Redd Hudson

You probably already know about this guy. I think what he is doing is great.

Chad Pregracke.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/337-chad-pregracke-americas-hardest-working-garbage-man/id1087110764?i=1000623785021

He might be worth contacting.

I wonder if a stool cushion would fit the seat top.

Hello Everyone!

I wanted to share what my brilliant neighbor is doing between her garden beds. She has some raised beds, but hers, like mine have kind of, well melted...ok rotted to the point of nonexistence. We have mounds of soil in memory of where the beds were.

HOWEVER, she planted white clover between these alleged beds. Any bed encroachers are summarily feed to the chickens. This seems to keep the grass and weeds, ahem, I mean wrongly located, alternate vegetation down.

So I bought seeds.

I am excited.

Clover is much nicer under bare feet than woodchips/pine straw/remains of chopped magnolia leaf.

I LOVE IT ALL!!!

Long live the Clack.

If I had a bag of golf tees I would glue them to a small beach ball or kick ball to explain bacteria and botchlolsum to my canning class students.

But I am kind of a nerd...

And apparently a nerd who can't spell.

Botulism not... Botcho whatever...

Happy Almost Spring, Everyone!

Canning pasta is not a good idea. As many of those posting here have said. When canning always use a tested recipe.

It comes down to science.

Each food item – product – has a specific density. That density is what allows or does not allow heat to penetrate to the center of the jar.  This heat is needed to destroy the bacterium Clostridium botulinum. When you pressure can, you are raising the internal temperature of the jar to 240°F which is the temperature needed to destroy botulism. The jar heats from the outside in, in a convection style - the heat circulates inward. If a food is too dense, the heat cannot reach the center of the product. This is why we can process chunks of pumpkin, but not puree. The water/heat can circulate around the chucks, but cannot completely penetrate to the center of a puree.

Interestingly, and frightening, is how botulism protects itself against high heat. It forms a hard shell around the bacterium when heated.

The boiling point of water – 212 F is not enough though, it is the use of pressure to raise the water temperature to 240F and the amount of time required at this raised temperature that cause the bacterium to ‘explode’ and die. Making your jars safe.

Further, at this high temperature, delicate pasta would become mush. Which, as my hero Alton Brown says "is not good eats".

for those of you who live in very hot locations, (as I do) you might consider Steam Canning. Like a bath canner you should only can high acid foods and nothing that requires more that 45 minute of processing (all the water boils off).

There are a lot of resources available for canning. Someone posted the USDA site. This site:

https://nchfp.uga.edu/how/can_home.html#gsc.tab=0

has a book, by chapters you can download and print.

there is also the USDA "your choice soup" recipe. But if you are just starting out, maybe skip this until you have some experience,  not that you couldn't do it, it's that the "why" you make some of the choices is assumed.

https://www.healthycanning.com/usdas-your-choice-soup-recipe

The Healthy canning site is also a good site. It provides science based, proven recipes.

Science based means the recipes have been tested and it has been proven that the food product reaches the correct internal temperature (based on the process method) to be considered shelf stable. The methods recommended for chopping, weighing and measuring the food go in to the testing process. Which is it is recommended that you process chopped squash, but not pureed. The density of the food prevents the heat from getting to the center of the jar. The heat process at play here is convection, the jar heats from the outside in (thank you, captain obvious, LOL).

With canning,  the time the food goes into the canner, the processing time (and if pressure canning the "wait" time), along with the time the jars need to sit (12 - 24 hours) are all factored into the producing of a safe product.

Ball, Kerr and Golden Harvest jars and products are all produced by the Newall company, which is owned by Rubbermaid.

Ball produces the Ball Blue Book every few years and it is recommended that you purchase the new one when it comes out. This isn't just because it is a money-maker (yes, it is), but also because the science is changing. Until about a year ago it was recommended that you simmer your lids. The reason was to soften the rubber gasket material (not just sterilize the lid). The new lids do not have that requirement (everybody say YEAH) because the gasket material has changed.

Also, the older books have recipes and method now proven to be less safe. I just composted a Ball Blue book from 1973 which showed open kettle methods for jams and jelly which recommended inverting the jars instead of processing.


Other resources:

https://extension.oregonstate.edu/topic/food/preservation/resources (they have an app for OLDER smart phones (Iphone and android)

https://hgic.clemson.edu/factsheet/canning-foods-at-home/

Wow. Such great plans! I hope they all go well, if not perfectly.

@Mary @Carla, can you really have a too big greenhouse?

#1 Share knowledge.
1.A) Two years ago I started a calendar list for when to start plants for spring and fall planting. I always lose track of time, and bam! It's next season. I took me a while to figure out how not to plant everything memorial day and harvest just after labor day. A zone 4 mind set. I have been living in zone 8 for a few (ahem...10) years. Finally figured it out. To my surprise, neighbors are interested in the list.
1.B) I enrolled in a Master Food Preserver class with a local collage. If I pass I can teach others. I think I will pass and am looking forward to sharing this knowledge.

#2 Be ruthless (with my garden). I hate to pull flowering veg plants and hold on to the delution that inspite of 99+ degree / 99% humidity days for 6 weeks or more, the plant will continue to produce. It is a waste of time, water and energy. My new mantra, "It will not produce. It will not produce." I will pull them out, and console myself by talking with my new seedlings. Awaiting cooler weather.

#3 Meat chickens. I want to try meat chickens but the DH isn't that excited about it. I am working on my persuasive messaging. Maybe I should take out ads in the newspaper.

#4 Upgrade rabbit hutches. Secretly, I am a 6 foot 2 supermodel. Unfortunately, my 5 foot 3 body doesn't know that and its short arms struggles to reach the very back corner of the rabbit hutches. This must change, and I am unlikely to get taller.  

#5 More fruit trees. At least 1 more. Suburbia limits the open plain. I need to find a loquat, my other one is lonely. It told me it missed it's friend. Mission accepted.

I seem to remember a guy named Frank Zappa started a dental floss farm...somewhere out west. Free range pygmy ponies running wild.

Now I have to find things to do with my oral b floss, maybe tie up tomatoes.