Lancer09

Billet I'm a bit north of you up in KC and I've got a ton set, getting ready to ripen. I was getting tomatoes that would ripen all the way until halloween last year. I lost a few of my tomatoes this year, but so far about 40 of the 48 I got out and alive are setting fruit like crazy. Peppers are taking a bit longer but the jalapenos and anaheims are starting to set a bunch. Poblanos, cubanelles, and california wonders are taking a bit longer. It's interesting, the plants at home are tall, little lanky, but fairly full. The plants out at the garden are about half the height, but about 4 times the number of leaves. Definitely better sun at the farm than at home so I think that's what's helping. I'm sure I'm going to get hit with a bumper crop all at once, but I'll figure out something to do with it all. Though, the watering is about to kill me. 140-160 gallons of water 4 to 5 times a week all carried in five gallon buckets makes for some

A few years ago when we were in yellowstone we watched a big black bear boar enter the river on the upstream side of a hill. Thinking we'd see it walk out on the other side were thought something happened to it. Not long later we see it floating down the middle of the river doing barrel rolls, flips, and generally just floating down the river on his back enjoying hisself a nice float trip. Watched two other grizzlies swim that section as well. I'd say it's not just polar bears that enjoy swimming. The article about the one that drowned said that's normal for a drowned bear to have blood coming out of nose and mouth. I don't know why that would be, but I'd venture to guess there are some anatomical differences between how bears and people drown. I'm super excited they are coming back, it'll take time for people to get used to them though. All the drunk float trippers are going to be the first ones to have issues, though I don't know why people don't put their crap up any way, the coons are just as ridiculous and a lot more plentiful than the black bears are.

Well everything is going well with the garden so far. Lost a plant or two, and a few are looking a little puny, but everything is thriving for the most part. Biggest tom so far is a black krim that has a circumference about the same as a baseball now. Hopefully I'll be eating fresh tomatoes on the 4th.

I mean.. I know this isn't the same thing as the golf clubs, but I'm a Miken guy myself. 34/28 Supermax Freak. This years Freak is stupid hot out of the wrapper.

Yes they do. The knob opposite the side you are cranking on. The reel handle will spin when line is being pulled. Trout won't bust your knuckles. Carp will.

For Taney I only drop to 7 x in real clear and low, or fishing midges just to get the line through the eye. Depending on the fly type kind of varies whether or not I leave a long tag end and tie the dropper to the lead fly that way, or down off of the bend. On a real gradual round hook like a scud I like the tag end just because I feel like the bend is so gradual, I don't want the dropper line effecting the hook up ratio on the lead fly. That's my reasoning and I'm sticking to it. You can't change my mind.. kidding, but that's just how I started doing it, and have done it since. For leader my standard trout leader is a 7.5 foot 5X leader, then I usually drop anywhere from 2 to 6 foot of tippet off the end of that. Building them is easy too, and I prefer a blood not vs whatever it's called that other people do. (I just like the blood knot) Easy things for Taney are things like eggs, 14 and 16 gray, and olive scuds, small midges and pheasant tails are hard to beat. For a new guy try some leeches out too and let those swing in the current. Find a seam, and just let that fly finish right at the edge or pass through it and hold on. The advice I've always given, that always gets a punch in the arm from when I taught my wife to cast.. Just let the rod do the work.

Billet I started a few different peppers this year.... Just for the long game. Doing scotch bonnets for end result real Jamaican jerk seasoning. Doing extra jalapenos to ripen, smoke, and can in adobo sauce, and poblanos to ripen and dry for anchos. And after you talked so much about them, doing a ton of cubanelles mostly for Chile rellenos!

I tried smoking a spaghetti squash one time... It all turned to mush.

48 tomato plants and 24 pepper plants in the ground. I'm tired.

