Mystery Seedlings

[Patriotic Sheepdog]

We are out camping right now...been out since Thursday...last two days were wonderful, but today have gale force wind warning...right on intercostal, no rain right now but winds are steady at 15mph with gusts of 20+....we are in between two big diesel pushers backed up to the ICW....they are helping block the wind a bit but when the gusts come it wiggles our little 21' camper....

Do you have a link to the electric canner you could share? We have talked on and off but have been nervous with the stovetop ones. We would like something we can set and forget, as we are too busy to babysit it. I am trying to do some forward looking, and think that may be helpful down the road...especially as I dial in the garden a bit more....

[surviort_wwdnet]

I used it for the first time today - so easy! Prep steps are about the same through the 10-minute vent stage (heat jars and prepare food), but then it's set to CAN and forget about it. I prepared a stuffed chicken with carrots, parsnips, and onions while it was busy canning by itself, then packed up 2 or 3 more boxes and lowered the bottom shelf on my canning cart. The canner doesn't progress through any of the first few steps without your ok (>) and will hold at temp if you're busy doing something else. It's well-insulated, so it takes it a while to cool down, but that was fine with me. Once the jars were out on the counter, I started hearing the ping ping ping of the lids sealing. All of my jars sealed. I did 7 pints of baby carrots (5 hot pack and 2 raw pack) and they look perfect. From the time I pulled out the carrots and set the canner on the counter until it cooled down was about 2 hours, most of which was cool-down time. This was the easiest canning I've ever done. Yes, it's small batches but that's suitable for how I garden and harvest.

https://www.amazon.com/Presto-02144-Digital-Canner-Stainless/dp/B089P2W2N6/ref=sr_1_6?crid=3PT68C7DJ4MCC&keywords=presto+electric+pressure+canner&qid=1681078970&sprefix=presto+electric%2Caps%2C117&sr=8-6

[Patriotic Sheepdog]

so a question I got from my wife...why? why not just dehydrate and vacuum seal the veggies? I had no answer for her....what say you?

[surviort_wwdnet]

Dehydrated vegetables take hours to dry, have to be rehydrated for use, which takes a fair amount of liquid and more time. Canned vegetables (and meat, poultry, soups, red sauce, etc.) can be eaten straight from the container, cold if necessary. Since we are not leaving home except in a dire emergency, the extra weight/volume of canned foods isn't an issue, and I like the freshness of home-canned food. Tomorrow I'm canning red sauce.

I just finished dehydrating 2 full trays of carrots and half a tray of parsnips, so I have no aversion to dehydrating. It all depends on what my purpose is for a particular food, and I regularly dehydrate and vacuum seal. In this case, I have dehydrated carrots, onions, cabbage, parsnips, beans, mixed vegetables, etc. for soups and stews, and canned items for pantry-to-table use. I have an Excalibur 9-tray dehydrator, but it doesn't have a timer so it requires some watching. I also blanch and freeze items that don't can or dehydrate well.

Both canned and dehydrated foods are particularly suited to storage in extended power outages, but without power, dehydrated food use becomes limited by water availability and cooking appliances. We have a well pump and lots of camp stoves and other means of cooking, but not everyone does.

It's an all-of-the-above strategy. If I had a freeze dryer, I'd use that too, but alas! I don't...

[Patriotic Sheepdog]

She wanted a freeze dryer, but cost and perceived maintenance held us back. Understand the answer to the question. I guess they all work different just like tools. The ability to can things like sauces would be nice, but we have been trying to stock up on canned sauces. We have a shallow well with hand pump for back up if for some reason we cannot power our deep well and get water.

Just got back from camping, now for the clean-up and some minor repairs on camper we found on this camping trip. Finally got some rain and more expected this week, so garden is looking quite nice. Lot more corn has popped up, as I planted multiples in each grow bag. I will transplant these and should end up with about 15 plants. Rain also equals weeds, as you know, so I need to stay ahead of that....

[surviort_wwdnet]

Another mostly rainy day here, but after dinner the sun came out. The seedlings - mostly peppers - that I set out for maximum rain exposure are looking very perky, standing like little soldiers at attention. The rest of the garden is looking green and lush and there are a lot more buds on the tomato plants. The cukes have climbed about a third of the way up the trellis net. It's just about time to cut some herbs and get them in the dehydrator. I cleared out about 20 unused, unneeded coffee cups to make room for canned goods, as all the glass containers will have to be moved from the pantries before renovations.

Dentist appointment this morning, then home to make and can some red sauce. While it was processing and cooling, I cleaned up the mess and got the rest of the ingredients around for a gnocchi dinner. Tomorrow I have green and purple cabbage to clean, quarter, and flash freeze before vacuum sealing. I've been eyeballing the grow bags and think I can move 5 or 6 of them next to the greenhouse rack to make more room for containers. Its going to be a tight squeeze, and I may stack two of the smaller ones to get a deeper layer of soil for potatoes. I have the joiner rods for stacking (glad I didn't throw them out). Ace has raised bed soil BOGO this week so off I'll go - its a really good deal!

