bigugli

Ok thanks. This location would actually be slightly uphill from the septic, but it seems to be the only logical area to garden.

Much of the yard is heavily shaded with apple and plum trees.

The space is limited with all the trees, we can maybe do 30×30

Heavy shade would be a bigger problem. 90% of your foodstuffs need full sun

As long as your not planting or digging on the septic bed, and as long as you get the proper breakdown of matter, you are fine. When younger, one of our gardens was downhill from the septic bed. Was the richest piece of ground, had the best yields of tomato, huge pears, and almost never needed watering

How about them Sens eh?

Goaltending is amazing!

Best team in the league, should have got rid of McLean at the beginning of the year.

Any of you laffites that are yearning for some good hockey to cheer for.........

Yep.. I watch Montreal

Well, out to the Niagara Outdoor Show in Ft Erie. Hoping to see some OFCer's there. If you can, please consider bringing some non-perishable items for the food drive. Thanking you in advance.

Robins in the yard and pussy willow buds.

Time to make friends with a local farmer

Funny I was trying to tell people that last year with the shortage of animals running through the auctions that prices were going to keep going up. Lot of herds in Ontario were downsized over the past 2 years, and more of what was available was going south. The few herdsmen I still know are not planning on raising their head numbers any time soon.

Yep,

Im kinda weird with mushrooms, garlic and onions. If cooked I could just make a plate of all three and chow down lol.

I've been known to sit down to a big pan of wine saute'd mushrooms and garlic all by my lonesome. Wife won't touch the things. Won't go near a plate of liver bacon and onion either.

Never tried the salt to tenderize but I know for a fact baking soda is what most chinese restaurants use to tenderize the beef. I use it to make flank steak for fajitas super tender. Give it a try, you'll be amazed.

Baking soda and boiling water for 2 minutes is also the quick fix for leaching out the blood and tenderizing liver.

It was crushed... I just wish I added more onions, man o man that complimented the meat

I love whole onions done with a roast, whether beef, pork, or game. The flavours are just so good together. Gotta put in at least a pound.

The beer store is not owned by Ontario or Canadian company.

 

Thats just what I heard .

That's exactly what I said on page 1 Brian. It was a government granted monopoly given to the then "big 3" of Molsons, Labatts, Carling. It allowed them to self regulate and control the market. Control now rests in the hands of their foreign parent companies.

Brewer's Retail is a dinosaur from an age when there were 3 family breweries in Ontario controlling 99% of the beer flow. All Canadian, Molson's, Labatt's and Carling were the owners and operators. Only member breweries and their subsidiaries were allowed to sell through Brewers Retail. The big change came with the introduction of Miller Light, and since then the restrictions have slowly devolved. Stubbies were removed. Specialty and micro brews, foreign labels and foreign ownership have all made the original reasons for the Brewer's Retail obsolete

I don't think anybody's ticker could survive testing every one of these recipes. LOL.

A growers tip for tomatoes. If you want sturdy healthy plants you have to plant them deep. Buy a taller plant. Does not matter if it is a little spindly. When you dig your hole, depth of pot is too shallow. Bury the plant right up to the first branch. That entire section of stem will sprout root, making for a sturdier, healthier, heat tolerant plant.

Another dear old dad gardening tip.........the best time to weed your garden is right after a good rain. They come right out with no effort at all. But watch out for all those carrots you just planted

But not if the plants you have are shallow rooted. You risk popping the plant if the weed is close beside and its root ball underneath.

I like the sounds of the carrot over weeds trick.

 

We're VERY amateurs about this, this will be our 3rd attempt this year. We have tomatoes, beans, peas, asparagus (yes, asparagus we inherited those when we bought this place and I've no idea what to do about them this spring to ensure they keep coming up healtyh) .

Asparagus, is a perennial root best worked on in the fall. On the existing bed, a generous manuring is good, but the bed will grow old, less productive. Start another new bed. Dig up some of the root, and start in anther well fertilized trench. It takes about 3 years before you see any real result, but the old bed will have also been given a little natural kick in the meantime as it grows to recover from what you disturbed.

