What did you do in the garden today?

[BReeder!]

Also watch your ACV labels. Many are just colored flavored white vinegar.

And I don't can with the live culture ACV. Although I think it tastes better, the added bacteria and enzymes are not necessary for picking and I'm not sure if they'll have an impact on the final product.

 

[gtaus]

Waiting a few weeks helps. The flavors tend to blend and you may find the vinegar flavor mellows out a bit.

I am eating a few beans every day. I think the taste is mellowing out, or maybe I'm just getting used to them. The jar is 6 days old, so I think I'll have pickled beans up to 2 weeks at my current rate of eating them. I hope you are right and that maybe the beans just need to pickle in the jar for a few weeks before eating any of them.

I also use apple cider vinegar and white vinegar combined and go for 5% acidity (that's the perfect amount for safe pickling and any stronger will mean an even stronger taste). The ACV is slightly sweet and has a fruitiness that it adds to whatever I pickle.

If I taste any improvement in these pickled beans over 2 weeks, then I might try this recipe again but use 1/2 ACV and 1/2 white vinegar as you suggested... and let them sit for 2 weeks before taste testing the beans.

Thanks for the suggestions.

 

[gtaus]

I have similar raised beds. Mine are 4'x8'. With beds the size of mine, I recommend a brace across the top connecting the centers of the longer sides as well as stakes driven at least 12" into the ground at bottom at the centers of the longer sides to keep them from bowing out. Mine are 26" inches tall (the width of the roofing panels) and filled with 20"-24" of soil (I keep adding and it keeps settling). I placed branches, brush trimmings, logs, etc. in the bottom of some of the beds, which adds a bit f hügelkultur to them also. The only problem I've had with them is they dry out faster because of the added height - gravity and heat work against moisture retention. If we have a week or more without rain, I have to give the beds a good soaking with the hose. A drip irrigation system would be great! Maybe one day...

Yeah, I cut my panels in half height - 13.5 inches - and put them in 16X48 inch frames. So my raised beds are 16 inches high. At 4X4 feet and 16 inches high, the sides of the raised bed do not bow out. I decided to cut my panels in half height just to double the panels I could have and double the raised beds I could make on the same dollar cost. I find 16 inches tall is more than enough for me. I do have some raised beds out in the main garden that are 24 inches tall, and that is nice, but 16 inches tall is almost the same.

I don't understand why your hügelkultur raised beds dry out faster than your other raised beds. That is not my experience. But, no matter what the height of my hügelkultur raised beds, I only top it off with about ~6-8 inches of top soil/compost. I don't plant any root crops in my hügelkultur raised beds the first years, so I think 6-8 inches of soil is adequate. As the soil settles every year, I add another good 2 inches of topsoil and compost to the bed. I suppose in a few years I could grow just about any root crop in the beds as the soil level builds up.

I don't have running water out in my main garden, but this drought year has proven to me that I need a better irrigation plan. When Mother Nature is not showing up with rain, I need a backup for watering the plants. I was looking at drip irrigation, but the systems I looked at all required at least 25 psi water pressure. I need something that will water the plants from a rain barrel at very low pressure.

 

[chickengr]

Took a shower after cookies where out of the oven nice way to start the day View attachment 2784419

recipe please!

 

[muddy75]

Think I can settle with the two fridgerators and a stand up freezer but just the three of us here..

we have 2 fridge, 1 standup freezer, 1 chest freezer and the walk-in cooler. they all have a purpose and stay pretty full most of the year.

 

[muddy75]

I can understand.... My youngest child is a junior in high school. Before long, we will be empty nesters. But I'm a big proponent of 'waste not, want not.' I really do try to save, store, and repurpose. I also like to stock up... Unfortunately my house has very little storage space. I currently have two 25 cf refrigerators and a very large deep chest freezer. All are full. So is my pantry...lol. I'm hoping that this little walk-in cooler idea will give me some place to store all the eggs I sell in a way that they won't freeze....but also my extra produce and animal feed. All basically things I will still need even after the kids are gone.

once the kids are gone, my grocery shopping trips and costs will be very few and far between!!! we have a very small house too with little storage inside and it seems the most space is utilized for kitchen related storage needs

 

[muddy75]

Pepper lovers out there, any thoughts on what to wash hands with to remove capsaicin? I washed a few times with soap already. Hands are not burning, but iching my ear and more recently rubbing my eye (it has been 3 his at least since I finishec messing with peppers, so I didn't think my have were still biohazards) proved to be terrible ideas.

sorry to laugh but yeah, mr muddy is hot pepper freak!! 3/4 of our garden is peppers!! your best protection is to wear nitrile gloves while processing/eating and then cleaning your hands with an engine degreaser. even with all those precautions, however, there can still be accidents

 

[Sally PB]

Water bath canning is when the item is put into the jars, lid then ring, boil in water (covers jar with at least 1” wateR) for 10 min

@gtaus, water bath canning is basically the same as pressure canning, just without the pressure. It's for acidic foods like tomatoes, fruits, jams, jellies, pickles.

If you're going to start doing this, there are lots of books on it. Look in the section of the store where you'd get canning supplies; there might be a book on canning there.

Please note that the 10 minute time above is probably for small jars of something like pickles. When I can quarts of tomatoes, the time is 70 minutes.

 

[Sally PB]

Come chat in my "Preserving Your Harvest" thread.

Yes! Another plug!

 

[WthrLady]

And I don't can with the live culture ACV. Although I think it tastes better, the added bacteria and enzymes are not necessary for picking and I'm not sure if they'll have an impact on the final product.

I'm not even talking about the live culture stuff. For a while the quart glass jar of HEINZ ACV was real, made from apples, but the gallon plastic jug was colored and flavored, as were store brands.

I haven't looked at a bottle in a while as I stocked up a while ago.