Jams and Jellies are Easy

It is not hard to take 5 or 6 cups of berries (the recipes come in the pectin package! Just fruit, sugar, and pectin) and make 6-8 half-pints of sweet goodness. Then you can spend the rest of the evening listening for the satisfying "pop!" of a jar well-sealed, and licking all the utensils. You will lick them, and your hands. You will turn the kitchen into a sauna, and come out delightfully steamed. You can even freeze the berries now, and use them later when that heat is welcome, and you want to give the sweet spreads as Christmas gifts. The making of jams and jellies was something I wanted to learn this year, after the apple butter last year was such a ringing success, so it turned out pretty well. All the jars sealed properly, so we'll have more than just apple butter for sandwiches in the next year. Lunch just got a little more diverse.

La Belle Vivre Sans AC May End Soon

Today is most likely the last day in our area with highs below the upper 80s or lower 90s, and a low in the 60s. Those temperatures define my ability to cool the house effectively by "passive" means (opening windows at night, with window fans to encourage air flow) after heating it up by baking or canning, or doing much ironing. I'll be doing all of the above this afternoon and evening, plus running the old dishwasher to sterilize the jars. The kitchen will be HOT by nightfall.

I want to finish my niece's birthday gift so I can send it Monday, finish a pink outfit for me(same thread) I've had in unfinished condition since last year, and try my hand at making blackberry jelly (bought the berries today) and strawberry jam (from berries chopped, sugared, and frozen last week). That should make for a pretty full afternoon, considering that I have gardening and other duties as well. I want to make some cookies for my husband, too. It is difficult to pack a week of homemaking into a few days off on week-ends, especially when they are partial days. But when you know the Heat is coming, things must be done. Cannot bake, starting tomorrow, except in the bread machine. Oy!

Rain Grows Corn

This is last year's corn, picked a little late.
We got a wonderful rain (long, slow, and gentle) yesterday, followed by cooling temperatures and sunshine today. The corn is visibly taller than it was before the rain. It is growing pretty well!

My first year growing corn out there, I tried it in a few rows. It was too widely spaced, so pollination was poor. I had not had the soil tested (it was really acid at pH 5.6), so the stalks were weak and spindly. At acidic pH, even if you fertilize, the nutrients are simply not available to the plant. A $30 soil test includes a lot of valuable information, and is well worth the money. Last year I paid attention to my husband ( he is from Nebraska, the Land of Corn), and planted the corn in a 4x4 foot block, about one plant per square foot. I had also previously limed the soil. The stalks were stronger and pollination was MUCH better, though I was in Spain when the corn was ideally ripe.

This year I fertilized before planting, then side-dressed the plants with more fertilizer when they were about 6 inches high. No new lime this year. The stalks look stronger and even better. I'll be giving them the same weekly liquid fertilizer I give the tomatoes (sorry, it is Miracle Gro- the only kind I could find with low P, but high N and K, and some boron,which is what my soil needs), and some support via stakes at the corners of the beds and twine. I have 2 beds planted a few weeks apart, one of which has Missouri Wonder beans and zucchini interplanted. The other has some zucchini and some unknown volunteer squash-like plants. We'll see if they survive the borers to produce, and we'll see how interplanting affects yield So far my best-performing beds are the crowded ones, with a variety of plants to attract and repel different bugs. We'll see how it goes.

Fantasy and Reality- Energy Activist Style

I was lying on the couch last night, reading a peak-oil-activist account of the near future, with fewer cars and limited electricity, when the contrast between her vision of reality and the actual reality of my neighborhood came into sharp focus. My college-age neighbors drive their cars and trucks half a block to go to school. Not kidding. I wish I could walk or bike the 3 miles to my workplace, but it is not safe to do so. Being a victim of robbery is considered "paying Memphis tax" around here. 

Though the temperature was in the mid-80s and cooling, the neighborhood roared with the sound of air conditioners (I could hear them because our windows were open, and our AC has remained off since the heat of summer broke last fall). Our electricity is stable, and 2/3 coal-fired. Houses glow with security lights and big-screen TVs.

