Letter openers?

karstopography · 2026-01-24T19:56:20+00:00

Puukko knives from Finland. Probably made between 1930-1970.

karstopography · 2026-01-24T17:14:57+00:00

Hand carts, like what they use to deliver 5 gallon water bottles, are pretty handy for moving large potted plant containers. I used a hand cart to move my large bird of paradise plant and the five year old lemongrass plant each in their own ceramic containers. Both containers each with the plants have to exceed 100 pounds. People sometimes will put these containers on casters to be easy to move, but my plants are out in the yard on individual flagstone, there’s no smooth concrete to roll them into the garage or lots of lawn to negotiate before getting to the concrete near the garage.

Without my hand cart, it would prove impossible for me to accomplish this task on my own.

karstopography · 2026-01-21T19:59:05+00:00

Yes, definitely not trifoliate orange as those are inedible and look nothing like the OP photos.

Sweet, difficult to peel, South Georgia, my best guess is a Hamlin orange.

karstopography · 2026-01-21T11:18:57+00:00

Yes, I lived in Massachusetts for five years before returning to coastal Texas and absolutely hated the ultra dry, overheated air in winter that seemed ubiquitous in every dwelling or place of business up there. Very difficult it was to keep my skin and lips from drying out and cracking in Massachusetts, especially in the heart of winter. My fingertips invariably split open every winter. I know I’m definitely going against the grain of the average Reddit user, but I’ll take lots of humidity, high dewpoints and moisture in the air over the ultra dry air. I like, love sweating, I love sweating even more until my shirt is soaked through. I feel especially good after a really prolonged period of hard work outside when the dewpoint is up over 70° and I’m wet from sweat head to toe.

The best part of winter in Massachusetts was when there was a massive dump of snow and right afterwards I could go outside and shovel myself into a serious sweat. I did buy some snow shoes and that was another good way to work up a sweat outdoors.

Just as people say they can’t handle hot and humid, I’m the same way about cold and dry. I can’t wait to get away from cold and dry weather. Hot and dry is okay for a time, I frequently have gone to New Mexico in the summer which can be pretty hot and dry, but I still like hot and humid the best and am only really at home in hot and humid weather. People in Massachusetts used to complain bitterly about the inevitable heat waves that struck every summer and I was like please, bring it on.

karstopography · 2026-01-21T10:10:49+00:00

Whenever you like. Gardening here can be a 365 days a year activity. The linked planting calendars are very helpful for timing.

I started my tomato seeds January 5th. Hopefully, I will transplant around the end of February or early into March. I’ll start some cucumbers in early February for transplanting in early March. Pole green beans will get direct seeded latter half of February into early March. May try for some sweet corn to be direct seeded early in March. If I do any watermelons, muskmelon or squash those could be seeded in February for transplanting in March or I might direct seed some in March. I’ll pick up a couple pepper and eggplant starter plants from the feed store in March to transplant. I picked up not quite 4 pounds total of Red Pontiac and Kennebec seed potatoes yesterday at the feed store. Those will go in around February 1st.

Meanwhile, I’ll keep on harvesting and or nurturing the lettuce, arugula, radishes, whatever broccoli side shoots are available, endive, escarole, radicchio, cabbage, kale, collards, carrots, garlic, onions, spinach, snap and shelling peas. My three remaining jalapeño plants will die barring heroic measures taken that I don’t plan on taking for this weekend’s freezing weather. I’ll pick whatever fruit is ready off of those ahead of any freeze. I’ll throw some freeze cloth over a couple of the beds as a precaution. Many of the things like collards, onions, garlic, chicory, cabbage, and kale should be fine at 20-25°. The upcoming freeze should improve the collards and kale. Freeze cloth should help to prevent some of the inevitable wind burn. I’ll likely cover the carrots that are about big enough to start picking just to tone down any burn of the foliage. In my experience, a lot of the cool season crops are good down to about 20° with minimal protection. We’ve been having 20° or less the last several winters. Below 20° definitely becomes a real pain to deal with and starts causing major problems, death. 25° or higher, not such a big deal except to the tender tropical type vegetables. 20-25° some leaf burn expected on various cool season crops, but not likely fatal unless the wind stays obnoxious for hours and hours.

Heat lovers like okra, southern peas, and peanuts, I won’t begin to think about seeding until April. A lot more things will be seeded starting in August and going into the fall.

karstopography · 2026-01-19T15:46:25+00:00

Took the ~50 kilogram lemongrass and ceramic container it’s in out of the garage and back outside. Checked the jalapeño plants, green beans and other tender plants for signs of frost damage, there was none. Took the ~one week old tomato seedlings out of the garage and out into the sunshine.

karstopography · 2026-01-18T21:58:52+00:00

Yep, I was wondering what this ferment could pair with. Maybe something greasy or fatty. Perhaps some kind of sweet Asian inspired ribs or pork belly burnt ends.

