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Out Beyond the Corn

There is a world out there, beyond our garden. It doesn’t always dip into our everyday lives, but sometimes we are affected by it. The war in Ukraine is one of these instances. Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine has slowly become the dominant story in our mainstream newscasts, replacing the constant coverage of the pandemic. NATO and governments all over the world, including Canada, have not remained neutral in the conflict between these two nations. The enemy was easy for the western world to define. Russia’s leader, Vladimir Putin, ordered his army to invade Ukraine. Ukraine is fighting for its life! It’s citizens had little choice but to retaliate. Who wouldn’t defend themselves from an aggressor if directly threatened?

News media on all sides of the conflict are supplying their people with inflammatory censored one-sided newscasts to keep them engaged and enraged, to convince the masses to rally behind the need for austerity, the need to provide support - positioning them to be prepared for what might yet come. The banners of righteousness and nationalism have been raised.  

Few North Americans know anything about the history of this conflict, but no war occurs in a vacuum. Broken agreements, civil unrest, insincere or bogged down negotiations, policy changes, territorial disputes, sabre rattling, and inaction brought this situation to a head. I’m not in any way justifying Putin’s aggression, but he apparently decided negotiation was no longer possible. (Not all of Russia’s citizens agree as seen by demonstrations taking place.) The insanity of it all boggles my mind. The people who have been thrust into this war, who never had a choice (both Ukrainian and Russian), are dying/suffering. Billions of dollars worth of infrastructure is being destroyed. The spin off, due to the imposition of sanctions, is hurting neighbouring countries who are facing a winter without Russian natural gas to heat their homes. Nuclear weapons are being considered, on both sides. Nuclear power plants could be compromised. And fighting climate change? That goes on the back burner, the weapons of war negate any and all measures aimed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The ripple effects of this war are compounding. There has been talk of a Third World War.

But terrible losses endured by some can result in profit for others. There’s nothing like war to stimulate some sectors of the economy. Those who gain from war - the military industrial complex, arms dealers, arms/equipment manufacturers, oil companies, companies that provide materials/labour to rebuild, raw material suppliers, stockholders, the big players - do so on the backs of those who suffer its ravages. There is little benefit for the people whose homes/livelihoods are destroyed, the soldiers/civilians who die or are wounded, the country with broken infrastructure and massive environmental damage, the traumatized children, the dead domestic and wild animals, the war vets suffering from PTSD…

Ordinary people bear the brunt of war. They are expendable. 

Check out YouTube, Bob Dylan, Masters of War

Spaghetti Sauce Extraordinaire!

Ahh, I said to myself, this recipe uses 25 pounds of tomatoes - 5 bags of frozen beauties out of the freezer and into the canning pot! Twenty minutes prep it says, sounds good, and once this is done I’ll be down to a mere 60 pounds or so to deal with. There could be an end in sight! I steeled myself to tackle the spaghetti sauce recipe I found on the internet.

First the ingredients - amazing, I had them all! Tomatoes, onions, green and red peppers, tomato paste, soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, brown sugar, salt, garlic, oregano, basil, red pepper flakes, lemon juice. I wouldn’t have to run to the store for a thing! I’d read on the net that frozen tomatoes, when plunged into hot water, peel easily if you pinch them on the blossom end. This sounded good to me as I’ve never been one to go through the drop the fresh tomato into boiling water then into cold water to peel method. Too much work, too time consuming, so “not me” that I usually leave the peels on when canning tomatoes, or pears and peaches for that matter. On first try, with the first 5 pound frozen bag, I found this peeling method to be so easy it was worth doing. But 25 pounds of tomatoes is a lot of tomatoes! Then of course they needed the little bit at the stem end removed and had to be cut up. They were still mostly frozen so this was cold but easy. That 20 minutes prep time was long gone though, well over an hour ago.

