Good fortune

[George Shirley]

Opened a case of jars at random this morning, found a half case of
canned carrots and the other half was canned butter beans. Came out of
last years garden at the old house.

Tonight's dinner will be a nice shared rib eye with butter beans and
carrots and a tossed salad on the side.

Slow headway on getting the new house in order is being made. Both of us
have been down for two or three weeks with a severe sinus problem. That
is getting better and we appreciate that. All those nights of sleeping
sitting up so you can breathe was a PITA. Last night we both slept all
night without hacking, coughing, or having to sit up. Luckily we have a
Tempurdedic "ergo" bed, can run it up to a sitting position.

Today I will turn an old TV cabinet, made of Brazilian pine, into a
storage cabinet in the garage for our canning pots and associated
equipment. Brought a nice panel of Luan plywood along on the move for
just that purpose.

We've met several of our nearby neighbors and none of them garden or
can. Young mother two doors down is interested in learning to garden and
preserve her own food so we will probably hold some classes in both
before to long. Our middle grandson and his family live down the street
and they want in on the lessons too. Monday I will go and get a pickup
load of fill sand to fill in the holes the previous owners dog dug over
the entire backyard. After that is done we can start on putting in our
raised bed gardens.

We have had some very heavy rains since we moved in and some pretty cold
weather too. Nothing like what is hitting the upper middle west and that
tier of states but temps down to 29F are pretty cold for us thin blooded
Texicans.

Stay warm Yankees.

George

[The Cook]

On Sat, 12 Jan 2013 08:00:35 -0600, George Shirley <gms2...@att.net>
wrote:

I remember the "Blue Northers" that came through when we lived in San
Antonio. It could go from nice and warm to almost freezing in less
than an hour.
--
Susan N.

"Moral indignation is in most cases two percent moral,
48 percent indignation, and 50 percent envy."
Vittorio De Sica, Italian movie director (1901-1974)

[Tom]

George Shirley <gms2...@att.net> wrote in news:50f16c76$0$18833$862e30e2
@ngroups.net:

<snip>

> We've met several of our nearby neighbors and none of them garden or
> can. Young mother two doors down is interested in learning to garden and
> preserve her own food so we will probably hold some classes in both
> before to long. Our middle grandson and his family live down the street
> and they want in on the lessons too. Monday I will go and get a pickup
> load of fill sand to fill in the holes the previous owners dog dug over
> the entire backyard. After that is done we can start on putting in our
> raised bed gardens.
>

===
Mister Shirley,

RE: raised bed garden.

I don't post often; I have NO experience with canning and little with
freezing. But I do (try to) garden.

What I do have is a question, if you have the time. I have a fairly large
property about 30 miles East of Los Angeles, but the only part with
Southern exposure is paved over with concrete and asphalt. I do have quite
a bit of open land on the North side, but it's on a steep, terraced slope
and gets little sunlight. It also has quite a few avocado trees.

I've looked into raised beds, but they would have to be placed on the
concrete slab on the South side of the house. All plans I've found seem to
be for raised beds over soil.

If you have any suggestions I would appreciate it. I'm thinking about 4
beds, each about 6 by 12 feet. Could I raise them up with supports
underneath? (It would need a "floor".) Or just set the "walls" on the
concrete with drainage holes drilled along the edges? Maybe make it deeper
than the normal raised bed....

Thanks in advance for any suggestions,

Tom Cantwell

[Ross@home]

On Sat, 12 Jan 2013 08:00:35 -0600, George Shirley <gms2...@att.net>
wrote:

>We have had some very heavy rains since we moved in and some pretty cold
>weather too. Nothing like what is hitting the upper middle west and that
>tier of states but temps down to 29F are pretty cold for us thin blooded
>Texicans.
>
>Stay warm Yankees.
>
>George

Good morning George,

Definitely something wrong with the weather in this part of the world.
You're about 2000 kilometers Southwest of me but according to my
weather station it's 13�C (55�F) outside right now. Yesterday it got
up to 57�F, broke some records by quite a few degrees.
Unfortunately, weatherman is calling for -8�C (18�F) by tomorrow
night. Was nice while it lasted, helps with the heating bills.

Ross.

[George Shirley]

On 1/13/2013 9:19 AM, Ross@home wrote:
> On Sat, 12 Jan 2013 08:00:35 -0600, George Shirley <gms2...@att.net>
> wrote:
>
>> We have had some very heavy rains since we moved in and some pretty cold
>> weather too. Nothing like what is hitting the upper middle west and that
>> tier of states but temps down to 29F are pretty cold for us thin blooded
>> Texicans.
>>
>> Stay warm Yankees.
>>
>> George
>
> Good morning George,
>
> Definitely something wrong with the weather in this part of the world.
> You're about 2000 kilometers Southwest of me but according to my

> weather station it's 13ºC (55ºF) outside right now. Yesterday it got
> up to 57ºF, broke some records by quite a few degrees.
> Unfortunately, weatherman is calling for -8ºC (18ºF) by tomorrow

> night. Was nice while it lasted, helps with the heating bills.
>
> Ross.
>

I understand, woke up at 0300 this morning to a clatter on the windows.
A front was moving through and dropped some cold rain that actually
froze a little. Wind blowing hard, cold rain, temps dropped radically
for awhile. Must have been a Canadian escapee, please keep them at home.

The rain stopped but we're still overcast and looking at early morning
temps around 35-40F, rather cold for us.

We're headed for a fruit tree sale at the Urban Harvest-Houston site on
the 19th of this month. Have a list of several dwarf trees we want. Hope
we get them.

George, wearing a sweater whilst I type, power is expensive here.