NASA
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Monterey Bay Aquarium
if i look back, i am lost
Mike Driver
@theartofmadeline
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almost home
I'd rather be in outer space 🛸
trying on a metaphor
pixel skylines
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🩵 avery cochrane 🩵
cherry valley forever
Kiana Khansmith
let's talk about Bridgerton tea, my ask is open
"I'm Dorothy Gale from Kansas"
Andulka
art blog(derogatory)
wallacepolsom
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@losech
The smoke left for a few hours but it got significantly hotter than the already hot forecast. I tried to wait until it got a lot cooler but the smoke started rolling back in pretty fast, so I took the dogs for a quick woods walk. Granite can't do long hikes in the heat and shouldn't be out in bad smoke since his damaged lungs put him in the "sensitive" category. The dogs were happy to finally get to do something though.
Puppies that want to Do Something but can't because the smoke is so thick it's legitimately dangerous. Finally cooling down and we're still stuck inside.
First maters! I picked them a tad early so they don't split or get poached by a critter. Won't affect the taste once fully ripe.
Black cherry, koralik cherry, and golden gates.
Cinder had been buh buh buh for a couple minutes before I went to see what the problem was. Something was different and she needed to tell me about it.
She's much less spooky than she used to be, but she's still suspicious of new/changed things. She acts the same whenever a neighbor puts up a new decoration or sign and we come across it on a walk.
Halloween is a Big Deal for Cinder, lots of opinions about that.
Squash and melons!
The squash continue to grow what seems like feet per day and are putting on fruit. Since I'm growing landraces I am not sure what they'll look like until they're mature.
The melons are taking a bit longer to get going, but they're going now. One cantelope (or honewdew, I forgot what went where) is attempting to grow straight up in the lilac bush.
Hey sorry I just happened on your post but be careful with minced garlic in oil - I was looking into that last year and most resources I found said it's a good way to give yourself botulism! Hopefully you know exactly what you're doing but I wanted to give a warning just on the off chance. (I ended up fermenting mine and it came out great!)
Oh I'm going to freeze it into cubes, so that won't be an issue. Botulism is something I don't plan on experiencing.
First summer squash! Accidentally let them get a bit big, they're supposed to be round. Still delicious. Variety is Maxidiwac landrace.
Garlic out and determinate fall tomatoes in!
I grew four varieties, music did the best so that's what I'll grow next year. Most of the garlic is pretty small, a lot will get minced in oil and some will be pickled. I don't think I fertilized it right so I will change that up next year. The garlic will dry on an old screen door in the garage for a few days then I'll bundle and hang it in the basement.
I put in 16 determinate tomatoes in three rows. Yes that's a lot and I will probably regret doing three rows but more survived than I anticipated and I like to plant thick so this will be an experiment with just how thick I can get away with. Some varieties have two plants others just one. Four of them have large counterparts on the deck.
I added four pickling cucumbers to the arch as well.
Do you mind if I ask how you make/organize your time for all your gardening, food prepping, and dog activities (assuming step 1 is get off the damn screens)? You always seem to have a project going, and I really admire your follow-through.
Having a higher paying part time job helps with that, since I work very early mornings, I have most of the day to do other things. I do need to go to bed earlier than most people, and during peak (the shipping industry gets insane in December) I am working full time. The majority of my hobbies are seasonal. Hunting, gardening, foraging, canning. I'm not always doing all of them at once, but the things that can be combined, I do. Hunting, foraging, and hiking are dog activities, I very rarely do any of those without a dog or two. I have so many projects I want to do that I might not ever get around to. Maple syrup for example, that took me five years? And when I do finally get into something, I tend to go in pretty hard (insert my brand of 'tism here). And most of my garden stuff is fairly hands off, I do check the plants every morning after work and water/prune/harvest if I need to, but the fruit I put in doesn't need much attention. Starting plants from seed can be a little time consuming but I start the majority of that when I am tapering off hunting so they don't conflict much. I can usually do a couple things in one day, go hiking/foraging, then come home and make something out of the berries I collected. But if I won't be able to get around to something right away, I throw it in the freezer (I have four) and do it later. If I don't have enough berries for a batch of jam for example, I freeze them until I do. And if I don't have time for driving to hike somewhere, there's a little trail system in my neighborhood I can walk to. I do a lot of stuff with the dogs out there. While they are high drive dogs, they are not high energy, they are pretty chill most of the time and don't want to do much when it gets hot. As for food prep, I am a big fan of the crock pot, or things that can be done in one pan, or made in big batches so I have food for the whole week. When I make up raw stuff for the dogs I do several weeks to months at a time and store it in the freezers. Anyways, there isn't any real organization to it, I just do what I feel like that day, or what the seasons dictate. Black raspberries are only ripe for a week or two here, so if I don't harvest them then, I miss out.
I didn't get enough currants to make jam this year due to several reasons, so I tried canning whole fruits instead. I did two half pint jars of each color plus one of mixed raspberries. I knew the fruit would shrink a bit during canning but didn't expect this much! I used heavy hickory syrup since I love using that as a sweetener with these fruits and the fruit appears to be infusing the syrup.
Very few berries on this hike. An overabundance of humidity though, and I didn't time the break in the rain right so we got soaked.
Bean Forage
The raspberries are ripe so we hit the woods to collect. I wanted to get out a couple days sooner but since I prefer to take a dog with me anytime I'm out in the woods I put it off until it cooled down a bit.
Six quarts ready for the freezer.
Storm watching
First tomato casualties of the season go to Inciardi and blossom end rot. Despite daily watering during this heat spell some of the fruits on this plant developed BER. There is no reversing it so I removed the affected fruit. It's not completely unexpected, it happened last year too, but it is dissapointing. This plant still has plenty of developing fruit and so far is the only one having trouble with BER.
Roast
The (4 year old) pups got rabies stabbings today which was very offensive.
A walk with Ember before the heat settled in.