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Old 07-10-2017, 01:33 PM posted to rec.gardens.edible
Frank Frank is offline
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First recorded activity by GardenBanter: Sep 2015
Posts: 259
Default october already!

On 10/6/2017 9:23 PM, George Shirley wrote:
On 10/6/2017 5:51 PM, Frank wrote:
On 10/2/2017 9:26 PM, George Shirley wrote:
On 10/2/2017 7:22 PM, Frank wrote:
On 10/2/2017 8:03 PM, George Shirley wrote:
On 10/2/2017 5:54 PM, Frank wrote:
On 10/2/2017 4:55 PM, George Shirley wrote:
On 10/2/2017 11:21 AM, Frank wrote:
On 10/2/2017 8:00 AM, George Shirley wrote:
On 10/2/2017 6:33 AM, Frank wrote:
On 10/1/2017 10:30 PM, songbird wrote:
Frank wrote:
...
I'm into chestnut season.Â* I don't save as many but like to
shell and
freeze to use with stuffing turkey. I'll chomp on them in
the evening
with a glass of wine but they last less than 2 months in the
refrigerator as they do not keep like fatty nuts such as
peanuts.

Â*Â* i didn't think there were any of those
trees still around any longer?


I hate to leave them for the deer and the squirrels and
saturate my
friends with them.Â* Invited neighbors over today to pick up
as much as
they wanted.

Â*Â* in the days before the fungi they were a major
source of fodder for animals in the forest and
many people would let pigs run to fatten up and
then...


Â*Â* songbird


Mine are Chinese chestnuts.Â* The American chestnut is
supposedly returning and a few years ago I tried a few of
these chestnuts and they tasted the same.Â* I don't think the
wood of the Chinese tree is as good as the American tree.
I have never seen an American chestnut, don't think they grew
in my part of Texas. Have eaten Chinese chestnuts, do they have
the same taste?

George

It's been years since I tasted them.Â* I think taste was same as
Chinese chestnuts and they were slightly smaller.Â* This was at
friends hunting camp in central PA.Â* Guy that brought them in
said they were American chestnuts.

I tried to sell some to local market years ago but they refused
as there is a worm problem.Â* There is a chestnut weevil that I
have never seen but it lays eggs on the hull and they burrow
into the chestnut. I spray with Sevin but can't reach the tops
of both trees and often see a lot of worms.Â* These little
buggers can even bore through a plastic bag.Â* I'm sure I've
eaten more than a few. This year's crop appears clean.Â* You
spray for 3-4 weeks weekly about 6 weeks before harvest.
We tried growing everything without sprays, etc. and damned near
died from what all was eating our gardens. Now we just spray and
then wash stuff from the garden. It's hell trying to grown things
"naturally" when the world is full of things that want to screw
up your garden. Particularly when you're close enough to the
harbor for Houston and all the junk the ships bring in. Some have
destroyed crops that have been grown for a very long time. Then
the gubmint says "You can't spray that, it might hurt the
atmosphere or something else." Heck, I used to flag crop dusters
as a kid with just a bandana tied over my face. I think all that
"poison" is why I'm still around, sort of like being petrified or
so0mething. VBG

When your trees are fairly isolated from similar trees all the
enemies surround them nearby.Â* I had trouble with apple worms and
fungus when I had apple trees.Â* I used to bicycle past an orchard
on Sunday mornings and saw them spraying.Â* Bet there was not a bug
or fungus within a mile after they were done.Â* I also suspect they
did not have to spray that often as it would take awhile before
they were invaded by surrounding bugs.

Probably same for squirrels when I tried to raise English walnuts.
If an orchard knocked their population down it would take a much
longer time to recover than my trees surrounded by woods full of
squirrels.

