The big things and the little

Do mind-changing books actually change your mind?

The librarian listserv is doing “mind-changing books” right now. Since I’m not technically subscribed to it, so can’t add my thoughts there, I thought I’d muse a little bit on it here.

First of all, doesn’t a mind changing book have to actually change your mind? In other words, if you already agreed with the book’s premise before you read it, is it still mind-changing?

I have to say, the book that had the greatest impact on my thinking was probably The Contrary Farmer by Gene Logsdon. I’ve always been a country girl, and I’ve always been contrary too. But reading that book was like a nearsighted person finally getting a pair of glasses. It was that book that got me thinking about homesteading and farming and gardening in the first place–and this was before we got our land.

So obviously, yes, it changed my mind. Not in the sense of doing a 180 in my thinking. But it was like flipping a switch in an unused room and suddenly there’s light there.

Garden update

We’re reaching the busy time of summer–the tomatoes are coming on fast, the cabbages are heading up, I pulled a bunch of carrots the other day, and I’ve been picking half a quart of black raspberries every day. I haven’t canned much this year because I still have so many jars of stuff from last year. I didn’t even plant cucumbers this year since we had so many pickles, and I need to find a recipe that uses a lot of jam because I have so much.

This was my first year for growing beets, and I have been eating tons (and enjoying them.) I pickled 4 pints of beets and froze some of the beet greens that I didn’t get to. I’ve frozen a nice amount of strawberries, wild blackberries, and cherries as well. It will be a good winter for pies!

My tomatoes are doing well this year, for me. I have never had much more than moderate luck with tomatoes. My plants don’t get very big, and neither do the tomatoes. I have had trouble with the leaves turning yellow, curling up, and dying. I’m sure there is something wrong there, but I just haven’t put any effort into figuring out what yet. I usually get a small to moderate yield of tomatoes, so it’s not a loss to me. I just don’t get the massive inundation of tomatoes that you hear about gardeners having to deal with. Someday I want to be able to can tomatoes and juice and sauce and salsa, and still have leftovers!

I’ve eaten one head of cabbage, and I have another that is ready to cut any day. Someday I want to figure out how to make sauerkraut, but that’s not the highest thing on my list right now.

I pulled a lot of carrots this week. It’s fun to tug on them and see what you pull out, especially when it’s a big one. I was pleased, considering I’ve never done carrots before either. They’re all pretty short, but pleasingly plump, and tasty. I was afraid they’d be all gnarly, but they have been quite nicely shaped.

I canned 4 pints of pickled carrots, but one didn’t seal. I also did 11 pints of tomatoes.

Picking stuff

I haven’t written much, but then not much is going on. The days blur together. I’ve been sick for almost two weeks now, and that slowed me down. I celebrated my birthday a day early because I had to work on my birthday. My usual celebration is to not do any work, but just sprawl out and read. Like I used to do all summer when I was a kid.

The garden is just coasting along right now. This is the easy time–all I have to do is water (when it doesn’t rain) and pick. It’s been raining pretty frequently this year. My tomatoes are loaded with green ones, but none has ripened yet. At the moment I’m pulling small beets and enjoying them. This year’s wild blackberry crop was fabulous; I picked enough for two pies and also froze four quart bags.

We still have no fence for a dry lot, so the horses are still inside 22 1/2 hours a day. They don’t mind a bit, but we’re getting heartily sick of picking stalls. I was complaining about it to my farrier yesterday, and he said he has to clean EIGHT stalls. I must remember to keep things in perspective!

Last night we went to the grocery store, and I noticed several items that touted the fact that they contained “real” food items. Wow, ice cream “with Real Milk!” One wonders what all the other products contain. It is a sad state of affairs, truly, and it makes me glad that I have a garden that contains real beets and real tomatoes and real cabbage. My real corn was eaten by a deer, which is running around somewhere with a label: contains Sarah’s real corn.

My friend, Mulch

I call this time of year “the weed season.”

They are everywhere, growing high as skyscrapers, choking off everything. I could spend my days doing nothing but pulling weeds out by their roots, and still they would dominate.

Fortunately, I have a friend. His name is Mulch. I put Mulch all over my garden, everywhere around the desired plants. I have had good luck with the newspaper layers. I put a stack of newspapers into a bucket of water and let them soak for 10-15 minutes. Then I take them out a section at a time and lay them out on the garden, overlapping, all over everything. Then I spread straw or old hay on top of that to make it pretty.

Now if I could just find out who’s been eating my corn plants.

Planted

I got plants yesterday to put in the garden. I can’t wait to get at it!

I haven’t had overwhelming success with tomatoes yet, but I got several different kinds to try this year. Two of them are supposed to be good for container gardens, so that will help with my space issues. I’m also going to try some leeks. I have had great luck with peppers of all kinds–I hope saying that doesn’t jinx me–so I got several sweet peppers and some cayenne peppers.

I’m planning to spend my weekend in the garden, but you never know what will disrupt my plans. The best-laid schemes and all that.

I really need to get some fence put up for the horses. The current pasture fence is beyond pathetic and I want to replace it. Plus I want to fence off a smaller area inside that so I can make it a dry lot to keep the boys off the grass. I just keep waffling about what would be easiest to do first.

I have no idea how to actually build a fence. That’s problem number one. Problem number two is that I can’t decide exactly what I want. I’d like a good woven wire fence all the way around the perimeter, where the awful fence is now. Then I could section it off with electric fence. But if I take down the current fence to build a new one, where will I put the boys while I’m working on it? Or should I put up the electric fence and keep them in there while I replace the perimeter?

I’m paralyzed by the questions!

I meant to do that!

When I was four years old and my dad was building our new house, I rode my tricycle backwards off the floor into the footers. I was zooming around on that little red trike, and all of a sudden…boom…I was in the hole. I looked up, tears in my eyes, and saw my uncle looking down at me in a panic.

I jumped up and said “I meant to do that!”

Good grief, one foot to the right or left and I’d have been impaled on a rebar, and all I cared about was my hurt pride. I could never stand to be embarassed or to have things out of my control. Which is ok, except it’s hard to do a lot of things if you have to be in control all of the time.

This is probably part of my problem with public speaking. I get nervous and my tongue starts doing stupid things, and then I get embarassed and frustrated and it all spirals downward. I start to stutter and trip over words, and then they all get stuck in my mouth instead of coming out, and I turn into a great blithering idiot.

I think that my garden has been great for teaching me how to not be in control of everything. I have only been gardening for five years and it has been extremely humbling. I often have no idea what I am doing and I do all the wrong things–like allowing ragweed to grow up all over the place because I thought it looked like tomatoes.

What I have learned from my garden is to tell myself “no one is looking, let it be and see where it all goes.”

It’s not easy.

Sometimes you have to let things alone for a while until you can identify which green shoots are carrots and which are weeds. When the green things all come up in a row, it’s a good guess that they’re the ones you planted. But this is me, and I don’t always get the seeds in a neat row–I get impatient and start sticking them in every which way.

So now when I look at my garden and see the crooked lines of plants coming up helter-skelter I just say “I meant to do that!”