Aging AND living the food gardening lifestyle has made me realize that the trope of the old wizard/witch in their workshop, surrounded by all sorts of bottles, pots and weird ingredients? That is just the basic truth of how you will end up.
You get older, and better aware of what you like AND have to find ways to use and store all the things you grow. Next thing you know, you have 15 different, custom condiments in your fridge, tons of bottles full of dried stuff and a freezer full of (hopefully labelled) pastes and plant bits.
I haven’t even gotten into fermenting! That accounts for the bubbling stuff and some of the funny glassware.
What are your favourite magical potions? Our biggest recent winners are: tomato chutney, red curry paste and preserved sour cherries.
I am with you! Then you find your self not only a witch but also a crazy professor inventing an endless-life environments for you favorite vegetative children!
I recently saw my doctor, who is aware of my gardening bug, so he asked me, if I store my crops for winter. I said I do and told him that we still eating our own apples (that is my first apple crop and I was proud of it )He asked me, where I store them. I explained, that they are in the cooler in the cold shed covered with more insulation with lamp for heating and thermostat under insulation. He was amazed, and asked, where I learned this… I told him my mother had something like this time ago… What I didn’t tell, is the fact that there was no way to buy a thermostat back then and she(being an engineer) had to build one herself! I think, this would be too much for the doctor to know. He may start me on some medication for that grow bug, keeping in mind that it is a heritable disease
Not only the care but then there is whole seed starting and propagation stuff. More bubbling things!
At least right now, I don’t have space for that stuff but have been looking at greenhouses…
(And trying to figure out if it’s possible to use the old well on the property as a root cellar since I don’t want to give up growing space)
lol! i get that from some of my relatives. then they realize i learned from my elders. the same relatives they share with me. i told them it pays to listen and ask questions.
Consistently bubbling away - 1 gallon kombucha/wk, 2gal kefir/wk, kefir yogurt/cheese when the mood strikes – also heat ferment black garlic. Other than that, custom hot pepper blends (maybe will get into making hot sauce this year), jerky and dried fruits, and banana-type breads using sprouted rice (no flour) and kefir with stevia and goji.
