GardenBanter.co.uk - View Single Post

George Shirley[_3_] · 08-10-2017, 08:38 PM posted to rec.gardens.edible

On 10/8/2017 12:07 PM, wrote:
George Shirley wrote:

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.
Neither Wife nor I has immediate family within a reasonable drive
and most of mine probably have gardens that would embarrass me, the only
neighbor with whom I'd actually _share_ food doesn't cook, and we
learned the hard way about in-kind donations to food banks and the like
so nowadays we try not to produce large crops. Just enough to feed us,
with a little "extra" for the freezer. Any excess goes into the
compost, which (theoretically) gives another shot at eating it, just in
a different form ;-). If we give it to people (none or whom knows what
actually needing food is or what "poverty" means), it just ends up in a
septic tank!

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!
Man, I eat the slimy stuff any way one prepares it; even raw ;-)

....
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.
I think it's just a case of folks in four-season latitudes not
taking into account that in some parts of the country the garden season
starts in autumn and begins tailing off as summertime gets here in April
or May. Certainly, June is far too late to plant anything besides peas
or okra. Most peppers can handle the sun (with some shading) but
they're best started in Ferbruary or March.. Down here, one sees folks
buying strawberry sets, onion sets and even seeds in spring when,
generally speaking, December or January is about the latest many of them
can be put in the garden with any expectation of positive results.

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.
Hey: If the lady weren't an optimist, you might be living alone and
without that gaggle of kids and grandkids ;-)
I've often thought how quiet it would be if that happened. I've been
with her to long to toss her our or vice versa. She's Catholic, I'm
nothing, she's an artist, my next wife won't be, if any, she's leaves
stuff lying around, I'm a neat freak, but the dog loves both of us.
BSEG Her family women live to be 100, men in my family croak at any
time. I won't ride in a car she drives, last time she took me to a
hospital I wanted out so I could walk there. Still, there's something in
there that won't let us let go, we've been together since we were both
eighteen years old, we fight occasionally and then it's make up time. BG

When we lived in
Louisiana I had a cross tree between a lemon and an orange, made huge
lemons and lived through the frosts.
At his boyhood home in Tampa, FL, my friend of long-standing (and
who now is my nearest neighbor) enjoyed the fruits of a backyard tree
which bore seven citrus varieties. His mother began a series of
axillary bud grafts the same year she&hubbie had the house built. Have
no clue how or where she got the scions or over what period of time she
executed the grafts but by the time we came along, she had produced one
fine tree, I must say.
I've been thinking of trying that on my kumquat, have seen trees done
that way that produce all year.

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.
Not so fast, sailor. Same here, too. Not yet 9:30AM, as I type,
and 79° on my front porch. Overnight low of 76° and the humidity's
back. Had a few days of relief after Irma, when less humidity made
things at least seem cooler.

There is one thing I despise, being cold and wet, to much of that
sailing on a USN destroyer way, long ago. That is just misery to me,
now, I stay indoors and watch the cold, wet, rain, heat, whatever. I do
love air conditioning, have memories of growing up in a hot house in
summer and cold in winter. The house my Dad, me, two uncles built from
two old Navy housing units in 1949. I was nine years old and could swing
a hammer. I got out of the Navy in 1960, came home, house had air
conditioning and household heat. Dad told me the first year I was gone
they saved enough money from not having to feed me so they put in all
that stuff. I still laugh at my old Dad even though he has been gone for
many years. We shoved our kids out as fast as we could also. They are
both doing well for themselves so I'm happy.