Subsistence thread

[SeanKroll]

6 more quarts of blueberries, tonight!

 

[stig]

Tomatoes are getting ripe, so I spent half a day chopping onions, garlic, herbs and tomatoes for the first batch of tomato sauce.
Got to use my new 5 gallon stock pot insteda of dividing it out in several pots.
Sure is easier.

 

[stikine]

Tomatoes are getting ripe, so I spent half a day chopping onions, garlic, herbs and tomatoes for the first batch of tomato sauce.
Got to use my new 5 gallon stock pot insteda of dividing it out in several pots.
Sure is easier.

Since your latitude is similar to mine I'm guessing all the tomatoes are grown in your poly tunnel?

 

[stig]

Yep.
Takes a sunny wall to grow tomatoes outdoors, here.
Even with that it is a gamble.

Got enough sauce for 8 days out of this first batch.

Will have some 8 gallons when the season is over.

 

[stikine]

Nice.

 

[Burnham]

Harvested some 4 pds of Basil today.
Plus another 2 pds that I gave the neighbour.
Making pesto for winter.
View attachment 131215

We started our basil harvest/pesto production yesterday. I don't know how many pounds of raw basil we picked, but processed with olive oil, almonds, and parmesan cheese the total weight was 6 pounds.

We package it in 6 oz. amounts and vacuum seal those for individual meals. That'll give us 16 meals, or 1 or 2 a week for three months, give or take. We should be able to do another big pick/process day in a couple of weeks, when the plants fill out again.

 

[stig]

For some reason my wife's grandkids all LOVE Pesto.
So most of what I make, which is maybe 20-30 pds a year, get exported to Schweiz.

My veterinarian friend has some insulated boxes, they use for sending frozen tissue samples to a lab in Germany.
Works fine for getting frozen Pesto to Schweiz, too.

 

[Burnham]

That is a whole lot of pesto. How many plants do you put in your poly house, Stig?

 

[stig]

15 clumps with 10 plants in each.

 

[Burnham]

150 plants!!! We have 8 this year. Last year was 16, and the freezer is still bulging with 2022 crop, as the 2021 crop came from 24 plants .

 

[Burnham]

On another note...great year for blackberries here. Which is a blessing, as our blueberry crop was disappointing. We've only scratched the surface of the local output, have 4 gallons to freeze after picking an hour yesterday and 45 minutes this morning.

Have to do it early, as we're in a hot weather phase; 100 degrees on the porch in the shade yesterday. Same forecast for today.

 

[Burnham]

Today first thing we picked another couple of gallons of blackberries. This afternoon we canned 21 pints of tomatoes, from a local farm. We bought 40 pounds...this is about half of them. Tomorrow we'll get the rest taken care of.

Did you know that hands pricked multiple times by blackberry thorns will sting quite a lot when you're getting started coring, peeling, and chopping tomatoes?

 

[stikine]

Today first thing we picked another couple of gallons of blackberries. This afternoon we canned 21 pints of tomatoes, from a local farm. We bought 40 pounds...this is about half of them. Tomorrow we'll get the rest taken care of.

Did you know that hands pricked multiple times by blackberry thorns will sting quite a lot when you're getting started coring, peeling, and chopping tomatoes?

That all sounds great B. I wish I had access to tomatoes like that.

Daughter #1 is back home now and will get started picking blueberries and huckleberries this weekend.

 

[Burnham]

Finished the lot of tomatoes. 35 pints in the pantry, plus a double handful of fresh in the fridge to slice and eat now.

Great to have them, great to be done with canning them too!

 

[stig]

Tomatoes are really coming along now.
Picked 40 pds this morning, gave a couple of pounds to each neighbour and the rest are slowly turning to sauce in my new, outdoor setup.

 

[Burnham]

I should arrange a setup like that. We got the house too warm, canning inside when it was 99 degrees outside.

I like your picnic table, with the folding seats. Nice.

 

[stig]

That is so old and green, it has been turned into a dog grooming table.
And now, a tomato sauce table.

 

[stikine]

Started the blueberry and huckleberry harvest.

 

[stikine]

@treebogan @biggun any reindeer updates from you guys? Seems like your season should be open?

 

[lxskllr]

Chinese dogwoods are starting to fruit. They aren't quite ready, but I got a few Friday that were close enough, and tasted good.

 

[stikine]

Chinese dogwoods are starting to fruit. They aren't quite ready, but I got a few Friday that were close enough, and tasted good.

Take a picture of those. I'm not familiar with them.

 

[Burnham]

We've had to lay off the blackberries for a bit...a few days of rain wetted them and cloudy cool weather is keeping them from drying out just yet. But the next 3 days forecast indicates dry, so should rectify that and we'll be picking and freezing again.

 

[biggun]

No reindeers for me.

None in my area.

Mike may have been out, not sure though.

 

[lxskllr]

Take a picture of those. I'm not familiar with them.

Open grown, no pruning...



Fruit and leaves...



Closeup...



Inside looks like a disaster, but tastes a bit like mango...



The seed. I /think/ it's usually two, but this had one...

 

[CurSedVoyce]

Interesting.