Digging potatoes

We started the summer with seven tom turkeys. Then there were five, which is not too surprising, given their propensity for playing in the road. Whenever I hear the milk trucks honking up north, I know where the turkeys are.

Five tom turkeys

This week, there were seven again. Terry’s hypothesis was that two of this year’s juveniles tried to join the gang. 

And then there were seven

I am not. familiar with how turkeys disperse. There is often some mechanism for preventing inbreeding. It is not unusual for young males to get run off. In any case, after hanging around for a few days, the group of toms was back to five. For now. But even the Fab Five seem to be a loose assemblage of three and two. I wonder if it’s the same turkeys in the group of two and the group of three. Terry thinks yes, but we really can’t be sure unless we somehow get close enough to hit them with different colors of spray paint. That might be a good project for retirement. Turkey chasing.

You'll never catch me!

We had our first frost Saturday morning. The basil always takes it in the shorts. Such a wussy plant.

Frosted basil. The reddish leaves will soon be black.

We had rain Saturday night. Hilda forgot to bring the food in from the chicken run. The girls were still eating from it when I let them out in the morning, so I left it. When we went out to dig the potatoes Sunday afternoon, Juanita had figured out a new way to get the goods. Silly chicken.

Juanita takes a short cut to the food

We weren’t sure what to expect from the potatoes. As I wrote recently, potatoes keep their secrets. There’s no telling how many potatoes are underground until you put the shovel in the ground. Having lost them all to a flood last year, Terry opened up the north garden again, since it is on higher ground. And it didn’t flood, but the south garden did again and again. As we dealt with the south garden, the north garden got overrun with grass. We pulled all the grass once, and I thought the potatoes would recover. Alas, we were too late. In addition, the sweet potatoes rapidly took over—vines everywhere!

Terry was anxious to dig the potatoes ahead of some serious rain that we are expecting tonight. Sunday began with drizzle, causing us to postpone the digging until after lunch. Terry started digging, and the potatoes were not too muddy. And so we pressed on. This is the first time in my memory that we have been swarmed by mosquitoes while digging potatoes. Why didn't the frost kill them? Why? Why?

Hilda and Terry dig potatoes. 

The potatoes growing around the edges, where the grass was thickest, didn’t have much going on. We got a good number of Kennebec, which are good keepers.

Kennebec

The Red Norland also did fairly well. We have to eat those first, as they don't keep.

Red Norland

We got one bin of Norkota, a type of russet. We only planted one row of those.

Norkota

We planted two rows of Superior, another good storage potato, next to the sweet potatoes. I suspected we wouldn’t get much due to the puniness of the above-ground biomass. True enough, plant after plant had not one tuber. Terry suggested that we just leave it. I said that would probably be okay. Nevertheless, he kept digging. And we got a few. 

Sad, sad yield of Superior potatoes

(And while we worked, I heard car horns and gobbling down by the road.)

As I mentioned before, the sweet potatoes were an experiment we expected to fail. They are quite different to dig from white potatoes as they grow vertically, and the stem is way more persistent. Sometimes we could lift a number of potatoes out still clinging to the vine. Sometimes we had to wiggle them loose, like pulling teeth. Plus you have to pull the vines away to keep from tripping on them and find the main stem to dig up. Crazy.

Sweet potatoes

Hilda got to work spreading the potatoes out to dry for a few days before we put them in the root cellar.

Hilda spreads the potatoes to dry

"We probably got about half of what we hoped for," Terry said of our harvest.

"True," I replied, "But it's still more than we can eat before they sprout and get wrinkly. If we got more, we would just be throwing them out in March."

One more task off the list as we prepare for winter. October already. I can hardly believe it.

Sauerkraut

Last week’s blog featured stiff goldenrod. I cut off an inflorescence to identify and stuck it in a vase just for grins. It turned out to be a pretty good cut flower. It lasted well for several days. Most surprisingly (to me) was that bubbles developed on the underside of the leaves. These were different bubbles than the ones that formed as the water warmed up and the gasses came out of solution. I think it was oxygen from photosynthesis, although I’m not sure how they would get carbon dioxide. I tested the hypothesis by putting the plant in sunlight to see if I could ramp up the bubble production. The results were inconclusive.

Bubbles on the underside of the stiff goldenrod leaves underwater in a vase. Oxygen?

One of Hilda’s experiments this year was growing ginger. She ordered two ginger rhizomes and two turmeric rhizomes. Only one ginger plant came up of the four. She kept it in the greenhouse at first. When it got bigger and the weather was warmer, she moved it to the shade of the garage. As summer ended, it came into the living room. To our amazement, it started blooming. The white “petals” on the top developed first. I was puzzled because I could not see any reproductive parts. Some days later, I found the real flowers underneath the deceptive white leaves.

