"bill" wrote in message
...
On 11/27/04 9:23 AM, in article lK2qd.363134$nl.291275@pd7tw3no, "Dennis
Edward" wrote:


My first question: What vegetables have you grown? I'm dying to know!
My second question: Do you have a freezer? If so, the manual that comes
with
it will tell you how to freeze your extra vegetables.

My first suggestion: You may want to checkout a 'cooking'
newsgroup...alt.cooking-chat for example.

My first editorial: (off topic, sorry, but as you are relatively new, I
feel
you may find this helpful for the long haul). Many books will encourage
the
use of chemical fertilizers....chemical fertilizers don't nourish the soil

I don't see any need for chemicals -- I've got far more compostable material
than I need. I grew the "usual" stuff: tomatoes, peppers, pumpkins, carrots,
radishes, turnips, cabbage, brussels sprouts, cucumbers, etc. Unfortunately
I didn't have time to really organize myself for successive plantings and
such (I'm also renovating our house), so some of the stuff was grown in
inappropriate weather. In particular the turnips were too bitter to eat.

Regarding the advice given, thanks to everyone. However, I'm still uncertain
about some more "basic" questions. For instance, last year we grew a lot of
potatoes (oh, yeah - forgot to mention that). I lost a whole batch because I
left them out in the light and they turned green. Fortunately I knew not to
eat green potatoes, but I'm sure there are a lot of tidbits about how to
store or not store stuff that I don't know about. Also, what parts of plants
can or can't be eaten? You wouldn't necessarily know that you can eat beet
greens, but *not* rhubarb greens, for instance. What about stuff like turnip
greens?

Then there's the question of pantries. As I mentioned, I'm renovating.
Perfect time to build a pantry or vegetable cellar or some such. I assume it
should be dark inside. Air holes? Or air-tight?. Plastic lined? Build
against theconcrete foundation for coolness seems reasonable, but should I
line the concrete with plastic (or wood panel) or just leave it exposed?

Are things like carrots best kept in the fridge or in a pantry-type thing?
For how long? Ditto stuff like onions, potatoes, etc etc etc.

Maybe I didn't make it clear how clueless I am. Unfortunately, in the good
ol' days, we learned this stuff from our family. In our modern urban
Safeway-oriented society, most of this lore seems to be undocumented or at
least not obviously available. Thus my whining.