what are you afraid off? It's just getting closer to Turkey time...
OklaMoni
2 years ago
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karoliberty OKC zone 7a
2 years agohazelinok
2 years agoRelated Discussions
Do you ever just get tired of it?
Comments (29)I have been vegetable gardening since 1980, so that's a long time. About 4 years of that time, I didn't garden. This year was going well, then we just had a groundhog show up to eat my newly planted and growing well, broccoli and the brussels sprouts we were waiting for all season. Lettuce too. So now we are working on what to do about him before next spring rolls around. It's always something. I look forward to winter and I do need that down time. Usually by the time spring comes around, I'm enthusiastic all over again. But if I had a lot of frustration and bad harvests for multiple years, then yes, I'd probably have to ask myself is it worth it? I'd definitely take a whole season off if you feel like you are dreading it. I did that for 3 years, because I had witch grass in my vegetable garden patch and I couldn't cope with it any more and just left it for two years. Then I came up with a new idea of how to deal with it, using plastic to solarize the soil for a full season and that did the trick. The next year, I was really enthusiastic and felt triumphant having solved what seemed like an unsolvable problem. Doesn't hurt to take some time off....See MoreAttn: Username: buehl/Just want to bounce my plan off all of you guys!
Comments (21)You mean it'll be a pony wall at the R end of the FP? The prep sink would work there on the kit side. From Sena's LO there'd be about 4' of prep space between it and the stove. I'd still use a shallow pantry on the wall of the laundry room at the end. (that'd also eliminate the deep lower corner cabinet area problem) I'd put in an EZreach upper cab on that corner to butt up to the shallow pantry. uppers usually run about 15" deep, don't they? I'd want a long area of prep space on the other side too instead of a deep pantry. Having the window side not so deep by the door and shallow on the stove side would make it more open at the doorway. Easier to see little ones coming in too. Having a prep area on both sides would be great when you have help in the kitchen by family/friends. On the window side, how about the fridge next to the dw? You could even move the sink/dw to the L maybe another foot - that'd give maybe 3' or so to the R of the fridge for the desk area. (before the doorway to the sunroom) Try putting this in the layout/or 3d pic and post here so we can see how it looks. I like the idea of the 6' between counters when a number of people will be working in that area - and possibly someone going out or coming in that laundry area door. Less congestion. The wall ovens - those are good for those who have problems bending down to the oven on a stove. Really tall people, those with a bad back... or those who often use oven and stove top at the same time. Many don't like standing at the stove top with the heat of the oven so close to them. I'd love to have one but I so seldom use the oven, it doesn't seem worth it for me. I probably don't use the oven 2x a month. Maybe once a month. btw, I tried bolding my '2x a month' above and it did. I didn't hit submit tho, so maybe it would bonk me if I did that. Or maybe it is the phone or just when editing a post? I'm gonna go ahead and click on submit so we'll know. Saving my post first tho......See MoreFirst time making a turkey in a convection oven
Comments (6)Rules of thumb with convection are 25° F lower or 10-20 minutes fewer for the same recipe IF it takes less than an hour. If it's longer, like a turkey, there's much less of a difference. Your oven may have quirks, however. Even though convection evens out the air temperature a lot (that's the main point of it), with a fan you can get a hot spot, depending on what is blocking the airflow, how. If you use a deep roaster, there's no problem. If you tent with foil, there's less of an issue than in a short sided open roaster with no cover. For the last method, keep your eye on it so that you don't get one burnt spot, or have the skin way too done and the inside not cooked. Browning happens at 350° F and above. That's one reason that many cakes are baked at 325-330°--those aren't supposed to brown. Be careful with that automatic temperature adjustment that you have something that you want to be nice and caramelized go wan and pale because the oven is second guessing you. It's possible that there's some kind of magic where their fan heat is a lot hotter than the set temperature, but normally that is not the case. Often a large turkey is cooked longer at a lower temperature specifically so it will not brown, then the temperature is raised near the end to make the skin crisp and pretty. A moist environment helps with the crispness. If it gets too brown too fast cover it. I don't use a lot of foil, but a roll of heavy duty foil can get you out of a jam. :) And it's totally recyclable. In your situation, I'd pretend that this wasn't a new to me oven and just cook the danged turkey, ignoring that there was the addition of convection, but I'd put a lot of extra time (like an hour or even more) extra from the start time, and I'd check it as it cooks. That's a good way to learn more about the new oven too. Remember, a turkey needs to rest for a good long time. It's probably the long resting that made those turkeys of Suzanne's so good. If your bird is done way too early, just put some foil over it, and some heavy towels, or let it sit in the cooling oven (if the oven is really cooling, or with the door cracked open). It won't suffer from a good long rest. Wishing you a wonderful meal and much joy from your new range....See MoreFebruary 2018, Week 1: Planting Time Draws Closer
