G Freden

Help, the vegetables are taking over!  Same view as above, taken just last week (mid July).  I spent about two hours in the kitchen yesterday dealing with an overabundance of courgettes (foreground), pak choi, cabbage, beetroots, artichokes, snap peas, new potatoes.  I should have done the same today but for a plumbing emergency in the kitchen--it's all sorted out so I'll be doing double tomorrow I think.

My quince tree from seed flowered for the first time this year!  Only about six flowers, none set fruit.  The other tree is a year behind, no flowers (not pictured).

My sad peach tree (also not pictured) has spent the past two winters under cover and this has dramatically improved its health:  no leaf curl infection since then.  I still can't plant it in the ground, but maybe I'll get some fruit off it in the future?  It's got so much more growth on it than it did two years ago.

I think it really needs thorough hand weeding in veg beds, otherwise it's like you say Nancy--blink and it's taken over.  I don't care about most weeds in my garden, but buttercup is one.  And thistles.

I got sick of cleaning out the recycling container in our kitchen so I replaced it with a cardboard box.  All our mixed recycling goes in there until time for collection and when the box gets too gross, it can simply go in the household waste.  I think I need to do the same for our indoor kitchen bin too--life's too short to be cleaning bins.

I don't have a homestead I only have an allotment and it's pretty small comparatively.  But when people say to me, "I wish I had one," my reply is, "It's a lot of work" by which I mean I highly doubt you'd manage  Seriously, I can barely keep up with it this time of year:  weeding, seed sowing, planting out, mulching, watering.  And of course harvesting and processing the harvest which takes at the very least half an hour a day during the summer months.  I love to do it;  it's my therapy.  The site itself has a pretty high turnover of allotments--clearly most people aren't as crazy as me.

Despite them being a traditional British garden staple, I've given up on them for the same reason.  I think our summers have gotten too hot.  Thankfully I can still grow French beans.

Once mine gets too sour, it becomes an ingredient in other dishes.  For instance, a couple spoonfuls cooked into stew/casserole/etc.  Or as a garnish on salad, or on top of chili (some people like sour cream on chili--it's the same idea).  Mince a little bit up and mix it with cooked vegetables.  A little every day and I soon use it up.

I like your set up.  Does a lot of smoke escape?  

I fermented garlic stems last year;  one in a kimchi type brine and the other just a salt water brine.  Not the garlic scapes but the actual fibrous stems.  I haven't tried with onion tops but I would definitely be willing to, based on how tasty the garlic tops were.  I cut mine into long lengths but ended up needing to chop them up fine before adding to my dishes.  Really good in salads and on cooked vegetables.



Like others have suggested, I too find a bag of frozen chopped leek/onion tops to be a very handy thing.  I wash, chop and load into the freezer bag.  

I love my ducks;  they are the ultimate slug and snail predator, and they are not destructive amongst the plants like chickens are.  However as I recently learned, they may not be ideal as urban livestock:
https://permies.com/t/371325/Noisy-ducks-waking-neighbours