Today's Adventures
Jul. 1st, 2017 08:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysabetwordsmithWe went to the farmer's market for the first time this year, and bought supplies for making Sloppy Joe filling and Wild Tidy Joes (bison version). We also had lunch with my parents and visited a bookstore.
There's a new mushroom vendor, Flyway Family Farm, who had lovely batches of fresh oyster mushrooms for $5. Very sweet and tasty, we had those for supper with garam masala.
Biggest score was Prairie Rim Bison / Ruhter Bison. Lovely ranch running about 40 head of buffalo at present. Aho! In addition to the usual ground bison and less common things such as ribs, they had something I've not seen white people selling before: bison soup bones. Not just meatybones like I was expecting but actual slices of limb with quite a lot of meat around it. I bought two fist-sized packages for $6.50 and opened them to find that each contained two slabs the size of large lamb chops, nearly as big as my hand. *victory dance* So I have crocked those with about a gallon of water now simmering away in the kitchen, and we shall have bison broth! :D We also bought cheesecloth so I could make a bouquet garni instead of chasing bits of leaves around the pot. I put in two bay leaves, a bunch of peppercorns and juniper berries, a big sprig each of fresh sage and rosemary, and some sea salt. I had fun rolling the fresh herbs between my hands to bruise them and release the flavor, so now my hands smell like rosemary and sage.
I also trimmed some brush from the forest garden, watered plants, and sprayed the Japanese beetles. Little bastards have almost denuded my firecracker plant. And I couldn't find my can of Sevin. >_< I prefer to avoid pesticides, but when the JBs swarm there's little other choice because nothing will eat them. Must get a fresh can. Blackberry lilies have tiny buds on them now.
There's a new mushroom vendor, Flyway Family Farm, who had lovely batches of fresh oyster mushrooms for $5. Very sweet and tasty, we had those for supper with garam masala.
Biggest score was Prairie Rim Bison / Ruhter Bison. Lovely ranch running about 40 head of buffalo at present. Aho! In addition to the usual ground bison and less common things such as ribs, they had something I've not seen white people selling before: bison soup bones. Not just meatybones like I was expecting but actual slices of limb with quite a lot of meat around it. I bought two fist-sized packages for $6.50 and opened them to find that each contained two slabs the size of large lamb chops, nearly as big as my hand. *victory dance* So I have crocked those with about a gallon of water now simmering away in the kitchen, and we shall have bison broth! :D We also bought cheesecloth so I could make a bouquet garni instead of chasing bits of leaves around the pot. I put in two bay leaves, a bunch of peppercorns and juniper berries, a big sprig each of fresh sage and rosemary, and some sea salt. I had fun rolling the fresh herbs between my hands to bruise them and release the flavor, so now my hands smell like rosemary and sage.
I also trimmed some brush from the forest garden, watered plants, and sprayed the Japanese beetles. Little bastards have almost denuded my firecracker plant. And I couldn't find my can of Sevin. >_< I prefer to avoid pesticides, but when the JBs swarm there's little other choice because nothing will eat them. Must get a fresh can. Blackberry lilies have tiny buds on them now.
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(no subject)
Date: 2017-07-02 02:14 am (UTC)Third reference to June beetles in a few days. Must be that season!
Well...
Date: 2017-07-02 02:53 am (UTC)Re: Well...
Date: 2017-07-02 03:15 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2017-07-02 02:42 am (UTC)Broth for the bard!
(no subject)
Date: 2017-07-02 05:50 am (UTC)Fie on the JBs! And, yeah, Sevin is about the only thing that'll deal with'em; I remember my da hitting the rhodies with it when I was a kid.
Actually, wait! Too late for this year, but you can take care of NEXT year's crop.
Nematodes. They're little roundworms, and the ones you get LOVE Japanese beetle grubs. Spread'em in the fall or early spring, and they bore in and have themselves a feast.
http://www.arbico-organics.com/category/japanese-beetles-control
You can probably get'em at your feed'n'seed, as I heard about'em on a radio show involving a Master Gardener...
Good luck, and good hunting!
Well...
Date: 2017-07-02 06:21 am (UTC)I checked, but both these and the milky spore are tedious to apply. While milky spore persists well, nematodes tend to die over winter. That doesn't seem very practical.
(no subject)
Date: 2017-07-02 07:29 am (UTC)All you need do, is flick the Japanese beetles into the soapy water where they will quickly drown.
:^}