Prep Genrl Weekly Prep Thread: July 30 ~ August (Waitaminute! Seriously? August already??) 5, 2023

[SouthernBreeze]

I spent a lot of money about 15 years ago buying LTFS. Some of it wasn't made to last more than 5 years, like the canned butter and the canned garden seeds. I know for sure that we can't depend on our garden, or the lack there of. The things in my LTFS that has made it are the basic foods, like corn, wheat, beans and rice. Stuff like pancake mixes have long since fallen by the wayside. And I don't know about the meal mixes that I bought. If God gives me the energy I plan on check all of it out when the weather cools off. I do have some of my LTFS in my she shed that has ac that at least keeps it cooler than the outside temps. The bulk of it though is in a shed that is unheated and not cooled here in the Louisiana weather.

I understand. I keep all of our food stores here in the house, so it can be kept warm or cool depending on the season. My unheated and not cooled mini barn is for all our non-food supplies. I'm not concentrating on long term meals, now. We have cases of those. What I'm buying are individual cans of things like the bread and roll mixes, powdered milk, powdered eggs, freeze dried fruits, potato flakes, shredded potatoes, all in #10 cans that have a long shelf life. I'm ordering a few cans each month to go along with my regular once a month grocery shopping. The cans fit nicely under our bed, LOL.

 

[moldy]

I am really grumpy today. Cant wait to go home

 

[kyrsyan]

I am really grumpy today. Cant wait to go home

Hugs. Hopefully things will start looking up quickly.

 

[nomifyle]

I understand. I keep all of our food stores here in the house, so it can be kept warm or cool depending on the season. My unheated and not cooled mini barn is for all our non-food supplies. I'm not concentrating on long term meals, now. We have cases of those. What I'm buying are individual cans of things like the bread and roll mixes, powdered milk, powdered eggs, freeze dried fruits, potato flakes, shredded potatoes, all in #10 cans that have a long shelf life. I'm ordering a few cans each month to go along with my regular once a month grocery shopping. The cans fit nicely under our bed, LOL.

When the long term stuff got here there was no where else to put it. I had it in a storage unit in a town about 30 miles away and I wanted it all to be here. Maybe when the camper gets repaired I can it it put in there with an ac in the window.

 

[philkar]

You can also use sourdough if you can't get yeast or the grid is down for an extended period of time.

Sourdough is my go to! I figure if it worked for the pioneers it will work for us

 

[SouthernBreeze]

Sourdough is my go to! I figure if it worked for the pioneers it will work for us

That's something I know nothing about. I don't know how to make it or how to incorporate it into the bread mix. I, once, used a sourdough starter that I had to keep fed made from yeast, water, sugar, and potato flakes. Is it the same thing as sourdough?

 

[etdeb]

A group of folks from my church just got back from a mission trip and they raved about cooking biscuits in a roaster oven. Sounds like it would be a good thing to do tomatoes in.

In my first marriage we traveled working all over the sourheast.
I had a electri griddle and covered electric skillet that i cooked out meals with. We lived in and worked out of a 1976 Ford econline van.
I made pretty good biscuits in that covered electric skillet.

 

[SouthernBreeze]

In my first marriage we traveled working all over the sourheast.
I had a electri griddle and covered electric skillet that i cooked out meals with. We lived in and worked out of a 1976 Ford econline van.
I made pretty good biscuits in that covered electric skillet.

After watching a youtube video about how to make biscuits on a woodstove top only using a cast iron skillet, I tried it myself. They turned out pretty good for the first try. They were a little too brown on the bottom, so it would take practice.

 

[kyrsyan]

Internet is being completely wacked. It's working intermittently.

Pulled the Rotel, added the lemon juice, put it all back in the oven. The lemon juice made it soupy again and I don't want soupy.

I called the place Dad recommended. They said $50 to pull the tires, rebalance them all, and find the problem. He had a list of things that he thinks it could be. And a list of realistic things to look at if isn't anything at all with the tires or rims. Basically, exactly what I need. This "We don't know but here's your car back" has gotten on my last nerve.

Son has been in a better mood today. He did wake up with a headache but an OTC handled it. And lots of tickle and kiss requests. The favorite at the moment being the forehead kiss.

I punted dinner tonight. We can't eat out often but the local BBQ place has salads that he can have. And he loves them.

When I went digging for lemon juice I discovered a few surprises. One of which is that I somehow cleared an entire area under one shelving unit and never realized it. Next weekend or the one after, I'll go through the tins that will fit there and see if there is any longer term stuff I can tuck at the far side. And I think the near side will be used to store some of the recent canning, in the boxes. With labels on everything.

