Greenstorm's Journal

So the trial is mostly done, we had our first frost on the 15th. Things went out mostly June 10th and were planted indoors March 7th. I brought in a ton of green tomatoes. The early indeterminates Cabot, Cole, Minsk Early, Mikado Black and Katja and Taiga made up a huge % of the harvest, especially of the harvest-when-ripe-or-nearly-ripe. Leaving a fruit on the plant when it was transplanted really did slow the plant down until that fruit was ripe.

Tomatoes and notes:

Alexander B: ripened one fruit, brought in a couple more green ones, not productive.

Ambrosia Red: fairly prolific, some splitting, ripened late Aug. Grow again to test against another red cherry.

Big hill (lofthouse): several big beefsteak type tomatoes that didn't fully ripen. Brought them indoors to ripen but probably not worth growing again.

Bloody butcher: big vines, early (one of the earliest) with a gap before ripening a bunch more, medium prolific. Sprawling is annoying. Will grow again in indeterminate patch.

Cabot: one of the mid-august producers, slightly less prolific than Minsk Early but not too bad, fairly uniform fruit, not a bad flavour. Grow again against the early reliables.

Carbon: I wasn't expecting to get anything from this and found one ripe-rotten fruit under the plant in mid-Sept and several other green-ripe fruit. Oh well.

Cole: one of the mid-August producers, pretty prolific, reasonably tasty. Grow again against the early reliables.

Cherokee chocolate: big sprawly vine, nothing ripened before frost, reasonably prolific but really takes over.

Czech bush: had some of the very first fruits but didn't ripen any past that before mid-Sept.

Exserted orange: not a heavy producer but somewhat reliable, tasty fruit, early. Grow again. Also probably has some nice crossed fruits in the saved seed.

Galina: didn't start ripening until late August but very tasty yellow cherry. Reasonably productive, probably the most productive cherry. Grow again.

Glacier: another mid-august/early producer but very erratically sized fruit and not much for production. Try a couple again against the early reliables.

Gobstopper: didn't ripen before frost.

JD's special c-tex: didn't ripen before frost.

Jory: some big tomatoes just starting to whiten/blush before frost, prone to blossom end rot.

Karma miracle: started to ripen early Sept, lots of fruit that should ripen indoors so very late for a normal year but sweet and tasty. Hard to see if fruit was ripe. Grow again.

Katja: didn't do much to start, but pumped out a lot of very large slicers that ripen mid-Sept; prolific and tasty enough to try again, may need to ripen indoors on cold years. Definitely do again. Most fruits ripened indoors by Sept 18th.

Kiss the sky: one ripened and tasted amazing, kind of purple/brown/black? Not prolific. Try again for fun.

Lime green salad: Just starting to ripen in mid-Sept this year, compact dwarf plant, prolific for the space it takes up. Try again.

Longhorn: didn't ripen, made a fair amount of fruit that I brought indoors to ripen here. Not worth trying again just for season length constraints.

Manitoba: didn't ripen but lots of big green fruit that will ripen indoors. Neat looking calyx. Mediumish high productive. Grow again in the early indeterminates just to check.

Martino's roma: just starting to turn red in mid-Sept, haven't tasted it yet, maybe try again but it's probably not a keeper.

Maya and Sion's airdrie special: earliest beefsteaks but kind of shut down after that, I was impressed with this last year but barely got anything this year. Maybe try again? Compact indeterminate.

Mikado black: early (late Aug), beautiful, tasty, plant so many of these next year.

Minsk early: productive, early (early Aug), not the greatest taste but ok. Plant lots of these.

Native sun: started ripening early to mid Sept but has done better in the past, was mild then. A fair quantity of fruit to ripen indoors. Try again.

Northern ruby paste: pretty productive but not ripened by frost, brought indoors to ripen. Try again next year.

Old italian pink: a fair number of green fruit on the patio. I just like this one and want it to work but it didn't ripen anything before frost.

Ron's carbon copy: ripened a handful of cherry tomatoes but they were really good. Probably sad to discard or for breeding work? Looked like it would have been more prolific with just a little more time. I did bring in a bunch to ripen and there were some just turning. Try again next year.

Silvery fir tree: big producer, started ripening early Sept but the bulk is coming in green in mid-Sept. I'll always grow this one. It's just pretty.

Sugary pounder: huge tomatoes, didn't ripen by Sept 15 but may ripen indoors.