Then there was all the other ingredients. I do have a simple food chopper that cuts stuff up quite tiny, only the one setting, so I made fast work of the peppers. I decided to use the onion rejects (odd shapes, the ones that looked like they weren’t going to keep very well) so there was extra peeling and slicing to get the needed 8 cups. By now my compost bin was overflowing and had to be dumped. My basil was dry but still in leaf shape so I got out my mortar and pestle to grind it small. In hindsight I guess I could have used my chopper thingy for that too.

I thought it was going to be a cool day, it was downright chilly when I got up. When I got the kitchen wood stove going it felt good. I enjoy cooking on a wood stove, such an even heat, less chance of scorching. It’s like an old fashioned slow cooker. But after hour 2 of prepping next to the wood stove the windows were open and I was ready to peel down to my underwear. I didn’t, heaven forbid if someone should happen to drop by! 

The recipe says it should make 9 quarts of sauce. By about 3:00 I’m fighting off that negative thinking that tends to sneak in when I’m working hard and long on a canning project. “I could buy that much good quality spaghetti sauce for about $20, less if I caught a sale…why am I doing this…home grown, organic…self sufficiency is an important skill…living off the land as much as I’m able has been my mantra for 50 years, why stop now…yada yada…”

I’m finally nearing the end of the ingredient list and ready to add the garlic. Darn! Dried up. Should I use granulated? Hmmmm. I was tempted but no, after all these other fresh ingredients that would just not do. Maybe I should make a quick trip to town? A better idea yet, I’ll call a neighbour. Sure they said, come on over.

It was now 4:00 pm and my sauce, sans garlic, was beginning to bubble away on the stove at the beginning of its 6 hour cook down. I was exhausted and oh so happy when my garlic rescue friends invited us for supper (and wine). Had we stayed home I would have had a hard time making a grilled cheese sandwich. I got my husband to remove the heavy pot of sauce from the stove and off we went.

Next morning I peeled a dozen cloves of garlic, chopped them in my chopper thing and added it to the sauce. What beautiful garlic! Wow, I guess I’ve never had garlic fresh from the garden before, big cloves, easy to peel. Maybe I should grow some… maybe not, perhaps trade for some instead. 

There was a bit of a catch on this 20 minute prep, 6 hour simmer recipe - a need to stir every 15 minutes to prevent sticking and scorching! That’s 24 stirrings and 6 hours near a hot stove! I set a timer so I wouldn’t get mentally lost doing something else (according to my husband I always have my nose in a book). I went out to fetch jars from the shed. Should I use pints or quarts? Hard to decide in a 2 person family. Has anyone else ever wished they would make a 3 cup jar? I decided on pints. If I used a quart of sauce to make spaghetti we’d be eating it for days. I couldn’t quite handle the full 6 hours of simmering, but I did reduce the liquid down to 9 litres. 

The spaghetti sauce - delicious! The work - rewarding, the tomato bonanza - overwhelming. Tomorrow - salsa.

First Frost, September 21st

And I thought this garden year would be a bit of a bust, what with the slow, cold start. But then came the hot summer days and the remarkably frost free end to the season - no frost until today, September 21st. Wow! I’ve gardened here for over 40 years and have never experience such a late 1st frost. My 8 full sized tomato plants outdid themselves and I confess that I did not treat them kindly. I didn’t prune them, my cages fell over, they were planted too close together and were sprawled all over - but indifference didn’t seem to make a difference! Now to deal with them all as they ripen!

Bumble Bug

Almost stepped on this bumble bee look alike as he slowly wandered through the grass. I guided him to this leaf whereupon he played dead until I snapped a pic of him, took him back outside and turned him loose. Then he reactivated and crawled off. Never saw a caterpillar quite like this one before.

2022, An Oddball Gardening Year

I planted my garden just after the May long weekend, then it turned cold & rainy - a miserable June. Transplants just sat there shivering, staying alive but not growing. In July summer finally arrived and here we are now, at the end of August, no frost as yet, weather predicted to be in the mid 30’s next week!  I’ve never seen a year like this in the more than 40 years I’ve been gardening in the middle of Alberta. I have green tomatoes, beans are coming along, critters ate the top half of all my beets, all my peas, and most of the beans down low. The cucumbers are producing lovely flowers but cucumbers are just getting started. Potatoes are good, carrots are small so far but plentiful. Most surprising of all is the beautiful crop of basil I started from seed. The wee plants were no taller than 1/2 inch till mid July, then boom, they took off. 