And son gets the pleasant surprise of some of his favorite glass bottle sodas. Reed's Ginger Beer and IBC root beer. I didn't stash those there. Pretty sure I know who did, and that they didn't mean to hide them. Either way, a pleasant surprise for son.

 

[philkar]

That's something I know nothing about. I don't know how to make it or how to incorporate it into the bread mix. I, once, used a sourdough starter that I had to keep fed made from yeast, water, sugar, and potato flakes. Is it the same thing as sourdough?

Sounds similar!

 

[moldy]

Ugh. Just a rotten day. But I am healthy, even if i have to work till i'm 95.

 

[kyrsyan]

Ugh. Just a rotten day. But I am healthy, even if i have to work till i'm 95.

I've had those days. Hugs. Hopefully a good night of sleep and things will be better in the morning.

 

[kyrsyan]

I'm trying to figure out the hot Cherry Jam. I'm pretty sure I have a mislabeled paper plant and I dropped a whole ghost pepper into the recipe.

Sent the "tester" to a friend and her husband when I surprisingly got very little hot when eating it. Per them, the flavor is amazing. I agree. But they ate the whole tester whereas I had only had a couple of bites.

Per them, the heat is there on the backend, which is typical of ghost peppers. But it builds. Instead of an instant and strong bite on the backend, it's a slow build up that gets stronger as you eat more. And by the time they finished the small amount they had, the heat was there.

I don't know if it's the cherries, the alternate sweeteners, or that I shredded the pepper in the food processor but now I'm really wondering. I guess I'm going to have to pull out the cream cheese and crackers this coming weekend.

It will be amusing if I've come up with a sneak attack jam. Especially since, at the moment, all the jars are labeled "Not Ghost Cherry Jam".

 

[John Deere Girl]

That's something I know nothing about. I don't know how to make it or how to incorporate it into the bread mix. I, once, used a sourdough starter that I had to keep fed made from yeast, water, sugar, and potato flakes. Is it the same thing as sourdough?

Youtube has some great tutorials! Sometimes i learn better by watching, and the videos help me.

 

[ReneeT]

Hugs to you, Moldy - rotten days suck. Prayer offered for you that things get better soon.

 

[Illini Warrior]

Youtube has some great tutorials! Sometimes i learn better by watching, and the videos help me.

when you're getting ready to kick off a project you have never tried or done - pays to check on any UTubes - most likely plenty of garbage - but every once & awhile you strike gold - good idea on procedure or maybe a product recommendation .....

 

[ReneeT]

It was a lovely 61*F when I went out to fill the hummingbird feeders this morning; the highs are supposed to be slightly under 90*F - for early August, I'll take those numbers.

My pool buddy is on an Alaskan cruise, so I've been wandering around the kitchen trying to talk myself in to going to the early morning aqua aerobics class, but I managed to dither around doing other things - laundry, dishes, wash down the porch, etc.. until it was too late to go. I'm using the excuse that she's on vacation, so I should be too

I picked a lot of tomatoes yesterday, but wore out before I picked them all. Since we cleaned out the freezer, I may just wash them, bag them, and freeze them - anyone have tips on freezing tomatoes? I'd use them mostly in soups, etc...

There is a lot of smoke odor in the air again today - I didn't notice it last night when I went out around midnight to chase a raccoon off the porch, but it is definitely there this morning. I looked in all directions but didn't see any sign of any of the neighbors burning anything. There is a slight south east wind, but I don't notice the smoke odor being any worse from that direction than any others.

 

[SouthernBreeze]

I could use some help. As I mentioned earlier, Cary ordered amoxicillin from the link Illini posted. That is one of the only antibiotics Cary can take, so we wanted some on hand. Not only will they be for us, but our dog, too, if he should ever need them. I know the dosage for us, but I have no clue what the dosage would be for him. He weighs 70 lbs. It's 500mg capsules. Summerthyme? Anyone?

 

[summerthyme]

I could use some help. As I mentioned earlier, Cary ordered amoxicillin from the link Illini posted. That is one of the only antibiotics Cary can take, so we wanted some on hand. Not only will they be for us, but our dog, too, if he should ever need them. I know the dosage for us, but I have no clue what the dosage would be for him. He weighs 70 lbs. It's 500mg capsules. Summerthyme? Anyone?