Ginger flowers underneath modified white leaves

Sunday was sauerkraut day. Pat and Nancy came over in the afternoon. We had to stoop to buying cabbage from a local farmstand because of all the flooding in our garden. The heads were a bit looser, which made the slicing go faster. Nancy cleaned and quartered the cabbages. I did the slicing, wearing my wire glove.

Slicing cabbaage

The looseness of the heads meant that a lot of the leaves escaped the slicer. Hilda worked on slicing those thinly.

Hilda slicing the leaves that fell off the cabbage

Pat weight the sliced cabbage a half a pound at a time. When she had 2.5 pounds in the bowl, she added 1/8 c of salt and mixed it up. She then put it in a crock and pushed it down with a potato masher.We were just about done in an hour. Record time! I tried to get a picture of everyone working. This is the first one. Note that we can’t see Nancy packing the sauerkraut.

Nancy mashes down the salted cabbage (which you can't see) while Pat weighs the shredded cabbage and Hilda slices

I tried to frame the shot better. I told Hilda to keep chopping. I should have told her to pretend to keep chopping. So chop she did as I took a few more pictures. Eventually, she mentioned that the cabbage was now minced. Which we all found quite funny. This was my last attempt at capturing all the activity, and we still can’t see what Nancy was doing.

Everyone cracking up over the minced cabbage

Jane joined us later. Hilda made shrimp etouffee for supper. I made a raspberry pie at Pat’s request for her birthday. This is the pie when I finished putting on the whipped cream and decorative raspberries.

Raspberry pie

I thought it would be a nice picture of the pie with a piece taken out. Sadly, I didn’t notice that it was out of focus.

The inside view

And here’s Pat with her birthday pie, complete with candle. Happy belated birthday, Pat!

Pat gets ready to dig in (she wore her festive birthday shirt)

Phenology

Phenology [fi-nol­-uh-jee] noun 1. The science dealing with the influence of climate on the recurrence of such annual phenomena of animal and plant life as budding and bird migrations. (Dictionary.com)

I’d always heard the word phenology in connection with flowers blooming, but when I looked it up I learned that it is anything that changes seasonally. And as the days grow shorter, the summer flowers shrivel up and the New England aster blooms. Winter’s coming.

New England Aster

We had a new autumn flower bloom this year as well. 

A new yellow flower blooming with the New England aster

It came in a collection of native perennial plant seeds that I got at the Native Landscaping seminar in 2017. It took two years to flower. “What is that?” Terry asked.

“I think it’s a goldenrod,” I replied.

“It doesn’t look like goldenrod.”

“Oh, there’s hundreds of them.”

That was an exaggeration. Swink and Wilhelm list 24 in the Chicago Region. Still, there are a lot of them. Enough that I was filled with trepidation at the prospect of keying it out. Since it will bloom every year, I didn’t feel bad cutting one inflorescence off to take into the house for identification. Not only was it wicked hot yesterday, but also the mosquitoes have been insufferable since the Labor Day flood. I started with the picture book, Peterson’s Field Guide to Wildflowers. I found a match right off the bat—hard-leaved goldenrod, Solidago rigida. I verified it in Swink and Wilhelm, and it wasn’t even hard. In fact, it was the third step in the key. As is typical, the part I needed to really be sure was still outside. The upper leaves clasped the stem (I had those) but the lower leaves were larger and had long petioles. Sigh. I braved the heat and the bugs one more time. Yes, large leaves, long petioles. S & W gave the common name as “stiff goldenrod,” which I like better.

Stiff goldenrod with bumblebee and lots of little green beetles

Also as the days have gotten shorter, the hens have stopped laying. Two or three eggs a day. The time had come to move them to their winter quarters. That meant combining the flocks. The hens would have to go into Coop 1 where there was electricity for artificial light. I was afraid for the pullets. The Black Stars are mean girls. I took portraits of the pullets yesterday morning while they were still pretty. They are likely to be sporting bald spots soon.

Two Dominiques and Carmella

Amelia Noire and Carmella have grown up to look alike. I noticed recently, however, that Amelia has a black beard and green legs, while Carmella has yellow legs and not much of a beard at all.

Amelia Noire with green legs and black beard

Carmella with yellow feet and no beard

Bianca’s beard is white. The beard is the first thing that gets pecked away. Sad.

Bianca has brown breast feathers just like Carmella

A better view of Bianca and Amelia's beards

I took down the posts for the chick fence, repositioned the shade shelters for the winter sun, and hauled the kennel out from under the deck.

