Heirloom Bean Chat With Russell Crow

I've thoroughly enjoyed chatting with various people that are admins of the Heirloom Addicts Anonymous groups. There are also a few members that I reached out to and asked if they would do a quick Q & A with me and send me some photos that they would like for me to include in the post. I knew, right away that I was going to message Russell Crow and ask him if he would agree to this. I was certainly relieved and happy that he said yes!

I've admired Russell Crow's heirloom bean growing abilities for quite some time. I think a lot of people think that heirloom tomatoes are my thing, but they aren't. I enjoy growing them, for sure, but my favorite things to grow are beans and peas.

Growing up in Forks, Washington, my dad would put in a backyard garden every year. He would always say that beans were his gig. Well, after trying to fight it and bend to my will and make it tomatoes, I finally acquiesce that I have a knack for growing beans and peas. And along came Russell's website, A Bean Collector's Window. Well, this is Russell's interview, so I'll save my journey for another time.

Mr. Crow says, "At my Deer fenced plot view from  about 150 feet in the air. The owner of the property has a drone and he took pictures in July when all the bush beans were growing well last year. He calls my garden project here "Bean Acres".

Q: What do you specialize in, as far as gardening?

A: I specialize in growing mostly heirloom beans. Pole types, bush, semi runners and Pole limas. For my own use I do grow tomatoes every season from seed I save myself and some seasons I will also grow a carrot crop. 

Q: When did you first get interested in growing rare and/or obscure heirloom bean varieties?
A: Back in the middle 1970's I was gardening and growing bush snap beans I had about 10 different varieties of commercial snap beans and was growing about a half dozen of dry beans all purchased from commercial seed catalogs. When I read the article that Rodal Press's Organic Gardening & Farming published in January 1978 about John Withee from Lynnfield, Ma "The Bean Man" and his "Wanigan Associates" bean network. I ordered his bean catalog and got 35 varieties of heirloom beans from him in February 1978. That was when I was off and runing with obscure bean varieties or heirlooms. I very rarely bought seed from seed catalogs after that. I still do grow some of the old commercial snap bean varieties of the 1950's and 60's. I've even obtained some pre-1950 bush snap bean varieties that were released by seed companies in the 1930's and 40's.

Q: Do you have a personal favorite bean variety?

A: I have so many bean varieties that it's a challenge to pick an absolute favorite. There are many good beans to grow. I would say for the last 10 years a pole bean called Louisiana AKA Louisiana Snap Bean. Is currently my top favorite snap bean to grow and use. It is very productive and it's beautiful to look at on the vine. Straight 7 to 8 inch green pods that are round and striped in purple. Of course those purple stripes fade away when cooked. I don't have a favorite dry bean. Again there are many good ones.
  

Q: On average, how many types of beans do you grow in a year and how big is your garden?

A: I grow about 150 varieties of beans in most seasons. Currently I cultivate about 4,000 square feet of garden space. I have a small amount of garden ground in my back yard and two flower beds around my house that are really used for tomatoes and beans most of the time. I have two offsite gardens on other people's property that I obtained by placing want ads in our local newspaper. One site is three miles from my house and it's about 2,200 square feet. The other offsite is 9 miles from my house and is behind a deer fence that I had constructed in 2017 at a cost of almost $4,000. This fenced off gardening enclosure is 80 feet long and 48 feet wide. It contains two 960 square foot raised bed garden plots that I had built at an approximate expense of about $3,300. The soil is beautiful loamy black soil but the drainage was not good so the raised beds so far seem to have fixed my drainage problem. Each bed has about 10 inches of topsoil that of course was already there. So my beans grown there might have 18 to 20 inches of topsoil to sink there roots into. I have a small roto-tiller that I load up on a small 4 foot trailer to go to my offsites to work the gardens there.   

Q: Tell me about your mentor. Who are they and why?

A: I can't say I ever had a mentor. There is nobody that I had that guided me or I asked gardening advice from. A lot of what I know I have probably picked up in reading here and there in books or articles. Plus my own garden experience. My father gardened in the 1950's when I was a small child which I observed and I think gardening just must have appealed to me. I'm the only one of 4 other siblings that have taken on gardening in a big way. There are people in the seed world that I have admired. John Withee with his Wanigan Associates bean network. Who had the foresight to seek out and save old bean varieties. I never met him I'm sorry to say. I have great admiration for the founders of the Seed Savers Exchange Kent and Diane Whealy. I joined SSE as a member in late 1978. They came to the realization that when older gardeners who were also saving old varieties of all sorts of cultivars passed away. The varieties they kept could possibly become extinct. Since the start of Seed Savers Exchange I think seed saving of heirloom varieties has caught on internationally also. I think another person to admire was Gary Nabhan who I believe started Native Seed Search in New Mexico. He had sounded the alarm I believe about loss of varieties and genetic loss of many of our food crops back in the late 1960's or early 70's. These people might just have been the spark that got all this heirloom seed saving going with the last 50 years. 