I've had good results with tomatoes, zucchini, cucumbers and hot peppers. I can't seem to do well with sweet bell peppers. Pumpkins will creep and spread all over the place.

Hot peppers, once the plants are established, can handle cooler night temperatures than sweet bells. Bells thrive on heat for fast fruit growth. No pepper like cool soil temps below 60F when planted out in spring.

One trick my dad taught many years ago was to plant whatever you want but once they start coming up plant carrot seeds in between where you normally would have weed growth. This way that area is taken up with edible carrots instead of pesty weeds.

 

BTW those carrots will store very well in the ground up until the ground freezes so even when everything else has been pulled at the end of the year those carrots should be left in until you need them.

As will beets

Oh yes the two tier system. The white country club hospital vs "county" for the rest. If you think the statement is racist, yes it is. Every year at the nursing job fairs, big private hospitals in the states come to Canada to hire lots of Canadian nurses. White nurses.

Spent enough years in health/nursing admin to know a lot on the subject. Many an Ontario nurse goes down with a contract job with bonuses and all the hours they can handle, sometimes more. 2-3 years down there and they came come home with a fat bank acct. If you have money you go to private hospitals and wait for nothing. If not, the waiting lists in Ontario are nothing compared to a county hospital in many a US city.

Yes salting can dry out the meat. Another option is to use a salt brine. That is my choice of marinade. I did moose sirloins, from an older bull, a week back and they were tender and tasty.

I've tried staying out of this one. It evokes too much emotional response. i've seen both the good and the shortcomings of the Ontario system, and hands down I'll take Ontario.

When my daughter was a toddler she was misdiagnosed and lost in the system shuffle up at Mac. According to the treating physician "She's a toddler. What does she really know about pain. She says she hurts so she can have attention" The Shriners came to the rescue and got her into one of their units for treatment. If not for them she would have died a long time back. The first spinal repair cost close to a quarter million back in the 90's. If I had to pay for that I would have been broke then, and never afforded the further spinal repairs that followed.

You all know my wife had cancer. You want to tell me how a disabled person pays for all that treatment. They don't because they can't. Disabled people don't qualify for most life insurance or health insurance policies. The exceptions being policies negating prior illness and costing 1000 a month per person.

It;s nice to hear from the "never been sick" "never needed the system" types. They will eventually get a huge heaping dish of crow. As for the well to do not wanting to subsidize the poor and needy with taxes. That has never changed in a thousand years. After all there 'no workhouses, are there no prisons" to paraphrase Dickens. To the wealthy those who cannot work are a burden and under social Darwinism should be allowed to die to "decrease the surplus population" A standing conservative argument established by the Rev'd Malthus.

Best use ever for Beehive corn syrup was when mom made peanut brittle

The wife does 2 batches every year at Christmas, and they don't last long.

Beehive corn syrup on ice cream. DROOOOOOOOOOOOL. As wholesome as good old oatmeal with a dollop of butter and maple sugar (try finding that now).

YEs I remember the hockey pics, but I remember the Sherriff collector coins much better. There were the players, cars, and airplanes series from what I remember. We had loads of the coins. Gram used a lot of their pudding and pie fillings for her caterings.

All depends on locale, drainage, and soil types. I know a safe cheat is to build a raised garden atop whatever ground you have. That way you put down the desired siol with worrying about existing soil composition, and drainage does not become an issue.

With clay soils, it takes more than a year to properly blend and ameliorate the soil. One big disadvantage is people put in too much peat and manure creating a huge mud bowl with nowhere for the water to drain. The further north you go, the less you can grow unless you get into creative cheating.

We've got our first tomato seeds sown on the grow bench.

No complaints in my household. Then again I am expected to also have enough workable rod and reel combos for family fishing outings that happen 2 or 3 times a year.

I'd really like to thank the parents of the 2 sick urchins that stopped by and were so kind as to give me the flu this week.