Comments (120)I am so far behind that I don't think I can catch up. Amy, I know I need a break, but am unlikely to get one. It isn't just the fires themselves, it is all the time I spend preparing for them, cooking for them, etc. and shopping just to have the food available and stuff. It takes enormous amounts of time and energy, and as I age, I find that I have less extra time and extra energy to spare. I'd gladly completely retire from the VFD today if Tim would do the same (but he never will.....). We aren't even to the peak of fire season yet and there's another couple of months to go, at the very least, and longer if the drought persists, so I've got to address the tiredness issue or I won't survive the fire season. The Governor's Burn Ban is due to expire at the end of the week if she doesn't renew it/extend it (I sure hope she does because the conditions that led to it being implemented in the first place have not improved at all) and I dread that. If she lets it expire, our lives instantly go very downhill very quickly. I hit a level of exhaustion late last week (really, I think it had persisted all week or maybe for several weeks) and over the weekend that I could not stand, so I've really begun addressing all the things that ruin my sleep at night because I cannot keep running on 2 or 3 hours of sleep per night. As far as I'm concerned, the phones and fire radios get turned off at bedtime from now on, period, and I don't care what we miss. If the entire town burns down while we are sleeping, oh well.....that's life. Technically Tim cannot turn off his phone in case there is a police crisis at night, but he can (and has) shut down all his notifications for text messages and emails. The quiet little beeps and buzzes his phone makes for each text and email don't even wake him up (so what's the point of having them?) but they wake me up....somethings every few minutes or at least a couple of times per hour overnight. Now, they are silenced at night, but his phone still would ring if someone actually makes a phone call. Since he was promoted last year, he literally gets emails and text messages from folks at work 24/7---every few minutes some days/nights, and 99% of it is routine stuff/CYA type stuff that really isn't important, but you don't want to miss the 1% that matters. And, I am going to mention this only because it irritates the heck out of me.....he goes into his office, closes the door, turns on his computer and TV and LEAVES his cell phone and fire radio on the console table in the front entryway....right next to the living room, outside his office's closed door. The end result? He doesn't hear his phone at all, and may or may not hear the fire radio pager depending on how loud the TV is turned up---but I hear them both nonstop if I am in the living room, breakfast room, kitchen or laundry room. That stops now too. His devices are going to be in the room he is in and he can deal with their noise level however he chooses, because I am done with it. Whew. I feel better. I slept all night last night. I know I awakened briefly a couple of times, but fell right back asleep (which is rare for me) so the effort to keep things quieter is helping already. I can tell I have a lot more energy this morning, because unlike some recent mornings, my first thought upon getting out of bed was not about how I possibly could just take care of all the animals and then go right back to bed and back to sleep for a few hours. That's a useless pipe dream anyway because I cannot sleep during the daytime. So, if my first waking thought isn't about how I can sleep during the day, it must mean I slept enough during the night. Jen, I simply hate this year's weather pattern, and it is back this week for us. After starting out extra cold this morning, every day warms up nicely and we're forecast to hit 78 degrees on Thursday (snakes will be out, no doubt, if that happens) before the weather crashes again and cold rain/snow makes a reappearance in the forecast for Fri/Sat. Really? How many weeks can this same old same old pattern drag on and on. I am so tired of it. You'd think I could be out in the garden planting on the warm days (and I intend to try) but warm days usually bring us grass fires and wild fires so they aren't the big treat I think they will be. Kim, The greenhouse looks great and the puppies are so cute. I do wish they had set up the greenhouse to run in the proper direction, but I am sure you'll stop them from making that mistake the next time. In our climate, it