they fall on the ground, get covered by a couple leaves, and send their roots down from there. These I actually put in the soil to keep them a little away from squirrels, so it may be a bit before they come up.

There are zestar apple trees in town - a kind I've wanted for awhile - but I'm out of money. I've been hoping they'll be marked down but I suspect they'll instead go into the garbage. That makes me sad.

Still not within my budget but a little less time-sensitive, I've been looking at fruit seeds: sea buckthorn, buffalo berry, crossed sour cherries, mongolian cherry, maybe some interestingly-bred saskatoon, linden, and ash (I know, not fruit, but useful). Those can be fall planted with my apple seeds and they should pop up in spring.

Put some potatoes up in the far field under straw, in some cases in the empty corn beds. Put in the last row of tomatoes, mostly green-when-ripe ones (I think) that the labels had rubbed off -- seems like I had one marker that wasn't colourfast for the labels.

I have no idea whether they'll produce much, maybe I'll just get baby potatoes, but I had the space and the extra straw and the potatoes sitting around. If I turn up a little more straw I'll put in some russets. I know some potatoes had some level of daylength sensitivity that's been mostly bred out of them, but I'm hoping that in addition to food I get some nice small ones I can bright-store over winter to grow next year. Granted, I still need to order for next year because I have no Amarosa.

The corn issue really threw me off this spring, the rototiller coming late put me behind, busy at work put me more behind, and then I spent much more time trying to sort out corn stuff than getting tomatoes and potatoes into the ground.

Potatoes that went in:
Bellanita (early)
Alta Blush (early)
Arizona (mid)
Irish Cobbler (late)
All Blue (late)
French Fingerling (late)
German butterball (late)
Pink fir apple (late)