Garden picture.
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Tomorrow we start picking strawberries and rhubarb. Cherries are coloring up, and peaches and nectarines are plumping. Just about time to start my annual battle with Japanese beetles. Sigh.
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About 7 years ago, i planted 3 hardy kiwi vines. In those ysars, i have picked at most 4-5 fruit per year. This year they are absolutely loaded. Like to the âHoly shit, honey, what are we gonna do with those?â level. Any ideas? Hey @DukeTrout , ever made kiwi mead?
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No sir. Probably the closest thing to kiwi Iâve made mead from is Asian pear. Both seem like delicate flavors. Iâm not sure what Iâd pair with it. Maybe vanilla? Coconut?
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Hmmm, vanilla might work⊠I need to think on that one!
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I love this! 
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Yeah, 15-20# of wheat, and 5-6 hours work all told. Def not doing it to save money! Rewarding in other ways, though, and a hell of a lot cheaper than therapy. So, yeah, there is that too.
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Yeah. I donât garden to save money on food!
Squash Vine borers killed the youngest squash and may have done for one of the two others. Sigh.
I need to find the native Texas ones that will grow in clay. I too love those flowers.
The view from one of my bedroom windows. I especially like watching the bees visit the sunflowers
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We live in a mid-19th century house. At some point previous owners added a second floor, carefully removing four large chimneys. We have thousands of bricks stacked in the backyard. So it was time to put them to use. Right-side of path still to be finished today.
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And, a weedy embankment converted to a 10âx20â plot of sunflowers. Took a 10# bag of sunflower seeds for bird feeders, soaked them overnight, broadcast them around, ranked them in, and covered them lightly with mulch. Daily water for a week, then a couple times a week. (Also some of the many many stray bricks to be found everywhere on the property)
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Kiwi is a go-to fruit for bulgogi marinade, might be able to put some aside (preserves/frozen) to use in marinades?
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Thatâs gonna be a lot of sunflowers!
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Hopefully. Once they get seeds they get covered in goldfinches.
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i like to take those black oil sunflower seeds, soak them and then toss into the sprouter trays for a crunchy, green, sprouted microgreen for sandwiches and salads! tasty!
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Kiwi strawberry pavlova is a classic and delightful treat. You can add layers to use up more kiwi fruit. My Grammy used to make it in a springform and put sliced fruit all around the outside, too, before pouring in the meringue. I canât find any pictures like she used to do it 
I also love them just sliced and dipped in whipped cream for a cool treat.
One of our local farmers makes a kiwi/lime jam thatâs quite nice.
If you do a mead, I definitely hope to hear about it. I wonder if it would be akin to a göse beerâŠ
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Just tried that recently. Wild ferment/sour beer sort if thing, yes?
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I think the wild fermentation is typical of all sours, but goses:
All Goses are sours, but not all sours are Goses. Without getting too complicated, Goses contain an addition of salt (and traditionally coriander) at some point during the brewing or fermentation processâthis is what lends a Gose its salinity. From a production standpoint, most Goses in the US are produced via the âkettle sourâ method which is a quick turnaround way of making a sour beer.
I didnât know that before just now, though.
And completely in the dark of how that would translate to mead.
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Picked our first strawberries and rhubarb today, about 2 qts each. Good start to the year! If the trees and bushes come through like they are promising, we should be up to our ears in yummies. Pecans have catkins on them for the first time! They are a little young to actually bear yet, but that is exciting.
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This is a volunteer. I thought it was a cucumber but that doesnât look like a cuke. Anybody know? My guess is squash but I donât know how. Weâve only planted delicata and that only this year
Vine borers did for one of my delicata vines. Sigh. The last one seems ok.
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Well theres two ways to find out:
- Do a bunch of DNA sequencing to find out for sure
- Let it grow.
Looks like a squash. I dont think its a zucchini.
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