Gardening, and the occasional advantages of thinking small.

"GOD Almighty first planted a garden. And indeed it is the purest of human pleasures."- Francis Bacon.

There used to be an old cartoon entitled "Around the World in 80 Days", wherein the main characters would often find themselves in trouble with only a few tools at hand.  One of the characters would despair of getting out of the situation, as they didn't have the obvious means to escape, but the other would tell him the show's mantra: "Make good use of what you've got/ And you won't need what you have not."  They would then use the means at hand to get out of their situation, and find their way to the place they needed to be.  I was thinking about this recently with my garden.

Puff and I live in a town house with a yard the size of a postage stamp, so our garden is very small indeed. 

I have been fiddling with the garden for several years now, experimenting with growing various things for our kitchen.  The size of the garden lent itself to growing spices, but spices turned out to be a bust, since elder turns out to be a super taster, and likes her food exceptionally bland.  Or chocolate.

This year I planted corn, tomatoes, some potatoes, and onions.  I don't know if the corn was any good, but the squirrels seem grateful, and I understand they plan on erecting a monument to me, their kind and benevolent benefactor, just as soon as they get enough nuts together.  The onions somehow died, though I was told they were among the easiest things to grow.  I tried growing the spuds in buckets this year, as I found digging up spuds to be a pain and thought upending a bucket should be easier.  They seem to be growing well for now. 

The tomatoes are, for once, doing quite well, though they are small.  They were the first thing I planted some years ago.  Back then, my idea was to grow some to make tomato sauce with my in laws in the fall.  My in-laws, who are Italian, make sauce every fall. They spend a whole day doing it.  They buy about twenty bushel baskets of tomatoes, cut, scald, crush, bottle and boil the whole lot.  They have a huge pot for the scalding, which they heat over a propane burner- I've heard them called 'lobster cookers' in other places- and a large, electrical crusher, and an old oil barrel where they boil everything once bottled over the lobster cooker.  At the end of the day they have a year's worth of tomato sauce- cheap food.  My intention at the time was to grow about a bushel of tomatoes and add them to the in-law's.

Unfortunately, while I did grow a bushel or so of tomatoes, they never ripened at the same time, or at the right time.  I would have tomatoes scattered throughout the season, but never enough at any one time to be worth the big production of my in-law's.  We ate what we could, but most of the tomatoes simply ended up going to waste.

The blindingly obvious answer came to me this year:  I was thinking big, when everything I have is small.  This year, puff and I bought a small crusher, operated by hand crank, (which is powered by younger, who likes to help) for about forty bucks.  We also bought a stock pot (which we needed anyway) and a couple dozen preserving jars.  Total outlay, plus the fertilizer and soil for the garden, was about seventy bucks.

With this small set up, we could make tomato sauce as the tomatoes ripen.  We didn't need a large propane burner or oil barrel, or the enormous tub, as the amounts we were using was small, and it could all be done on the kitchen stove.  So far, we have made about five or six litres of sauce, with about enough tomatoes for about another three still on the vines.  They will not be wasted this year.

Cost wise, it was not cost effective this year.  However, the major expenses were the stock pot and the crusher, which will last for years.  The jars can be re-used. I can get a few more cheap. Next year, the expenses will be fertilizer, peat pots and seeds.  I'll dig in a little more of the lawn for a few more plants.  I think I'll dump more fertilizer on it, until the neighbour's think they live next to a barn.  It should be more cost effective then.

I realize this is gardening, not farming, and money isn't the most important thing.  Still, it is working in it's own small way, but only when I started acting like it was small, and not hoping for it to suddenly start growing like it was large; when I began seeing what was there, rather than seeing what was not.

roundup

A few personal points from last week stand out for me here. First, my boss, who got me my job, was abruptly fired on Tuesday for reasons no one knows. He handled it well and was allowed to say his goodbyes to us as he was escorted out. I considered him a friend, and miss him. I will remember him in my prayers, doubly so as he was an atheist.

On Friday we were herded into a meeting in which I made any number of enemies. The current heads wanted us to "discuss" issues we had with the workplace and brainstorm ideas for "solutions". We spent the first half of the meeting outlining problems and took a break before we were to come back and discuss solutions. However, upon returning the managers outlined their solution to our problem, which they had obviously decided upon before the meeting. I made any number of enemies by telling them the plan wouldn't work. It had actually been tried and failed some time ago, but managers don't last long enough to know what happened way back, oh, last week. Plus, key to their plan was maintaining communications with our suppliers, which was the job of the man they had just fired.

As an antidote this kind of nonsense I like to bake with the girls. Younger's favourite thing to make is brownies, and I have grandma's old recipe. It's simple and has absolutely no healthy ingredients, and that's the way I like it. Maybe I'll post it here one day. Younger's favourite part of baking her favourite recipe is licking the bowl. I don't scrape the bowls clean into the pan anymore just so I can see the look on her face as she tucks into a big mess of batter. That, and I get to see the look on Puff''s face when she sees our chocolate covered daughter.

I ended up taking the brownies to one of my two choir practices on Saturday. Both practices were enjoyable. I also feel- i don't know- pity, I guess, for the directors. I could never do it. They have to deal with people far too often for my taste. People, even Catholic people, are stupid. Speaking to people and listening to them pass their opinions on my hard work would drive me spare. I get like Alice from Dilbert: "Must... Control... Fist... Of... Death." The director for the Tridentine Mass Schola constantly gets contradictory messages. "More chant." "Less chant." "I like this" "I hate this" "Hymns!" "No Hymns!" Even the trads can't agree. One fellow the week before last told the priest to fire the director because for Lent he changed the usual Credo (Credo III) to another one (Credo I) which the fellow didn't know. He wanted "his" Credo back. Last week we handed out music to Credo I to help the people along. This fellow asked the director "Which one is it? Mine or yours?" To which the director gave the perfect answer: "It's God's. Here."

The other choir is again having problems. After a few weeks of steady improvement we find ourselves back at square one. Week before last the sopranos and altos again stopped singing in the middle of the Communion Hymn because the EMHC had just come up to the choir loft, leaving me doing the Bass line as a solo. At practice I told them that if they ever strand me like that again they may as well ask the minister to give them Last Rites as well as communion. So they didn't wander off this time. But they still have problems. This week they couldn't figure out wether or not we were actually going to sing a certain hymn even though 1. it was listed on the board and 2. the director was repeatedly playing the opening on the organ while 3. gesticulating with increasingly wild gestures for people to join in. Eventually I started it off and they joined in... but jeez. And I had brought them brownies and everything.

We were also continuing our experiment with singing the antiphons. This was just the men, me and two new guys. Unfortunately, they are inexperienced at this kind of singing and were not doing well. The music director couldn't do it as his voice is shot. So I did the only thing I could: I drowned out the other guys. Hey, a man's gotta do... until someone fires him for doing it. But we'll always have church. And brownies.

World Nutella Day

Today, February 6, 2007 is World Nutella Day .

Launched this year, it is the day when Nutella Lovers all over the World Unite for one Day.

How did you spend your Nutella Day.

I made Nutella wheels.("Tada Wheels" for Younger)
Two slices of extremely fresh Wonder bread. Teaspoon of Nutella in the centre. With Cookie cutter cut out a "wheel." If the bread is really fresh, the top edge and the bottom edge will seal the Nutella inside and you get a surprise when you bite into it. Don't forget the ice - cold milk. Younger loves the surprise.