The chicken run ready for winter

 One of the boards that hold down the cloth on the side of the kennel was covered with worms. I thought the pullets would be excited, but they didn’t have a clue. Perhaps they will learn better foraging behavior from the big girls.

Pullets completely ignoring several tasty worms on the board with the dirt on it

In past years, we’ve set Coop 2 next to Coop 1 so the chickens can see each other before being able to attack each other. Hilda thought that the pullets would not be bullied too much because Coop 1 was there turf. Hard to say whether or not the hens would remember that it used to be theirs. At dusk, Terry brought the gator with a kennel in the back to the apple orchard. I climbed in the coop to grab the hens, which I handed to Terry. Hilda opened and closed the door on the kennel. One hen got loose. She ran for shelter under the coop. We got the rest loaded and pretended we weren’t watching. Sure enough, she hopped into the coop. I waited until she was on the perch before I went in after her.

The pullets were together on the east side of the perch, where they stayed as we put the hens in one at a time. The hens tussled with each other for position on the perch, but soon all was quiet.

I was up at first light to let them out. Our plan was to let them get used to each other before starting the light on the timer. The biggest pecking problems happen when they are in the coop and can’t run away. As long as it’s dark, they will leave each other alone. When I got to the coop, the pullets were still on the east side and the hens on the west. They all ran out when I opened the door. The hens chased the pullets away from the scratch grain. One of the Black Stars got a beakful of feathers from one of the True Blue Whitings. The pullets went back in the coop. 

The pullets went back to the roost after their first encounter with the hens outside

And the hens hung around outside

Shortly after that, the hens lost interest in the scratch grains, and the pullets came out to clean up what remained. There was a bit more posturing and pecking, but they settled pretty quickly into separate areas in the run. Madeline was the most aggressive of the pullets (She was not afraid of mice; she loved winter, cold, and ice. To the lion in the zoo, Madeline just said, “Poo, poo.”). She had no problem running toward the hens with her neck feathers standing up. She fell short of physical contact. By the time I went in the house, I was confident that the pullets would survive. We’ll see how it goes when the light goes on at 3:00 a.m.

I pulled out the cantaloupe vines and the zucchini and pattypan plants yesterday morning. I planned to get it done before it got hot. HA! That did not happen. Because the vines/plants were covered in powdery mildew, I wore a face mask. I was just getting over a cold; I didn’t need fungal spores kicking up my allergies. The mask added to the heat load. The combination of mosquito bites, plant spines, and mold made my skin itch so bad I had to stop at 11:30 and take a shower. Man! It’s not supposed to be like this in September.

Early in the summer, the deer ate the tops off all the beets. I put row cover over the beets, and they grew new leaves. After the Labor Day flood, we uncovered the beets again, thinking that it would help dry them out and prevent rotting. And the deer at the tops off again. Still, it was close to harvest. I didn’t bother to cover them again. We should have harvested them though, because sometime last week the deer came back and ate the beets. Sons of bitches! Hilda suggested that maybe they had just eaten the leaves down to the nubs, and the beets were still in the ground. I hoped she was right but had doubts. Beets are the shameless hussies of the garden, lifting their shoulders high out of the ground and leaving no doubt about what to expect below ground. So not like the demur potatoes. Potatoes keep their secrets.

Working on Hilda’s premise, I took a shovel and loosened the soil all along the row, 35 linear feet of beets, and here’s what the deer left us.

The only beets the deer didn't eat.

Hilda tried to silver line it. “Beets are cheap to buy,” she said. Still, it makes you want to cry.

Despite the horrible gardening summer, Terry’s cucurbits came out pretty well. (Unless the deer eat it all later.) Here is the gallery:

Delicata (striped) and Jack Be Little pumpkins

Butternut and Baby Boo pumpkins

Acorn squash

Apple gourds

Pumpkins

Jam Session

Saturday was a special treat for me. Kate brought her sister Kim to the house for a Jam Session.  It’s probably not what you’re thinking. We made jam. Kate and Kim spent the morning at a flea market in Rockford, which gave me the opportunity to bake a loaf of sourdough bread, make noodles, and put together a raspberry pie. Quite a lot of gluten in the meal. Good thing my guests weren’t fussy. For the first time ever, the crust did not slouch into the bottom of the pan when I blind-baked it. Hooray! It may have been because it was the first time that I followed the direction about chilling it for 30 minutes. Since I was busy with other things, it may have been longer. Whatever the reason, the crust was beautiful.

