California - What are you doing this month?

The cheaper rain gauge we have been using had a design flaw where the measure markings were scraped off over time. This one has the measure inside, plus a bug and leaf screen, and water acts as a magnifying glass for reading!! It's 2" x 23" and should last our gardening life.

That picture reminds me; I've got a rain gauge stashed away somewhere in my shop- been so long since I needed it, I can's recall where I put it! With the promise of more rain in the future, I'd better go find it.

audrey.jeanne.roberts wrote:

countrynaturals wrote:I found my first patty pan squash. YEE-HAH! I hope the little guy makes it okay in the greenhouse.

I hope you are successful, my attempts at growing tender plants like squash in the greenhouse have been failures.  Are you heating your greenhouse?

Heat and lights, but not much of either. It stays between 50 &60 unless it's warm and sunny out.

Suz, I assume there are no  in your greenhouse -- don't forget that you'll need to pollinate your pattypans in their stead.

BeetlesPerSqFt wrote:Suz, I assume there are no  in your greenhouse -- don't forget that you'll need to pollinate your pattypans in their stead.

YIKES! I didn't know that. I'd better look that up.

Thanks, Beetles. I looked up how to do it and also checked for new blossoms on the plant. Looks like I'll be trying it out in a few days.

EVERYTHING LIVES! I can't believe it! We haven't seen the sun in 3 days. It's been dark, cold, and wet. I went outside for the first time this morning and even my peppers and zucchini are okay. Greenhouse plants and caterpillars are okay, too. YEE-HAH! 

Received close to 0.8" of rain yesterday.    I managed to add horse manure under the wood chips in the rest of the little dirt strip, just as it started to sprinkle.  Rushed a bag of kitchen trimmings to the junk compost pile, and grab 2 drying area rugs off the clothes line before the serious rain started.  Oh, and did a second major harvest of kale and Swiss chard, cilantro, basil and parsley.

I've been in the kitchen for 2 days. and today will make 3, what with removing the meat from the turkey I cooked yesterday and blanching the kale, etc.

Friday I started the beef bone broth from some grass-feed beef soup and marrow bones, and thawed out some frozen tomatoes.  I roasted and froze the left over "yams."  Saturday I roasted an organic free-range turkey for dinner and started freezing the beef broth.  The first taste of the turkey was a surprise as they don't have the saline and butter injected under the skin!  The taste grew on me.  The company is Mary's, a California grower who changed from housed turkeys in long row houses to removing the walls and letting them roam free. http://marysturkeys.com/  I used to inspect row houses of turkeys and chickens and I can tell the difference in the appearance and health of the birds.  They also have pastured chicken.

Today will be cleaning the turkey bones, freezing the meat and making turkey bone broth. And maybe making some tomato sauce for freezing. Oh, and cleaning up the whole kitchen!

sanderson wrote:Received close to 0.8" of rain yesterday.    I managed to add horse manure under the wood chips in the rest of the little dirt strip, just as it started to sprinkle.  Rushed a bag of kitchen trimmings to the junk compost pile, and grab 2 drying area rugs off the clothes line before the serious rain started.  Oh, and did a second major harvest of kale and Swiss chard, cilantro, basil and parsley.

I've been in the kitchen for 2 days. and today will make 3, what with removing the meat from the turkey I cooked yesterday and blanching the kale, etc.

Friday I started the beef bone broth from some grass-feed beef soup and marrow bones, and thawed out some frozen tomatoes.  I roasted and froze the left over "yams."  Saturday I roasted an organic free-range turkey for dinner and started freezing the beef broth.  The first taste of the turkey was a surprise as they don't have the saline and butter injected under the skin!  The taste grew on me.  The company is Mary's, a California grower who changed from housed turkeys in long row houses to removing the walls and letting them roam free. http://marysturkeys.com/  I used to inspect row houses of turkeys and chickens and I can tell the difference in the appearance and health of the birds.  They also have pastured chicken.  

Today will be cleaning the turkey bones, freezing the meat and making turkey bone broth.  And maybe making some tomato sauce for freezing.  Oh, and cleaning up the whole kitchen!

Sanderson, you make me tired.

I make me tired! Off to see if I can make some tomato sauce for freezing out of the now soggy tomatoes.

sanderson wrote:I make me tired!  Off to see if I can make some tomato sauce for freezing out of the now soggy tomatoes.

That was a lot of things that you did.

Well, still need another day in the kitchen. Still have to freeze turkey Seal-a-Meal packets, make turkey broth (cool and Seal-A-Meal), sort, wash, blanch and SAM all the greens, dehydrate the herbs, and clean up the kitchen again. My back is screaming from standing up (Ibu) and it seems the dishwasher heating element may be on the fritz! Husband will pull it out and try to diagnose tomorrow. With my luck, he will have to order a part!

So far I have prepared and/or put up the follow:
Cooked and boned a turkey
6 cups of tomato/pasta sauce
4 cups of beef broth with more remaining
6 servings of yams
9 oz. of grass feed cooked beef

I made some mashed potato latkes with the Walking onions from the garden. yum I will make another batch tomorrow for freezing. The tomato sauce called for fresh basil and parsley, which I had harvested before the rain.