His dosage would be about half the adult human dose. If they are capsules, you can empty them into something tasty (beef or chicken broth, wet dog food, etc) and give half of the total amount at a time. But truthfully, it wouldn't hurt him to give him the whole thing, 2x daily.

Summerthyme

 

[SouthernBreeze]

His dosage would be about half the adult human dose. If they are capsules, you can empty them into something tasty (beef or chicken broth, wet dog food, etc) and give half of the total amount at a time. But truthfully, it wouldn't hurt him to give him the whole thing, 2x daily.

Summerthyme

Thank you so much, Summerthyme. The last thing I want to do is overdose him. I'll have the antibiotic on hand should he ever get snake bitten again by a nonpoisonous snake or any other infection he might get. Vet bills are outrageous these days!

We try to treat ourselves and him at home first. If no response, it's off to the doctor or vet.

 

[SouthernBreeze]

Well, we got back from our shopping trip. I'm exhausted! I just finished putting everything away, and decided it was time for a break. The prices from a month ago were unreal. Ground beef at $5.47lb! That's the highest I've seen it so far. Eggs were lots cheaper at $1.59/doz. I don't know of a single item I bought today that had not gone up in price from last month's shopping trip, except the eggs. I wanted to restock London Broils, but they were just too expensive, and they're the cheaper roasts. Not paying $20.00 for one cheap roast. The better roasts were $25 - $35! There were lots of empty spaces on the shelves, too. Pork and chicken had gone up, too, but nothing like the beef has. This trip was actually a bit scary. In spite of all the empty spaces, I managed to get everything on my list, except I wanted 2 graham cracker pie crusts in the large size, and there was only one, and it was just the 9 inch one. I bought it anyway. One smaller one is better than none. I only went $20 over my budget for this month. Not too bad given the price increases.

Only one squash from the garden today. Cary watered the peppers, but he let the rest of the raised beds go. The big garden is still being irrigated by the washing machine and dishwater.

 

[kyrsyan]

What a long day. And I've still got so much to do.

Okay folks, if you can spare them, prayers for tomorrow's trip to the mechanic to be affordable. And hopefully to resolve the issue. Or at least, finally, to let me know what the actual issue is.

Now off to try to get some of the pile of chores done.

 

[kyrsyan]

How the heck?

I made dinner, got in a shower, and did three loads of Rotel through the canner. After 8 hours of fighting with numbers. And dealt with a mischief son who decided that all his toys and bedding needed to go outside.

Waiting 15 minutes for his favorite tube to finish drying and then I'm heading to bed. Everything is sore.

But there are 21 jars of Rotel, made from my own garden. And that makes my heart smile some.

 

[John Deere Girl]

How the heck?

I made dinner, got in a shower, and did three loads of Rotel through the canner. After 8 hours of fighting with numbers. And dealt with a mischief son who decided that all his toys and bedding needed to go outside.

Waiting 15 minutes for his favorite tube to finish drying and then I'm heading to bed. Everything is sore.

But there are 21 jars of Rotel, made from my own garden. And that makes my heart smile some.

That's pretty awesome that you got all that done!

I'm praying for your trip to the mechanic to be a cheap, easy fix!

 

[SouthernBreeze]

I've been vacuum sealing egg noodles and macaroni from my shopping trip yesterday. I had emptied several jars, so I needed to restock those. I also started my new list for next month. I have got to force myself to shop wiser, because the prices will more than likely have gone up again on everything by the time I go back next month. My budget is already maxed out.

I've done laundry and hung those on the line, and Cary and I went to the big garden. He rotated the irrigation pipes to other areas, and I gathered squash. He got to pull his first watermelon, too. We'll have some of it for dessert tonight.

Tomorrow is Cary's Dr. appt. with his neurologist for a once a year checkup. He has to have his seizure med refilled for another year. The doctor told him he could stop taking it if he wanted to, but told him that if he had another seizure, he wouldn't be able to drive for 6 months (state law). He decided not to take that chance, especially, since I can no longer drive now, unless in an emergency and only for short distances. No night driving at all.

Temp today of 94 with heat index of 104, so it's still gonna be HOT! No rain.

Oh, and the price of gas was way up, yesterday, too. It's back over $3/gal.

 

[kyrsyan]

Well... maybe they found it. This shop is the first ones that could feel the vibration, without it becoming severe enough to rock the whole van. When the first guy couldn't feel it, he grabbed another guy and they ran it again.

They double checked the rest of the system, including the CV and wheel bearing. And gave me more information on the mild brake shimmy than I already had.

Upon pulling the tires, they found that there were weights all over the rim. He took pictures. It looked like a clock almost.

