Lady Henevere: Year in review

[Lady Henevere]

Yay! Thanks, free.

I was sorely disappointed this morning when I lifted the cloth covering the jar and saw spots of gray mold on the top of the tea. But when I looked more closely, I saw that there are little clusters of bubbles forming, not mold. And it smells like kombucha, so something must be going right.



There's something so fun about harnessing the invisible world of bacteria and coaxing it into playing along.

P.S. I wait until the scoby is big before disturbing the kombucha, right? How do I know when it's ready?

 

[Lady Henevere]

The kombucha had to go in the cupboard so I would stop looking at it and wanting to poke at it. But I did take a peek today and saw that the bubbles are turning into what might become that all important "pancake." It sure smells like it's on the right track.

I made my first ever batch of soap today. Technically it's a shampoo bar recipe from a new book I got recently, "Making It: Radical Home Ec for a Post-Consumer World." (I also follow the authors' blog here.) I wanted to try my first batch of soap as a pure, unscented type and go from there. (Okay fine -- I also balked at the price of essential oils at Whole Foods. I gotta find another source.) I wish I had added a scent; the soap smells a little weird. Perhaps that will ease up as it cures.

I was surprised at how easy it was to make soap -- put the oils together, mix lye in water, blend the oil and lye-water in the blender, pour into a mold (a quart milk carton, in my case). Easy peasy. Now I want to make more!

Today I also cleared a garden bed of a cover crop, added straw on the potatoes, and planted some beans. I meant to plant the beans last weekend and had soaked them in water to prepare them. But I forgot to plant them Sunday, so for the rest of the week I kept them in a moist paper towel in a bowl and they sprouted. Now they are in pots and I hope they will continue to grow. I forget what kinds of beans they are -- I saved them from last year's pathetic little bean crop. I suppose that's the downside of trying to save seed but being a terrible record-keeper.

Happy Mothers' Day, everyone!

 

[framing fowl]

Who cares if you didn't keep records on the bean seed... They sprouted! Now you add successful seed saver to your list of accomplishments!

 

[~gd]

It's probably too late to shape it now. They should be shaped when you first get them. (I used to work on a fruit farm [peaches and apples], and did a ton w/young peach trees.)

But for those that want to know how to correctly prune young peach trees, I'll post the info. I think, but I'm not sure that it's the same for apricots, nectarines and cherries. Look at your young tree at about knee height. You're looking for 3 or at the most 4 small branches, or if it hasn't put out branches, leaf buds. Chop off the rest of the tree. If you look at peach orchards, you'll see this is how they're shaped. As the tree gets older, you want to keep the inside clear. Do not cut off all the new growth, that's where you get your fruit. If you have a peach orchard near you, go and look at the trees after they've been pruned. You might be amazed at how few branches are left. Apple trees are done differently, and to a point, it depends on the variety of apple as to how it's pruned. I don't recall now all the different ways. We didn't grow as many apples. They had a saying around here, apples for health, peaches for wealth. They got more for the peaches than the apples.

Deb there have been a lot of changes in Fruit Farming so let me try to bring you up to date. Mostly the new trees are on root stock that limits growth. and the central leader (what you call the center) is not removed until it has reached the max desired heigth (usually 3-4 years) even then it is not removed but topped off so it remains the major support of the tree. The trees are no longer pruned to be round,but flat in the same diredtion as the rows run. limbs are removed or forced to grow in that plane. This allows much better air circulation and sunshine to reach the producing limbs this also cuts bacterial and fungal diseases and the need to spray for them (the most expensive spray materials) Insects remain a prblem but natural controls are more effective in this format. The fruit ripens faster and more uniformly and is very easy to pick.No more picking a peach tree 3 or 4 times to remove the ripe fruit while leaving the others to ripen, usually 2 passes gets all the fruit. Remember all the verticle Shoots that were removed each fall? they produce great peaches the next year so they get cut back after they produce and pruning becomes a once every 2 year event rather than every year. True these shaped trees only produce about 3/4 of the fruit per tree of the old round ones but you can plant twice as many trees per acre so you get much higher production from a given orchard and save a ton in production costs. for fruit that is going for processing rather than the fresh fruit market mechanical picking is easy compared to round tree. As the old trees pass their peak they are being replaced with the new desigh orchards.

 

[Denim Deb]

Funny, around here, all the trees are still pruned in the way I described. I'm surrounded by peach orchards.

ETA: Maybe it depends on the nursery, size of the orchard, etc. Around here, it's still all picked by hand. Though that is the way apple trees have been done around here for years.

 

[Lady Henevere]

So busy I hardly have time to sit down at the computer. But I did get to go on a trip to see my sister in a city erupting in tulips:

My sister's life is the sleek, stylish life of urban living; a high-rise apartment in a city filled with fashion and art and fabulous food. It was nice to visit (and wonderful to spend time with her!), but there's no place like home. I love my little plot of growing things, close enough to the city that I can go the a museum or a fabulous restaurant on a whim, but far enough out that I can get lost in nature when I want to. I don't think I could live a live so detached from the earth as the life she leads; I would feel like a part of my soul were missing. (It doesn't bother her one bit -- she's never been the nature type. Though she is thoroughly entertained by chickens running after grapes, but who isn't? )

 

[Wifezilla]

Great pics!

The "big city" is a nice place to visit, but I couldn't live there. My sister is perfectly happy in the city, but she has a black thumb and relies on take out for sustenance

 

[Denim Deb]

Something would shrivel up and die in me if I had to live in an apartment, let alone a city.

Nice pics, BTW.

 

[framing fowl]

Beautiful! I do wish I lived further out from the city but not sure I could survive being so far out that I couldn't get there and back in an easy day's drive. I love museums and art and fashion and being able to dress up too much to not be there sometimes.

 

[Dooley]

So busy I hardly have time to sit down at the computer. But I did get to go on a trip to see my sister in a city erupting in tulips:

http://sufficientself.com/forum/uploads/1119_tulips_001.jpg http://sufficientself.com/forum/uploads/1119_tulips_002a.jpg http://sufficientself.com/forum/uploads/1119_tulips_003.jpg

My sister's life is the sleek, stylish life of urban living; a high-rise apartment in a city filled with fashion and art and fabulous food. It was nice to visit (and wonderful to spend time with her!), but there's no place like home. I love my little plot of growing things, close enough to the city that I can go the a museum or a fabulous restaurant on a whim, but far enough out that I can get lost in nature when I want to. I don't think I could live a live so detached from the earth as the life she leads; I would feel like a part of my soul were missing. (It doesn't bother her one bit -- she's never been the nature type. Though she is thoroughly entertained by chickens running after grapes, but who isn't? )

Good Lord, those tulips are stunning!