Ra Kenworth

Last year by accident I grew a whole patch of summer squash that was supposed to be winter squash, but it was scallop squash and it endured all winter and it's still good. This has amazed me. I grate the exterior and cook it up with the homemade dog food before using up the innards, freezing the seeds and flesh together in a used paper envelope and placed in the freezer door with almost all my other seeds I save.

I hope this tip is helpful for those like me who rely heavily on squash to bulk up homegrown food.

I am guessing skirrit might grow well on my partially decomposed used hay bales? I am going to give them a try.

I sprout brown and yellow domestic mustard, daikon radish, peas, and buckwheat. The yellow mustard I can buy in the bulk food store in the spice section, the brown at the Indian market store, yellow peas at a commercial outlet for about twice what John pays, or, field peas at the feed store (they make better sprouts), and buckwheat in the sprouting section at the organic store if I can't find them at the feed store. Daikon radish I can usually get from the feed store that's a little further away and stocks cover crops -- by far the cheapest option other than growing my own seeds. Typically I keep back some seeds to plant each spring (and some of my sunflower and corn seeds) and buy them. But if they get too hard to find, I can grow my own, however, a little goes a long way, so I haven't grown from seed since I had trouble finding buckwheat which incidentally is super easy to grow, and I don't bother with groats at all -- I eat the sprouts and greens.
I have also sprouted wild carrots. Both them and buckwheat are best grown in peat moss.
My yellow pea sprouts taste fine.
I've tried to increase my yield of nasturtium seeds but never succeed and they are very expensive -- I'm in Quebec just an hour north of the capital.

I typically peel any tough parts and freeze as 3/8" disks and wait until the berries appear to process it. In order to get a longer season, I planted more in the shade a few years ago.

I usually add mine cooked up to apple crumble and directly with yogurt or solid kefir. Also as rice pudding and occasionally in bread pudding (usually made in a spring form pan) or fill a crêpe with some for breakfast and anything else that might be worth experimenting with. I have some jars of Christmas"mincemeat" to use up (a syrupy raisin mix for tarts).

I have copied the fermentation and chutney recipes and will certainly try the ferment with my airlock mason jar lids that aren't being used currently! I love ginger! Being a zero waste fanatic, I steep the ginger peelings in a crock pot for tisane, often with peeled limes or lemons, and often with rhubarb.

I just had my first raw leaf of rhubarb today -- the leaf end was super sweet and the butt end beside the cap was excruciating!! I usually eat a raw leaf every day.

-- things are only just sprouting out of the ground and asparagus is under 3" (my 2 year old asparagus from berries is only 1/2"-1" ) so I am probably behind the rest of you in Quebec, but we are enjoying an almost bug free Spring, and I saw my first bumblebee today!

I used to be a type 1, but really it was my state of mind. But now I have reached a higher level of tranquility, I think I'm a type zero: quite happy to plod along at my own pace, making the world a better place in my own small way.

It's okay Bob you have come to the right place to do a bit of moaning. It must be awfully depressing right about now. Really depressing actually.

Burra! That's amazing! Thank you so much! It really does look like the image shown from the Phillipines, and being native to Africa, makes perfect sense!

Have some wonderful Permies "phoenix" pie on me (a renewable resource)!!

Excerpt from wikipedia:
"Calabash (/ˈkæləbæʃ/;[2] Lagenaria siceraria), also known as bottle gourd,[3] white-flowered gourd,[4] long melon, birdhouse gourd,[5] New Guinea bean, New Guinea butter bean, Tasmania bean,[6] zucca melon and opo squash, is a vine which is grown for its fruit. It belongs to the family Cucurbitaceae, is native to tropical Africa, and cultivated across the tropics.[1] It can be either harvested young to be consumed as a vegetable, or harvested mature to be dried and used as a kitchen utensil (typically as a ladle or bowl), beverage container or a musical instrument. When it is fresh, the fruit has a light green smooth skin and white flesh."

The seeds are small and plump like a small melon's and I looked up Cucumis melo, but couldn't find an image that matched.

I identified it at the local store just described as a long guord, and it might be a hybrid, but I want to give it a try

Here is the item at the store, and my cut up shrivlied one (my way to get good seeds for planting food store mystery vegetables) That store sells a good variety of African and Jamaican items, (really fresh okra!) plus lots of other delightful stuff like fennel and red chard! It helped justify my trip to town for gasoline!

The inside is pithy not slimy like a cucumber or ripe melon.

Temporary note to those who care: -- image failed and posted -- I will add photos once I have a better signal, sorry for the edit, it's not blindness on a tiny phone this time!

Morning Has Broken!

Nettles just braking the surface today

I am already in the miracle of creation, staying in my garden this Sunday, doing what I hope to be doing next!!!

Bird food dispenser from repurposed tin can:

This is a repurposed corned beef can, using zip ties and a piece of wire that wraps around the can and each end is the attachment to a cage. The two plastic ones give scale of what else I have available, the smaller one being 2". They are handy for a few reasons: they don't break when they freeze (the smaller plastic ones are especially prone to.) They are narrower than the big feeders, so you can fit two of these in the door of a small car cage. They cost nothing as opposed to the plastic ones that are about $5.

Edit: these are the corned beef cans that have the key gizmo for opening on the side, so there was no cutting!

The picture is with these hooked onto the outside of a cage for presentation purposes: I couldn't get a decent picture of them on the doors due to light challenges, sorry!

As per discussion, I was under strict lockdown. There was no spread of the virus in our jurisdiction, and we weren't even free to go get our mail. No cellular reception, at that time, still copper telephone lines, so antique fax or dialup!!! was the extent of digital communications. Harassed frequently for driving to a weak LTE signal that wasn't strong enough for calls, but strong enough for texting, mostly, with errors, , otherwise, life as usual. Gatineau mountains, Québec.