Side note: Russell Crow may not have had a mentor, but he's certainly one of mine!

This photo is one of the raised beds behind the deer fence with the bush beans at their peak of beauty in July last year.

Q: How many varieties of heirloom beans do you have in your personal seed collection?

A: My bean collection contains probably close to 1,300 varieties including original beans of mine that came about from outcrosses. I'm not a purist when it comes to heirlooms. I also have an open mind towards new cultivars. After all there might be over 100,000 bean varieties in the world today. Considering the they all genetically came from their wild ancestors in Central and South America that as far as they know number about 50 varieties in the wild today. Where did all these other bean varieties come from. They have to be the result of crossing and selecting by all kinds of people over a number of centuries. I think the process even continues today.    

Q: Do you sell seeds and, if so, how do people get in touch with you?

A: I do sell seeds. My website A Bean Collectors Window.com does attract people that are searching for beans on the internet and find my website. Last year I had 144 paying customers from around the U.S., Canada, all over Europe, South Africa, and I've even sent beans to people in the Ukraine and Russia. I have also attended 4 different seed swaps in various states like Michigan, Indiana, and Kentucky where I have sold a small number of beans.   

Q: What is the rarest bean seed in your collection right now?

A: That might be difficult to know but it might be a recent bean I got from a fellow in eastern Kentucky who is a registered member of the Cherokee nation. I got a bean from him called Awahsohs Bear. How many people know this native bean. I would think not too many. I don't know where he collects his native beans. He live in the mountains of south eastern Kentucky. 

If you want to visit Russell Crow's website, A Bean Collector's Window, click here.

You can also find him in Heirloom Bean Addicts Anonymous. Click here to join. He can also be found in Heirloom Tomato Addicts Anonymous. Click here to join.

So, in conclusion, I'd like to extend a huge thank you to Russell Crow for agreeing to do a Q & A for me. He may not have had a mentor, but he inspires people more than he can possibly know. I know. I'm one of those inspired people!

Heirloom Tomato Chat With Beth Bee

 I'd like to introduce people to Beth Bee, one of my admins in Heirloom Tomato Addicts Anonymous or, more commonly referred to as HTAA. I knew when I started this group that I wanted people to manage HTAA that were knowledgeable and Beth is one of those people.

Since we are friends on Facebook, outside of HTAA, I know what she does with her excess tomato plants every year and this woman is amazing. Just amazing. She is another person that I'm damn lucky to have in HTAA. When I started HTAA, it was with the intent of having a wealth of knowledge that would be freely given for the price of a simple question. Beth and her tomato tasting parties are very much noteworthy.

I did a quick Q & A with her.

Q: What do you specialize in, as far as gardening?
A: heirloom tomatoes. More specifically, black & purple varieties.

Q: When did you first get interested in growing rare and/or obscure heirloom tomato varieties?
A: started accidentally 10-15 years ago. I bought seeds AND ordered plants from a friend. Every seed came up, I had to give some away, everyone wanted to taste all the varieties, and my tomato harvest party was born. My customer base has gotten bigger each year and the party sometimes gets 100 people.

Q: Do you have a personal favorite tomato?
A: Probably Gary'O Sena. It's a stable cross of Brandywine and Cherokee Purple, and better than either one. Or maybe Perth Pride, which is a stable cross of Paul Robeson and a dwarf tomato. I lost the tag for most of a season and just referred to it as "perfect mystery dwarf."

Q: On average, how many tomato plants do you grow in a year?
A: 300-500. Usually 20-30 different heirloom varieties, and Sungold.




On a side note, disasters (or near disasters) can happen to the best of us. It depends on if you let that get you down or if you pick yourself up, dust yourself off and get back going again. That's what matters and that's what Beth did when this happened to her just a week ago.

She told me, "There was a sudden wind event while I was at work last Friday. Everything fell over - yes they were weighted down. But most plants survived & many have some new growth already. Tomatoes are pretty tough!"

Not to be deterred, she fixed them up and they are still growing.

Q: Tell me about your mentor. Who are they and why?
A: I don't know if I have a mentor. I have gathered information and knowledge from many people and many books. I do have a vivid memory of watching Sesame Street and they pulled a carrot right out of the ground. I was fascinated. My grandfather also grew tomatoes and I remember being sent to the backyard to pick one. My elementary school did a fundraiser selling seeds, and I kept some for myself and sowed them in Dixie cups way too thick.

Q: How many varieties of heirloom tomato seeds do you have for sale currently?
A: 25 to 30. I have hundreds of types of seed and it's hard to decide which to grow each year!

Q: How would people get in touch with you to order?
A: fb or email beth@corooted.com

Q: Are you planning on having a website in the future?
A: Nah. I'm small scale and this is about all I can do. I work full time as a psychologist.