My first successful blind-baked crust

When Kate and Kim arrived at 1:00, I put them to work washing berries, making sure they were careful to check the inside of Japanese beetles or picnic bugs lurking within. We only found two picnic bugs! Either the population is low, or there’s a bunch of them in the jam. There was one Japanese beetle on the floor. I assumed it had escaped from the raspberries.

Step 2 was putting the berries through a food mill to remove some of the seeds. Kim had a little epiphany when she realized what the cone-shaped strainer and pestle were for. She sees them all the time at flea markets (together and separately) and never had any idea.

Kim puts raspberries through the food mill

When we had the required 5 cups of raspberry puree (which made us sing that old Prince song), we added the Sure-Jell mixed with a little bit of sugar and brought it to a full rolling boil while stirring constantly.

Kate stirs constantly until the raspberry puree comes to a boil

And then we added pretty much an equal volume of sugar (4 cups). Yes, indeed, the amount of sugar in jam will take your breath away.

So, so much sugar

After returning it to a full rolling boil and cooking for 10 minutes, there was still too much foam. We had added butter, which was supposed to prevent that. Hmm. Nothing to do but skim the foam off and put it in a bowl. Kim ladled the jam into clean jars.

Kim fills jars with jam

We positioned the lids and put them in the canner.

Into the canner

While waiting for the steam canner to build up enough pressure to start the timer, Kim dared Kate to eat the foam. Such babes, thinking that the foam was bad! Kate soon learned that the foam was delicious. When I was a kid, we used to spread it on saltines, but Kate and Kim had it eaten before I could suggest it.

This foam is delicious!

Here I am with the final product. Please note that my t-shirt says “We Be Jammin’”.

We Be Jammin!

Our next order of business was the tour. I peeled carrots for the chicken and noodles so Kim could give the peels to the girls. Kate went all artsy and took this photo and an angle.

Kate's artsy fartsy shot of Kim feeding carrot peels to the girls

We also let Kim collect the eggs using Hilda’s special egg apron.

Kim gathers the eggs with Hilda's apron that has 12 individual egg pockets

While were touring the gardens, I noticed that the deer had not only eaten the tops off of the beets again and pulled about half of them out, they had also eaten all the leaves off the sweet potatoes. Damned deer.

We had peaked too soon, being all done with the jam and the tour by 3:00. I couldn’t let them leave because I’d spent all morning making supper. We sat around and talked, which was fun. Kim teaching middle school, and we all swapped teaching stories.

We ate chicken and noodles with the bread and had raspberry pie for dessert. Kate took a picture of her pie.

Raspberry pie

On Sunday, we working in the garden all afternoon. By midweek, we knew that the tomatoes were dead. Hilda and I pulled them out. It was heartbreaking to see all the green tomatoes on the wilted vines. “Too bad we don’t like them fried,” Hilda remarked.

I worried all Saturday night about the cabbage. They are looking sad. I planned to harvest them if I found that they had rotted off at the bottom. But all were still securely in the ground. I left them and hoped for the best. What would we do for a year with no sauerkraut??

Sad, sad little cabbage

I was curious about the sweet potatoes. It was our experiment for the year. We are a bit north for them, although Hilda bought a variety that was supposed to be appropriate for our zone. I thought we would get a few puny ones at best. Imagine my surprise with the first one we dug up yielded this:

Sweet potatoes from a single plant!

We dug four altogether. The last one made one giant potato instead of a lot of little ones.

A giant sweet potato

The total for all four is here.

Yield from four of 25 sweet potato plants. Good heavens!

Trouble is, I don’t really like sweet potatoes, and these four plant represent 1/6^th of what we planted! I like sweet potato fries and sweet potato chips, but I do not fry at home. Stinks up the whole house for days. Terry likes mashed sweet potatoes. Ug. Ah well. I learned to like squash. Tonight we were short of white potatoes in the house (Hilda dug just a few the other day), so I sliced up a sweet potato to put with the last of the white potatoes in a foil pack for the grill. Terry got them nice and crispy, and they were delicious.

To catch up on some odds and ends, Terry thought I should include a photo of our magnolia, which is the “Jane” variety and blooms throughout the growing season. Oddly, its flowers never seem to fully open, but it is beautiful even this time of year.

Our "Jane" magnolia

Fiinally, I renewed my subscription to Science News in August and was surprised to have my check returned to me last week with this form letter:

The letter that came with a returned check from the Science News subscription service

Apparently it happens all the time or they wouldn’t have a form letter. It cracks me up that it is not enough to tell you that you put the wrong year on the check, they tell you what the correct year is, in case you just woke up from a coma and started writing checks willy-nilly. Still it was a relief that they didn’t tell me they were cancelling my subscription because I was clearly too clueless to understand Science News.