Garden Update and Imports from East Asia

My tomato plants have apparently reached a state of full maturity. Right now there are over 50 tomatos growing on the vine. Additionally, the biggest harvested tomatos are far larger than average, each about a pound in weight.

The String bean plants have yielded their last bit of harvest. The plants themselves were cut down and added to the compost pile. I intentionally left the roots in place because these roots fix nitrogen from the atmosphere into the soil thus making the soil more fertile than before the beans were planted. A week from now the exposed patch of soil will be planted with Kale. This is a cold resistant variety of the cabbage family, and it shall hopefully provide some sustenance during the winter.



During a trip to a neighbor's organic garden, I managed to barter a very unique item, a Chinese Calabash of good stock. The calabash is one of the oldest domesticated plants in the world. It serves the dual purposes of food and container. In this case, I traded 1/2 of all my heirloom squash seeds for 1 single Mature Calabash of around 15 pounds. This plant is very uncommon in the U.S and my neighbor only managed to obtain it from seeds that were passed to him 2 years ago by yet another friend. Apparently, Americans haven't yet developed an appetite for the calabash, nor has the North American environment produced enough pests to attack this plant in earnest. The calabash plants were growing like weeds within my neighbor's garden with no signs of disease or natural predation. As such, Calabash plants may be very easy to grow here in the North East. Needless to say, I shall proceed to consume this calabash and save it's seeds for full scale production next year.

A glut of tomatos

I've gathered yet more ripe tomatos from the Garden today. There seems to be a never-ending supply of them. However, I've also noticed small tomato bugs attacking the leaves of my plants. Clearly the tomatos have reached the peak of their productivity and a gradual weakening of vigour can be expected in the coming weeks. The String Bean plants are looking rather worn out right now, and this they should be. After delivering six batches of their wonderful beans, it won't be too many days before these plants return to the happy compost heap from which they came. Thus the old and dying are recycled into the new. Speaking of the compost bins, the earth worms have clearly done their work. After 3 weeks of composting the huge heap of vegetation has shrunk considerably. The two bins now contain a combined 160 lbs of decaying organic matter, enough to fertilize an area 5 times the current size of my garden next year.



I've noticed that food plants in their natural conditions face tremendous challenges just to survive. They need to extract every last bit of resources from the soil to support their growth. They are greatly affected by changing weather and availability of water. During youth, they are attacked by a host of pests and diseases, during old age, yet another plague of pests and parasites work to shorten their days. Yet the wonder of it all is that the produce of these unmodified heirloom plants taste so much better than any mass produced variety of the same type.

Could it be that the tomatos, beans, and potato plants that survives the ordeals of their natural environment to reproduce simply has better tasting offspring? This question can be conversely applied. 70% of all tomatos currently consumed in the U.S are Genetically modified. Almost all of these tomatos include the insertion of a certain gene from a deep sea eel. Why are there eel genes in tomatos one may inquire? Well, the eel gene prolongs the life and appearance of the tomato fruit by 8 fold. That is, a normal tomato that is allowed to ripen on the vine, will shrivel up and rot within 1 week, a genetically-modified tomato of this type will stay as fresh and beautiful looking as the day it was picked off the vine for 2 months. Yet there is one defect, they just don't taste very good and couldn't be made to taste any better after a decade of additional genetic tinkering. For some odd reason, gmed tomatos of this kind lost the intrinsic freshness and tartness that real ripe tomatos have during it's brief days of youth and beauty. But people simply bought what looked good and wholesome, and the eel-derived tomato is now on everyone's dinner table. Some food for thought...

Gathering Acorns

While fishing and gardening has provided a large amount of consumables, I decided to give the arts of gathering and herblore a try. Seeing that I have the day off from work, the normal "munday" tasks have been replaced by activities that induces some small degree of sanity. I went into the woods to gather some acorns and mushrooms. Unfortunately there hasn't been rain in almost two weeks here in the northeast and thus no edible fungus was to be found. On the flip side, I did manage to collect some 25 lbs of ripe acorns. Acorns, the seeds of oak trees, are rich in carbohydrates. However, the catch is two fold:

1. You would have to compete with squirrils and other wily rodents to get your share of the crop. To my chagrin, this turned out to be no easy task. 2 out of 3 acorns that I found have been thoroughly gnawed by these frisky devils.