Stupice: fairly compact indeterminate plant produced a couple clusters of ripe/blushing/white fruit before frost even when planted late. Grow again with indeterminates.

Taiga: ripened or near-ripened 5 big hearts per plant, grow again, tasty and not super productive but relatively compact and very early for a gorgeous bicolour. Definite grow-again.

Store green cherry: we know I love this tomato. A little sprawly, crunchy, sweet-but-good, ripened a bunch fairly early on (mid-late Aug?). Will continue to grow.

Sweet apertif: it ripened some, it's tasty, but it's not prolific. A little sprawly.

Sweet cheriette: not as early as I thought unless it was in a pot indoors, but prolific and very good for patio growing. Fairly determinate indoors. Will grow to the size of container. Tasty. Very small fruit.

Alpharora: didn't ripen but did blush before frost, was planted late, set a couple fruit. Part of the citizen seed trial project.

Uralskiy ranniy: this one may have got mixed up with some others, I think it ripened some. Grow again.

Van Wert Ohio: super bushy, just very lush indeterminate bush of tons of foliage. Started to ripen by frost, not tasted yet. Grow again. It just has so many more leaves than other tomato plants.

Violet noir: I didn't have a sign for this one, did I even plant it?

Wildling polyamorous needs its own post.

Siberian: This ripened well and set lots of fruit but is a bit sprawly indeterminate. Grow again.

Rozovaya bella: first black to ripen, had a ton of weird crazing/russetting on the surface, not sure what's up with that? Waiting on the second flush for serious tasting. I liked this a lot last year and it ripened so it's in for next year.

Yesterday we pretty much finished rendering the soap lard, and I have a 5 gallon bucket full of it. It's a good thing I love making soap; also what an amazing object to have! Overnight last night/tonight the cooking lard from leaf fat is rendering.

21 500ml and 8 750ml jars of stock are done and in the pantry.

Cheryl has been given her meat for the chicken trade; Ron has not yet.

Tomorrow the coppas actually go into cure and 3 more primals get broken down. The pace is slowing.

The chickens hopped the fence yesterday and were in the grain trial so I chased them out, then we harvested eveything that was ripe. That means amolinka, bishop, Ble de arcour einkorn, blue durum, ceres, marquis (pr seeds planted May 6 but not the cedar isle stuff planted may 11), pelisser, pembina, reward, and white sonora. Pelissier and blue durum are exceptionally beautiful: almost lavender coloured heads with dark awns. The einkorn was green long after the other wheats started to go golden, but it was as ready as the rest of them yesterday.

Still remaining in the grain trial is rivet (which I love and really want to ripen), rouge de bordeaux, braveheart triticale, and khamut from salt spring seeds. Also the two cedar isle patches, AC andrews and marquis, are still unripe.

There were a couple stray bits of ergot in a couple of the wheats, and also in one barley. The triticale has a bunch. It seems to be easy to pick out since it replaces the grain with a huge black fungal body, and I'm further told that it floats where the rest of the grain will sink.

I brought in a bunch of broccoli raab seeds from the sorrento from William Dam seeds. I made no effort to keep it from cross-pollinating with other brassicae but I think only radishes were also blooming at that time, if anything. It'll be interesting to see. The ones I let go to seed in the greenhouse have dropped their seeds and are trying to grow me some of a fall crop already, though it may be too late for that.

The crock got half-filled with cucumber pickles. I'm pretty happy with the way the cucumbers turned out. They're very sweet compared to bought ones, except for a single bitter one (we cut off the very end and tasted them all out of curiosity). I grew boston, national, and morden pickling cukes this year. National produced first, morden and national were similar in production. Boston started later but seems to be ripening more all at once; Aug 23 or so was the first serious pick from it so it might not make it in a cooler summer.

I brought in several lovely ripe mikado black tomatoes the other day from both deck and field. I think it's in the lead as the best black tomato here this year. The tomatoes are fairly sizeable, slicers, and have great form. I will be tasting them soon. Meanwhile cabot, glacier, minsk early (the most productive) and moravsky div have set and will ripen large quantities of fruit each. Matt's wild cherry is finally hitting its stride. Katja probably will, as likely will silvery fir tree and a couple others. I think the trial can be considered a success: I learned a lot a lot a lot. The chickens have discovered the garden and are helping me eat tomatoes. Boo.

