Making, Crafting, Creating... aka Whatcha workin' on?

[anon87143080]

Came back from a week away, and returned to a jungle.

Wall of tomatoes

Yummy gradient

Sunflower

[Wanderfound]

Did another budget stool:

A couple of metres of cheapy construction pine plus a little bit of Tasmanian Oak.

[FGD135]

If I ever get around to clearing out my cellar & garage to the point that I can access my workbench and tools, making one of those is on the top of the list:

Ulmer Hocker

3 boards of spruce, finger-joined, a stick of beech, two strips of beech as runners.
Simple, elegant, robust, versatile.

[anon23281680]

Well the pickles came out oddly bland. I put 2 heads of garlic in there! Also an odd aftertaste- I wonder of it’s from the Redman salt I used. And the killer- not much crunch. I didn’t know I needed a tannin source. The books and articles I read said the grapeleaf was optional and I can’t source even dried ones around here. I did read, later, I can substitute part of an Oak leaf, if I know it hasn’t been sprayed. Only part bc oak leaves have a lot of tannin and an whole one can cause bitterness. So I drained this one and put the solids in the compost. Next try looks like this:

cucumbers from the store this time, unknown cultivar but unwaxed with medium skin and crisp sweet flesh. Sea salt, mustard seed, peppercorns, partial oak leaf from my tree, and fresh dill. I couldn’t source dill seeds, but I discovered Penzys thanks to some happy mutants so maybe dill seeds next round
Next to it are habanero/ginger/garlic/onion/red oak and jalapeños/garlic/onion/red oak. Those are doing nicely- good crunch and flavor so far.

[anon23281680]

@Wanderfound

little bit of Tasmanian Oak.

Is that the beautiful inlay or the entire top? It looks good.

[Ratel]

@FloridaManJefe

time to make my own recipe Florida Man Fire ™ hot sauce
“it’s stupid hot!”

Oddly we’ve had little success with chilies in Tucson: we can getting them fine, but the heat is always just a little disappointing. Madam Mrs. the Ratel has a theory that humidity (or lack of) is connected.

@anon23281680

And the killer- not much crunch. I didn’t know I needed a tannin source.

Same here: tasted normal (used a regular recipe), but mushy and unappetizing. They just felt more decomposed than pickled.

[Wanderfound]

@anon23281680

Is that the beautiful inlay or the entire top?

The entire top.

The bits showing through are the tops of the pine legs, which are hand-cut round wedged tenons.

[Wanderfound]

Work in progress:

EDIT:

All done.

[anon23281680]

Well, the Super Sweet 100 tomatoes are busy leveling up to Super Sweet 1000. They’ve gotten a bit out of hand. We’ve trimmed at least 1/3 of what you see off this season. But then we forgot to trim more and now the two (that is only two plants) plants have overtaken a basil, two other tomato types we weren’t happy with, the parsley, 2 strawberry plants, and 2 pepper plants. The two of them are easily 10 feet left to right and 3 feet across to the back. You’re seeing about 6 feet from this perspective.

[Wayward]

I have the same variety, and it started out so promising. Now it’s kinda sad. I’ve gotten maybe a couple dozen tomatoes off it so far. Something is snipping the flower buds and immature fruit right off the fruiting stalks, and I don’t know what. No obvious caterpillars or bugs on it. Same with my Brandywine. Fits the rest of existence this year.

[anon23281680]

@Wayward

Something is snipping the flower buds and immature fruit right off the fruiting stalks

Huh. Could be birds? Maybe drape them in netting. Or it’s blossom drop from heat preventing pollination or nitrogen deficiency.

[noahdjango]

our garden completely exploded this year.
several plants, despite trimming, grew tall enough to collapse before we got around to trimming them down again.

[L0ki]

Do the plants call “Feed me!” at night?

[anon61221983]

@noahdjango’s back yard right now…

[MrShiv]

While you people are all growing your gardens, I’m putting my Covid time to a much better use:

Rolling out Silly Putty as long as I can. Can any of you beat my record of 80" (203 cm)? Combining multiple eggs is cheating.

[marence]

@anon23281680

not much crunch

@Ratel

mushy and unappetizing

The secret to crispy pickles is an ice water bath for 15 minutes before packing them in the jars.

eta: I learned this in the 80s by trial and error and lots of old cookbooks. I used to have a 10x20’ organic garden, and one year I decided to try pickles. The cukes exploded and produced for 2 months, so I had a lot of veggies to practice on.

[anon87143080]

I packed 5 gallons of pickles yesterday. Wish I knew this ice water trick. Oh well. Thanks!

[FGD135]

Man heroically assembles flatpack using instructions

[anon23281680]

Totally trying this next week.
The lastest batch came out wierd and disgusting. Plenty of crunch, great aroma, but an overwhelming off taste. I experimented with including some apple cider vinegar and I think that plus too many mustard seeds might have been the culprit. I accidently put in as many seeds as I should for a gallon pickle when I’m doing quarts.

In good news, the pepper pickles turned out well. We’ll see about the latest cucumber batch.

[bryan]

Meanwhile, some of us are trying to remove pickle stank from a couple 55 gallon drums, rather than creating more of it. *shudder*