Q: What is the rarest tomato seed in your collection?
A; probably Coeur de Bob. One year, my tomato buddy, the father of a friend of mine, died. He used to come from Atlanta for my tomato party (in Denver) every year. Also to visit his daughter, but you know. The year he died, I did a search and grew all kinds of things that had Bob, or Dad, or Georgia in them. Dad's Sunset was a beautiful tomato. Big yellow slicer. But Coeur de Bob is a sweet little red that we've kept on growing since then. We have to save seed because it's very hard to find.

Q: What's the best tomato group on Facebook?
A: HTAA isn't bad and I also really like the Baker Creek Group.

For clarification, Beth starts between 300-500 tomatoes every year but she only grows 20 at her house. The rest go to other people's homes.

She stores her tomato seeds in a big binder with baseball card pages and alphabetical dividers. The rest of her seeds for everything else are thrown in plastic bins.

So, what does Beth do with these excess tomatoes that she sells? That is where this woman is truly amazing. Here's her answer for that: This year my sales will go to World Central Kitchen in Ukraine. Last year, The Color of Autism. Before that, Food Bank of the Rockies. Once we bought new basketball uniforms for Special Olympics. It's different each year.

So, now you all know why I wanted Beth on the admin team for HTAA. This person is truly selfless and giving, not only information, but for really good causes.

And, this is her first year growing in soil blocks. I'm very interested in doing this.

 

Heirloom Tomato Chat With 'Tomato Jim' Wyant

 I've mentioned before that I own several heirloom gardening groups on Facebook. Today, I want to have a chat with my main administrator, Jim Wyant aka Tomato Jim.

I met Jim through a Facebook group several years ago. It was back in mid-to-late 2013. Things happened and I decided that I wanted to create my own Facebook group where people could chat freely about tomatoes and if, for whatever reason, the conversation evolved into something else, that would be just fine, too. If memory serves, I do believe that I asked Jim to be an admin for Heirloom Tomato Addicts Anonymous first. To date, there are several admins, but we have close to 6500 members in just that group alone. By the time you factor in the 6 (yes, 6) other Heirloom Addicts Anonymous groups, we are getting gardening and growing information out to around 10,000 people on a daily basis.

Jim specializes in rare and obscure heirloom tomato varieties that originate from the area of eastern Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Southern Ohio and Georgia. This is the area that most people think of when they think of Appalachia.

I did a quick Q & A with Jim.

Q: What do you specialize in, as far as gardening?
A: Heirloom tomatoes. My nickname is Tomato Jim for a reason.

Q: When did you first get interested in growing rare and/or obscure heirloom tomato varieties?
A: Some new neighbors, Donnie and Teresa Fields, moved into the log home that is further back our lane. Really nice people! Mrs. Fields loves cooking and liked my fresh tomatoes. One day she asked me if I had ever grown Opalka tomatoes. Someone in her family grew them and she thought they were the best sauce tomato she had ever tried. I had never heard of them but the computer age was upon us so I started investigating. I found seeds available for them. I also found out they were something called “heirloom” tomatoes. Hmmm. During this search I also found references to a tomato called Romeo. Reviews for this one generally were much better than for Opalka. I figured I would surprise Mrs. Fields with two kinds of sauce tomatoes. But, I could not find Romeo seeds anywhere on line. Some places that carried them were out. I also discovered forums for tomato growers. In one of these forums I found a conversation between a couple folks referencing Romeo seeds. A gentleman named Gary Millwood had agreed to send another person some Romeo seeds. I sent a message to Mr. Millwood inquiring about buying a few Romeo seeds. Weeks went by with no reply. One day nearly two months after my request, Mr. Millwood answered. He stated that he had nine seeds that were at least nine years old. No guarantee they would germinate but that I was welcome to them for free. Free! Nothing in return! I couldn’t talk him into taking anything. Little did I know how that conversation would change the rest of my life!

Q: Do you have a personal favorite tomato?
A: My favorite tomato is a ripe one. No real favorite. I am partial to oxhearts but not a certain favorite and I will eat any that are ripe!

Q: On average, how many tomato plants do you grow in a year?
A: I grow between 100 and 250 plants a year. I average 150. I try to grow 100 varieties each year with varying degrees of success.

Q: Tell me about your mentor. Who are they and why?
A: This question is actually a continuation of how I got started. Gary Millwood sent those seeds to me. All nine germinated for me! When I told Mr. Millwood of my success at germinating them he was very excited. He quickly asked me if I would like to try another variety since I still had plenty of time before planting time. I said sure. How do you refuse someone who just gave you his last nine seeds of a variety? He sent me Sochulak seeds. He said it was a delicious ugly tomato in danger of disappearing. He said the shoulders were real rough but the tomato was very tasty! Both varieties did very well for me that year. Gary and I communicated often all year about their progress. That was the start of a great friendship. Gary was very patient with my questions. I now know some of them really showed how inexperienced I was about heirloom tomatoes. He explained how the fermentation method of preserving seeds worked. I sent hem a couple hundred seeds from Romeo and Sochulak. He was tickled! Gary and I talked on the phone, texted and wrote old fashioned paper letters. I always wanted to visit him. He only lived in Louisville.’ about three hours form me. My work schedule always seemed to get in the way. We were friends for three years before I finally scheduled a vacation to coincide with something he called Mater days at Thienemen’s Nursery in Louisville, where he volunteered as their heirloom tomato guru. Gary passed away before that day came. I had no idea how badly I would miss someone I had never laid eyes on.