It was a fabulous year for raspberries!  I picked 85 lbs before they finally stopped producing. I picked enough for 3 batches of wine (14 lbs each), 10 quarts of juice concentrate, 15 pints of jam/jelly, & 14 (2 cup) bags for our family’s favorite breakfast- crepes stuffed with cottage cheese & topped with raspberries & whipped cream.

I have 2 well established rhubarb plants and am always happy to find a new use for rhubarb. This year I discovered (and slightly adapted) a recipe for rhubarb chutney after trying and liking a rhubarb relish produced for a local market using “grandmother’s secret recipe”. Ahhh, grandma might be surprised what you can find on the internet - so much information and it’s not all that hard to find. This chutney is yummy with most meats, especially bratwurst sausage.

I also picked enough black currants for 2 or 3 batches of delicious jam and managed to steal a few pounds of honeyberries from the birds.

Our final honey crop was 44 lbs, not bad considering we had to re-establish one hive and introduce a new queen to the other. 

My garden presents me with new challenges every year. I’m already planning changes for next year - better spacing, more watering, fewer potted plants. A garden is a living annual project, full of surprises and sometimes disappointments. I love watching its progress and enjoy putting produce away for winter, either in jars. the freezer or the root cellar. Stocking up with organic foods I grew myself gives me a feeling of accomplishment, and, as my husband always says, the queen of England couldn’t sit down to a better meals than ours.

mltipton.blogspot.com, 

https://www.facebook.com/Northof543/, 

August 31, 2022

“The Summer of ‘82”

I’ve always been in awe of people with a super good ability to remember times past. Farmers especially seem to remember the exact year of every unusual weather event. Many a time I find myself listening to some old timer saying something like, “I remember that terrible storm in the summer of ‘82. It caused the river to overflow it’s banks by the bridge. A hell of a bad storm, that one!” 

Was I around that year? Yep. Did it really happen? Probably. In ‘82? Darned if I know.

As is typical in the spring and summer, the talk now is all about gardens, and comparing one to the next. When did you plant? Why are so many planted seeds failing to germinate? What kind of critter is eating your seedlings? Weren’t the gardens further along this time last year? Have we ever had a June like this?

Every year is different. I usually manage to remember some portion of last year’s garden (usually the failures). But that’s as far as it goes. 10 years ago? Well I’m sure I had a garden but details are lost to my memory. I usually make a drawing of where stuff is planted so I can rotate the crops to different spots the next year, but I can never find where I put my garden map when the next year comes along. Ah well, this year I know I planted my sticks and strings on the May long weekend, and slowly got all the seeds into the ground by June 1st. Bedding plants came later, after the 7th. But today, July 1st, after many cool cloudy rainy days in June, I look at it and wonder. Will it manage to produce anything in the time left? Everything that’s going to come up has done so, but it seems slow, just barely getting going. If only I could remember what’s normal!

Something is eating my peas; they’re half gone. I planted 2 different section of carrots - one with new commercial seed, one with my own seed. One section came up sparse, the other thick as hair on a dogs back. But guess what? I can’t remember which is which. Then there’s the fact that one end of the garden in general seems to be less hardy. But I’m nearly 80 and it’s all hard work, so I’m not replanting anything that didn’t germinate. Maybe I’ll stick some marigold seeds in the empty spots. They’re beautiful, bees like them, and they make their own seed. Que sera, sera.

So, happy Canada Day! Here’s a pic of my garden struggling to get it together. At least next year I can look back in my photo gallery and compare it with the garden of ‘22. This pic will make many gardeners feel good about their plots. It’s not yet been tilled, just weeded between plants. The chickweed is thriving everywhere. I’ll post an update if it gets to growing, just so gardeners like myself, who are not perfect, can see it’s possible to grow food when you don’t pluck every weed in sight.

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