I'm an addict apparently. The Nixa Hardware had some good prices on some tomatoes I had been looking for this season. Grabbed a pair of brandywines, green zebra, pineapple, mr. Stripey, arkansas traveler, an unidentified large tomato, tomatillo, eggplant, anaheim chilis, rosemary, and basil. Then went over to the "Christian County Master Gardeners plant sale" Grabbed a pineapple tomato there along with a German Green tomato also. My dad also picked up a pair of German Striped tomatoes for me a couple days ago when he helped out at a local greenhouse in Lawrence. If these produce half as well as everything did last year I'm going to have more produce than I know what to do with, but I have decided to treat this, along with the next few years as experimental to figure out what works for me, strains and everything else so I can start saving seeds instead of having to buy plants. All of my seed started plants are more full of leaves at 6 inches now than many of these are at 8 to 10 inches. Going to pick up a few more brandywines and a couple cherry tomatoes and that will be all. Do have to get my squash and zuchini going as well. I got in trouble for only caring about the peppers and tomatoes the other day so this week I'll have to spend some time working around with everything else. Need to get a small trellis fence for the peas set up, more soil on the potatoes, and fertilize everything as well. Looking to get almost everything in the ground this coming weekend.

Most of my tomatoes are now between 3 and 6 inches and in 4 inch plantable cardboard pots. Around 50 percent have roots working through the bottom of the pots getting to the trays where the water is. Peppers are a bit smaller but growing. Roots are coming out of the bottom of their 2 inch cardboard pots on the biggest ones. With noticeable growth each day I think tomatoes will go in the ground in 2 weeks. Peppers I'll keep in the greenhouse for the extra heat for another week or two after that. Still have to get a 6 burpee pink Brandywine from Wal-Mart and some hybrids from the HS plant sale but well on the way to rocking and rolling. Didn't lose a single mater in the mater tragedy of '18! Ready for some summer fish frys, fresh tomatoes and beers by the lake.

i think i can safely say the transplant was succesful! All the plants are alive and well with new leaf growth. Thicker and strongsr stems are forming, and they drank up more water in the last 2 days than they had in the week prior. Now itll be a nice surprise when i get them all planted what kind of tomato each grows. Had jersey giants, carbons, ananas noire, black krims, and pantano romanescos in the tray.

Well....... I THINK we are going to make it through. Just checked the little'uns and they seem to be looking good. Actually have some more leaf growth in a few of them from just today. I think this is just going to end up just being an "early" repotting. Hopefully moving the 4 ish inches of stem into the plugs will lead to some real good root growth. I've got some pods of shallots, carrots, and beans I think I want to get out, but dang if I don't want to have to cover them back up this weekend. Dang weather.

I was able to keep some of the roots of all of them intact, with minimal or no damage to the stems so i think I have a chance. Got them in the greenhouse to get the good sun and warmth of outside, but with the door not zipped all the way down so I can keep some air flowing through there. I may mix up a real weak fert solution to see if I can stimulate some root growth to take over more room in each of the plugs. Biggest problem now is I don't know which of the four kinds of tomatoes are in each plug now.

Tragedy struck yesterday. I've got a small greenhouse I've been putting the seedlings in to get good sun. While I was removing them last night to bring the trays inside part of it pulled apart and my 16 plug tray of tomatoes fell, slid across a bar and pulled all 16 tomato seedlings out of their plugs. I decided to take the plugs, split them in half and put the seedlings back in with the whole stem in the dirt now. I'm sure there will be some shock, but if they can get roots set this just turned into an early re-potting for better roots, which is hopefully what happens. We'll see!

Called the "D'Monaco" or something like that. It's a hotel and has a bar that is open to the public. Seem to be doing well because whatever is getting built right across the street looks like it may be part of the same thing.

I ordered seeds from a few different places, unfortunately some of them still haven't shipped so while I'd like to really get more going of the ones I have I fear I'm going to be a little late, just may have to get them in the ground late. Looks like I'll be doing more of the krims, carbons and pantano's. than I planned but even then I think I'm pushing it. I am doing a lot of shallots this year so I'm excited to see how those turn out. With how many I use cooking I hope they store ok. The french zebrune variety I bought are supposed to dry well and store for a long time.