Q: You've been featured in a book. What is the title of that and who is the author?
A: From Our Seeds & Their Keepers by Bevin Cohen.

Q: How many varieties of heirloom tomato seeds do you have for sale currently?
A: I currently have approximately 200 varieties of seeds available for purchase.

Q: How would people get in touch with you to order?
A: People can contact me through Facebook or email at jjwyant1@frontier.com. Facebook is preferred. The purchases are made through Messenger.

Q: Are you planning on having a website in the future?
A: I have zero plans to create a website. I am a hobbyist and plan to stay that way.

Q: What is the rarest tomato seed in your collection?
A: I have no way to rate the rarest tomato I have. Captain Meyers may be it. I got it in Livingston, Tennesee from Joe Brown who was in his 90's. He stated that he was the only one left in the area that still grew that tomato. Captain Meyers had brought it back Livingston when he returned from the War of 1812. I have sent a lot of those seeds out to folks to continue its legacy.

Q: What's the best tomato group on Facebook?
A: Heirloom Tomato Addicts Anonymous of course!!

Wrapping up my interview with Jim, I'll add that this guy is a legend in the tomato world. I'm not even kidding. He's a damn legend and I'm equally damn lucky to have him on my admin team.
If you have any tomato questions, Jim's the one you want to ask. The most well-informed tomato group on Facebook today is Heirloom Tomato Addicts Anonymous. If you want to join, click here and make sure to answer our membership questions.

So, as I wrap up this conversation with Jim, I'll leave you with a thought. If you want to grow tomatoes, learn how to grow great tomatoes! HTAA (Heirloom Tomato Addicts Anonymous), Jim and all the other members in the group can teach you that.

When It Rains, It Pours...Chicken Coops!

 Ever since we knew we were going to be moving here onto this property, I told Bob that I wanted to raise chickens. We weren't able to do that when we were in RV parks, but now that we've ditched that sort of life, I want chickens. We eat a lot of eggs and, quite frankly, we plan on raising them for meat. If a hen wants to go broody, I don't care! Hatch 'em out! I want a sustainable chicken set-up. Our biggest obstacle, besides the eagles and hawks that routinely fly overhead, was finding a reasonably priced chicken coop.

I looked on Facebook Marketplace, on a whim, because it's been a while since I did, and I found not one, but 2 chicken coops.

I messaged both. I mean, when we first moved here, we were looking for a coop and every single time one came onto Marketplace, in my price range, it was immediately snapped up. Unless I wanted to monitor Facebook Marketplace 24/7, I couldn't seem to snag up one of these treasures to save my life!

This morning, my luck changed. I messaged about the first one, asking for the dimensions, because it is exactly what I've envisioned that my chicken coop would look like.

In the meantime, waiting for my message to be answered, I ran across one of those cute little ones that people use for backyard chickens. It was for a ridiculously low price, so I messaged that person, too.

My thinking was that one of them was probably sold, so maybe, just maybe, I could snag one of them. They were both the same price. One of them was down in the Vancouver area, in Clark County. The other was northwest of Winlock, in Lewis County. We are in smack in the middle in Cowlitz County.

Anyhow, the small, cute coop person messaged me back first and asked if we could be there at 10 AM. I replied that yes, we could. We set off in the truck.

I priced these coops at Lowe's. These run around $400. I bought this for $100. Bob just needs to fix the ramp. I'm not going to keep this one. I'm going to resell it because....

the person that was selling this coop for $100 messaged me back as soon as we got home from Vancouver, picking up the cute little one.
We talked it over real quick and decided that if Bob did the few repairs on the cute grey one that it needs, like the ramp being attached and cleaning it out, we could actually sell it and recoup not only the $100, but a bit more than that so that it would lower the cost of the coop that we are keeping.

The cute grey coop would house maybe 3 chickens, at most.
The more sensible coop is not only a heck of lot more sturdy, it will house around 20 chickens.
This is a no-brainer.
We'll sell the cute small coop and we will make a bit of a profit from it.

So, we hooked up the trailer to the truck and took off up north to pick up this one. This is the one we'll keep.

So, now I have a home for chickens, I'm just working on getting a supply laid in of straw (for bedding), food, grit, waterers, feeders, etc. We will also need metal pails with tight-fitting lids to store the chicken feed in. .Slowly, but surely, we're working toward having chickens on Kelpie Kapers Farm.

So, when it rains, it pours...chicken coops!