I harvested several unripe North Georgia Candy roaster squash from the vines and ate them like zucchini in a pasta sauce the other day. That was really good. I also tucked some into the pickling crock and am curious how that goes down. A lot of the squash look pretty immature, we'll see how much more heat we get this year to ripen. In future I might try to grow them up a trellis on the inside of the greenhouse/woodshed. Of the squash trials, burgess buttercup started putting out female fruit and squash earliest. Several of the kuris and the lofthouse squash are catching up, and gete oksomin and north georgia candy roaster seem to be doing ok. Fingers crossed I get some seed from something to plant next year. Again no attempt to keep things from pollinating each other; it was a hard pollinator year I think too. Likely that's because it was so warm then so cold then so warm over and over.

Though maybe bees should be in my three year plan. I'm getting some honey from a friend who has bees in town. I bet she could teach me.

I need to remember to call the bird butcher in Smithers to set a time for ducks and geese.

So I had a goal of eating 75% of my calories from my own property in the next year. It's shifted a bit to "from my own pantry" but still. I started writing this post about what I plan to make in the next few weeks, then decided to include what I have made. Honestly, it's pretty impressive. The way to do it is always to pick away a couple batches of something per week.

Avi is coming up this weekend and bringing some stuff from Desert Hills in Ashcroft, far and away the best cheapest produce one can get anywhere around. I've asked him to bring:

Poblano - 1 box like tomatoes and eggplants come in ($40)
Green jalapeno - 1 box like tomatoes and eggplants come in ($20)
Roma tomato - 3 cases ($16 ea = $50)
Eggplant - 1 case ($10)
Pickling cucumbers - 1 case ($40)
Carrots - 20lb bag ($10)
Red onions - 20lb bag ($10)
Cantaloupe melons 3 large or 4 small ($4)
Garlic 2lbs ($4)

=$190

If it won't fit in the car, remove:
1 case tomatoes
Pickling cucumbers

The goal is to make a bunch of things that can:
1) go on no-cook charcuterie plates with prosciutto (marinaded eggplant, peppers, mixed jalapeno-carrot pickles, sauerkraut, cucumber pickles)
2) pretty close to open-and-serve or open-put-on-pasta-serve (ranchero sauce, pasta sauce, eggplant puttanesca)
3) Hot peppers to go with every meal (pickled jalapenos)
4) Assuage my curiosity (cantaloupe jam, apple ketchup)
5) Tomatoes as a staple
5) Jars of something I can throw in the instant pot with a chunk of meat and put on rice or serve with bread

Planning to make:
Canned:
Marinated peppers (nchfp site) from a mix of anchos and jalapenos
Pickled eggplant (healthy canning site, recorded here)
Pickled mixed jalapenos and carrots (zesty pickle brine)
Eggplant puttanesca (healthy canning site, recorded here)
Ranchero salsa (healthy canning site)
Pasta sauce (Homemade Italian sausage, tomatoes, pressure canned)
Tomato sauce (tomatoes, acidified and cooked down)
Cantaloupe jam
Zesty pickles (my old recipe recorded here)
Chicken wing sauce
Cajun sauce?

Fermented:
Jalapenos and carrots
Jalapenos
Cucumber pickles

Plus, from home stuff later in the month:
Apple ketchup
Apple rhubarb sauce
Fermented sauerkraut with jalapenos
Canned potatoes (maybe lemon-oregano or with jalapenos)

Already made this year
Pizza sauce
Veggie pasta sauce
Tons of apple sauce (I can dehydrate it and make fruit leather! It's free from my tree) including flavoured apple sauce
Candied jalapenos (delicious but a little too hot for everyday hot peppering, great for making pork jerky or in instant potted meats)
Chicken stock
Pork stock
Canned chicken
Grape jam
Spruce rhubarb orange marmalade
Rose rhubarb orange marmalade
Lemon curd
Asian plum sauce
Tomato jam (replaces ketchup, I don't like homemade ketchup normally)
Turnip pickles
Peach BBQ sauce
Rhubarb caramel sauce
Candied rhubarb (canned)
Sweet ciciley syrup and candied seeds
Pickled spruce tips

Plus meat stuff: Italian, Russian, Polish, hunter, andouille, Spanish chorizo, and Mexican chorizo sausage. Lots of bacon (spruce, whiskey). Spruce coppa and prosciutto.

In my freezer I have a bunch of fresh egg pasta, eggs, and greens. There's also some fish I traded pork with Josh to get. Oh, and completely random pieces of pig and some Muscovy breasts.