'Tis a Silly Place

'Tis a silly place.

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Inundated by Galen's Wolf Peach

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It is an exceptional year for garden productivity. I'm currently reading William Alexander's Ten Tomatoes That Changed the World , and learned that some in Renaissance Europe would refer to the reviled tomato as "Galen's wolf peach," a poisonous fruit described by Galen of Pergemon [the second century AD doctor who expounded on Hippocrates' theory of "humors" and human disease] as a lost, poisonous fruit...possessing strong smelling yellow juice. Tomatoes are a much loved food here. But we now have so many of them, that we were forced to buy a deep freezer to process them. As soon as you get one batch processed, another one comes in. In spite of eating tomato sandwiches, tomatoes as snacks, tomatoes with mozzarella cheese, more just keep on coming, like hordes of orcs at the siege of Helm's Deep, only much more delicious. Same thing with zucchini. And beans. And banana peppers... No more time to write. Time to harvest.  
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Martin Luther King Day at Steepmeadow

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It's Martin Luther King Day at Steepmeadow. Most of the outdoor work right now consists of processing wood for the wood stove. It is consuming a great deal, and we're just holding the house at 65 degrees. It's classic January. There was a sale at Seed Savers Exchange , so I purchased most of what we will need for the summer's garden. We have pumpkin, bean, and pepper seeds that we saved from last year. So not terribly expensive this year.  We are in the depths of winter, and plagued by ICE. The federal government has invaded Minnesota with their masked Gestapo kidnapping our neighbors off of the streets.  To paraphrase Henry Rollins on misogyny (also true and exacerbated at the moment), I hate white supremacy, and I see it everywhere.  Normally I try to stick to gardening on this platform, but the whole point of self-sufficiency is to be prepared for emergencies. We are in one now. We don't know what tomorrow will bring. The MN National Guard is on standby to be dep...
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Planning for Summer '26

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The painstaking and surprisingly lengthy process of planning what to plant this summer has begun.  This year we will once again be taking into account the lessons of previous years, mostly in an attempt to stop wasting space and growing future compost. Specifically, this will entail planting just one or two zucchini plants (not 6), a banana pepper plant or two (not half a bed), fewer purple pole beans, and no lousy kale. We never seem to eat it. Crop rotation is going to take the form of "don't plant the same thing in the same place two years in a row." It might be a little bit lazy, but it should get the job done. I'm going to try to get our salad greens out of the direct sun. We've had two years of mediocre harvests, and I think it was because they got scorched in the hot beds down the hill. This year, up by the house where they will get a little bit of shade. We'll be revamping the patio area, which will entail moving a raised bed there and cleaning up the ...
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