Stocking Up On A Year's Worth Of Laundry Detergent

 I do not like going into stores. They are crowded. People don't respect personal space. I just have no love lost if I don't go into a grocery store again.

I do, however, like to stock up on items so that we are not constantly running to the store. I stock up on a lot of food items, but I don't stockpile them, if that makes sense.

I will mini-stockpile non-perishables that we use. I just did a toothpaste stock up today. I have enough Crest toothpaste to last me for a couple of years and I paid 87 cents per tube. Prices are going up. Costs are going through the roof. When I find a good deal, I take advantage of it. I bought 5 pounds of a butter at $2.47 per pound. I haven't seen a better deal than that for quite some time.

I am getting off track here, though.

I'm getting my washer and dryer hooked up and I wanted to make sure I was stocked up on laundry detergent.

I jumped onto Amazon to see what I could find. I ran into what I thought was a decent deal on Ecos laundry detergent. I could buy 2 100-ounce bottles for $19.47, if I wanted to do a subscribe and save. I always opt in to subscribe and save because it's a way to save some money on my Amazon order. I am also member of Prime. It's worth the money, for us, because we watch videos, I utilize Kindle Unlimited and we take advantage of free shipping.

I looked on Walmart's website and they just didn't have any decent deals worth mentioning, which is surprising because that is where I tend to find overall lower prices on cleaning supplies.

I jumped onto Fred Meyer's (Kroger) website and I found 75-ounce bottles of Purex Free & Clear laundry detergent, regularly $5.19, on sale for $4.99. There was also a coupon.

Here's what I viewed on Amazon. 200 loads of Ecos laundry detergent for $19.47, if I do subscribe and save. I don't look at the cost per ounce when I do these deals. It doesn't pertain to anything. I'm just trying to get the most bang for my buck. The less money that I have to pay out to a retailer, the happier I am about things.

Here's what I viewed on Fred Meyer's website. $4.99 for 57 loads. I was thinking at this time that I would be able to get a few more loads for a $20 bill if I bought these.

I looked at the coupon that was an option to use on the Fred Meyer Purex detergent. It states that I get $2.50 off of $4.99 (sale price), which brings each bottle of this particular size of detergent down to $2.49. Better still, I was able to use this coupon up to 5 times in a single transaction.

Some quick calculation and I placed my order for pickup this afternoon. I held my breath that they had them in stock.

So, I multiplied 57 x 5. That equals 285 loads. 5 bottles of this, using a $2.50 coupon on each one, is a total of $12.45. This versus 200 loads for $19,47. As far as I'm concerned, they are comparable detergents. I've never used Ecos brand, but I've definitely used Purex.

So, we got home a little while ago with my 5 75-ounce bottles of Purex laundry detergent that will definitely last me a year or more.
I'm good to do and we'll have clean clothes and I won't need to run to the store for laundry detergent unless I find another deal like this.


***I am not compensated by any of the companies or products mentioned above.

Installing Washer & Dryer Hookups In The Shed

 I've been waiting and waiting...
And waiting some more.
The life of being an electrician's wife is that I get to see him fix everyone else's stuff while my list of electrical stuff, that I want done, gets to wait until Bob feels like doing it. And, I get it. He gets a payoff to do other people's stuff.
The payoff for doing this is saved gas and money having to run into town to the laundromat every 7-10 days. We don't have to worry if someone used something that is going to making my ridiculously sensitive skin flare up in a rash. I can wash our bedding a bit more often than what we do because it truly is a pain to strip the bed down with these cats and dogs...well, dog. Sasha can't jump up onto the bed anymore because she's going to be 15 years old in December.
I want to be able to stock on laundry soap. I won't be making my own as that's the quickest way to ruin an HE washer and, going off the opinion of my husband who does appliance repair (he's not just an electrician), the homemade is NOT the way to go.
I told Bob that the main thing is to get the washer hooked up. We're opting to not install a water heater at this time. I have a small one. It's like 2.5 gallons. I just don't feel it's necessary. I can wash everything just fine in cold water. If Bob wants to wait a bit before hooking up the dryer, I'm okay with that, too. I have a clothesline and I just ordered 100 clothespins. I like to hang my stuff out anyhow. I like how it smells.

I'm going to attempt to give my explanation as to how this all got installed and I'll be asking Bob for clarification.

We started yesterday at the Home Depot.

Bob's like a kid in a candy store at that place!

Just a note here. Electrical parts and supplies are not cheap. Wire is freaking expensive! The cost of electrical wire fluctuates daily, too. For a 250-foot roll of #12-2 copper wire, it's $268. One year ago, that same wire was $109.

This is the sub-panel. Bob installed it first. This is actually called a sub-main because our main is out on our power pole. This has a quad breaker, 2 pole 30 and 2 single pole 20 amp breakers that Bob installed. These are for the dryer, the washer and a general receptacle for whatever we may need it for. This feeds the metal shed where the washer and dryer will be.

