It depends on what I'm processing. I like mason jars for storing dried things/staples. Like corn meal, spices, dehydrated tomatoes.
I prefer to can green beans - mason jars, although I do steam for 3 min. and freeze in vacuum style zip bags-I have a rechargeable hand held device, so I don't have to get out the food saver. If I'm sealing up meat or meals, I use the food saver.
I freeze corn in the husks in vacuum zip bags. If I have too many tomatoes to process in the canner, I will dehydrate some and freeze some in the amount that I need for a recipe for sauce or chili.
I have some mylar bags and oxygen absorbers, but I like to be able to see the product, so if I'm sealing something like Pinto Beans dry, for long term storage, I'll use the Mylar and put them in a bucket after sealed.
Other wise I avoid bags-they don't sit well on the shelf. The mason jars look so pretty with stuff in them.
I need to learn more about cover crops. So they don’t deplete nutrients?
Do I so the seeds in the fall? And what kind of seeds do I get, can I use the same crop all over the gardens?
Sorry, I’m probably asking you a whole book full of questions! I can take this over to your thread if you like.
“Other wise I avoid bags-they don’t sit well on the shelf. The mason jars look so pretty with stuff in them.”
The jars do look pretty. And are reusable. However it seems that no matter how many I get i use them all up. I hate being in the middle of summer and having no jars empty. Last summer we were eating a lot of apple sauce and stuff like that from the previous year, so I can have more jars!
Whenever I put dried stuff in mylar, I do stick them in super pails. Otherwise they do look messy on the shelf and it’s really hard to find what you want. And they’re less likely to get punctured Or nibbled on.For instance the last thing I did was put a bunch of different types of beans in mylar. Then I put a bunch of the gallon bags in a superpail. They didn’t fit real neatly, so I didn’t get quite as much as if I just poured all the beans into one huge mylar bag. But I like having the variety of different types and only having to open 1 gallon at a time.
lol, Speaking of bags not sitting neatly – I had a whole bunch of pesto cubes – froze it in ice cube trays and put in Ziploc bags in the freezer. I decided to vacuum seal them. Originally all the Ziploc bags just sat neatly laid on top of each other. After vacuum sealing, the pesto was in all sorts of irregular shapes! They went to stack it all and took up a lot more room actually. I had to get a box and put that in the freezer so I can have all the pesto in one place. It didn’t work out quite as nice as I thought. but I’m sure they will last longer.
That was supposed to be sow!
Are the cover crops easy to pull out? Like some of the weeds that look huge but they have only one root but they spread. Versus all the little tiny individual plants. Would be great if they were easy to pull also. Or do you just leave them in and plant around then?