Posted on 12/09/2013 7:51:43 PM PST by Kartographer
Several years ago, I was joking with my then-5-year-old nephew, asking him what I should grow in my garden. He said “candy!” After laughing about it, I started thinking more seriously about a candy garden, and ordered a bunch of seeds for things like marshmallow, sorghum, sugar beets, mints, licorice, etc. None of them grew the first year I tried to grow them, but I did have a nasty cutworm infestation that year. Last spring I planted a few sugar beets, thinking the seed was probably dead, but they grew and were a fun experiment.
I was also delighted to find a linden tree on my property. I’m quite sure there’s a way to process the nutlets so they taste like chocolate, but that project is kind of on hold until my house is built.
I also have honeybees on my property, which may or may not be from the hives I tried to start back in ‘07. The bees in one hive abandonned it. The other hive didn’t survive the winter, but the comb showed signs that they’d swarmed a few times before fall. Eventually I plan to build a better hive and try to entice a wild swarm, but for now I just like watching the honeybees buzz.
Could be. I am always looking for ways to put veggies in deserts. Grand daughter has a sweet tooth, and likes almost zero veggies.
Possilby so. IIRC several of the books I have read advise 60 lbs per person. More if you will be using it for food preservation recipes.
WOW that is way beyond my thoughts, and yes preservation of fruit gleaned here in Florida would be important!
I have often thought of the difference in amount needed for one person...not just a 1/4 fraction of the “family of four” rules. Single serving cooking is often not possible. Sharing would be safer than eating things like pea soup for 4 days...without refrigeration!
Don’t tell me to work with neighbors...they are ALL in denial of more than canned soup and water for 3-4 days.
Thanks for the “wake up call”!
Where did you get your 100% oxygen absorbers?
You are welcome. It was a surprise to me how much sugar they advised too.
Regarding Refrigeration, you’re correct about using up whatever you cook expeditiously. However, you can get some things cooled down without refrigeration, which will help for an overnight situation - wouldn’t trust it too much longer.
Put your leftover soup or milk or whatever in a container with lid. Place soaking wet towels or burlap bags all around and over the container. I usually set the container inside a dishpan so the drips don’t make a mess.
The evaporation will cool or keep cool the stuff in the container. I have done this with milk, juice, and chicken noodle soup when camping, and I didn’t want to go get ice.
When I was a girl, my paternal grandparents had a small dairy herd, and did their milking by hand. They put the steaming milk into a metal milk can, took it to the hand pump, and pumped water over the burlap bags, and insulated the cans with several dripping wet bags.
Then the milk was carted up the driveway to the pickup point for the local dairy to pick it up for processing and distribution.
Marcella, found some directions on the web for using clay pots to make a regrigeration source, but I didn’t bookmark it. Maybe she did.
Thanks so much. Do they come with directions because I have never used them or even heard of them before.
Just one per quart jar and vacuum seal it.
For 5 gallon pails you need larger 500CC and 3 to 4 per pail.
You just drop them in, but remember be ready to use them as soon as you open their packaging as they will start to absorb oxygen as soon as the air hits them. I re-seal the ones I don’t use in a canning jar and vacuum seal them.
“Marcella, found some directions on the web for using clay pots to make a refrigeration source, but I didn’t bookmark it. Maybe she did.”
Thanks for reminding me of that. I’m sure I put it in my prepper folder in favorite sites. I’ll look that up.
bttt
These may or may not be close to the information/instructions you have, but here is the result of a search for growing and making sweetener out of beets and sorghum:
BEETS
http://www.heirloom-organics.com/guide/va/guidetogrowingbeets.html
http://www.ehow.com/how_2177131_sugar-beets.html
SORGHUM:
One of the important things when obtaining seed is to be sure to ask for sweet sorghum, and not silage sorghum.
http://www.gardenguides.com/70162-grow-sorghum.html
http://www.motherearthnews.com/real-food/sweet-sorghum-zmaz75sozgoe.aspx#axzz2nDrUh5lB
http://www.motherearthnews.com/print.aspx?id={6392BCB0-BBA5-46A8-A2AF-A89137E3F3A3}#axzz2nDrUh5lB
Evaporation as a cooling method has long been used for 1-2 day storage of butter...I don’t think it would be enough to stop spoilage of a meat product.
Thanks for the links. Now if I can just get my printer to work, I’ll be able to print them and put them with the rest.
I can’t remember the low temperature of the clay pot method so I don’t remember if it would keep meat for a few days. I will have to find that and read about it again.
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