Being a gardener is only the first step in becoming self sufficient. You must master some culinary skills in order to make the best of your post harvest inventory. I just happened to get lucky and my wonderful husband is a Chef by trade and profession. Our kitchen is full of doo dad's and gizmo's that I have no idea their function never mind how to properly put them together.
If you plan on having a huge harvest of carrots, apples, strawberries, etc., you better have a plan in place prior to harvest as to what you want their final product to be. For example, if you harvest 20 pints of strawberries in one day you are most likely not going to eat those before they go to mush in your fridge.
Here is my advice on a few items to purchase to help you out. Yes, it is a little bit of an investment up front, but these tools will help you save money until the end of time (or if you break them).
First off is a large enough stock pot or canning pot where at least six large Ball canning jars can fit in. Do yourself a favor and buy all the accessories to go with. It saves on the mess. If you have no idea how to can/preserve I strongly encourage you to learn from the ol' gal down the street or take a class and purchase a book. You can seriously do yourself (and others) some damage if done improperly.
"Merry Christmas Auntie Betsy, I made you some jelly spiced with Botulism...mmmm."
Next off is a dehydrator. You can put anything in this puppy. Love it! Dry herbs, strawberries, tomatoes, apples, bananas and the list goes on an on. We have shittake mushroom logs that fruit sporacticaly, but when they do it is always to many to manage. Straight to the dehydrator with you fungus! If you are a hunter this is also a good avenue for making jerky.
Spare no expense when picking out a good Cryovac machine. This is a simple alternative to pressure cooking because you can just throw the packs in the freezer. But, when you are picking one out I emphasize to you to spare no expense. I have bought the cheapest one there is and got cheap results where it only lasted a month. Pay the extra 50 bucks, you will be grateful later.
These are just very high level suggestions on what you need to get started. I am sure there is plenty of literature out there for reference on the best products but your best bet is to ask around to other homesteaders to see what works best for them.
Happy Growing!
Sunday, January 19, 2014
Sunday, January 12, 2014
What happens when the mercury dips in SC
Sigh...
As many of you may know a cold front came in last week and shook the nation. For us folks here in SC, we are most certainly not used to that type of frost and neither are our homes or plants.
Sadly, Kevin and I had a pipe bust in our attic and we came home to a flooded house. Joy. Thank heavens for tile floors so it could have been way worse. Now we are just dealing with the incredibly annoying aftermath of insurance claims and contractors.
Before it got down to a mere 6 degree's we did take the time to tend to the ol' greenhouse and outside crops so they would not be effected by the frost.
We were able to harvest about 8 lbs. of carrots, a huge garbage bag of tot soi, quite a few pounds of micro greens, snow peas and radish. The tot soi is now happily destined to wherever Broken Oak Organics deems it appropriate and we now have carrots for the next few months.
I must say we did leave about 1/3 of the carrot crop in the ground as an experiment to see what they taste like in the spring. We want to see if the sugar content is higher in the spring because it has extra time to mature in the ground and adjust to the cold temperature. We shall see!
Whatever else we decided to keep in the ground was covered with anything we had lying around the house. Tarps, plastic row covers, black fabric mulch, sheets you name it. If it was long enough it went over the plants.
Our Fig tree was also not forgotten. This tree is about five years old and the last survivor of a propagation experiment from Dr. Adlebergs class in Clemson. It has finally started to put on fruit so there was no way we were going to let this baby go. It looked like a mummy tree by the time we were done, but hey whatever gets the job done!!
PS...Did I mention all of our neighbors probably think we are crazy??
As many of you may know a cold front came in last week and shook the nation. For us folks here in SC, we are most certainly not used to that type of frost and neither are our homes or plants.
Sadly, Kevin and I had a pipe bust in our attic and we came home to a flooded house. Joy. Thank heavens for tile floors so it could have been way worse. Now we are just dealing with the incredibly annoying aftermath of insurance claims and contractors.
Before it got down to a mere 6 degree's we did take the time to tend to the ol' greenhouse and outside crops so they would not be effected by the frost.
We were able to harvest about 8 lbs. of carrots, a huge garbage bag of tot soi, quite a few pounds of micro greens, snow peas and radish. The tot soi is now happily destined to wherever Broken Oak Organics deems it appropriate and we now have carrots for the next few months.
I must say we did leave about 1/3 of the carrot crop in the ground as an experiment to see what they taste like in the spring. We want to see if the sugar content is higher in the spring because it has extra time to mature in the ground and adjust to the cold temperature. We shall see!
Whatever else we decided to keep in the ground was covered with anything we had lying around the house. Tarps, plastic row covers, black fabric mulch, sheets you name it. If it was long enough it went over the plants.
Our Fig tree was also not forgotten. This tree is about five years old and the last survivor of a propagation experiment from Dr. Adlebergs class in Clemson. It has finally started to put on fruit so there was no way we were going to let this baby go. It looked like a mummy tree by the time we were done, but hey whatever gets the job done!!
PS...Did I mention all of our neighbors probably think we are crazy??
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