We are ramping up the garden operation this year. We have some kind of pea in the ground right now. some lettuce outside in a planter, and in the raised beds I tried some greens from seed instead. I read a deal about "High Intensity Gardening" basically just planting super thick in rows and only ever taking leaves and not full heads so all the plants have a chance to thrive. I've got a row of Arugula, Black seeded simpson, romaine, butter crunch, and rainbow swiss chard. Then we've got brussels sprouts, broccoli, and cauliflower with seedlings in a small staked greenhouse in the back yard, and they seem to be doing quite well in there. Doing a lot more from seed this year than last, but quite a bit will be plants from a mix of lowes, home depot, and walmart. Walmart carries Burpee plants up here and they did great for us last year, and the burpee seeds we've got popped up pretty quick compared to some others so far. From Bakers Creek seeds we picked up: Tomatoes (Jersey Giants, black krim, ananas noire, carbon, pantano romanesco's, and a verde tomatillo) Peppers: Cubanells, habanda's (taste like a habanero without the heat), some purple pepper, a red and a green bell pepper also got a bunch of shallots started Rest of the tomatoes are going to be : some sort of greek paste style tomato, a "bumblebee cherry" tomato (neat little yellow with black shoulders), san marzano's, mexican ruffled tomatoes, 5 or 6 pink brandywines, cherokee purples, a pineapple striped heirloom, some mexican golden beefsteak tomato (no idea what it actually is) probably another yellow like a golden jubilee. I'll also grab some early girls, better boys, and big boys from our HS ag class that starts them in the town I work for. I'll throw in a few other small cherry or grape tomatoes as well. I may do a green one as well like a green giant or the green zebras, I'd like to try making some green ketchup, anyone tried this? I've got the materials but I'm building a small extra raised bed for the herbs so they aren't in the same beds as everything else. My aunt and uncle have set some space aside for me for most of the tomatoes, since I'm probably going to have in the neighbor hood of 3 to 4 dozen tomato plants this year. SO that's how this garden season is going to go.

Dang! He was in KC last Tuesday and I ended up not being able to make it because of my wife's grandfather passing. I'm jelly.

been busy cooking round these parts. Wifes birthday is on V-day so instead of going out We always just make something fancier than the usual. This year we did coq au vine. Was pretty darn good. and made enough I've had some for lunch for a few days as well. Really starting to get into the groove on the sous vide. Have been getting some real good results on steaks especially doing a double sear. Season, sear, bag, cook and then searing again. took some relatively cheap cuts of steaks the other day and did a mix of garlic, salt and pepper, chili powder and ground coffee, seared and bagged with some smashed garlic cloves and in the bath for a few hours at 125. seared again and served with some bakers and asparagus, now that's a tasty meal. A few people who were supposed to join us couldn't make it so we had the steaks all cooked and just haven't hit them with the second sear so I've been using them for other things. They are cooked and sealed already so it's just heating them up. Sliced steak and egg sandwiches the other day for breakfast made for a nice treat. Especially with a slice of good swiss and a healthy slathering of Kewpie Mayo.

Anytime you are up in kansas city and not taking all your time with that Ness guy, just let me know and itlle be on the table!

For lunch i knocked out some white winr braised leeks that i finished with some leftover mushroom rice. Delicious. Got some small filets seared and into bags for the sous vide. Got some time, butter and garlic and rosemary in there now. Few hours at 125 and theyll be ready for another sear. Doing roasted bell peppers and zuchini spears on thr side. Cant wait for dinner!

Adobo was delish.

I love a good tartare. Carpaccio is delicious. Live sushi, poke, pretty much boils down to raw food being delicious. I browned a small pork shoulder and three small chicken breasts in 1 inch cubes, made a sauce, and am 16 hours into a 24 hour sous vide chicken and pork adobo.

Holy smokes! I never thought of doing a wellington with venison... i will be giving that a try.