Cécile Stelzer Johnson

Thanks for the list, Anne. It's very helpful. Sunchokes can be planted any time the ground isn't frozen. Garlic [the stiffneck type is all I know] does better if planted in the fall in my zone 4b. there is a short turnover in November we harvest and sort the ones we want to eat, and a week later, we plant the ones for next year.
I didn't know about shallots, so I'll have to try that. I tried once to plant it in the spring and the results weren't so good.

Inge Leonora-den Ouden wrote:Hi. My Sunchokes are flowering beautifuly. Here's a photo so you can enjoy them too.

thanks for the pic. I'm in Central WI, zone 4B n our weather has been so warm and the days so long that I too have a few flowers on some of my sunchokes. It's going to freeze tonight. our first frost of the year, which is surprising.. Then I can start harvesting my sunchokes. Well, it may not be a big crop as the deer have been coming when the plants were small. But some escaped their ravages. I can't wait! We'll see. I'll have to harvest my sweet potatoes too!

Operator error with a pressure cooker can be dangerous because the contents will be very hot and under pressure. Do not operate with a missing or inoperative pressure relief valve,  a gasket that is cracked or ill fitting and do not overfill. In particular, it's not a good idea to try and fit 'just that one last jar' if it doesn't slip in normally.
The pressure relief valve is here to save us from our mistakes: It will blow through the hole left by the lead plug directly up. [It will prevent an explosion. It will mess up your ceiling, for sure, but there will be no shrapnel blowing in all directions].
Also, if you want to stop the cooking, turn off the heat but don't try to muscle it open. This could be deadly.
If you cook some beets [ask me how I know!] even if you know that you are well over the time needed, just get the pressure cooker outside and wait. Trying to depressurize by running cold water will suck the moisture contents out of your jars.
(Think of an airplane high in the sky getting hit and having sudden cabin depressurization, the passengers and the contents of the airplane flying out of the hole... Same principle).

Flora Eerschay wrote:Cécile, these are quail eggs.
We're eating the oldest hatching eggs, because the hens continue laying, and I don't need more. I just need to store them for as long as possible at the moment. Some people say that their quails have already stopped laying, but I'm still getting an egg per day from each hen.

They look big! you are obviously doing something right.

Christopher Weeks wrote:I’ve been thinking about this issue of running short on time. I normally wait for the stalks to start drying down before I do any harvesting. But that doesn’t leave very much time before the ground freezes. So I just went out and scooped up six or 8 inches of sand underneath four stalks that were only 2 to 3 feet tall just right on the edge of my patch. I still got a reasonable handful of tubers for almost no work.

Not bad. I notice you have a couple of red ones. I didn't understand "fartichokes" until I tasted those. Not that far in flavor to the white ones, but Yikes! the belly cramps!
You can probably keep working on the edge to get more, a little each day? Courage: We still have one week of temperatures  well above normal 10 F + above normal, and sunshine. You are West and North of me, but still. The weather should shine upon us for a bit longer.
Wishing the best for you!

Flora Eerschay wrote:Three hatching eggs which have spent a week in the portable cooler were cooked with two eggs that went straight to a normal fridge (these were 2 days old), and they all looked and tasted the same.
At the moment there are approximately 20-24 hatching eggs in the cooler, and if hens continue laying, I can keep replacing the oldest eggs and they will be not older than a week. So if the hens stop laying, the hatching eggs can be stored for 10 days and the oldest will be 17 days old. Or they will ruin my math by being inconsistent ;)
Anyway, we had guests so I made a fancy dish with sheep ricotta, garden herbs and flowers!

Are they quail eggs, or pigeons eggs or chicken eggs? The size says chicken eggs, (but I'm not sure  because we were talking quails and pigeons). My other question is: why are you eating your "hatching eggs"? (Aren't hatching eggs the ones that were carefully selected for hatching?) after one week, all cooled eggs will have no living embryo but should still be delicious.
This looks like a really delicious dish. Pretty fancy too. It's a good choice to do them hard boiled after about 10 days because the shell will separate more easily than with fresher eggs.

Timothy Norton wrote:We are starting to approach the end of my gardening season and it is about time that I hand my enclosed garden space over to the hens.
I'm starting to get some weeds popping up in my woodchip pathways, this indicates to me that we may have some rich compost built up that will need harvesting. I will start digging up the pathways to sift and spread the material into the beds after they have been picked over. however need to get ahold of some new carbon rich material to put into the pathways.

My ladies who are just about to lay have been merged with the old flock with minimal pecking and quarrelling about the best roosting spot, so I'm happy about that. The 11 roosters remaining have been placed on garden tearing duty. They found the comfrey bed, unfortunately, and there are not enough of them for the surface to be cleaned, but they are at work every day.
What I did wrong is that I didn't put them on scratching garden early enough: There are some mighty tall weeds and they have trouble even trampling them. I wish there was a chicken/ turkey, duck renting outfit in the area to help with this cleaning chore in the garden!
I placed some carpeting materials in some paths, some chips in others. It takes about 3 years for the chips to get integrated, then I can flip them into the neighboring beds.
We are lucky here: The town demand that everyone who has leaves rake them and place them in paper sacks along the streets. So right around now, when the maples are just starting to turn color, I'm making a mental note of where there are maples etc.. Later, I'll swoop by with my Murano and pick up the sacs [with the owner's permission, of course -some of the smarter folks put their leaves in a pile in the back for their [tiny] garden]. Drats!
Last year, I got 92 bags [the big kind, like 55 gallon bags]. With one of these Ryobi vacuuming tools, I suck and shred the leaves to add to the garden as mulch for some bushes.
I started from essentially zero good soil (just sand). Now, I'm happy to report that I have almost a foot of pretty darn good soil... on top of 35 ft of sand.

