The Tangle - Photogallery

[Mervi]

Nope, you can't really grow anything during the winter months without artificial light (and heat). Some vegetables are grown (commercially) in greenhouses - things like cucumbers or tomatoes, but mostly they're flown in from southern Europe, the Middle-east, northern Africa etc - and that of course means the prices go up (well, many fruits and vegetables are flown in all year round - you can't grow things like kiwi fruit or oranges here). So yeah, basically there's this whole dilemma during winter of whether to buy locally produced expensive greenhouse tomatoes that are often considered more safe and clean or cheaper "airplane" tomatoes produced with tons of pesticides and harvested by underpaid labourers (and which method wastes more energy and produces CO2 and demands the use of precious water supplies) .... which you can try to avoid by eating only stuff harvested locally during autumn like root vegetables and frozen berries etc.

Back to the topic of posting photos. Since it's the Winter Solstice today, I thought it would be a good time to post these:

This photo was taken about an hour before midnight on the day of the Summer Solstice in 2005.
[Image: kesa2005.jpg]

This photo was taken about an hour before midnight on the day of the Winter Solstice in 2005.
[Image: birches.jpg]

(The first one is an "as is" photo with no artificial lighting or tinkering in Photoshop. The latter has some amount of flash & street lights helping, but anyways I think you get the idea of the differences.)

[Nuytsia]

Goodness love these pics of snow around the place!
Ooooh midnight sun! Midnight..... night!
Mervi you do get light at some point at the winter solstice right? (am I right in thinking you have to be within the Arctic circle to get the days where the sun doesn't rise? or did I make that up?)

Thanks everyone for those pics!

[Nuytsia]

Hmm hope I remember how to post pics ......
I finally harvested something from my garden! Yay!

[Image: 162881_1789138448807_1249962217_2034445_6298972_n.jpg]

[Farseer]

Good one Nuytsia! Need some cherry tomatoes to go with those? We have so many our Jack Russell is taking them off the plants and using them as balls to play with!

Of course, the glut may have something to do with the fact that we have, oh, about twenty-three bushes currently on the go! Hooray for home-made sauce!!

[Nuytsia]

Yumbo thanks!
I also have Basil growing VERY successfully... in a pot indoors! But it will go well with the garlic and cherry tomatoes.

I am very pleased with my tomatoes this season, although I'm afraid they're not fruiting yet. They ARE flowering, which is cause enough for me to celebrate!
I have eight plants outside, and I potted up 4 for indoors too. I am not sure how long they can grow indoors, but with the price of tomatoes here outside of summer I thought I would see if I can get fruit later on with the indoor ones.

Do you use a special variety of tomato for making the sauce?

[Mervi]

Mervi you do get light at some point at the winter solstice right? (am I right in thinking you have to be within the Arctic circle to get the days where the sun doesn't rise? or did I make that up?)

Thanks everyone for those pics!

Yes and yes. I'm living in the south, so I enjoy about 5 hours of daylight during the darkest time of the year. And yes, you have to go to the Arctic circle (or beyond) to experience both the polar night (or kaamos as we call it) and the polar day (yötön yö in Finnish, meaning "nightless night").

We have LOADS of snow right now, I really should try to take some photos and post them!

[Nuytsia]

Wow unreal! I would love a holiday to Finland.... but I'd really need to stay a whole year to get the full experience!

[Farseer]

Wow unreal! I would love a holiday to Finland

Me too!

The "nightless night"...sounds like a fantastic title for a novel!!

---

Here is a photo of Milly (short for Mildred), the milking cow. As she is black and white I wanted to call her a name that was somehow connected to Fool but that was immediately vetoed by the rest of the family!!! I think they're a tad sick of my addiction, though I'm not sure why?
   

Also a photo of the tripod my husband and kids made for me (I reported about it in the What's happening in your world? thread). It's not set up in the best area for cooking but I just made a quick hole in a handy, sandy section and started preparing a camp oven beef stew just for the sake of "trying it, to see if it worked"!
   

[Nuytsia]

Go Milly! Sorry to hear she couldn't have a Fool related name - boo!
Garetha would have been a good name for a cow I reckon. (since she put the black and white flowers on the tray! I think....)

Yay your tripod!
I'd love to have equipment for soldering ..... *add to the list*

[Nuytsia]

Took this pic of one of these cool looking pure white moths flying around at dusk at the moment.
Close up it's got quite an interesting face and looks like a tiny alien wizard wearing a fur lined cloak!
(or am I just a bit demented?)

[Image: 167218_1839385264946_1249962217_2119556_1112343_n.jpg]