My one melon. The plant was given to me late in the season by friend Saroja! Ymmmm. I wonder how many of the tiny melons it would have produced if it had the whole summer to grow.
Almost everything in the garden has finished producing. But I can start preparing for next year; in this case harvesting bush bean seeds.
The plant that is doing its best to ignore the season is the one that produces the big red and yellow dahlias. In the many years it grew in my back yard, the plant produced one flower a year. When I moved it to the sunny front yard two years ago, it took off! The photo on the right is of a part of the plant that was knocked to the ground by wind and rain a few weeks ago. It still is blooming! And so is the rest of it.
Not long ago, I was talking with someone who commented that being retired would be so boring. I was startled because I think the opposite. There are so many things I’d like to do. It seems to me that when I’m retired, I will have time to do more of them. I decided to practice being retired!
Ideally, I would be able to devote three or four days a week to that experiment, but that won’t happen often. Yesterday, unexpectedly, ended up being a free day so I decided to make it a “Practicing Retirement” day!”
I planned to do some canning that day, so on Wednesday I purchased blueberries and peaches at the farmers’ market. I was ready for the big day.
The first thing in the morning I checked my email and blog and then reblogged a post from @contentedness.net. Next I ate breakfast, showered and dressed.
The first project on my list was to gather tomatoes from the garden and make some roasted tomatoes.
Sliced tomatoes from garden
Add oregano and garlic cloves
Mix with olive oil and put on a baking sheet
After 30 minutes of roasting at 300 degrees
After 2 hours of roasting
Keep what I need for soup and put the rest in a jar to freeze
On to making crock-pot soup for tonight. The garden isn’t producing much now, and the vegetables tend to be small, but there is still enough to make soup.
Garden Vegetables
Add roasted tomatoes
Next, time to make blueberry freezer jam. I needed to get some supplies at the store to be able to do that. I started feeling strange when I was there and realized I had been so eager to start my “Practice Retirement” day that I had forgotten to take my blood pressure medicine in the morning. Not good. I carry extra pills in my wallet for occasions like that though, so took one right away. I will need to make sure I don’t get too engrossed in activities when I’m retired.
The medication wasn’t working yet so I decided to use the regular checkout line rather than the self checkout. That seemed reasonable for a retiree to do! When the bagger asked if I wanted him to put my bag in a cart I said “No, I can carry it.” I soon realized that it was heavy and that my blood pressure was up, and besides I’m retired, so I changed my mind. I could have even asked him to take it to the car for me, but I didn’t go that far.
Back home, it was time to make the freezer jam!
Blueberries from farmers’ market
Mash blueberries
Add juice, lemon and pectin
Add honey
Put the jam in jars, refrigerate over night, and then place them in the freezer
Time to rest and have some lunch. I shouldn’t be busy all of the time!
From time to time throughout the day, I worked with the graphic artist on September’s Pacific Northwest GreenFriends newsletter. By late afternoon, it was finished and I started sending it out to Amma groups in the region. I plan to continue working on the newsletter when I’m retired so it definitely fit into my practice day.
I have at least 6 more quarts of peaches to process, but that was enough canning for one day. I was tired.
After some rest, I was ready for dinner and my “Practice Retirement” day’s big finale.
This was the last of the preseason games and we won. If the Seahawks are playing this well without our starters, I wonder what the regular season is going to be like. I look forward to finding out! I also look forward to discovering which rookies make it onto the team. (I can’t believe I’m talking like this! I NEVER thought football would become an important part of my life.)
I loved my “Practicing Retirement” day. I know I won’t be able to do this much in one day when I actually retire; in fact I couldn’t keep up this pace even at the age I am now. When I retire, I will make sure I spend time being quiet and still, perhaps even having picnics with friends and looking at beautiful scenery like in the picture at the top of this post. Even when my body isn’t able to do the things I want to do, with my family and friends support, I believe I will live a fulfilling life. I do not think I will be bored when I retire.
I have been fascinated by tromboncino squash ever since I discovered them in 2013. Generally they are eaten when they are small. At that time they are considered summer squash and can be used in the same way you use zucchini. However, if you let a tromboncino squash continue to grow, it will turn into a winter squash.
The winter form may become very large.
In 2013, one of those squash grew in a very fascinating way.
This year I let one grow into the winter form. When I picked it, it weighed five pounds and was two feet long.
While that is big, it doesn’t come close to the one that grew in 2013. That one was 5 feet long! My memory is that it weighed 15 pounds, but I’m wondering now if it was less. Regardless, it was HEAVY. Below you will see a picture of that squash. It isn’t a clear photo, but it makes the point! I took it by snapping my reflection in a mirror. At that point, I had never heard of a selfie!
I imagine slugs are a problem for most gardeners, they sure have been for me. It is so discouraging to go to the garden in the morning and see only the stalks left on bean plants and other vegetable seedlings. In the “old” days I used to use powdered slug bait to get rid of them. Later on, I used beer to bait them.
I have become increasingly uncomfortable with killing the slugs. Early this year it seemed I had more than ever; especially in my two worm bins. Believe me, good compost and free food can raise some BIG slugs. During the early part of the summer, I relocated them to other parts of the yard and hoped the slugs didn’t make their way back to my garden. Occasionally, when I found them in the worm bins, I just left them there.