They are currently pulling everything off and rebalancing the tires. If that doesn't fix it, they'll keep digging. Either way, I have a new repair and tire shop that it looks like I can trust.

And a new pup to spoil. They have a lovely pup that comes into work with them very day.

 

[aviax2]

I had thought about making a Sam’s run today since the heat has lessened a tiny bit but DH and I both have so much to catch up on around here. He had a Dr. appt. yesterday and had lots of errands to take care of while he was out and I had 4 yr old granddaughter and I just concentrated on spending time playing with her. She’s at such a fun age and will be attending preschool a few days a week starting tomorrow and I’m going to miss spending as much time with her so making the most of our time together and hopefully making great memories for her.

@SouthernBreeze DH has been noticing gas prices rising around here as well. You mentioned beef prices being high, I don’t see them coming down anytime soon. We had to sell one of our mama cows last week and she brought over $1 a lb. and she weighed almost 1500 lbs. I expect she’ll be ground beef but you can bet it will sell for quite a bit more. I believe it’s just going to get higher, so maybe watch for sales and stock up when you can.

@kyrsyan I hope the new place gets your van taken care of.

Well I need to head to the kitchen and start washing canning jars. Have more green beans to can, I’m about beaned out! We’re trying to see if someone else wants the picking that’s in the garden but not having any luck. So if we don’t have any takers after this, DH will take the vines out.

 

[SouthernBreeze]

@SouthernBreeze DH has been noticing gas prices rising around here as well. You mentioned beef prices being high, I don’t see them coming down anytime soon. We had to sell one of our mama cows last week and she brought over $1 a lb. and she weighed almost 1500 lbs. I expect she’ll be ground beef but you can bet it will sell for quite a bit more. I believe it’s just going to get higher, so maybe watch for sales and stock up when you can.

Even though, the price was high on the ground beef, I went ahead and bought 5lbs. Not only is it going higher in price, I think it's going to get scarce, also. I'm buying what I can when I can. I see more canning of it in my near future. I've tried the "on sale" ground beef at my grocery store, and when defrosted, it smelled bad, so I don't buy it anymore.

 

[kyrsyan]

So the final analysis, and note that it has me shaking my head.

There were two problems. One was the tires, and when the bad tires were on the front they were masking and exacerbating the other problem, and vice versa.

The tire problem was purely human created. When the tires have been rotated and balanced, the shops were not removing the prior weights. They were just adding more weights. This resulted in random conditions causing the tires balance to be thrown off and causing the vibration.

And then, they just added more weights...

All the weights were removed and the tires balance. The shake in the rear, where those tires had been moved to, is now gone.

Problem #2 showed itself on the final test drive. The right front caliper is randomly sticking closed. I knew the rotors needed turning. But they showed that the right rotor is now warped. So the caliper and rotors need replacing. Expensive, around $350, but doable. And even better, I now know what the problem is. Still can't drive the van but there is a path forward.

The understanding I have is that when the problem tires were on the front, the two problems were making each other worse. The tire would start vibrating. I'd tap the brakes. The caliper would stick and create its own vibration. And that vibration would make the tire vibration worse, and in turn would make the rotor/caliper vibration worse.

With the two problems separated, they were both found.

I get that Sam's Club didn't have a clue on the brakes. But they are likely the source of most of those extra weights. And the other shops get a fail for not fixing that issue either.

I do get how the other shops missed the brakes, somewhat. But seriously, when I've brought it back multiple times with the same complaint, how do you bypass looking at possible brake issues and jump straight to transmission issues? Especially when you've noted that the rotors look like they need to at least be turned.

Either way, not worth the energy of letting it have any more of my time. There is a path forward. That makes me so happy.

 

[summerthyme]

Well I need to head to the kitchen and start washing canning jars. Have more green beans to can, I’m about beaned out! We’re trying to see if someone else wants the picking that’s in the garden but not having any luck. So if we don’t have any takers after this, DH will take the vines out.

Aren't 4 year olds fun?

Do you save your own bean seeds? Seeds are getting SO expensive, and beans and peas are some of the easiest seeds to save. They are mostly self pollinated, so crossing isn't a real concern, even if you grow several varieties close together.

Just let them ripen on the plant.. once they are mostly ripe, you can pull the plants and hang them upside down to finish drying... it opens up the garden space for succession planting, and reduces the risk of mold if you get too much rain.

