Sauce Master Fruit and Vegetable Strainer

Canning is very satisfying, especially when you rest your eyes on many jars full of food from your garden. However, and this is a major however, it takes way too long. Who has time to preserve their harvest when we have to spend so much time working? It's hard enough just getting a garden going.

The Sauce Master is one item I wish I had had this summer. It's not too late to benefit from it, though, given all the foraging still to be done.

This contraption promises to cut my canning time in half by eliminating coring and peeling of fruits and vegetables. If I didn't have to dip the tomatoes in boiling water for 60 seconds, then peel them, then get the seeds out, then crush them with a potato masher while they heated up, I could can five times as much sauce, go into business and quit my day job. And, I don't have to plug the Sauce Master in so, if the power goes out, the canning will go on. Great name and reasonable price considering what it helps you accomplish. At Johnny's Seeds for $52.00.

Sunday Night Movie: The Genetic Conspiracy (3/3) - about Monsanto

Here's a short film (8 min, 42 sec) about Monsanto's "round-up ready" genetically modified seeds and the farmers who use them. Watch interviews with farmers who have had to use increasingly more pesticides instead of less and who are now experiencing health problems.

">The Genetic Conspiracy

For more information about genetic engineering and your food, read Seeds of Deception by Jeffrey M. Smith. The editorial review by Publishers Weekly suggests that Smith's book is one-sided. Given the millions of dollars Monsanto spends to promote their products, seems to me like they have presented their side enough already. Why would Smith give them even one page of his book? This book is a great intro to what goes on behind the scenes in the food world.

Did you plant your peas last week?

If you planted a fall crop of peas last week, they probably look like this now:

We planted these on Aug. 27th - well, stuck them in the ground in 30 seconds and barely covered them - under the dying vines of the cucumbers and they are just about 1" high (in front of the stick). Not bad for day 9. They will climb up the cucumber trellis and we'll dine on fresh peas for a couple of months.

Women's West Country Work Gloves

This is what I have been looking for - work gloves that won't disintegrate when they get wet. Last year, I bought a pair of Carhartt's women's leather work gloves (for $20, too!) and they busted out at the thumbs the 3rd time I brought in firewood. Needless to say, I was not happy and reverted back to my 1/4" thick felt mittens. Still, it would be nice to have grippy gloves for picking up firewood that would truly be my size. These have a synthetic suede palms and reinforced fingertips so they just might last through the season. And the sniffle circle (they call it a brow wipe but, really, we all know it is for wiping your nose) is an added bonus. A bargain at $19.95, if they live up to their advertising.

Presto Collapsible Bucket

Here's just the thing to help you clean up after Hanna the hurricane (or tropical storm or whatever she ends up being).

Also good for collecting weeds or bringing mulch or compost to your flowerbeds. Holds 2.9 gallons. Collapses into a 2" thick circle and looks sturdier than the larger (and cheaper) version found in some outlet stores. For $12.95 at Amazon.

Sternbergia lutea - another fall blooming bulb

If you plant these now, you'll see them bloom this fall. This is an heirloom bulb which will multiply freely and help stretch the summer with its happy, yellow flowers. From White Flower Farm, 12 for $16.50.

Preserves: River Cottage Handbook No.2

Now is the best time of year to collect free food. And I don't mean sneaking into the farmer's orchard after sunset. Good foraging locations are everywhere. If you're out walking or biking, the sweet smell of ripening grapes will lure you as if hypnotized into the brambles on the side of the road. Tie a plastic bag around the handlebars or stuff one into your back pocket so you can take some late summer sun back home with you in the form of beach plums, beach rose hips, Concord grapes, wild blueberries, autumn olives - the list seems endless. All these fruits are waiting for you to pick them and put them up for the coming year. The only question is how to tell the cucumbers and tomatoes to back off and stop hogging the all canning equipment.

Speaking of canning, here's a new book, Preserves: River Cottage Handbook No. 2, from River Cottage that I can't wait to get my sticky canning mitts on. It just came out so you'll have to order it and then wait. My guess is that it'll be well worth the wait for all the jam, jelly, curd, fruit leather, pickle, chutney, cordial, vinegar and sauce recipes as well as the fabulous pictures and thorough instructions. If summer has to end, sipping on a homemade cordial in front of the woodstove sounds like a good way to wait out the winter.

Garden Snob Monthly Round-Up - August 2008

Bulbs

Composters

Gusanito Factory Worms Farm Bin and 1,000 Red Worms

Container Gardens & Window Boxes

Garden Books

Garden Photos

Garden Tools

Industry News

Movies/Videos

Plants

Remedies

worms, bugs & gross things

Sunday Night Movie: Bad Seed

Tonight's Sunday night movie, Bad Seed (6 min, 37 sec), is about genetically modified food and the control of the world's seed supply. Think again about your decision to feed your chickens, goats, cows and pigs "regular" feed. Even if it doesn't contain antibiotics or pesticides, it probably contains genetically modified corn and soy. The only way to know what is in your feed is to grow your own or ask the farmer who grows it what kind of seed he/she uses.

Organic feed costs twice as much. But who knows how much cheaper it will turn out to be in the future when you factor in health costs. Do you really want to take that chance?