Tomorrow is supposed to be a non-rainy day, followed by a couple more rainy days. I'll do some gardening, plant some yellow, orange, and chocolate peppers, and then I have some sewing machine work to do. I bought a shoe rack for my husband so he doesn't have to hunt for his shoes under the bed, and now that room is 99% packed up. Lots more packing to do!

Get your camper sealed - it's that time of the year, between winter and hurricane season. We'll be camping in the back yard while the contractors tear out all the floors and lay LVP throughout the house.

[Patriotic Sheepdog]

Camper is sealed well...I had some small strips of molding/trim pull away from wall, so a pin nailer should work to put them back up. Out to check on the garden this morning....

[surviort_wwdnet]

This was the only non-rainy day this week, but it was very windy. I moved 6 bags of herbs to an unused part of the bag garden next to the shed, and rearranged the bag tomatoes. I need to get them staked since I didn't use cages when I started them and then didn't have (make) time before they were too big. The rest of the day was spent replacing buttons on my husband's shorts with sewn-on Velcro closures, and he has a LOT of shorts😂 Did some laundry and canned 2 jars of red sauce that didn't fit into yesterday's batch. Made dinner, took care of the laundry, and now I'm done for the day! Tomorrow I'll try to get the rest of the pepper seeds planted.

Glad the camper problem was a minor one and easily fixed. How's your garden doing?

[Patriotic Sheepdog]

Will be working in the garden today as wife has a test she needs to take and its "monitored" and nobody can be in the house. So I will be getting some needed garden work done today...plan on transplanting some corn and maybe some tomatoes as they are too close together. Then I need to make something for the tomatoes, like cages so I am thinking of just staking them???? Also, I have a mulberry tree I started from a clipping last year that is now about 2.5' tall so I need to move it to its new home. I also want to put in some edging in one area for grass to stay out of garden bed where I have watermelons and sweet potatoes. So I hope to get this done in the 2-3 hours of her testing.

[surviort_wwdnet]

Very nice that you were "forced" to go outside😂 Glad it gave you some gardening time. Here was another rainy day so I looked at the garden and said "Hey". There's always something inside that needs to be done, and today was no exception. Tomorrow we'll be off to the VA, so I think Saturday will be the day for gardening.

[Patriotic Sheepdog]

So...got some stuff done on my Garden Time-Out...but it wasn't very long....She took her test and passed it in less then an hour....the time allotted for it is 3 hours....she's an overachiever....but I did get a few things done..as always there is still things for me to do....were we supposed to get risk of severe storms yesterday but nothing showed up. I did fertilize the garden yesterday though....transplanted the corn...put up edging in a few spots to keep the grass from encroaching...weeding is non stop it seems

[surviort_wwdnet]

Weeds are the bane of my gardening existence! The grow bags minimize weeds except for the occasional weed seed that blows into the bags. Not so for the containers, which have a lot more surface area and seem to be weed magnets. Four appointments in Lake City ate up a big chunk of the day, but I did get the garden watered. Tomorrow should be a good garden day. The kids will be here the week of the 23rd, which gives me enough time to finish clearing cabbage and onions out of the containers. I may even get some dirt shoveled, but will definitely get the rest of the peppers planted, and the cabbage frozen and dehydrated, before the container move.

We also had severe storm warnings but all we got was plain ol' rain. It's good for the yard and the garden.

[Patriotic Sheepdog]

Got some well needed rain in a good amount yesterday afternoon.

I'm thinking maybe your kids can help you with some shoveling?

I will be getting into the garden more this weekend for sure...

[surviort_wwdnet]

The kids are coming to shovel dirt so I can move the containers; unfortunately, I need to start planting/transplanting in the containers now and they won't be back from break until the week of the 23rd, so I may have to jump the gun on some of the shoveling. I did start some orange, yellow, and chocolate peppers today, and some blue cornflowers that I'll intersperse throughout the garden. I got 3 heads of cabbage quarters in the freezer and some scallions cleaned, trimmed, and in the fridge. I should have shoveled today but I was playing catch-up from yesterday so my gardening time was limited. I have a lot of cabbage left, so I'll make a stockpot full of beef and cabbage soup (quick cooked so I don't mush up the cabbage) and can it, and maybe some ham and black bean soup too. Bone-in chicken thighs will hit the canner soon, as they're on sale and I'm going to stock up.

[Patriotic Sheepdog]

So, woke up to rain this morning. Lots of storms ongoing today...plants should like that.

Was able to get plants thinned out and transplanted over the weekend. Spaced the pole beans and tomatoes at least 18" apart and all (as of yesterday) looked healthy after the move. Maybe have one or two peppers finally starting to show themselves.