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Old 07-10-2017, 08:08 PM posted to rec.gardens.edible
George Shirley[_3_] George Shirley[_3_] is offline
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First recorded activity by GardenBanter: May 2014
Posts: 851
Default october already!

On 10/7/2017 11:10 AM, wrote:
George Shirley wrote:

The boss lady and I turned out the 22 cubic foot freezer after lunch.
Found frozen stuff back to 2012 tucked away into corners. Still good
mostly but it seemed that several bags that were vacuum pumped didn't
actually seal.

Our freezer is empty and clean at this time. We disposed of a fair
proportion of its contents during a recent extended electricity outage.
Moved items we judged to be safe to eat into the fridge freezer when the
juice came back on but left the freezer empty for a thorough cleaning.
In the late 1990's my wife and I did a real-world test of every
counter top vacuum sealer as well as every brand of bags available to us
at retail, OTC and online. The best of the vacuum pumps was Tilia
Foodsaver but I can achieve a higher vacuum using my modified high-end
bicyle pump. More importantly, for practical purposes, 100% of the
heat-sealed bags failed within a few months. Most of them failed at the
"factory" seams; very few failed at the appliance's heat seal. That's
why I use Mason jars. In earlier days, we vacuum-stored some dried and
some frozen foods in Mason jars. Don't do it anymore but still have the
works ;-) Same for pressure canning, although, I dont think we'd use
our present stock of jars for pressure canning.
The last time I used the Tilia Foodsaver was to remove excess fluid
from an overfilled automatic transmission. That would have been 2001,
'02, or thereabouts. I recently sent the Foodsaver to the landfill
because it is dead.

Our foodsaver is still chugging along even though it is almost 20 years
old. Had thought of buying one of the high dollar ones but still keep
the food saver.
Instead of going through the blanching, chilling, etc. preparatory
to freezing stuff, as often as is reasonable, we incoporate garden
produce, AWA some store-bought vegies, into finished or nearly finished
side dishes that are frozen. Easy enough to do as part of regular meal
preparation. We just cook enough of whatever for, say, four (or however
many) instead of just for two. I'm serious when observing that I garden
to eat thaw 'n gnaw! I pay the electricity co-op to let us bypass that
other stuff.

We do much the same when we have large crops coming in and we want to
hang onto the grub instead of passing it along to kids, grands, etc.

But we definitely still have the "works".


Man, I just can't get okra right. Always seem to plant more than is
needed and have way too much in the freezer (most of it the last step
away from ready to fry), not to mention daily new okra but you have to
keep taking it in order to keep getting it. The two "spineless"
varieties that I grow regularly become noticeably less so as the plants
mature at summer's end. I usually plant new okra in late summer instead
of continuing to prune crapped-out bushes. Began getting okra from this
year's fall stand a couple of days back. If winter holds off like it
"should", there'll be okra in the freezer fairly soon. Got mustards
under them doing nicely. Also have late peppers (two varieties of sweet
bell peppers, two of jalapeño, one pepperoncini, two of Tabasco. Most
of them will be diced and frozen immediately, although some of the japs
are frozen whole. Don't know what to do with the pepperoncini but I'm
thinking of using some in a BWB pepper vinegar (called "pepper sauce" in
parts of the South) in the same manner as the jalapeño and Tabasco.
BIL's recipe is fine with me.

Okra, in our climate, grows like the weed it is. Wife dearly loves the
stuff, I eat it french fried in deep oil, or in a gumbo or a soup. I've
seen the woman eat it raw. Yuck!

Hah! We tried that map thing. Keeping the map updated and useful
became an exercise in futility that we sometimes laugh about now, when
we have to put our heads together to try figure out what's where. Now,
it seems that we've sort of divided the freezer into invisible "areas"
into which we pretend to separate foods by nebulous categories.

If I'm the one doing the diving it works, if wife goes in everything
gets jumbled up. I now carry the key to the big freezer so she can't get
into it, otherwise it gets tossed around.

Where I lived in earlier years, we always had citrus including now
antique orange varieties, grapefruit, kumquats, tangerine, tangelo.
Also at times had papaya, mango and guavas. Several successive cold
winters took out the papaya, mangoes, and guavas and significantly
reduced the amount of dooryard citrus. Guavas are coming back in the
phosphate mining areas. Where I live now, we have a sour as hell
volunteer (seedling) tangerine tree that, after years and years finally
gets enough sunshine to produce small sour tangerines, although, my
neighbor insists that its "Clementine" oranges. I don't think the guy
ever has seen and actuall Clementine. From 1977 to winter of 1983-'84
we drove through miles of mature orange groves to get here. The even
colder winter of 1988 or thereabouts not only took out the survivors of
the previous super cold but also the replacement trees. The growers
wisely gave up citrus and now all of that land is planted with pine
trees. The surface water that moderated the winter chill, making citrus
cultivation possible in central and west-central Florida, now is all
gone out the sewers or St. Petersburg, Clearwater and the rest of
Pinellas County, which essentially is not fit for human habitation due
to the absence of fresh ground water. Af course, as long as the yankee
assholes running this and neighboring counties keep selling them water
to flush their toilets, everything's fine, just fine and they all expect
to be dead by the time the water runs out or all becomes salty so why
care?.

The pear tree still has several small pears still getting
a little bigger. Was afraid there would be no pears nor kumquats after
the hard freezes of last January. I would like to put in another fruit
tree but am not sure there is enough room in this small property.

We have no pears, apples or peaches that do well in this climate,
despite past attempts to introduce "improved" varieties that were
purported to be fit for this climate and soil.
Within my memory, folks have tried growing varieties of
blackberries, apples, wine grapes, table grapes, and as far as I can
tell the only success accrued to the folks selling stuff to the farmers.
I have a neighbor with a long history of trying diiferent cultivars
of peaches with no success. They usually get duped into blooming by
warm January and February days only to have the blossoms burned by
freezing temperatures, which can occur at any time during those months.
In addition, the peach foliage simply can't take the summer sun. Sun
scald and leaf curling are chronic manifestations. In the event a few
tiny peaches appear, they're almost 100% (used to be 100% but great
strides have been made....) certain to be infested with the maggots of a
tiny opportunistic wasp which laid her eggs in the blossoms' ovaries.
Sensible folks who've been in this part of the country for any length of
time don't waste their efforts on peaches, apples, etc. but the handy
homeowner stores continue to sell them to somebody, I dont know whom.
The same folks who buy strawberry plants or seed potatoes in the spring,
I guess.

I have the same problem with my wife being suckered by the big plant
stores. Oh yeah, this will grow anywhere. Generally she babies it for a
year and then it gets ripped out. Keep telling her that we have three
fruit trees that will grow here, a fig, a kumquat, and a pear bred by a
local state guy that found it as a cross tree in his orchard. If it
doesn't get frozen in January occasionally we get a good crop from it.
She also plants avocado seeds to see if she can get a tree, nope, a
freeze comes by and they turn into dead bushes. When we lived in
Louisiana I had a cross tree between a lemon and an orange, made huge
lemons and lived through the frosts. Kumquats in Louisiana, kumquats in
Texas, produce like crazy and I like them. I can buy apples, etc. at the
local supermarket cheaper than I can keep trying to grow my own.

Here we are on 10/7 and it's 80F outside, only in Texas.