Posted on 08/25/2017 7:41:56 PM PDT by greeneyes
The Weekly Gardening Thread is a weekly gathering of folks that love soil, seeds and plants of all kinds.
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Backed out of planting the quick corn - cutting it too close and already pretty cool at night. Will plant some cool weather stuff instead, since I can throw a row cover over those and they'll do pretty good to finish up and last for a while.
One XMAS we even had lettuce from the winter garden. I ordered some of the winter wheat, would like to plant some white winter wheat, but I don't know if that even exists.
I have garlic to plant from last year, but I'm thinking that I should order some more to increase the harvest, since I'm using more fresh garlic in recipes these days.
Since the produce from many crops has been short this year, rather than gearing up the canner for just a couple of qts or pints, I decided to experiment with the dehydrator - I LIKE IT.
I can whiz around and in no time it's loaded - lots easier on the feet and legs - getting harder to stand and get the job done.
I do have 15 lbs of hamburger and ground turkey to process and can. I want to can some sausage too, but I need to find some with out the sage, because sage changes flavor in the canning process - at least that's what I have read. Any one know of any sausage that doesn't have sage in it?
I'm thinking about getting a lower kitchen cart, or a taller stool so that I can sit for part of the prep work.
I did potatoes, lemons, tomatoes, blueberries, and bread. I eat low carb bread or make my own, and Hubby likes the oatmeal nut bread from Walmart, but he never eats the heels, and sometimes he leaves the last slice in favor of the new loaf.
So I figured I'd just dry it and then blenderise it and I'd have bread crumbs to use for meat loaf or whatever.
I was checking my book on preserving without refrigeration or electricity. This lady bakes her own bread. Slices it and then lays the slices in wicker baskets - and lets them dry out that way. Then she puts them in a container. They will last at least a month without molding she said.
She toasts it the first few days, but later, she puts the bread on top of the steamer, and it fluffs up a bit. Her grand kids call it "cake bread".
So I had half a biscuit left from a recipe I tried, and just for kicks and grins, I dehydrated it. Half of it I spread with butter and ate - nice crisp cracker type texture. Then I took the other half the next day and steamed it. Pretty good.
The other thing I did this week, I spent my XMAS money and Birthday money from last December. I bought the Versa Rocket Stove and a Solar oven. Hubby can't hardly wait for me to use the rocket stove. He gathered up a bunch of twigs and branches and got them all ready.
So tomorrow we see what we can make on the stove. I'm thinking chicken vegetable soup. It's a backyard campout. LOL Haven't decided what yet for sure though. Oh yeah, I baked biscuits today on the stove top. I found a description on some Nigerian site.
I took an old beat up granite ware 5 qt. pot and emptied a box of salt (that will be saved to use again for stove top baking)in the bottom of the pot. Put down some canning rings for a trivet, and put a rack from an old Mirro pressure cooker on top of the rings.
Put the biscuits in a pan and covered them with a lid, then put the whole thing in the improvised "oven" and put the granite wear lid on. So it worked. The biscuits get brown on the bottom instead of the top, but great taste.
So I may try to bake a cake next, and then see if I can repeat that on the rocket stove. I got the one that can also use charcoal, so that's my new BBQ grill. LOL
So I am finally getting around to doing some kraut. I've been told to just put it in a mason jar with some salt, and screw on the lid. Is that right? No heating or sealing the jar or anything?
Well, I've been noodling around with my emergency supply stuff too. I am thinking that I might just dehydrate a bunch of stuff to use that would be quick to go with the 2 week rations - basic plan of no cooking. So we have pork and beans, Vienna sausages, crackers, peanut butter, tuna, canned beef, peanuts. etc. all just pull open a can and eat. Water and powdered milk chocolate or plain, and protein powder - vanilla flavored.
We decided to redo our emergency water too. Instead of the gallons of Ozarko, or putting stuff in 2 liter bottles, we have decided to use the Primo water from Walmart. At less that 2 bucks for 5 gallons, that's a bargain compared to the other stuff, and we just recycle the bottles, but if we need to we can keep it to reuse at home.
Since the coffee pot clogs up fast due to our hard water here, hubby likes to use that to make coffee. So that takes care of the rotation. There's room under the kitchen work table for 8 of those jugs, and 75 gallons in the water heater.
Well I sure have posted a rather chatty monologue, so I better get this thing posted before I conk our for bedtime. Have a great weekend. Prayers up. God Bless.
Pinging the list. Oh I forgot, I now have more celery growing - that’s three plants now from the ends that I used to throw away.
“I now have more celery growing - that’s three plants now from the ends that I used to throw away.”
