Popcorn

My friend Paul Adams and I did a little bartering with popcorn and dried fruit. Paul Adams runs the Seseme Street CSA here in McMinnville and this year he grew popcorn. In case you do not know, CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture. Paul grows food in his city garden and families from the community pay a yearly fee to be a part of the bounty. It is amazing to see how much food a person can grow in their front yard.

As for the popcorn, I love making popcorn. Talk about growing your own snacks. I have not grown popcorn in my garden, but the success Paul had is making me want to try this coming year.

 

Paul and his lovely daughter Lucy :)

Mushrooms

It's mushroom time. Last week Lincoln City had their annual cook-off. My wife's family and I always go to this event, it is always very popular. We have even gone on the morning mushroom hunt with an expert guide. The hunt is free and all of us found some mushrooms.



I must admit, I am very much about the hunt, I just love it. I don't do a lot with mushrooms, I usually just cook them with eggs for breakfast. I also like to dehydrate them in the dehydrator or in the fridge. Yes, if you leave them in the fridge for a few days they will loose all their moister, just like garlic.  I use the dehydrated mushrooms when I am making soups (specially Asian soups).

This is the time to look around and find a mycological society  near you area. I know we have at least 3 here in Oregon and you will be surprised to how many you might find near your area.

Harvest Time

This is a great time to go to your local farmer's stand and pick up some great vegetables and fruits. I know that sometimes people say that eating locally can be expensive, we were able to buy all this for about 60$. This is a lot of food. A lot of the apples, plums, and pears will be dried. The green beans will be blanched and then frozen. The dried beans will be taken out of their pods and then stored in kerr jars to cook later in the winter. The tomatoes will be canned and used to make tomato sauce later in the year.

This was a very productive trip. I know that it seems like a lot of work but later in the year it really pays off. My wife and I usually only go to the store for things like grains, flour, meat, and dairy. That's not to say that I stay away from avocados and chocolate. This saves a lot of time and money. Hope you will take on the challenge and put something away for winter this weekend. Have fun squirrlin'

Figs

Thanks to a wonderful friend, today I had my first figs. I look forward to them with excitement every year. I just love figs. The question I get with figs is, how do you tell they are ripe? Usually the fig will begin to drape over a little and become soft. This variety changes to a shade of purple and it is easy to tell when it is ripe. There are other varieties which turn a slightly lighter green but still become nice and soft to the touch.
The other question I get is how do you preserve them? Well I usually don't. I do cut and dry a few just for fun but figs are not easy to get in big quantities and they are so good I just can help but to eat them fresh.

Dehydrating Peaches

Dehydrating is the best way to preserve peaches. You don't need to skin them or do any thing to them besides taking off the pit and cutting. How you cut is up to you, I like to cut them into peach rings and a little less than a quarter of an inch but don't make the thickness a science. Once cut, you put them on the dehydrator trays and leave them for about 12 hours. If you like them a little soft, you might have to store them in the freezer. I like them very dry and I keep them in canning jars in a dark room. This is a great way to re-use the lids that you can't use for canning (you are only supposed to use them for canning once).

This week I was able to get a hold on a lot of peaches that were on their last day. I had 20 dehydrator trays all going at once just to make sure non of the fruit went to waste. It must have only taken me about 30 minutes to get them all cut.

Like a lot of my fruit, I will keep half of what I produced and I will give half back to the person who provided me with the fruit. This way no money is exchanged and everyone comes out a winner.

This is a picture of the three jars that I am keeping for myself.

Canning Corn

In order to can any vegetable, you need to have a pressure cooker. A pressure cooker is necesary due to the low acidity of vegetables. The only "vegetable" you can safely can without a pressure cooker is a tomato.

In this example, I am using the "cold pack" canning method. That means that the item being canned enters the can cold and a hot liquid is added. In this case the liquid happens to be lightly salted water.

These are small jars and only needed 15 minutes in the pressure cooker but the time depends on how big your jars are.

I guess this might be a good time to tell you that there is nothing to afraid of when it comes to pressure cooking. I too was not too sure the first
time I used it but now I feel very safe around it.

The following is a great site that will give you all the information you need to know in order to can corn. I wish you luck in your squirrel endeavors.


http://www.pickyourown.org/howtocancornrawpack.htm

My Fall/winter Garden

This year, I decided to finally try my hand at winter gardening. I went to Kramer's, which is located here in McMinnville Oregon, and found that they had a wonderful little cold crop section. Cold crops are crops that do not require a green house. Some of the starts that I bought were broccoli, cauliflower, spinach, lettuce, and swizz chard. I am also interested in growing some bok choy, which did very well in early spring. The people at Kramer's told me that they get their deliveries on Wednesday and they should have more things such as cabbage and brussels sprouts. I used coco mulch to try and keep away slugs.

If you have any suggestions on other crops I could grow please comment below.

Coco mulch is bad for dogs and as you can tell on the picture they like it. Make sure that you keep the mulch out of areas that dogs frequent.