I helped Bob do some wire pulls. That was interesting and, honestly, it made my arm sore. I couldn't imagine pulling wire for hours on end. This has a 30-amp, 240 circuit and 2 20-amp circuits in this pull. I fed it and Bob pulled it.

These are the conduit runs that Bob installed. One is in 1-inch conduit and it's underground and the other is 3/4-inch flex run on top of the ground and attached to the shed. If you didn't know that he did that conduit run, you'd never know it was there underground. The conduit run only took Bob about an hour. He's got some SKILLZ!

This is when Bob was getting ready to mount the junction box on the side of the shed, that will feed the wire run into the shed.  He's got a couple of really super cute helpers, too. Rose is the chocolate one and Sasha is the black one. They are both purebred Australian kelpie dogs.

Rose is supervising Bob, who is mounting a junction box onto the side of the shed.

Here is the junction box finished.

This is the inside part of that junction box that Bob mounted on the outside of the shed. Don't pay any attention to this washer and dryer set. They are being sold. I actually have 2 sets at the moment. Don't ask! We're installing front loaders. So, if anyone needs a set, and you're local, let me know. I'll sell 'em cheap!

Here is Bob mounting the 30-amp dryer receptacle.

This is where Bob made up the washer receptacle.
The wires coming out are going to be for the extra receptacle he's going to install in there...in case I want a light or a heater or whatever. It'll be a dedicated 20-amp circuit.

This is the finished electrical install. We still have to get the water there. That won't be too hard. We're going to draining into a daylight ditch to water fruit bushes with. Since we're on a well, every bit of water conservation we can do, we will. So, within a few days, I'll be up and running and being able to wash laundry at home. It's been a long time!

Thanks, Bob!

What's Up With The Cost Of Canning Lids?

 
I've been canning my own food for well over a decade now. I've always been able to waltz into a number of stores and pick up a dozen wide-mouth Ball lids for around $1.99. Since 2020, the cost of canning lids has skyrocketed. Why is this?
I'll attempt to explain it to you.

Since the start of the pandemic, we've had shortages on various things. This country has been in short supply of toilet paper, hand sanitizer, disinfectants (Lysol), paper towels...even certain varieties of Girl Scout cookies. One thing that has also been in short supply are Ball canning lids.

A canning lid shortage is to be expected because there are more people growing backyard gardens and canning stuff at home is the general consensus. Is this right? Well, not really.

At first, a canning lid shortage was understandable. As I stated, more people were staying home, growing gardens and canning stuff at home. With that new influx of home canners, the canning lid suppliers needed to be able to catch up with this unprecedented public demand. However, the scarcity of canning lids hasn't changed at all.

We saw a shortage of toilet paper. It rectified itself eventually. Hand sanitizer eventually got squared away. Disinfectants did the same. Everything that had an initial shortage got straightened out except for canning lids. Why? The suppliers have had ample opportunity to catch up, yet we, as consumers, are left wondering why there are so few Ball canning lids available and why they are so expensive?

What the average home canner may not know  is that canning lids, which have been around since 1884, and canning jars, which have been around since 1858, are no longer being made by Ball and Kerr (the two big manufacturers of American canning supplies). The fact is that these two companies were under their parent company, Jarden Corp. Jarden Corp, with it's diverse global portfolio of well-known brands like Ball, Yankee Candle, Calphalon, etc., was acquired by a mega-corporation called Newell Brands. At the time it acquired Jarden Corp, it was known as Newell Rubbermaid. This transaction closed in April 2016 and, at that time, they moved their headquarters from Atlanta, GA to Hoboken, NJ. Since Ball and Kerr were just two of a long list of brands they have, consumer demands for any one product is just not a priority for this mega-corporation. Ball and Kerr are just one of a long list of brands under this parent company.

When the 2020 pandemic hit and created a huge demand for home canning supplies, Newell Brands did what any other major corporation would do. They decided to capitalize on this demand. Newel Brands decided that it wouldn't try to sell Ball brand products at every store handling canning supplies as it did in the past, but, rather, they would concentrate their sales through the online giant Amazon and a few select major chains like Walmart and Ace Hardware.

Long story short, they are a monopoly supplier.

Coinciding with this, in 2019, Newell Brands announced that they would close the Ball manufacturing plant in Muncie, Indiana. It has been located there for decades prior. They moved manufacturing to Columbus, Ohio and packing/distribution was moved to Fishers, Indiana.

None of this information has really gotten out to us who can at home. Instead, we've gotten a plethora of ridiculous excuses, with really only one of those being remotely plausible. We were told that there was a shortage of workers at the manufacturing plants. This could, very well, be true enough, just to be fair.

Then, we were told that there was a labor shortage in shipping and at port docks. Could someone explain why a labor shortage at port docks would effect the distribution of a product that is manufactured wholly in the United States? I'll wait...

