CANADIAN REGION:What are you doing July to December 2021

Kelejan here:  I still have not managed to relocate to England and I have not done very much here in Canada  It has been a terrible few months in British Columbia and also around the whole country plus our neighbours to the south of us, even worse.

So far I have managed a few potatoes and tomatoes and almost managed to keep the property looking fairly respectable.   The old apple tree struggled and then a couple of weeks ago we had some rain, about 60mm over three days, and the odd shower now and the, and it has exploded into a huge crop of apples which were a delight for the bears. 

Every morning I am out about 6:30am to pick up the windfalls.  At firs all the small ones dropped and as time went on the ones on the trees began taking advantage of the large drop of rain and they began to get larger and tastier.

So know I am dehydrating them as fast as I can.  Lately we have had a huge bear visit so I make sure I go out with my whistle around my neck and he really does bolt of up into the hill behind me.  So far I have been successful three times. I will not report him as he only needs to eat, just like us.  Providing we keep him up the hill we should be safe.  With this rain I am hoping his own food will grow and provide him with food.

How did all of you manage the Heat Dome?. I thought it would never end. But  it did.

We were lucky where I live with regard to the fires. A little bit at the end of the city so the the people were taken down into the City and lodged in the Community Centre.  They are back safely.   Keep safe every one.  Love from Kelejan

Good news about your community dodging the fires and surviving the Heat Dome. I imagine not many homes have Air Conditioners, probably just swamp coolers at the most or whole house fans.

Yes Sanderson, I found it all very exhausting and now today I am complaining the other way except that I really am grateful that I feel cool.  A reasonable amount of rain and now my lawn has been mowed and is now green once more.

All the apples have fallen off my tree and I have finished several weeks of slicing apples and dehydrating  them and hoping that will be the last time I do it here in Canada.

I have harvested tomatoes, potatoes, sugar snap peas and runner beans, plus a very few cherries as the drought desiccated them.  I have been bitten by insects galore.

I am so glad that the heatwave is over, I have never been so hot for so long ever in my life.  Everyday on the windows that got the sun, I drew the blinds that were white, and before I drew them I put black garbage bags taped to the window panes and that did help a bit.  My garden just did not thrive this year and there was no way we were allowed to water very much.

What made me annoyed was was a neighbor further up the road who watered his lawn every day and   the water ran down the road like a little river  past four houses including mine, then turned left down the road junction opposite and straight into a drain.  A couple of days ago I walked past his place and I saw it had been sold. His lawn was a brilliant green.

Yesterday I cleared the potato and tomato plants from their  small bed and the earth was dark brown for about four or five inches but the roots of the plants extended down further and the soil was still bone dry.

It really brought home to me how much water is needed to give a good crop. We are getting water now, but somewhat late.

These past few days I have been gathering the weeds and woody bits to put out for the garden waste that is collected twice a year and is added to the city compost pile.
In the spring each citizen is gifted to free bags.  But I must say I do not take any of it as it looks lifeless and one never knows what is included in the mix.

Finally all the apples that fell from my one  tree and I no longer have to go out at dawn to pick them up before the bears turned up.  And each day I dehydrated six trays of apples and have accumulated dozes of bags of apples chips that have been much appreciated by friends and strangers. The trouble with that tree is that it was planted too near the boundary between me and my neigbour and none of them were ever interested in using the apples that fell on their driveway, except the elderly gentleman who was there when I first moved in  and he was always happy to have the windfalls to make apple juice.

It took took months to finally pick up the last of the good apples from the ground. I am actually surprised how many people now know that I have dried apples to give away.

So now I can use my dehydrator for other veggies and fruits.  There used to be bags of overripe bananas in the grocery stores but I no longer see them.  I love banana chips

Nothing goes to waste when one has a dehydrator. I have quite a lot of dehydrated bits of vegetables that get added to soups.

Does your brother in England have a dehydrator? My first thought was you should take yours to England but then I realized the electric outlets would be different.