Shelling can be done manually, or put the pods in a feed sack or pillowcase. Tie it shut, turn on some music, and dance on the bag for a couple of minutes. I snip a corner off the bottom of the feed sack (the seeds go to the bottom, below the trash and chaff) and let the seeds dribble out. You can window them in a breeze or in front of a fan.

If you aren't wanting to sell extras, you don't have to get too picky about removing wrinkled, split or damaged beans.. j7st toss them when you're planting next spring.

Last year, I got 7 pounds of yellow bean seeds... kept in the root cellar, they should last for several years. This year, I'm saving the green bean seeds... we canned 140 pints, and thats sufficient. I made sure to rogue out any off type plants... those with flat pods, rather than round.. no one here really likes the flat beans.

I still buy my seeds for most biennial, but seed saving saves us hundreds of dollars every year.

Summerthyme

 

[skwentnaflyer]

Has anyone ground grits from corn and been happy with the results? Trying to improve my skills! Would love your input!

I've tried grinding cornmeal, but it came out too coarse on the first pass, and too fine the second time around.
It was one of the el cheapo harbor freight ones, so results are to be expected, I guess

 

[hd5574]

We also save seed....snow peas, green beans and butter bean seed..
Also tomatoes..but too many different types for saving this year and pepper
This year we have a few very odd things happen with purchased seed... Got sweet dumpling winter squash seed from Annie's seed..from the same package have both sweet dumplings and acorn growing..???
Some tomatoes.heirlooms.we started from seed are growing different than they should..very strange year..
We are testing different heirlooms and different areas in the garden as we doubled the size last year and doubled again this year to pick just one variety to use...we are already planning an extension for next year..and planning to plant more red raspberry and asparagus...

The old man who taught me years ago ....grew one tomato one corn one pepper one green bean one butter bean..and so forth...and saved his seed.... he was born in the 1800's and had a wife and children when the depression hit....he hired a farm hand left the farm and found work every day and sent the money home to his wife...they were the most skilled and amazing people I have ever know...

Last year I found some butter bean seed that we had saved ago 15 years ago...we sprouted it..... all but one sprouted and planted it...got a ton of beans from them it just kept at room temp in the house and dry... nothing special.

 

[kyrsyan]

All my garden/homestead friends think I'm crazy because I try to keep the yard within certain parameters of "pretty" because I live in town. Even if it's a tiny town. But today's lovely surprise is why. I got a "clean up your yard" notice from the town. I'm not in the mood to do an overall attack the yard thing, so I called to see what the specific problem is. After three phone calls, I finally got a human being who knows. So they are supposed to meet me in the morning and tell me exactly what the issues are. I will fix those issues. And he did state that he only had the notice sent because someone complained.

The thing is, except for my porch, my yard is probably the most organized and "clean" that it has been in years. Now plantwise, it's a mess. Because I haven't had the time to trim back the grape vine that's going wild. And I've got tree limbs and stuff to clean up.

And there is a part of me that is annoyed enough that I'm seriously tempted to do something that will annoy people more but still take care of the problem. Like create a pile and tie a pretty tarp over it.

 

[John Deere Girl]

I've been vacuum sealing egg noodles and macaroni from my shopping trip yesterday. I had emptied several jars, so I needed to restock those. I also started my new list for next month. I have got to force myself to shop wiser, because the prices will more than likely have gone up again on everything by the time I go back next month. My budget is already maxed out.

I've done laundry and hung those on the line, and Cary and I went to the big garden. He rotated the irrigation pipes to other areas, and I gathered squash. He got to pull his first watermelon, too. We'll have some of it for dessert tonight.

Tomorrow is Cary's Dr. appt. with his neurologist for a once a year checkup. He has to have his seizure med refilled for another year. The doctor told him he could stop taking it if he wanted to, but told him that if he had another seizure, he wouldn't be able to drive for 6 months (state law). He decided not to take that chance, especially, since I can no longer drive now, unless in an emergency and only for short distances. No night driving at all.

Temp today of 94 with heat index of 104, so it's still gonna be HOT! No rain.

Oh, and the price of gas was way up, yesterday, too. It's back over $3/gal.

I paided $4.50 a gallon for gas last week when I filled our SUV up. It takes premium gas though.

 

[SouthernBreeze]

I paided $4.50 a gallon for gas last week when I filled our SUV up. It takes premium gas though.

It was only $3.29 for regular for us. That's still higher than being under $3 for a quite a while. Another good thing about our SUV is that it uses regular not premium like my Maxima did. We're getting out cheaper on gas.

 

[kyrsyan]

I paided $4.50 a gallon for gas last week when I filled our SUV up. It takes premium gas though.