We have heard that there was an aluminum shortage. Okay. That's fine. Canning lids are made of stainless steel and they have a silicon gasket. So, I'm not sure what apples have to do with oranges, but that was an excuse that was dished out to the public as being a reason why canning lids are in short supply.

We were even told that a wood shortage, in early 2021, caused a pallet shortage and they couldn't pack the canning lid boxes on pallets and it caused canning lids to be in short supply.  Yeah. I'm not gonna touch that one but something stinks like a load of bull.......(sitting on my hands right here).

The truth of the matter is that Newell Brands is limiting its product to certain markets and they are charging whatever they want because, well, they can. If we, the home canning public, want to have quality canning lids, we have no choice other than pay what they want for their product.

Canning lids, sold by themselves, are scarce. When you buy a dozen canning jars, they are sold with lids and rings but anyone who cans at home already has a supply of jars and rings, since those can be used over and over again. We simply don't need those things.  If you pay attention to what stores have in stock, the only retailers that are being currently stocked with Ball/Kerr products are Walmart and Ace Hardware and that doesn't mean that they are available at every location, either.

If you decide to order them from Amazon, you're going to pay dearly for them. I was checking out prices on Amazon this morning and the cheapest price I could find for just one dozen of wide-mouth lids, Ball brand,  was $9.50. Talk about a slap of reality! I used to pay a mere $1.99 for those and that was not very long ago! This explains why I haven't been able to score at Lowe's when they have their clearance sale, in late fall, of their canning supplies. I guess those events are in the past now.

On Amazon, there's an assortment of generic lids available. They are cheap. They are not manufactured in the United States. If you read the reviews, they are very poor quality. The consensus is that they are simply junk. Lots of times, they don't even fit your jars correctly and good luck finding wide-mouth.

I'm also reading where people are reusing their Ball/Kerr canning lids because of how much they cost. There are canning lids that are meant to be reused. Tattler is one of the brands. With the cost of Ball/Kerr, this may just be the way to go in the future. I think that the one-time use lids are very comparable in price to Tattlers. But, I do not recommend reusing one-time use lids. That's a recipe for disaster. It's just not safe to do.

Click here to get further information on Newell Products.
Click here for a 2021 news clip from CBS Minnesota explaining about canning lid shortages.
Click here to read about another person's odyssey trying to find canning lids.

So, I'm here to tell you that there really isn't a canning lid shortage in this country. There never was. This is simply one corporation being able to set the market. Welcome to the world of corporate greed.

Pantry Organization & Spring Cleaning

 It was a beautiful day out yesterday. It was one of those perfect spring days where you want to sit outside and just absorb nature. I did do that for a few hours, for sure, but I also had a few projects that I wanted to tackle.
You guys already read about my instant gravy making adventures. If you haven't, click here to view that blog post. This is the other project that I wanted to accomplish was rearranging our pantry and dish storage cabinet.

This was ridiculous. I had so many Penzey's Spices. I asked my sister if she wanted them and if it was one that I hadn't used in the past 6 months, it is going to her. As much as I make from scratch, she makes more...and she lives in a house and has more room to put things. Anyhow, this is unacceptable. Things got really shifted around when we moved up here in January. Having the fifth wheel pulled up the driveway didn't help matters any. Our driveway sucks, but we like it that way.

Bob wasn't sure if this would all go back into the cabinet. I assured him that, if it came out, it would go back in.

It does look like a holy mess, though. 

That little half of a shelf is where all that stuff on the counter came from. I needed some space to work with.

My Ninja blender, vanilla, sherry and ramekins were all shoved toward the back. Now, mind you, I cannot reach to the back of that cabinet, so I rearranged things in an order that made sense to me, not Bob. Bob is 6'1". I'm 5'4". Big difference there.

I'm pleased with how my spice area turned out. I still have a drawer full underneath. I cleaned that out, as well. This also gave me a chance to see what I needed to stock up on and what I needed to use up quickly.

The dishes came down a shelf and I can now reach everything.

The tote holds all of our packets of stuff and our extra bags of brown sugar, etc. We're working our way through the tote and will start replacing a lot of those packets of gravy, onion soup mix, etc. with homemade versions that I store in canning jars.

Everything in here is now a lot more accessible to me, as well. The boxes are things that are very near or just after the expiration date and they need to be used up. I also have a can of pineapple that's about 8 months past that I will use to make a marinade. I'm thinking tacos al pastor sound good.

I did not stop with just organizing the pantry. I have a working RV kitchen. By that, I mean, I use the stove and I cook in there on a daily basis. Do I tear the stove apart and clean it every single time? No. I don't. I do, however, clean it on a weekly basis. I'm not going to lie, however. I have let it go for about 3 weeks. It was getting gross and it needed to be cleaned. This is real life and stuff happens. Anyhow, I don't use any fancy cleaners for my stove. I've discovered that I can get it super clean with just plain ol' baking soda. It removes the grease, it scours it and it's something that most everyone has on hand. Here is the before photo.