Then one day I decided to check out the relationship between worms and slugs. I was very dismayed to discover that slugs EAT worms! I even found videos that showed that happening.
Eating my vegetable starts was one thing, but getting plump from eating my worms was completely unacceptable. From then on I took the slugs to the bottom of the lot behind my house, about 250 feet away from my garden and my worm bins. That area is full of blackberries vines but I pulled up a lot of morning glory plants and made the slugs a soft bed of edibles.
Next year I will make a home for them that is more hospitable, but still far away from things I hold dear.
I will also experiment with other ways to protect my seedlings. For example, I like the gutter planters that my friend Saroja created this year. She didn’t put her seedlings into the garden until the plants were big enough to be of no interest to the slugs.
I am happy that I have found ways to protect my garden and worm bins without killing the slugs. I hope to be even more successful in that venture next year. If you have found peaceful ways to deal with the slugs in your garden, I would love to hear about them!
Before I left for Toronto last Thursday I harvested everything I could from the garden in an attempt to keep the vegetables from getting huge during the five days I was gone. I can only imagine how big those items would have been if I had left them on the plants. I came home to a whole new set of gigantic vegetables!
This is only a partial harvest from the front yard garden. The vegetables are even bigger than they look in the photo.
This is a zucchini! It is eight inches high and nineteen inches around.
Generally, I only give food scraps to the worms in my two worm bins, but I decided to share one of the big zucchini’s with them. After all, their ceaseless work contributed significantly to making the garden what it is today.
Vermi-composting is a process by which worms make high quality fertilizer for the garden. I have a large outdoor worm bin as well a smaller bin that stays in the house during the winter and on my deck the rest of the year. I blend most of the food scraps I put into both worm bins, but last week I decided to put some bigger pieces of food in the small bin so that I could watch the worms at work.
First, I gave them part of a large round zucchini that had been partially cooked. I tore it into 4 pieces before I put it into the bin. Within 36 hours nothing remained of the zucchini except the skin and the hard stalk that had connected it to the plant.
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Next, I decided to put an acorn squash that had fallen off of the vine and was starting to deteriorate in the bin. Again, I tore it into four pieces. This time the vegetable was raw so it is taking considerably longer for the worms to eat it.
I took these photographs over a three-and-a-half day period. It is clear that only the seeds and probably the skin will be left when the worms finish their meal!
I’ve had a garden in my front yard the last few years, but it has never been like this before. Maybe it is because of the new raised beds, or the extraordinarily hot weather, or the vermi-compost.
Whatever the reason, I am marveling at what is unfolding in front of my eyes! There have been times when everything was growing so fast that I wondered if I was living in the Jack and the Beanstalk story.
This may not amaze those of you who are used to successful gardens but this is the first time I’ve had this experience!
One of the things I am especially happy about is that the garden is full of bees. Most are bumblebees but there are honey bees as well. Two years ago bees were rarely to be found in my garden.
The Dungeon Prompt for this week asked us to identify a life pattern, one that we see repeating again and again. Since I already write regularly about the patterns in my life, I decided to answer this prompt in an unusual and fun way.
As I looked for a pattern to explore, I realized I have a nearly fifty-year-old pattern (something that happens in a regular and repeated way) of making items that are patterned (a repeated decorative design) and/or are made from patterns (a set of instructions to be followed in making a sewn or knitted item)! While I certainly don’t have pictures of everything I have made over the years, I do have a good sampling.
In the late 60’s and 70’s, I knit sweaters for myself and people important to me.
I also liked to sew. I made my blue wedding dress and the dashiki Al is wearing. I also made shirts and other clothing items for us.
I believe I crocheted the outfit Chaitanya wore when she came home from the hospital. I made the three sweaters below when Sreejit was a baby and have loaned them to friends with new babies many times. They still look as perfect as they did in 1975!
In the 70’s, I made several blankets. Two of them I still use.
In the 80’s, I made quilts for my daughter and my mother. When my mother passed, the white quilt was returned to me. It took me many years to finish Chaitanya quilt. By the time I completed it, she had moved to India where a quilt wasn’t needed. Both quilts are still used from time to time.
Sometime during the 90’s, I started making tiny Gods and Goddess dolls. They are sold during Amma’s tours as a way of making money for her humanitarian projects.
Saraswati
In the 2000’s, I worked with other Amma devotees to crochet blankets for homeless women who were moving into transitional housing.
Some years later, we worked together to crochet items out of recycled plastic.
Made from coffee and chip bags, strap and newspaper wrapper
Made from grocery bags
I can see that patterns are even a factor in the gardening I do now!
This has been a very interesting prompt for me to write. I am realizing how important projects such as these have been throughout my life.
It has been a very long time since I have immersed myself in any of these crafts. I hope to begin some of them again in the not too distant future!
I found this video so inspiring that I cried. I hope you are moved by it too.
In 2008, when she was in third grade, Katie Stagliano planted a seed that grew into a 40 pound cabbage. She took it to a local soup kitchen where it was cooked, along with ham and rice, and served to 275 people. But the story only starts there. Watch the video to learn more.
“The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.” “Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.” “Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.”-William Shakespeare
Living, Learning and Letting Go 
