Sandra Filip

Also wondering if keeping a vinegar project near something smelly (in this case wet cat food) will make it absorb the smells. My vinegar project got kicked out of the common areas as the acetic acid got stronger and now lives in the garage with the cat.😸 No cat box - he goes outside - but the food smells pretty gross.

I've been making my own red wine vinegar for some time, but I'm bad about reading/following directions and I just sort of winged it. I had leftover wedding wine, and I added the mother from a bottle of Bragg's acv, then let it sit two months and viola - vinegar! My question is in regards to safety. Are there any visual cues I should watch for in the mother that might suggest the wrong kind of bacterial growth? I'm suspicious of something this easy and don't want to poison myself or my husband inadvertently. Right now, I have a new batch with a mother hanging out on the bottom of the canister, and an older batch with the mother floating on top. The float-on-top one concerns me a little. There's no mold, but there's just a hint of a grayish tinge, but that may just be because I can see it. Anything I should worry about with making vinegar this way? Both are "cooking" in plastic, wide-top containers (like you might keep cereal or pasta in), with cheesecloth covers. I had shut one completely for a while (no air), and that's the one with the mother floating on the surface. I'm worried I shouldn't have covered it.

I apologize if this is a repeat, but this is a long thread! I am researching to write an article on this style of raised bed, and was wondering how it might do here in Texas. I'm in Austin, and we are pretty dry here, especially in the last few years. We just recently had devastating fires in neighboring Bastrop, and I'm thinking this might be a great way to recycle all those burned pine trees. I guess my questions is about super dry, dead wood. Will it work? Will you be able to grow in the first year? Should you add nitrogen for the first year? Also, I noticed quite a few examples of this bed had manure going right on top - is this safe for veggie gardening right away or do you need to let it age? We use turkey manure down here but let it age first or it stinks to high heck and is full of amonia.