I use premium because mine must have at least mid grade. And last year or the year before we discovered that ethanol gas doesn't like sitting unused in a gas tank. So I had to switch to non ethanol again. And the choices there are low grade or premium. My last fill was $4.25/gallon I think. But that was easily a month ago.

 

[aviax2]

@summerthyme We grew Kentucky Wonder pole beans for years, then something seemed to go wrong with seed for us and others around here, so we started using Blue Lake pole beans and although we didn’t like them as much we had good luck with them. The past few years that seed was used but the garden/green beans didn’t make because of weather. DH bought some new seed this year which is suppose to be Blue Lake but they don’t seem like any we’ve ever had before and although they’ve done well with the heat/humidity we’ve had, they haven’t been our favorite in flavor and have to be some of the stringiest beans I’ve ever seen,so not sure if we’ll save any of them.
My fingers are crossed that some stock peas DH found from his uncle and got overlooked for years will make enough peas for some new seed this year. We‘re hoping to save some cucumber seed this year, they are an Armenian cucumber that has done really well for us but we’ve never saved cucumber seed before. At around $7 for a pack of probably 10 seed, not including s/h we’re going to try! They are mine and the two youngest grands favorite.

 

[summerthyme]

@summerthyme We grew Kentucky Wonder pole beans for years, then something seemed to go wrong with seed for us and others around here, so we started using Blue Lake pole beans and although we didn’t like them as much we had good luck with them. The past few years that seed was used but the garden/green beans didn’t make because of weather. DH bought some new seed this year which is suppose to be Blue Lake but they don’t seem like any we’ve ever had before and although they’ve done well with the heat/humidity we’ve had, they haven’t been our favorite in flavor and have to be some of the stringiest beans I’ve ever seen,so not sure if we’ll save any of them.
My fingers are crossed that some stock peas DH found from his uncle and got overlooked for years will make enough peas for some new seed this year. We‘re hoping to save some cucumber seed this year, they are an Armenian cucumber that has done really well for us but we’ve never saved cucumber seed before. At around $7 for a pack of probably 10 seed, not including s/h we’re going to try! They are mine and the two youngest grands favorite.

I understand. Over the last few years, I bought several bean assortment packs off ebay, and carefully labeled the rows. When we figured out which ones we preferred... earliest, flavor, ease of picking and yield... we saved seed from them. I think there may have been a couple "off type" seeds in the packets, because despite my not planting any of the flat pod varieties, we had a small number of plants with flat pods. This year, when we did the first picking, we pulled every plant that had off type beans... the milk cow ate every leaf and bean, and the horses ate the stems! But I should have a lot of fresh seed when they ripen!

Home saved seeds are so inexpensive (as long as you don't count labor!) they can be used as a nitrogen producing cover crop, or even a fodder crop for livestock. A couple pounds of seeds covers a significant area.

Summerthyme

 

[aviax2]

I understand. Over the last few years, I bought several bean assortment packs off ebay, and carefully labeled the rows. When we figured out which ones we preferred... earliest, flavor, ease of picking and yield... we saved seed from them. I think there may have been a couple "off type" seeds in the packets, because despite my not planting any of the flat pod varieties, we had a small number of plants with flat pods. This year, when we did the first picking, we pulled every plant that had off type beans... the milk cow ate every leaf and bean, and the horses ate the stems! But I should have a lot of fresh seed when they ripen!

Home saved seeds are so inexpensive (as long as you don't count labor!) they can be used as a nitrogen producing cover crop, or even a fodder crop for livestock. A couple pounds of seeds covers a significant area.

Summerthyme

I never even thought about saving them for a cover crop or fodder for the critters! Goodness knows the deer love the beans!

 

[aviax2]

I had a really bad night with very little sleep. I finally went to the living room around 12:45 and watched a few episodes of Silent Witness, went back to bed 2:45 ish, and still no sleep. Read for a bit, then as I was starting to drift off, a big boom of thunder and it’s been storming off and on since 4:00am. Did manage to finally get a couple hours of very interrupted sleep, between the storms and the phone ringing. We have gotten some much needed rain. Ive got a beef roast going in the Instant Pot for supper so later I’ll get the veggies ready to go with it.

I canned 12 quarts and 1 pint of green beans yesterday. We‘ll probably have tomatoes ready to work up tomorrow or the next day. And since DH always plants mostly slicers I’ll be canning more tomato juice. I’m thinking about checking around for some Roma or other paste type tomatoes and canning some pizza sauce.