Julie Baghaoui wrote:Can someone speak to the save vitamins part of this? I’ve always heard the opposite, and frankly it’s the reason I’ve avoided PCs for so long, is that they destroy more vitamins in the food given the higher heating point. Does it depend on the vitamin?

Nutritionfacts.org says that generally, pressure cooking is better from a nutritional standpoint, although it depends on the food being processed.
Because it uses less water than boiling and the cooking time is less, pressure cooking seems to preserve more of the vitamins, with Vitamin C being the most easily destroyed, so thanks for the question: I didn't know that and I had to look it up.
https://nutritionfacts.org/blog/are-nutrients-preserved-by-pressure-cooking/

If you are as lazy as I am, cost conscious and also concerned with the environment, it will only be a question of time before you fall in love with cooking all sorts of things with the pressure cooker for safe keeping.
Every 2-3 years, I change my older laying hens for baby chicks that will grow strong during the winter, sheltered from predators and start laying in the spring.
A 2 year old hen is a stewing hen, so she is the perfect candidate for chicken soup.
I do it in batches. I have a big pressure cooker, so I can pack 7-9 hens whole. [Gizzards, heart and feet are set aside during the butchering. I place the flat thing with holes first in the pressure cooker. I have never had one hen stuck to the bottom, but I'm not taking chances.
Then I add the whole chickens, a bit of water [no salt at this time: it will be added later] and pressure cook on high for 30-40 minutes.
I prefer to let the pressure go back to zero on its own, but depressurizing suddenly could suck the juice out of the chicken, but it isn't as important at this stage because the chicken meat is still marinating in the juice. So that is day one.
On day 2, I pick the meat from the bones. Don't throw away the juices! I usually have a large stainless steel bowl in which I place the meat. You can still keep the bones for broth, but that's another recipe. I discard the skin and fat [and give it to my chickens: I don't have a dog or a cat]
You will notice that I didn't add any veggies, onions or seasonings. That's because I may do different recipes, my choice, on day 2.
If I only want chicken in the jars [wide mouth pints, you will save yourself some grief!], I put salt and pepper in the scalded jars then ad the meat, any other spices I like, veggies if you want, and proceed to pack the meat. [a bit of wine will make the meat scrumptiously tender!] Tighten the lids.
Process, again with the pressure canner, and let it cool before you take the jars out. Sudden depressurization isn't good with jars in the canner: the juice goes out and you risk having half filled jars.
If I have too much juice, I will can an assortment of veggies along with the extra chicken juice, separately and if I took the time to break the chicken bones and roasted them a bit, I will filter the bone broth and add that bone broth to the veggies.
It is nice to have jars with just meat and jars with just veggies. We take one of each and do a monster soup when it's cold outside.
Every 4 years, I make sauerkraut the old fashioned way: Just add salt, carefully layered with shredded cabbage, in a big crock. You can go with a recipe, but a better idea is to taste the slaw once in a while. If it tastes right for coleslaw, it will make great sauerkraut. It is easier to cold pack the sauerkraut in jars than cook it first.  And there too: Wide mouth jars work best. I've done it both ways, but I was afraid to run out of juice in the evaporation by heating it before hot packing it.
Finally, when I found some good bacon, or some decent priced  ham, cubed, I made some Boston baked beans. It turned out pretty good: I only have to add one tablespoon of brown sugar as the following recipe needed to be 'adjusted' to my taste.. Then, it tasted just right.
The beans need to be cooked till tender first [Navy beans].
Doing them in the oven gives good results, but I preferred to do them in a very large slow cooker. I felt I had more control over the heat and the speed of cooking... this is the recipe I used:
https://www.seriouseats.com/boston-baked-beans-recipe

Christopher Weeks wrote:

Cécile Stelzer Johnson wrote:You do not mention deer pressure, and that's surprising to me because they love the young tips as much as I love asparagus, and they will keep coming night after night, snipping everything they can in the spring. That will eventually kill a patch that is not fenced, as the plant is never allowed to grow to its full stature, so it cannot grow tubers either.
...
If you are a hunter, deer love sunchokes almost as much as they love apples... Just saying...

This remains a fascinating distinction to me. We have substantial deer pressure. They ruin any apple trees left small and unfenced. They eat the hell out of my brassicas, including digging up turnips after the first couple freezes. I have never once seen any sign that the deer have the slightest interest in sunchokes.

They ruin any tree that's not fenced! If the caliper is around 2-3", they strip the bark, or just lay on top to get at the top/juicier branches & buds. In the spring, they go after the young sunchoke plants as they emerge. In the fall, if you have a hunting stand where baiting is permitted, just put out a few sunchokes. Yep.
They will also go after brassicas like turnips as long as the ground isn't frozen too hard. I see that you are close to Duluth. You may get early snows that partially insulate the ground, but in a dry winter, yep, I see that it could freeze pretty deep. 80" is the legal footing for buildings, but I'm not sure it corresponds exactly with depth of frost in the ground. I suspect they demand that footing because it *could* happen. Wisconsin code requires footings to be placed below the frost line or at least 48 inches deep, whichever is greater.
In central Wisconsin, the frost depth last winter (2023–2024) likely went down more than 2 feet, but was unusually shallow due to record-breaking warm temperatures and below-normal snowfall.
Essentially, it is a crap shoot. Some winters have been bitterly cold and other winters, rather balmy. I pray for a couple of early snowfalls that insulate the ground: then it doesn't freeze too deep.
If you get lake snows, that can change the profile too. That's the beauty of investing in crops: Even if it doesn't turn out, you don't have too much invested.