I gave blood today. This is the first time the Phlebotomist had to "stick" me twice in the 40 years I have been giving blood.
The first one worked fine as long as the blood was flowing even though it seemed to take much longer than I am used to.
But the "hub" clotted up after I filled the bag and they had to do a second poke on my other arm to fill the vials for blood typing and all of the other mysterious things they need to do.
Waste
One of the advantages of a simple diet is that there is less waste than a diet that demands a great deal of variety.
When I clean my refrigerator I see that I never throw out milk or mustard, apples, shredded cheese or eggs. I do toss celery, green onions, weird sauces, chip-dip and other exotic items.
The point is that the high-runners in my diet have enough demand and turnover that very little gets wasted. The "Hey, I need to buy some of this for this one recipe I want to try" invariable results in 3/4 of it being tossed a few weeks later.
I have to keep reminding myself of that as I drool over the seed catalogs. The Baker Creek catalog came today and every page is a work of art.
If I was forced to engage in triage, my list of vegetables might look something like this. If I could only grow ONE vegetable, it would be tomatoes. If I could only grow TWO, it would be tomatoes and potatoes, and so-on...
- tomatoes
- potatoes
- zucchini
- Turnip/Kale/Daikon (cover-crop/late fall greens/roots)
- green beans
- sweet pepper
- cabbage
- Butternut squash
- cucumber
- field corn
- Romaine lettuce
- beets
- broccoli
On the other hand, if I only had a few square-feet of garden the list would look different:
- Hot peppers
- Garlic
- Cherry tomatoes
- Rosemary
- Mint
Some vegetables are notable for their absence. No onions, carrots or sweet corn on my list because they are grown commercially by local farmers. I can buy a 50 pound bag of carrots for $7...and I am not very good at growing carrots.
Adding more crops usually adds more complexity. There are exceptions. Turnip/kale/daikon seeds can be broadcast into the canopy of your squash/pumpkins/melons in early July (in Michigan) and will give you a second crop with no fuss or bother three or four months later. But those are the exceptions.
I admire the people like Leigh and Lucky who seem to be able to effortlessly grow a boundless cornucopia of delicious, garden edibles. Alas, I am living proof of Dirty Harry's opinion that "A man has to know his limitations".
All opinions will be much appreciated. Since choices of what you grow are very sensitive to climate, please consider listing what state or region (i.e. Intermountain West) you are in.
Added later:
For those of you who worry that my lack of success (so far) this hunting season will render us to a meat-free diet, rest assured that my friends who HAVE been successful cheerfully donated the hearts, livers, kidneys and tongues of their kills.
I have been pressure canning them. Zeus really likes a little bit of real meat added to his dried kibbles, and if push-comes-to-shove, it is plenty good enough for me to eat.
Is it OK if I characterize my deer hunting season as "Offal good so far"?
"if I only had a few square-feet of garden": herbs. By all means rosemary and mints: we used to grow four different mints in what we called our "mentharium".
ReplyDeleteBut my top choice would be tarragon. Chervil is lovely. The savouries we like. Chives we always have; borage grows like a weed, thank goodness, and so does lemon balm. Basil, sage, thyme, lemon thyme, coriander, marjoram. Parsley and coriander.
We also like lovage but you have to be careful: the first one we planted we put on the site of an old compost heap: it grew to over six foot tall. That would mean eating more omelettes than is ever likely.
DearieMe, yes, Chervil and Tarragon are lovely in eggs.
ReplyDeleteWhen we lived in the countryside of Jackson county the dogs practically demanded both Sungold, and Sweet Million cherry tomatoes. Those are their humans’ favorites as well. The dogs also wiped us out of our first year’s crop of Brandywine tomatoes. The few that they “saved” for us were spectacular tasting but finicky to grow. I never had luck growing them again due to what I think was fusarium wilt. A bugger to get rid of. A variety of “small slicer” tomatoes that was excellent year after year is Martina. Highly recommend those for your area.
It is interesting you mention Leigh, and how we all end up reading the same blogs. Leigh’s peanut butter granola recipe, on her blog, is delicious with nothing but clean, healthy ingredients. If you try it, there is nothing wrong with adding some butter to the recipe. Takes it over the top…
https://www.5acresandadream.com/2021/05/pecan-granola.html
Did I miss where you said you were averse to taking a doe?
ReplyDeleteThey seem to be everywhere.