What did you do in the garden today?

[sourland]

About to pick my second and third tomatoes. It's started.

 

[Sueby]

I forgot, I took pics. Todays harvest, I apparently missed a cuke but the chickens will enjoy that. I finally harvested my first spaghetti squash! I also pulled the last of the onions.

The 2nd planting of squash is looking pretty good:

 

[WthrLady]

But those little buggers are still cute

I bet they make terrible jelly though.

 

[WthrLady]

It RAINED last night. It was only .25 of an inch, but I'll TAKE IT.
Today looks more like an October day, with blue skies, great cumulus clouds, and bright sunshine. It should only make it to 82. OC the rest of the week will be back to no rain, humid, and hell on Earth, but I'll take a day off from that.

New birds should be here in the morning. I hope I don't have to go to the city to pick them up, but sometimes the night truck comes in after the day truck has left. I'd rather they make the day truck and then I just have to drive to the village.

Canning was a pain yesterday, as I have another box of Ball lids that are 50% crap. So I had to reprocess those that didn't seal. One lid I pulled from the box look like the sealant applicator machine sneezed sealant all over the lid. I put 4 jars in the canner, 2 didn't seal. New lids, reprocessed the two. ARGH. New lids for those two, reprocessed, ONE didn't seal. GRRRRR. New lid, reprocessed, FINALLY sealed.

99% of the time, with good lids, the stuff coming out of the pressure canner is already sealed by the time the canner is cooled enough to allow you to open it. Ever since last year's purchase of new boxes of ball's lids after the shortage, I'm having HUGE failure rates.

I wish I could get them to own up to it and wish they would just fix the problem. The waste of time is no big deal, The waste of food IS.

I'll grab some Harvest brand lids and try them the next trip to town.

 

[Sueby]

I hate when that happens. I have 2 60 pack sleeves of 'usa made' canning lids I bought from Lehmans that I haven't opened yet. I sure do hope they seal ok as that's all I have at this point. I noticed they didn't have these in stock anymore so I'm concerned.

 

[WthrLady]

Well for CRAP SAKE! THis is what happens when we allow buy outs and consolidation.

"Golden Harvest brand Mason jars for home canning are a lower-priced line of Mason jars sold by the Newell Corporation, which also owns Ball, Bernardin and Kerr jars."

So now if one fails, they all will fail.

 

[WthrLady]

Learn something new every day "Tomatoes not ripening? It's the heat. Temps >90 prevents the plant from producing lycopene and carotene. " No wonder they ripen at NIGHT in hot climates.

 

[TJAnonymous]

We grew popcorn for the first time ever AND I popped my glass gem corn! lol, It's not just for looks anymore.

Great video and I loved your little air popper! I've always wondered if I can take the kernels that didn't pop in the microwave and run them through an air popper... I be greedy like that....

 

[TJAnonymous]

Nice! I placed an order with Baker Creek the other day but I don't think they shipped yet.

I placed one last week for 2 seed packets. It arrived within a couple of days. I was kind of impressed. I placed another order last night for 6 seed packets. We'll see how fast they come. I did notice that they were out of stock on a lot of items but I figured it was because it's the end of the season and a lot of the items I was looking at are for spring planting.

 

[TJAnonymous]

Well for CRAP SAKE! THis is what happens when we allow buy outs and consolidation.

"Golden Harvest brand Mason jars for home canning are a lower-priced line of Mason jars sold by the Newell Corporation, which also owns Ball, Bernardin and Kerr jars."

So now if one fails, they all will fail.

I probably need to buy more jars but I've been holding out. Now you've gotten me worried. On a side note, I *know* there are dozens of empty, old mason jars in my grandmother's root cellar but my uncle owns her property now I so don't think I could ever get his permission to take them. He's such a greedy, grumpy, old turd.