">Bad Seed

Asian longhorned beetle

Alright, first it was the Mexican beetle, now it's one from China. Will everyone just keep their beetles to themselves? Maybe we have one that we can send abroad to visit. Here's an article about this relatively new invader from the Worcester Telegram & Gazette:

A tree-destroying beetle that was discovered in Worcester early this month may have been in the city at least five years earlier than federal officials estimated.
A local pest control owner, Geoff Ford, says a sample of the Asian longhorned beetle has been in his insect collection since 1997, when someone brought it to him to identify.

Federal officials estimated the beetle was in Worcester since 2002 after a scientist examined what appeared to be the most infested tree.

For more information and more pictures of the life cycle of this pest, visit the website of UVM's entomology research laboratory.

Read More in: worms, bugs & gross things

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Living With Pigs by Chuck Wooster

Hot off the press, this book will give you all the info you need to keep a few pigs of your own. Chuck Wooster is a vegetable, sheep and hog farmer in Vermont (www.sunrisefarmvt.com) who somehow finds time to write books and articles. After reading this book, you will know how to buy piglets (ahem, shoats), house and fence them properly, and, yes, slaughter and butcher your own hogs.

Although Chuck describes his pigs as funny, smart and friendly, this is not a book about keeping pot-bellied pigs as pets. This is a farm book for omnivores. For a big hog belly laugh, read the negative review this book received at Amazon. (I'll bet my britches that reviewer eats bacon.) And then go buy the book. It is well written, explicitly photographed, and unapologetic when it comes to the slaughtering part, which, in this age of fake "pharm"ing and photoshop foolery, is quite a relief.

Check out Northern Woodlands Magazine and Living With Sheep, for more wizardly words about farming and the great outdoors by Chuck Wooster.

Honeybees and Sedum - a great combination

Our bees are going crazy over the blooming sedum in the front garden. Goldenrod, joe pie weed and loosestrife are among the last flowers from which bees can collect nectar. Sedum is another late season source for honeybees and, if our bees are any indication, they love it.

There are many different kinds of sedum available. Although planting perennials might not be the first thing on your list right now, it's a great time to buy sedum because you get to see the actual color of the flowers instead of examining the i.d. tag photo. Here are a couple considerations:

Dragon's Blood Sedum

Voodoo Sedum

Broad-Billed Hummingbird Spotted In MA!

This week a broad-billed hummingbird was vacationing in Dennis, MA.

(photo via Boston Globe)

It usually resides in Arizona but is enjoying the Cape this summer.

Sandra and Charles McGibbon, backyard birders, were having dinner on a deck in Dennis when their friends told them to keep their eyes peeled for a hummingbird. It wasn't the ruby-throated hummingbird typically seen on the Cape. They thought it was something special.

Read more in this Boston Globe article by
Stephanie Ebbert

Mexican Bean Beetle

Okay, Mexico, we love your tacos and tomatillos, but please take your beetles back! They're eating all our beans. They remind me of those slimy Colorado potato beetles except that these (larvae) are yellow and hairy. If you haven't seen one in your garden, they look like this:

(picture via http://www.uri.edu/ce/factsheets/sheets/mexbeanbeetle.html)

The adult Mexican beetle looks like a yellow or copper colored ladybug but don't be fooled. They are evil.

Pick the beans that are ready, flick those beetles off and step on them.

According to Frank A. Hale, Associate Professor of Entomology and Plant Pathology at the University of Tennessee, "The adult Mexican bean beetle overwinters under leaves or other debris in grassy, weedy areas and around fence rows or trees. The adults move into the bean fields and gardens soon after the bean plants emerge. The adults feed for a week or two before laying their yellow egg masses on the underside of the leaves. The eggs hatch in five to 14 days."

"The bright yellow larvae are oval-shaped with six rows of branched spines. The larvae feed for two to five weeks. Larvae and adults feed on all types of beans and are an occasional pest of soybeans. They generally feed on the underside of leaves, removing all of the leaf tissue except the clear layer on the upper side of the leaf, called the epidermis."

"This damage, called "window-paning," gives the leaves a lace-like or skeletonized appearance. The remaining leaf tissue turns brown in a couple of days, giving the field a burnt cast. New pods and stems are often attacked, and severely damaged plants may die prematurely."

You can use a pyrethrum (chrysanthemum) based pesticide but there have been some studies that question the safety of these products. A cedar oil product might be better and is comparable in cost. Vacuuming is another way to get rid of these pests. If you want a physical barrier, try floating row covers from Johnny's Seeds.

Quick, plant some peas for a fall crop!

It's not too late to get one last crop of snap, shelling, or snow peas in for fall harvesting. Sow two months before frost which around here has been early as Sept. 7th in 1993 or as late as Oct 20th. Peas can handle colder weather and it's always worth the cost of a packet of seeds ($2.95 from Johnny's Seeds in Albion, ME) to try and beat the weather. You can always throw a sheet over them at night just in case. If that's too much bother, and/or the frost is early this year, at least you've given your garden some extra nitrogen and have something to till into the soil for next year. Or divide it among the pigs and goats for a light afternoon snack.