Cody; Don’t forget the turnips! TomC
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Yellow, red beets and parsnips, too!
S.U.
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Just got my Russian Red Pomegranate in the ground, these will grow as north as Michigan but as south as Georgia(USA). Pretty amazing variant. Most Pomegranates that people see in the grocery store are the “Wonderful” breed, not as cold hardy.
Dug as deep as the root ball and 3 times as wide, backfilled with some miraclegro garden soil that I had laying around. Watered it and in a few hours I’ll mulch with leaves. I hope the roots can dig into the heavy clay under the garden soil. Not sure if I should prune the sapling now that it’s transplanted, it has a fair bit of foliage since I’ve let it grow in my living room.
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It has long been my goal to grow as much of my food as possible. Never came close to 100 percent. Now we are in different times. I am doing as much as possible to store food for even more dire times. I don’t plant carrots for the last few years. I can buy a five pound bag at Sam’s club for $3.79. I find carrots a pain to grow. Two five pound bags will fill my dehydrator. Potatoes are a Michigan main crop. I grow them because I don’t want just russets but until the last couple years potatoes in bulk were about 25 cents a pound. I dry them on a regular basis. I can grow beets, turnips year round either outside in season or in the greenhouse. Any root vegetable can be grown year around with a small greehouse and a source of cheap heat. I don’t have to heat the whole greenhouse. It often stays in the 40’sF but the root vegetables grow in totes sitting on a bed heated by a Rocket Mass Heater. Same with all leaf vegetables. Things that always over produce like cucumbers get juiced and canned. Can be used as a drink or added to soups. There is much more but you get the gist. You do not have to be totally food dependent even if you have very limited means.
I should mention that like all things, the right tools are essential. I am not familiar with other dehydrators but I have been running a 10 tray Excaliber brand year round for 12 years now and it hasn’t missed a beat. A simple appliance. I’m sure one could be easily built. I also highly recommend an All American pressure canner. I have heard of people using the same one for 50 years. Almost none of us have ever had to think too much about food. That’s going to change.
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I would love a walk through video of your green house and heater system Tom. For Christmas a few years back my mother bought for all the daughter in laws all American pressure cookers, vintage ones she sourced through a canning group and I’m glad to have one
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Here is what Tom and Marcus are talking about:
Two things they have going for them are the machined no-seal-needed metal-to-metal tapered edge sealing:
And they are thick, thick cast, no-warping, aluminum heavy.
This model 921 weighs 22 pounds.
Read that sites bottom use limitations and you will figure that the 921 model will probably be the best choice.
What I bought new for the Wife a few years back. Retired out all of the lighter, older, need-seals types. Seals wear. Are hard to find. And will deteriorate even unused, stored.
Ha! Ha! Moving all of this I surfaced another been stored for decades model 921. Stuffed full of manuals and canning books, basic supplies.
The elders apparently gave this package as wedding gifts.
Yeah. Near $400. seems a lot. But real actual made-in-USA, by Wisconsin Aluminum Foundry Co, Manitowoc, WI 54220
Then the hundreds of jars, lids and such that will needed.
That can be year, by year be accumulated.
One thing I expect to come out of this ongoing Inflationary spiral is a renewed appreciation for local/regional quality made.
You ARE going to be paying more for everything. So buy far less stuff. Walk yourself away from just-because consumerism.
And make that stuff you do buy as much as possible years, lifetime quality.
Tatter Reusable Canning Jar Lids
S.U.
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My greenhouse is in a transition phase right now Marcus so kind of filled with boxes and totes. It is not designed as an actual grow house but more as a Laboratory to see what I can produce under varying conditions but I will be glad to do a series of videos as it gets reorganized.
The 621 is the size I have as well Steveu. The larger one is just too cumbersome and heavy in my opinion. I do almost all quarts and it will handle 7. I think it would be nice if it was just a little bigger in diameter and a touch shorter so that it would do 8 quarts but it is what it is. You are right about the canning lids. The ball brand lids used to be a buck seventy nine for a dozen. During Covid jars and lids were unobtainable and then the jars came back but the Ball lids really didn’t. And if you can get them at all they are over 3 bucks a dozen. I bought a bunch of chinese ones off Amazon after looking at many and though they were thicker than most they still seem pretty thin compared to the Ball. You are right about the Tattler. If you keep an eye out they go on sale every now and then but you pretty much need a E mail notification from the Manufacturer or they go out of stock real fast. The thinner lids are fine for water bath canning but if you are putting up meat or some veggies that require higher pressure they will buckle.
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Finally finding some use for the little grease drums. They fit inside the dog food bags my mom gets, so I’ll use one as a Bag Filler, one is now the hopper for the charcoal grinder. I need to build a permanent structure for the grinder and use one of my little electric motors to drive it.
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You are way ahead of me Kamil. Today is what they normally consider to be safe to start planting out in the open. We did have frost last week and have had it in early June at times so always a crap shoot. Your pictures are inspiring. I have garden envy.
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Tattler made an announcement they were going to start making (or selling) the heavier metal non-reusable lids. I don’t see them on their site yet though.
Presto makes an electric pressure canner with the main advantage being you don’t have to babysit it quite as much. It is like a higher pressure version of a instapot. Instapots only get to 10-12lbs of pressure.
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I’m sure that you don’t follow it as much as I do, but it is one of the largest events in the US each year. The Indianapolis 500 mile race. I hope I can add a little pride to a few of you, by telling you it was won this year by Marcus Ericsson, from-------wait for it---------------SWEDEN! I can’t imagine where he started racing in Sweden, I know of tracks in Germany and Monaco, but where are tracks in Sweden. Anyway I hope his win will give you from Sweden a little pride in your country. TomC
PS. A few other countries were represented by drivers.
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We are lucky this year, because Frost men did not come. We have cold period now, but well above morning frost. Thats why all is so green and blossoming.
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Here is a wandered into the yard wild turkey hen.
The Wife found her hypothermal-shocked ~3 weeks old chick, dead, in the pathway down to the creek.
We’ve just been having too much cold raining the last two months. After a few years of hot dry Mays months.
Hopefully she will try again.
I read with interest Tone’s living on a steep hillside trailer advice. Gonna’ need something similar here on this 20 degree slope land.
Steve Unruh
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A year ago @mggibb mike and I would be on the road for the second day heading for Argos Wood Gas Meet Up. Driving some where on Highway Interstate 30 in the Rocky Mountains going over the Great Divide. Sigh. Well not this year. But we are looking forward to next year.
If any of you that are planning to be there and are going to video going live, post it here so we that are at home can join you live at Argos WGMU. Lets know if it will be on your FB page so we can join before hand. Or what other meda live videoing you use. Thanks.
Bob
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What is it used for?
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Its a walk-in-front-of skidder. Kind of like a walk behind tractor
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I thought you would stand on the platform. I’d like to see how the drive train is engineered.
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My father and i used to “log” firewood with one like this, many years ago, that one was a Swedish make, Jonsereds “järnhästen”= the iron horse.
Still amazes me how much it could pull, with only 6hp, and almost never got stuck. That one had a little wagon, pivoting on middle of machine, and two wheels in the very back.
In Sweden its common to call these moose-pullers, used to carry moose/ elk out of the woods when hunting.
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