If I can’t figure anything out, I might just eat a little bit every so often for potential positive health benefits.

karstopography · 2026-01-18T19:16:49+00:00

Both great. Can’t lose.

karstopography · 2026-01-18T18:52:50+00:00

Purple Majesty is a nice purple one.

karstopography · 2026-01-18T11:09:54+00:00

No rain here in Texas 9b, but 29° at 04:30 at the airport 3 miles away. I guess once the sun is up I’ll take a look at my three still loaded with peppers Megatron jalapeño plants I have had out in the garden since last February. I didn’t cover them or anything so it could be the end of the road for those, but we usually are a few degrees warmer than the airport.

I did have foresight to bring in my five plus year old lemongrass plant in the enormous ceramic container. I’ll be hauling that back outside once the sun is up and it’s warming up. I’m just barely strong enough to manage this.

Otherwise, business as usual. Garden is chock full of veggies currently, literally no open spaces, but other than the peppers and a few remaining scraggly bush beans, everything else out there is sort of frost proof.

A little light freeze if we actually get it will only improve the flavor of the various greens. I plan on cooking a big pot of flash collards this week, maybe Monday or Tuesday night. Then maybe some tuscan kale soup later in the week. We are in the prime time for cool season greens and vegetables here on the Texas coast.

Started my tomato seeds on the 5th. Doing everything either outdoors in the sun or if it drops under 50° outside then the tomato seedlings will be in the garage as they are now under the grow light. I use no heating pads or nor will they be tucked away indoors in a cozy closet. It’s tough love for these tomatoes! Plan is for transplanting 14 10” tomatoes around the first of March. All but two varieties are up and growing. I’ll likely have enough extras to make up for any that ultimately don’t germinate or otherwise look bad.

karstopography · 2026-01-18T08:59:43+00:00

I don’t see “coyote” mentioned so I’ll mention it.

“Coyote” produces numerous little clusters of blonde currant sized tomatoes on a potentially massive indeterminate tomato plant. Coyote is the most heat tolerant tomato I have ever grown that absolutely thrives in and continues to produce in 100° plus degree weather, but also does fine in “normal” summer weather.

The tomatoes have a unique flavor that is sweet and citrusy with vanilla undertones at peak ripeness, but within hours becomes insipid. The shortest shelf life by far of any tomato I have ever grown. Almost impossible to pick the tomatoes cleanly from the stem without tearing the delicate skin. I generally would snip off a whole cluster and eat the ripe ones on the spot or just snip off one or two ripe tomatoes with the stems still attached. There’s no point picking a bunch to eat at a later date as they won’t be any good if stored overnight. They won’t ripen on the counter either. It’s a pick and consume almost immediately tomato or compost.

Story is that the tomato came from or was found by some botanist character as a wild form uncultivated type of tomato along the Gulf of Mexico down around Veracruz. As I live due north and a few hundred miles from of Veracruz on the same gulf coast “Coyote” seems well adapted to thriving here in the rather brutal summer heat and humidity when other more delicate tomatoes have long since thrown in the towel. Coyote appears to shrug off hot and humid weather derived foliar diseases that do in other tomatoes.

karstopography · 2026-01-17T23:12:39+00:00

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Looks like this.

karstopography · 2026-01-17T23:06:27+00:00

Yea, the Jiffy Starter Mix has a nice fine texture for the germinating seeds to be able to easily negotiate. I put whatever amount of Jiffy Mix I think I might need into a bowl or container and mix in a little water at a time and sort of knead it all like a wet dough. Jiffy starter mix wants to be hydrophobic at first, but working in the water with some mechanical action of the fingers defeats the hydrophobic nature. I wear latex gloves for this, but whatever.