I may be a chemist but do not believe in the liberal use of
chemicals but in their judicious use.
I made my living for sixteen years making chemicals, but not the
type you're thinking of, just little stuff like benzene, etc. G
After the 16 years as a grunt I moved into management with several
different chemical plants and refineries. We were careful in
handling the stuff and what we sold off to other companies had the
proper paper work for handling them. Unfortunately lots of small
companies made really bad chemicals for bugs, etc. that were two
steppers, get a good bit of the chemical, walk two steps and fall
over dead. Like you I am cautious about any over the counter or
home made chemicals and read the cautions part four or five times.
Breathing some of that stuff fifty years ago or so didn't help my
health. Anyone that handles any kind of chemical, even the ones
under the kitchen sink, needs to be fully aware of what happens if
you breath it, drink it, or get it on you. Amen!

No question.Â* I am often telling my wife to be careful with her use
of bleach and need for ventilation when cooking.
I do too, my wife often cooks without turning on the fan over the
stove, goes straight out through the wall. She's an artist, does that
ring a bell about safety? Years ago we lived in a small trailer house
and I put in a fan above the stove in the wall. When we built our
first home I sold the trailer and got an extra $100 bucks due to the
fan, which cost something like ten bucks. In those days I made $2.50
an hour as a top operator in a chemical plant and ten bucks was a lot
of money to us. Nowadays guys doing what I did in the sixties are
making what sounds like big money but buys about the same amount of
grub for us back then.

I am very familiar with toxicology and have worked for years with
toxicologists and their labs.Â* Now retired I have written and been
responsible for thousands of safety data sheets in my consulting.

When working, my company often refused to sell chemicals to
companies that could not handle them responsibly.
I hear that, happily I worked for years for Mobil, then moved on to
some of the larger chemical and refining companies. As a safety
professional I got several people fired for not doing their due
diligence and have pulled wounded and dead out of something that
should never have happened. You teach people the right way to do
things and then they go dumb on you just once and kaboom! I'm glad
I'm retired and don't have to do that anymore. We could certainly
throw out some old stories over a cup of coffee. I go to reunions for
a couple of companies, now all combined with the big boys, and we
revisit our youth and some revisit their foolishness. I'm glad I'm
retired.


I worked for DuPont in fibers and plastics R&D but spent the last 3
years as a regulatory affairs consultant.Â* Had to take early
retirement as company began to shrink.Â* They are now Dow-DuPont.Â* The
years in regulatory gave me good experience to consult but that is now
down to 1-2 days a month.Â* Makes me stay current with computers and
new rules.

I spent the last sixteen or seventeen years of my career as a lone
safety professional, working from home. Wrote hundreds of safety
manual's, had a goodly amount of small companies that worked for the big
companies. Did their monthly safety meetings, wrote their safety
manuals, visited the big chemical plants and refineries, etc. to do walk
rounds to see if the client workers were working safely, etc. Enjoyed
doing the job on my own until one day I started having strokes and heart
attacks and finally had to retire. Gave my business to my best friend
who I had been training for some time. He called me a couple of weeks
ago, he turned 70 and turned the business over to his two sons to run.
So it keeps going on, I hope, with teaching people to be safe. I'm a
third generation worker in refineries, chemical plants, etc. and the
only one who worked in safety. I don't miss making the rounds as my
health is not so good, the reason I turned it over to my friend. Keep it
up my friend, you may be saving lives and doing good.


My work dealt with safety of our polymer products. I was responsible
for elastomers, Teflon finishes and acrylics and monomers that made
them. I was department coordinator with our Haskell toxicology lab and
a backup TSCA coordinator. I worked with business managers setting up
product safety compliance reviews. We worked with company regulatory
groups in Canada, Europe and Asia so I had to be familiar with rules in
these areas. I had contacts with EPA, FDA and OSHA.

When I was in R&D our outlook was limited to R&D, manufacturing and
marketing with little contact with upper company management but
regulatory had me working with several upper management layers and it
was eye opening to learn business scope.

Before I left R&D DuPont Central Research tried to get me for a couple
of positions but since R&D was declining and these jobs were related to
another department, they shoved their people there. Probably ended up
better with gaining regulatory and safety skills as this lab is now kaput.