Our city is not set up for much use of mass transit. There's no way to travel from my house to work by bus without walking at least 1/2 mile to a less-safe area, then having to go all the way downtown, change buses, and come back. I could walk all the way there in only a little more time than it would take by bus, if I could make it without getting mugged.

I know things  may change, but I wonder if the people who advocate using carbon taxes to beat us all into using less energy have fully considered the suffering they are asking to inflict on others. Who drives the oldest, gas-guzzling cars? Who lives in older houses with bad windows and old appliances? The poor and the elderly. They cannot afford solar panels and wind turbines and rain barrels. They cannot afford a $40,000 electric vehicle, or the electricity to charge it through their aged wiring, or new batteries every 2 years. Activists point out that climate change is already inflicting suffering on people. I would counter that the Earth has warmed and cooled several times without our input, and will again. Didn't the Viking explorers call Greenland by its name for a reason, and grow crops there for a few hundred years before it got too cold again, and call Canada Vinland for all the wild grapes?

Yes, we should prepare for coastal flooding- but in hurricane prone areas, they should have been prepared anyway. We should help people who need to relocate, if they request help. We should not waste the bountiful gifts God has given us, and a bit of walking would help greatly with the "obesity epidemic". But taxing people into submission has been tried here before-with mixed results (reduced smoking recently, revolution in the more distant past). I'm afraid to see the stories of hypothermia in winter, heatstroke in summer, and hardship because it was too expensive to drive and too unsafe to walk to work. I hope these people get out of their urban or suburban middle-class enclaves and ask how the other half lives (Drive your Prius through Frayser, will you please?), then think things through before advocating "drastic action" that could kill thousands, drain funds, and not accomplish a thing for the climate.

Praying Mantis

When I went out to pick fresh basil for the soup last night, I saw a most unusual praying mantis on one of the plants. I've seen a baby green one before, but this one was brown, with black-and-white-striped legs. I did not have the camera, and the lighting was a bit dim, anyway. I just looked it up on the UK entomology site, and it is a Carolina Mantid, Stagmomantis carolina. Go there for a picture of the adult. The nymph was cute. An American native! I hope it stays, thrives, and eats the bad guys.

Basil Aplenty

I like basil in soups and pasta sauce, but sometimes my plants produce so much, we may not be able to eat it all. If you want to start herb gardening, I would suggest starting with basil or mint if you like them. They grow easily, aren't too fussy about conditions, and produce big yields. Fresh basil (especially enough to make a pesto, if you can get pine nuts) is REALLY expensive, so it could easily repay the cost of a pot and some soil and seeds or a seedling. You can freeze basil or mint, or use them fresh. Advice is mixed on drying them, and I have never tried. I might try it in the attic this summer, but it gets so hot up there that the flavorful volatile oils of the basil might evaporate. A small batch as an experiment won't hurt. The picture is from last year on July 4, and the basil is in the front next to the tomato plants. Scary thing is, my tomato plants are almost that big now, from seed, in a different bed with more sun. Wow!

Trap Plants

If you are trying to minimize pesticide use in your garden, an understanding of trap plants is a good thing. I have allowed some radishes that bolted (started flowering) before growing good-sized roots to continue to grow and flower, simply because their leaves seem to attract the slugs away from the lettuces and carrots. The large plants are lying among the carrots and near the lettuces. The leaves are seriously lacy, but they still attract the slugs left out there, which are fewer all the time. I've collected over 7,900, but the rate of collection is slowing greatly with the heat of summer. 

The nasturtiums are supposed to be trap plants for aphids, as well as a tasty radish-y flower for your salad when the weather gets really hot. They're kind of tasteless right now. 

The borage plants do not trap anything as far as I know, but the bees seem to like the sweet flowers, and they're supposed to improve the pollination of your garden plants. Strategic interplanting is good when you have tiny beds like mine. We'll see how it goes.