Kelejan wrote:Nothing goes to waste when one has a dehydrator. I have quite a lot of dehydrated bits of vegetables that get added to soups.

About how long will veggies keep when they are dehydrated?

sanderson wrote:Does your brother in England have a dehydrator?  My first thought was you should take yours to England but then I realized the electric outlets would be different.

One just uses a connection with a converter socket.  I have one so that I can plug in my current hairdrier and anything else.

rdhwyalane wrote:

Kelejan wrote:Nothing goes to waste when one has a dehydrator. I have quite a lot of dehydrated bits of vegetables that get added to soups.

About how long will veggies keep when they are dehydrated?

 I have used them up to three years.  Just make sure there do not take on any moisture. Ideally make enough to keep you until the next harvest.

I think I would like a dehydrator!  That’s a great idea, to preserve things!  Thanks Kelejan!

Scorpio Rising wrote:I think I would like a dehydrator!  That’s a great idea, to preserve things!  Thanks Kelejan!

I would not be without mine.  I also do a lot of canning and freezing when there is a glut of peaches etc. I look for bundles of slightly over ripe bananas in the stores as I love banana chips and it is so easy to do.

I am often given carcases of chickens and turkeys from people who do not want to take the time to process the meat that remains, and sometimes it equates to several pounds of good meat per bird that I can use as is, the rest is pressure cooked so that all the meat etc falls off the bone and the cooking water is used as broth, and the bits I do not like to eat myself,  like gristle, skin, etc. is minced up and frozen into little blocks for dog and cat meals for the local animal charity. If I had a grinder I expect I would grind up the bones to add to compost.

I would love a freeze dryer if they weren't so incredibly expensive.

OhioGardener wrote:I would love a freeze dryer if they weren't so incredibly expensive.

Funny, I must have known there were machines such as freeze-driers, your post made me look on the Internet, and I see what you mean about them.  After all I remember something called freeze-dried coffee.

They may be expensive, but if one has a big  family to look after, I think they would save a lot of money. I must look into them a bit and see if they would fit  my British families' needs as I know they can afford it.  I believe hard times are coming and every little helps.

A few days ago I woke up and thought we had snow but it turned out to be a hard frost and the runner bean plans looked a bit bedraggled so the are now down and placed on the compost pile. At least I got them down before they became brown and hard to untangle from the trellis. I managed to harvest a couple pounds, some of them edible and the rest seed for next year.

KJ, I saw this on a Facebook Ag page. I know it's not near Castlegar but how is your community doing as there is a little lake/river that runs by it?
https://globalnews.ca/news/8380864/abbotsford-bc-farmers-rescue-cattle-floodwaters/?fbclid=IwAR3E_VnoWBDbDpDUXZh5hDREM5HPf-pJ_0fDS_cZHsBsM2lkTrzQAMVuldA

Luckily for me I am nowhere near the floods, but If I wanted to travel to Vancouver by Highway 3, I would have to take my passport and cross the border to the USA and then travel west until I could cross the border back to Canada, and then return the way I came.

Worst hit is Abbotsford that is located next to Washington State, and unfortunately Washington State is located at a higher elevation than that part of British Columbia.
Washington State shared the "River in the Sky", all the water is flowing into B.C.as
 the Sumas River's headquarters is in W.A.

It is not all Washington's fault as when Abbotsford was built  long ago, they reduced the Sumas Lake by draining it and building the city there and encouraged cattle ranches and poultry and agriculture. That worked fine for a 100 plus years. They built a pump house that in the past coped with excess water and now they are overwhelmed. They had hundreds of people turning up to place sandbags to save that pump house but they are still pumping out less water than what is flowing in.

It is going to take months to sort everything out and it will be expensive. Billions.

British Columbia has had a horrible year, with the Heat Dome, the forest fires that were worsened by the Heat Dome, and the floods the were worsened by the forest fires.