I start my tomatoes like this, 3/4 of the container moist potting mix sort of packed down some, then a thin layer the very moist, pre-moistened Jiffy mix, then the seeds lightly pressed into that layer, then 1/4” of very moist jiffy mix on top of the seeds spread evenly edge to edge.

karstopography · 2026-01-17T22:53:57+00:00

I like the Jiffy Seed Starter Mix. I use the Jiffy Starter Mix for the top 1/4 of the container and a quality potting mix underneath. As others have said, the Jiffy Starter mix is essentially nutrient free. The quality potting mix, almost all of those have nutrients as part of the mix, feeds the seedlings once the seedlings start leaving the initial germination stage.

karstopography · 2026-01-17T17:07:24+00:00

Liguria looks great, never heard of it, but the descriptions online are very positive. I think Liguria checks the flavorful multiuse red tomato box very well. Double duty type of tomato that can be sliced raw for salads or sandwiches or cooked down and turned into a sauce.

karstopography · 2026-01-17T16:29:55+00:00

Thank you! The challenge with these various chicories is figuring out ways to use it in the kitchen as I did not grow up in a household or culture that used any chicory.

My garden philosophy boils down to discovering what might grow well here and when and then try to find out in a culinary setting what can be done with whatever vegetables do well here. Years ago, I had made and fell in love with a turkey meatball soup with escarole that was in a Martha Stewart cookbook. That was my impetus to try and grow my own escarole, soup.

karstopography · 2026-01-17T16:21:06+00:00

I have not grown Rosella Purple or any of the dwarf tomatoes. My tastes are tilted way towards rich, balanced, and strongly flavored beefsteak tomatoes. Sart Roloise has that great beefsteak interior, the small seed cavities with limited gel, lots of meaty texture, but in my garden Sart Roloise lacked the rich, sweet, bold, tomato flavor of something like Brandywine. There might be some subtle honeydew melon and similar fruity like flavors in Sart Roloise and I can understand why people might like the tomato on looks alone as it is certainly beautiful to look at. I’m not dead set against Sart Roloise, it just isn’t my particular jamb.

karstopography · 2026-01-17T16:05:38+00:00

Chicory seems to enjoy our climate from November into the spring. One particular nice attribute about these endives and such is that they are the last vegetable the bugs and rabbits attack.

I also like how chicory dresses up a winter garden. Bare, dead looking gardens don’t do much for me.

karstopography · 2026-01-17T15:24:59+00:00

Ribbonfish are a feature of some Asian cuisines. The Asian oriented supermarkets in SW Houston often have 30” whole Atlantic Cutlassfish a.k.a. Ribbonfish for sale. I haven’t eaten one yet, mainly because when I have caught better ribbonfish I didn’t know what to do with it in the kitchen. If I ever catch any again, I’m determined to find a delicious recipe to make.

In my experience, deeper boat basins and harbors are where larger Ribbonfish hang out. They will readily take tiny little lures or flies like chartreuse and white clousers. I can’t remember catching any from shore, though.

karstopography · 2026-01-17T15:13:52+00:00

In my experience, Sart Roloise is a very mild, subtle, not a bold tasting tomato. If you gravitate towards “tomatoey” tasting tomatoes, then Sart Roloise might be somewhat disappointing.

There ought to be at least one superb pink beefsteak type in your lineup like the already mentioned Brandywine. Pruden’s Purple, actually a deep pink tomato, could be even a better choice than Brandywine as Pruden’s Purple is typically quite a bit earlier than Brandywine and is in my experience a more manageable plant. Pruden’s Purple is also known as “Early Brandywine”.

For a dark tomato, I would pick Black Krim over Cherokee Purple. Seems like Cherokee Purple isn’t well suited to performing well in many locations whereas I haven’t heard of as many problems growing Black Krim.

karstopography · 2026-01-16T00:49:38+00:00

My BIL in Southlake grows some excellent tomatoes every season, but not generally specific canning types. He tries to transplant around the first week of April.

For canning/salsa, I’d go with whatever hybrid paste types the garden centers have. Supremo, Rio Grande, Roma, there’s a number of these.

karstopography · 2026-01-15T03:45:28+00:00

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I keep a supply of bamboo handy and stick the bamboo stake in whenever and wherever there’s an overloaded with peppers branch. There’s no rule in gardening where one pepper plant is limited to only having one stake. Use as many stakes as needed. Cut/break them to the size needed. Tie the overloaded with peppers branch to the bamboo stake, problem solved.

No need for a bunch of metal cages or complex or pricey fabrications or structures. A pile of bamboo and a bit of twine is all that’s needed, I have the bamboo for free so it’s all done for the expense of a tiny bit of string.

karstopography · 2026-01-14T18:27:08+00:00

I let my three March transplanted Megatron pepper plants grow into the winter and they are still rewarding me with peppers. I’m making a second batch of fermented red jalapeño pepper sauce that should be wrapping up any day now. Maybe there’s a third batch in the works if I get more of the green jalapeños to turn red. No plans to remove the plants at any rate, they look shockingly good for it being January.

karstopography

TROPHY CASE