2. Each acorn contain trace amounts of tannin which is extremely bitter and has to be leached out of the meat of the acorn.

The native american tribes of the North East used to consume large amounts of acorn meal. They would first remove the acorn shells and collect the meat. The meat would then be pounded into meal. The meal is wrapped tightly into a semi-porous sack and left for a day under a cold flowing stream. The stream water carries away the tannin and leaves the acorn meal ready for human consumption. I'm going to try a much faster approach. A few pounds of the collected acorn will be shelled and mashed. This mash will be boiled in water until the water turns yellow, then the water is drained and fresh water poured in for more boiling. This boiling will quickly leach out the tannin.

So I took 3 lbs of acorns and shelled them with a nut cracker. About 10% of them were rotten/discoloured/worm-infested. The acorn meat was then pounded in a metal bowl until it turned into a fine pasty meal. This paste was then boiled repeatedly with tap water.

After each boiling the water was drained off and the acorn meal quenched with clean water. The run-off water was of this cloudy yellow-orange colour. After the second boiling I tasted a morsel of the acorn meal, it had a very bitter after-taste. So I boiled it some more. After the 4th boiling, the water became somewhat less yellowish and more clear. After the fifth boiling the water was entirely clear. I then drained all the water and pressed the excess water from the meal. The processed acorn meal was left to dry overnight on some paper towels. When considering the potential of acorn meal as a food source, I do not have the greatest of confidence. 3lbs of acorns and 2 hours of work produced less than 1/3 of a pound of acorn meal. And I know the caloric value of this meal couldn't possibly be greater than 1/3 pound of flour or even millet. Moreover, the taste of this acorn meal is bland and very coarse, kind of like flat, unflavored, canary seed.

Morning and Evening fishing trips

This morning was quite cold for august. The scene by the lake was of the utmost beauty. There was a light mist hovering just a few feet above the surface of the water. The effects of the sunrise upon that mist was a memorable scene. 9 panfish of various sorts were caught within an hour.



Around 6:30pm we went back to that lake and fished for another hour. The fishing was better than in the morning. 17 panfish of various breeds were caught along with 2 perch. All in all, we harvested 10 lbs of fish today.

Tomatoes and more tomatoes

My garden has been producing tomatoes like there's no tomorrow. There are now some 30 tomatoes on the vine and maybe a dozen ripe ones have been picked.

Solar Powered floodlight

I replaced our 60 Watt-hour driveway light with a 15 Watt-hour solar-powered LED flood light. Solar energy is free and causes no pollution(at least not on earth). Alternative energy sources such as solar/hydro/wind/biomass are here, but none of them could compete cost-wise with the burning of coal/oil/natural gas. The current paradigm of using fossil fuels for power is trifling with our progeny's inheritence.

Instead of powering up new gizmos and luxery items, we should be using technology to reduce per-capita energy consumption and still maintain a decent standard of living. The issue is obviously one of magnitude. I fully realize that my flight to Miami and back last month consumed more energy than a real hunter-gatherer would in his entire lifetime. But it's still a sensible thing to try to curb some of our excess consumption. Moreover, true individualists would want to have a hand in his own energy production. Thus my trials with biomass (green compost) and solar power generation may do some good after all.

In anycase, this is a small, 15 watt step towards becoming self-sufficient.

More food from garden and rod.

There are now some 20 tomatoes hanging on the vine. The String beans are still holding strong. The Squash plants have yielded their last fruit and have by now gone to the happy compost heap!

On the fishing front, we netted another 10 lbs of fish today.













16 Panfish of various sorts. My plan is to acquire 60lbs of fish before the season is over.