Gardening notes

About a month ago I build with pvc pipe support poles to cover my blueberry bushes.  Actually it was more stress mentally than work doing it.  It took relatively a very short morning of physical work.  It was absolutely necessary because the robins were eating them as fast as they turned ripe. 

This morning I pick two bowls of berries for us to have at breakfast.  

I notice it is about time to put up the garlic bulbs.  I will lay them out to dry for a week on the patio and then braid the soft neck ones to hang on the tool shed for a month or two. 

Radishes are finding a new importance in my diet.  A lovely Asian woman told us at the Fruit Society how she uses radishes and it open my eyes to many more ways than eating them fresh with a salt shaker like my Dad taught me.  The French Breakfast type are very large with the sudden heat, I did plant a couple rows of them about a month ago.  I stir fry them with other vegetables, I slice them into coins sizes and let them sit in a bowl of salted water for a few minutes and add them to salad, some how they are making an appearance daily now at the evening meal.

Each afternoon John and I are spending an hour or so under the grape arbor and working on our seed collection.  Ken refers to it as our Moroccan time.  John cuts or pulls the pods off the stalks and piles them in a large bowl.  I sit cross legged on the lounge with my small bowl and open the pods for the small black seeds of kale.  I let about 20 plants go to seed this spring and when it is all done I will have enough of these seeds to plant 20 acres of kale!

It is impossible to receive this age and not have heard the importance of apple cider vinegar.  The list of good it provides is all over the Internet, our usual afternoon four o'clock tea has been replaced with a refreshing tall cool glasses of ice water spiked with a teaspoon of apple cider vinegar.  One of the site  argued that a little each day is better than a larger amount infrequently.  So, two seniors sitting drinking vinegar water and saving seeds in a five star location discussing the humming bird or the sleeping dog.  Life is sweet.

Potatoes become interesting for me to plant after I read about how the commercial ones are sprayed with so many chemicals that the farmers will not even eat them.  They grow their supply separately.  This year, as I have changed and increased my garden space, I had room to grow some.  They are so easy and beautiful to grow.  I love to look at my potato patch covered with little purple and yellow flowers at this time.  All my food growing is about quality and varieties that I would like to taste so as long as the back and the knees hold out I am into it.