Here is the after photo. Yes, I have some permanent staining on there. Like I said, this is a working kitchen and stuff happens...but my stove is clean.

It was nice to have the door open with Mickey-Shark and Ravioli safely enclosed in their cat pen.
Today, I'm dehydrating apples. Tomorrow, I'm taking Bob to the hospital so that he can have his procedure. After that, I'm going to dehydrate potatoes. After that, it will probably be time plant out some more stuff. This is a homestead/farm in baby form and every single day, if we accomplish a few goals, they eventually add up to a nice place to live.
So, my parting words of wisdom to RVers is to not be afraid to use your propane stove. I think I'd have a hard time going back to electricity after getting used to this.

Instant Gravy Mixes From Scratch

  I bought a lot of ingredients the other day. There's a reason why I did this. Bob and I tend to use a lot of instant gravy packages. Instant gravy packages tend to have a large amount of salt in them. I'm trying to cut down on salt per my doctor.
I ran across a YouTube video the other day and I thought that what this lady did was such a great idea that I wanted to make my own. Click here to view the video. She did a lot of other instant sauce mixes and I will make some, but I wanted to make these 3 instant gravies first.
On a side note, the cost of powdered milk is ridiculous! That bag, that doesn't even weigh 2 pounds, was almost $8.50! That's frigging expensive! The good thing is that I only used 1 cup of it on these recipes.

Some of these items were a stock up. I can't believe I didn't have poultry seasoning, but I haven't bought it in many, many years. I grow everything that's in poultry seasoning and I'm able to grow it and harvest it year round. So, now I have a small bottle of poultry seasoning. I'll have to think of things to use it in. If you have an idea, let me know in the comments below.

I am not stressing on the fact that 2 of these recipes have 1/2 cup of bouillon in each one. I only use 2 or 3 tablespoons per batch of gravy anyhow.

Everything gets whisked up in a big bowl and put into quart canning jars.

Whisk! Whisk! Whisk!

This is an amount that will take us well through next fall and into next winter before I will need to make more. I'm very happy with that. The bonus is that I don't have to corral and contain a gazillion little packets in my cabinet. I'm trying to get away from doing that. Less garbage to haul off. I like that.

On the lid, I wrote the directions. I didn't mind doing this because these 3 jars are now dedicated to holding gravy mixes.

Into the jars. This is my production line.

These 3 mixes will handle any situation where a gravy is called for.

Can I make gravy from scratch? Yes, I certainly can and I do on different occasions. I make really good gravy! An ordinary dinner is just not one of those occasions for us...especially since we're both tired from diving into spring cleaning and Operation Organize the RV Kitchen.

We are just too worn out for anything other than a homemade instant gravy.

Country Gravy
*makes approximately one quart of instant dry gravy mix

2 cups flour
1 cup powdered milk
1/4 cup cornstarch
1/2 tablespoon freshly ground black pepper (yes, 1/2 of a tablespoon! You read that right!)
2-1/2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons onion powder
1 teaspoon poultry seasoning

Mix everything together and store in an airtight container for up to 6 months. I don't know why they said 6 months because this stuff will totally last for a year or better if it's in a sealed jar.

Chicken Gravy
*makes approximately one quart of instant dry gravy mix

2 cups flour
1/4 cup cornstarch
1/2 cup chicken bouillon powder
2 tablespoons onion powder
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon poultry seasoning
1/2 teaspoon ground dried thyme
2 teaspoons dried parsley flakes
1/2 teaspoon freshly cracked black pepper

Mix everything together and store in an airtight container for up to 6 months.

Brown/Beef Gravy
*makes approximately one quart of instant dry gravy mix

2 cups flour
1/4 cup cornstarch
1/2 cup beef bouillon powder
2 tablespoons onion powder
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon paprika
1-1/2 teaspoons dried marjoram
1/2 teaspoon freshly cracked black pepper
1 teaspoon dried parsley

The following recipe directions are for all 3 gravy mixes.

To use: melt 2 tablespoons of fat in a saucepan. I used butter but you can use oil, lard, chicken fat, bacon grease...whatever you'd like. Add 2 tablespoons of instant gravy mix and cook, stirring for 2 minutes to take the raw taste out of the flour. You're making a roux. Pour in 1 cup of milk, water or broth. Make sure your liquid is cold. Whisk and cook until mixture boils and the gravy gets thick.

NOTE: Do you notice how these 3 recipes all start off with 2 cups of flour and 1/4 cup of cornstarch? That's handy.

NOTE: With the brown/beef gravy, when you make it, it will not be very brown. You can add 1/2 teaspoon of a browning sauce, like Kitchen Bouquet when cooking.

NOTE: With the chicken gravy, once gravy comes to a boil and is thickened, you can add 1/4 cup heavy cream to make a delicious sauce for a Chicken Pot Pie.


So, I hope you find these recipes useful because you never know when you might be in a situation where you need to get a meal put together quickly. This fits that ticket quite nicely.