What Homesteading Activity Did You Do Today?

[steev]

Holly, Holly, Holly! You know those "Strines" talk funny; comes from being upside-down, innit?

What kind of sour plum did you use; damsons, sloes, or what?

[steev]

I think this weekend there may be plums that the locusts haven't eaten (just because they can't keep up with the quantity): Elephant Hearts, Greengages; Purple Gages, prunes: one can hope, eh?

[templeton]

Jul 28, 2017 19:47:47 GMT -5 12540dumont said:

And here I thought Lillypilly was made up! I made sour plum gin. It's a lovely magenta color and quite yummy.

We got lilypilly and bidgeewidgee, but i don't think either of them grow in Suggan Buggan or Wagga Wagga.

[steev]

Don't give me none of that boogie-woogie; I just want rock-and-roll.

[12540dumont]

Don't know what kind of plum. I planted an ornamental in my front garden, a nice purple leaf. It crossed with a wild plum from the creek and made a half purple leaf variety that makes some tart plums. About 40 years ago this was a French prune farm. That was back when people ate prunes! So, I suspect some of that genetics fell into the creek and made wild trees.

[steev]

Even people who want to eat prunes, don't; they eat "dried plums", as prunes are now labelled; thus progresses the dumbing-down of our appreciation of Nature's variety and the specific virtues of various sorts of produce; we shall forget prunes, mirabelles, gages, damsons, bullaces, sloes, etc; we only need to be told the color of the plum, same as with grapes. Feh!

[12540dumont]

Steev...save me some seed of your plums. I'd like to put some damsons and green gages in the garden and see if they'll cross with yon wild fruit. Or any other plums you have on hand.

[richardw]

Sloes grow wild in a number of patches not far from here but hardly ever grow good fruit thanks to being a low rainfall area, had thought of digging up a sucker or two and grow some here but they would spread to much because, they often get mistaken for Damsons around here by locals

[steev]

Holly: I regret I've no damsons (regrettably; lovely for sauces); I'll set aside seeds of my gages (green and purple); bring em with loads of quince, eh? Any other plum-seed, as well, though nothing much else uncommon. At least the damned grasshoppers are leaving seeds.

[steev]

Harvested a little Rainbow chard for salad, Black Crowder cowpeas, Hosui and Nijiseiki pears, Elephant Heart plums, and some apples (the name of which I forget; they're mediocre raw, but useful in cooking).

The Flame Tokay grapes are looking to be very productive; guess I'll put newsprint covers on some of the best bunches, in case birds come to clean them out; I hate to do it, since they don't color well if covered.

Temps have begun to moderate, so soon I'll start clearing off the dry weeds, raking them into the tree-lanes, and preparing to till, when the rain comes.

[12540dumont]

Steev, the day we saw 114 here, the concord grapes cooked on the vines. Now, should I prune them all off, or wait till I normally prune in fall?

[steev]

Aside from looking depressing it prolly makes little difference.

[mskrieger]

I peeled the garlic that had been sitting in the shed drying out for ages. Let my twins help. Babies liked putting the garlic into the bag...and taking it out...and mixing it in with the large, perfect seed garlic bulbs so that I had to resort...and throwing it under the car....and watching mama crawl around to get it...I can tell I have two more promising young gardeners on my hands.

[steev]

Babies are agents of chaos; only parents who can deal with that successfully rear young; it will get better, until they're in their teens,,,

[walt]

I remember teaching my kids to garden when they were toddlers.  The first thing I taught them was "Feed the good plants to the bad plants."  That is weeding and mulching.  They loved it.  Later they learned not to stick certain plants in their mouths,  all the others went into their mouths, not just plants.