Off to bed with more Ibu.

We have 3 more days of sunny skies and nights above freezing, then nighttime temps dip to 30 and 9 days out it could SNOW!  I still have peppers, tomatoes, and zucchini in the garden. If they aren't ready in 3 days, I'll just have to pick them anyway, I guess.

The greenhouse is doing okay. Nothing is actually thriving, but everything is staying alive and looking pretty good.

In the house, all is well. I may not get any cukes this winter, however. My seedlings are all leggy. They want more light than I can provide indoors.

Today I'm doing some transplanting of butterfly plants and tomatoes. I need to bring in some zinnias in case I get any butterflies in the greenhouse. (One of my frit cats looks about ready to pupate.)

Yesterday was the last perfect gardening day of the year, so I spent it in the emergency room with a kidney stone.  Today should be almost as good, weatherwise, but I'm still so weak I'll be spending it on the couch.  Maybe I can get some knitting done later, so it won't be a total bust.

Ouch, a kidney stone!  Your kidney stone beats my Tuesday broken tooth, Wednesday root canal and crown prep.  At least I could work as usual once the 'caine wore off.  

My iPhone is fixed and I can now transfer photos to my PC, oh you lucky folks. The phone went on the fritz Friday after Thanksgiving.

Harvested a bunch of kale, Chard, bok choy basil, parsley and cilantro right before it started raining.  The herbs were successfully dried.  The Chard survived the delay in blanching but I had to throw out maybe 75% of the kale and bok choy.  So much of that beautiful harvest went to waste, actually the compost bin.   




Mary's Organic Free Range turkey can be seen a little in the second photo above.  We ate one dinner and I boned and froze the meat.  Here are the left over bones simmering for rich bone broth, which is now in the freezer.  


Nov 26 & 27, starting grass feed beef bone broth (simmered 24 hours) and frozen summer tomatoes for tomato sauce.  I saved 9 oz. of tender shredded beef and made beef stew with 1 c. of its rich broth.  To die for.

Here is the tomato/pasta sauce.  Again, to die for.  What is it with home grown veggies and pastured/organic meats??  

Friday and Saturday, the dishwasher was out of commission while Ken trouble-shot it. This morning I was finally able to finish washing all the dishes, etc., and scrub the counters!

The Baker seeds arrived but still waiting on the big catalog. For fun I'm going to plant Glass Gem corn and Sorghum in part of the BTE strip where I had the sunflowers. Maybe a couple of sunflowers for the finches. Just for show and tell. Signing off for now, it's good to be caught up on the Forum after this crazy week.

Wednesday, while I'm at the dentist for a second crown prep, our TV service will be changed over to another provider, against our will. Everything will be available except for our favorite pure national and international news station.

Oh, CN, I'm so sorry! DH has had several and we know he has at least 2 floating around in his right kidney currently.....

Sanderson, sounds like you're having a lot of fun too......

I hope both of you are feeling better quickly!



Sanderson - Please let us know how the Glass Gem corn does. It was absolutely gorgeous on the BC cover last year. (But DH will kill me if I buy anything else right now, lol!)

CN and sanderson ... sorry to hear about what you have been going through. Hope you are both back to 100% very soon.

Yup, I've now had both and I'll take a root canal any day over a kidney stone. I probably have more to come of both, too.

AtlantaMarie wrote:Oh, CN, I'm so sorry!  DH has had several and we know he has at least 2 floating around in his right kidney currently.....

Sanderson, sounds like you're having a lot of fun too......

I hope both of you are feeling better quickly!

My sympathies to DH, Marie. I have more floating around, too.

Feeling better today. Maybe I can get out to the garden and see what's going on.

Husband's out of town and, feeling a bit blue, thought a walk in the neighborhood would be healthy.   37 min of walking, comparing our front yard with all the others, running into a family raking leaves and putting up Christmas lights.  The result?  Feeling better and 3 large bags of leaves!  I had to walk home to get the car, so I made a bouquet of Russian and curly kale, green and rainbow chard and a big sprig of parsley as a thank you for the family.

This morning I grabbed some photos before the serious rain begins.  I don't know why the photos are rotating.  Techno-challenged here.  I'll have to research.

West side of house looking towards back fence., used mainly for trellised winter squash and melons.  

West side moving closer to orange tree.  Compost cage for "junk" compost for flower beds.


The 3x3x3' Berkeley compost bin and "junk" compost cage.

Back fence on the right.  Two 2x4 sleeping beds that are in the shade during winter.

Moving closer to the east fence.

Backed up to east fence looking west.

More of patio.

If you right click on the sideways images and say "open image in new tab" then click on that tab at the top of your screen, the image is right side up.

Wow, Sanderson! You make use of every square inch and everything looks awesome.  I love your orange tree. We got 4 oranges off our little one and it is now starting to bud again in the house. I think it will have to go into the ground next year, but then I said that last year, too.

When I right clicked on the photo in My Photos, it offered "rotate clockwise"    

countrynaturals wrote:Wow, Sanderson! You make use of every square inch and everything looks awesome.  I love your orange tree. ...

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