Homemade Sausage Making

One month ago today I drove my wife down to the Central Valley for a business trip. Her company is purchasing another company that produces organic fertilizer, she'll be pretty much taking over and running that company from home. At the end of their meeting they told my wife to have me back my pick-up truck in so they could load some fertilizer onto the bed. I said my garden had just been planted two days prior and that I really didn't want or need any. They gave her a 5-gallon bucket of the stuff, and appearantly that bucket full sells for about $140. The next day I sprinkled some of the organic fertilizer onto my tomatoes and swiss chard which hadn't even broke ground yet. This is what I've got exactly one month later.





This is the first garden I've ever planted, something my wife has always done but she's been too busy working. The take-over is complete next week and I'll be driving her back to the fertilizer plant again. This time I won't be turning anything down and the new boss will be instructing the help to load the back of my truck with 5-gallon buckets of the stuff, they say it never goes bad. RAY

Nice plants!

Just don't fall into the "If a little is good then a lot will be better, trap". A little each week is better than a whole bunch once a month. The patch is looking great.

Hi Ray,
Your vegies look good, just make sure you remove the bottom 3-4 leaves from each tomato
plant and make sure the rest of the leaves don't touch the soil. Otherwise you will be spraying a lot for Wilt, Leaf spot and Blight.
These diseases are soil born and can kill your tomato plants.
Prune your tomato plants to 3 stems and remove the small suckers to increase fruit size as well.
I don't believe in applying poisonous spays and the above procedures I have followed for many years on advise from an old Italian gardener who was a tomato expert.
Good Luck Mate,
Jan.

Hey Ray, If I sprinkle a little on my grandkids, will they grow up to be basketball players?

Chuckwagon wrote:Hey Ray, If I sprinkle a little on my grandkids, will they grow up to be basketball players?

I don't think that will work. I used to walk barefoot during the summer time on our dairy farm and I topped out at five and half feet. All of my brothers managed better than six feet.

crustyo44 wrote:Hi Ray,
Your vegies look good, just make sure you remove the bottom 3-4 leaves from each tomato
plant and make sure the rest of the leaves don't touch the soil. Otherwise you will be spraying a lot for Wilt, Leaf spot and Blight.
These diseases are soil born and can kill your tomato plants.
Prune your tomato plants to 3 stems and remove the small suckers to increase fruit size as well.
I don't believe in applying poisonous spays and the above procedures I have followed for many years on advise from an old Italian gardener who was a tomato expert.
Good Luck Mate,
Jan.

Thanks for the good advice Jan, I'll get my wife all over it. My knees and back don't much take to bending over anymore. RAY

Hi Ray,
I just had a knee job done. I am walking again like before, mowing and brush cutting are no longer a chore. Go and see the Quack about your knee.
Cheers Mate,
Jan.

crustyo44 wrote:Hi Ray,
I just had a knee job done. I am walking again like before, mowing and brush cutting are no longer a chore. Go and see the Quack about your knee.
Cheers Mate,
Jan.

I can still walk a mile and help hike a dead hog up a hill. Let my wife get off her ass and help secure her own veggies is what I'm thinking, RAY

With the hippie organic fertilizer I've used in the victory garden my maters and swiss chard are reaching for the sky, super fast results. My wife went out with her scissors while I was busy in the kitchen starting work on a batch of Sicilian Chicken Artichoke Sausage w/ Romano Cheese & Chardonnay,( that post will come tomorrow), and brought to me a sink-full of the years first swiss chard, 47 days after planting.



I stopped my project long enough to get a 3-gallon pot boiling, cooked the load down for 17 minutes, then drained it. What you end up with is a far cry from what you start with, that's for sure.




I'll sautee some of that chard up with a little butter and garlic for dinner, maybe fry up a few chicken thighs that are left too.RAY

Oooo, it just hit me! A week from right now I expect a old friend of mine will be taking a picture of me standing over a wild pig who woke up that morning and thought, "gee, this seems like a great day to die".

When I am mowing lawn I like to graze the garden on each pass. Today some of the last of the asparagras was calling me.. I believe that i like raw leaf greens straight from the garden better than cooked ones.