How does one do that? I like celery and would like to try that.
When I get the celery, I take it out of the bag and chop it off about 2 inches or so from the bottom. Then I take a colored pyrex dish and put the celery in it and add about a half inch or so of water.
The celery will start growing out of the center of the stalk. When it’s about 2 or 3 inches tall, I put it into a container and cover the old stalks, but don’t cover the new leaves. Water and let drain and I let them grow on the North side of the house, and then bring them in to put in front of the southwest patio door.
Next year, I’m going to plant them outdoors as the spring/summer progresses, but for this year, it’s going to be in pots for the indoor “herb/fresh veggie” kitchen indoor garden.
I had a question about grass grown in small containers for caged birds to fiddle with. I just started doing this two days ago.
I have one cage with Parakeets, another cage with Zebra Finches. The Parakeets enjoy picking at their grass. After two days, there is still a small tuft of plant growth in the cage. The Zebra Finches grass went on demolition duty! From a bright green Mohawk down to a brownish beige Crewcut in less than a day. They loved tearing it apart. Maybe for nesting materials.
My question: I am using Wheatgrass pregrown and potted.
Any other kinds of grass that a caged bird could safely nibble at that grows easily and quickly?
I hope to find something that can last a little longer in the Zebra Finch cage.
Well, I don’t really know what sort of stuff is suitable for birds/critters. I’d probably just buy some wheat seeds and sprout a bunch of it and let them have fun.
Sounds like a good idea. The plants make their day more interesting and they do less squabbling between themselves.
Less fighting over perches or female Finches.
Thanks! I will give it a try. :-)
Why? Why can’t we EVER seem to get our corn to grow that well? The neighbors can. I think we’re cursed by the spirits of dead Creek Indians. LOL
Are you saying that you were able to propagate new shoots from the stumps?
I’m going to try that.
My Dad did that many years from hydroponic lettuce heads from the grocery store. This is south Chicago probably late 80’s, he started seeing lettuce in the store with roots. It was not a big seller. Then one day he saw a whole bin of heads going bad. He called the manger over and said “you can’t sell these, they are rotting”. He convinced the manager to mark them at 4 cents a heads. He bought a bunch, sliced off the tops and planted them they all grew new heads quickly. He did that every summer after that when he saw heads going bad. He was well known in the store for calling out bad looking food. For awhile the store manager thought he was a food inspector. They became good friends eventually and wound up having coffee in the store frequently. The store manager came to Dad’s funeral and introduced himself. He was quite broken up over Dad’s sudden death over a heart attack.
The Naked Ladies are a semi wild form of Amaryllis. First they send up foliage that dies down then they send up the flower stalks which you see in my photo...
Thanks for the pics. The cookout went well. I got to try out my recipe for homemade hamburger helper. I have enough mix in a jar for 8 recipes.
So all I have to do is scoop out enough for one recipe, and one of my home canned hamburger meats, a couple of handfuls of macaroni, one of my canned tomatoes, and some water and simmer till the macaroni is done. We had chili mac and stove top biscuits.
Next time we’ll try hamburger stroganoff - it uses the same helper mix but omits the tomatoes and adds sour cream and parmesan cheese.
Hubby liked the rocket stove so well, he wants to buy another one so we can have a two burner. He also wants to build a cart to put it on so that we can just wheel it in and out of the house.
We have had some good rain - enough that the peppers and maters perked up and produced a bunch of stuff. Saturday hubby went to the Farmer’s market and brought me some apples to dehydrate.
Then he went and picked some grapes, peppers, and maters. Dug up all his taters and so I have boxes of stuff stacked up waist high all over the place - looks like he is making sure I have enough to do. LOL
He just now brought down a 12 qt. stock pot of grape juice to be canned/processed. He says, here it is, where do you want me to put it. I suggested he take it back upstairs and put it in the big frig. My processing frig is full and overloaded, and I’m going to bed in an hour. LOL
That looks so yummy. Wish we had some decent corn, this year, but hubby didn’t plant any, and he quit watering my small patch, but didn’t tell me, so it didn’t do well.
That is exactly what I’m saying. I have lots of leaves, and tiny stalks, but I don’t know if they will get full growth, so I guess we’ll see.
I should get plenty of leaves to dry for seasoning, and I always use the tiny stalks for stir fry, so that’s a good deal even if they don’t get full sized.
You probably know this, but corn is a heavy nitrogen feeder.
I can’t recall a time that August was so delightfully cool. It’s as if we are already into the first of October. And the rain dispersion has been perfect for the soybeans and field corn.
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