probably isn't a critical error since there's plentiful sunlight most of the time anyway... I hope the garage sale went well and you made some cash to give you spending money at the MENF. Jacob, You mentioned needing to vent your tunnel. Yes! The heat builds up incredibly quickly. The same thing is true with cold frames and greenhouses. I think people underestimate how hot such growing areas get during the daytime and how cold they get at night, and there is a learning curve for sure. Even with breathable, air-permeable floating row covers, I can kill foot-high tomato plants by leaving the heaviest frost blankets (those that give 10 degrees or more of cold protection) on them on a winter morning---if I don't uncover those tomato plants by 9 a.m. on a sunny winter morning, they can roast under the heaviest row cover....and it is essential to have those heavy duty row covers suspended some distance above the tomato plants by hoops...you can let ultra light-weight row covers float directly on top of the plants, but not the heavier weights, and I learned that one the hard way too, and barely saved my plants from cooking to death. Jacob, The short answer is that alfalfa is a broadleaf legume, not a grain/grass family crop and that's the key. The specific class of broadleaf weed killers that persist as toxic residue in compost, composted manure, animal bedding and the like can persist in grass/grain type crops, most often on/in hay or the manure from animals fed that hay. Those specific herbicides would kill alfalfa crops if used on them, so alfalfa remains clean from those particular herbicide residues. I still am very careful with chicken manure because we do use commercial chicken feed and some of those herbicide residues persisted in bagged, name-brand (I believe it was Purina) horse feed, survived the horses' intestinal tract, survived the professional, commercial composting of the horse manure, and made it into a commercial, bagged compost product sold and used in some northeastern states a few years back. It was horrifying for 100% organic gardeners to find their gardens dying of herbicide residue when they had purchased/used a brand of organic compost they'd used for many previous years with no problem. It took quite a while for the state's ag investigators to trace back the issue to the horse feed, and then they did tests to verify they had found the correct source of the problem. Meanwhile, organic gardeners and farmers there had to do tons of remediation work to restore their soil so they could use it again, and the commercial compost company had a PR nightmare on its hands. I figure if it happened with horse feed, it could happen as well with chicken feed, but as far as I know, that's never been documented. I use compost that included our chicken bedding/manure only in beds where I don't raise veggies. It would hurt to lose flowers, but not as much as it would hurt to lose veggies/herbs, and so far it hasn't happened anyway. I feel it is easier to be more pro-active up front and avoid the issue than to be scrambling later on to do a couple of years of remediation to fix the problem I allowed to occur. We live surrounded by ranchers and constantly are offered all the horse and cow manure we want and decline 100% of those offers. To me, it isn't worth the risk as I do know that many of these people use pre-emergent or post-emergent herbicides (or both) and I don't want/need/will not allow those residues in my garden ever. It is bad enough that some of my plants get killed every year from aerial herbicide drift from somebody else's use of herbicides. Some of these newer herbicides volatize so easily that even very careful applicators cause unexpected problems with herbicide drift. I'm certainly not going to willingly bring herbicide-infested hay or manure onto our property on purpose, not ever, ever, ever. Well, that's all the catching up I can do. I hope I didn't miss anything vital. I know I'm still hopelessly behind on everything. Dawn...See Moreslowpoke_gardener
2 years agojlhart76
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2 years agoLynn Dollar
2 years agoHU-422368488
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2 years agoAmyinOwasso/zone 6b
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2 years agoKim Reiss
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2 years agoOklaMoni
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2 years agoLynn Dollar
2 years agoHU-422368488
2 years agoslowpoke_gardener
2 years agoKim Reiss
2 years agoKim Reiss
2 years agoNancy RW (zone 7)
2 years agoKim Reiss
2 years agohazelinok
2 years agohazelinok
2 years agolast modified: 2 years agoNancy RW (zone 7)
2 years agolast modified: 2 years agoslowpoke_gardener
2 years agoNancy RW (zone 7)
2 years agoslowpoke_gardener
2 years agoKim Reiss
2 years agoslowpoke_gardener
2 years agoAmyinOwasso/zone 6b
2 years agodbarron
2 years agoslowpoke_gardener
2 years agoNancy RW (zone 7)
2 years agoLynn Dollar
2 years agolast modified: 2 years agoslowpoke_gardener
2 years agohazelinok
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2 years agojlhart76
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