Very cool! The (few) times I've tried growing potatoes turned into a cluster. I'm sure our wonderful red clay had a lot to do with that.
But then again, the ONE time I tried raising peanuts creat d a glut on the market that lasted several years....
This weeks preps check-in
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Very cool! The (few) times I've tried growing potatoes turned into a cluster. I'm sure our wonderful red clay had a lot to do with that.
But then again, the ONE time I tried raising peanuts creat d a glut on the market that lasted several years....
I spent the day mostly digging post holes. Not fun, but glad to get posts replaced. I am having to replace all the grape vine posts, and the fence along the front of the property is literally falling down. I mended it too many times now, so am re do ing now. I also set the last two of the six posts for the carport/shed I'm having to replace since the power line we had put in made me cut it down. I'm making it larger and better now so am glad of that but really didn't need another project right now. Anyways, here's to working over the holidays! 
Peanuts! I really need to talk with you! I have red ga. clay here, and as long as it's tilled to loosen it up potatoes love it. I've been throwing leaves in it each season, but it still has a long way to go before I'd say it's good to grow in. Anyways, as I said, potatoes do great and have become one of my new primary crops. This was the first year I've tried them, and I was really impressed with the lack of maitenence and work to produce them and the huge yield. So, just today my son and I were talking peanuts, literally. I know they grow in S. Ga. but don't know if they will do well here. I want to try though. They seem like a really good source of protein and all around good prepper food. I'd really appreciate any tips on your experience with them. There's not much better than a hot salty boiled peanut! I've vowed to try at least two new things each season now. So far kale, turnips and collard greens were this last years disasters. Yes they grew well, but I really didn't like any of them. The potatoes made up for those though.
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One of my favorite Kale recipes
Kale Cranberry Pepita Salad
1 teaspoon olive oil
1 bunch kale, stemmed and torn into pieces
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 cup water, or as needed
Dressing:
1/2 cup olive oil
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1/2 cup orange juice
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 teaspoon dried minced onion
1 teaspoon ground ginger
salt and ground black pepper to taste
1/3 cup dried cranberries
1/4 cup pepitas (pumpkin seeds)
1/4 cup slivered almonds
Heat 1 teaspoon olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Saute kale and garlic in hot oil until fragrant and kale is bright green, 2 to 3 minutes. Add water to skillet; cook and stir until kale wilts, about 5 minutes more. Drain.
Whisk 1/2 cup olive oil, vinegar, orange juice, soy sauce, onion, ginger, salt, and pepper together in a large bowl. Add kale mixture to bowl and toss until kale is evenly coated. Sprinkle cranberries, pepitas, and almonds over the top. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour, or overnight.
This is a copycat from what we sell at work, not exactly, but close
Kale Cranberry Pepita Salad
1 teaspoon olive oil
1 bunch kale, stemmed and torn into pieces
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 cup water, or as needed
Dressing:
1/2 cup olive oil
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1/2 cup orange juice
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 teaspoon dried minced onion
1 teaspoon ground ginger
salt and ground black pepper to taste
1/3 cup dried cranberries
1/4 cup pepitas (pumpkin seeds)
1/4 cup slivered almonds
Heat 1 teaspoon olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Saute kale and garlic in hot oil until fragrant and kale is bright green, 2 to 3 minutes. Add water to skillet; cook and stir until kale wilts, about 5 minutes more. Drain.
Whisk 1/2 cup olive oil, vinegar, orange juice, soy sauce, onion, ginger, salt, and pepper together in a large bowl. Add kale mixture to bowl and toss until kale is evenly coated. Sprinkle cranberries, pepitas, and almonds over the top. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour, or overnight.
This is a copycat from what we sell at work, not exactly, but close
I live about 12 miles south of the Tennessee state line, so I'm sure peanuts would grow there. All I did to the peanuts as pull the first up along each side of each row into a hump when the plants started putting out the parts that grow the nuts. They grow in that. Then you keep an eye on them until they're ready to dig up.
Maybe I picked bad years to plant potatoes....
Luckily im not in the same boat as you guys ! Yes i have kids but we dont let them get attached to animals other than there 2 cats . The chickens are unnamed and free game , getting a new batch of rabbits in the spring. we raised and ate them when i was young but havnt had any in years so that will be good luv some rabbit meat! I remember watching dad kill chickens and rabbits when i was young hed either cut the heads off the chickens and watch them flop around or hed give them a spin and break there necks. The rabbits he"d just stretch there necks and pop! Also remember the wagon outside the stripping room full of hog heads every year lol was awesome and delicious!
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Turnip and collard greens I basically cook the same along with mustard. . . The taste is so different from each plant though. I start with frying up some bacon and the sautéing some onions in the grease. Then putting the greens in a pot with a little water seasoned with some chicken tomato bullion or chicken broth to wilt down. Add in the bacon onions, salt and pepper to taste. Serve over a bed of cornbread and I am in heaven!
Been re-organizing and re-packaging parts of our I.N.C.H. Bags
Two rolls of T.P. laid flat 2-sheet length per package then vacuumed and sealed, thickness down to 7/16 of an inch
In this package, I have 2 t-shirts, 2 pair of socks and 2 underwear compressed down to an 9/16
Two rolls of T.P. laid flat 2-sheet length per package then vacuumed and sealed, thickness down to 7/16 of an inch
In this package, I have 2 t-shirts, 2 pair of socks and 2 underwear compressed down to an 9/16
Everything is better with some bacon grease. Guess that's why I have two partially clogged arteries..... As you pointed out somewhere on the forum, "you would be suprised how good things taste when your hungry". At least I know they are really easy to gro here, if I ever need to.
We are in the same area with climate and soil then. So far I've had great success with potatoes, muscadine grapes, blueberries, blackberries, apples, carrots, tomatoes and green peppers. I've grow lots of other things as well, but really like the low maintenance things like these. I'm excited to plant peanuts this spring and see how it turns out. I have a greenhouse for the more delicate veggies, but want to grow hardy stuff in the outside garden. Oh, one other thing does well in clay, and I wouldn't have believed it if not seen it. Go to Walmart and buy a bunch of celery, cut the base off about 2" up and plant it about 1/2" below the surface of the dirt. I threw the base away most of my life, but they still have life in them and grow easily. Of course it's a cold weather plant, but they grow and produce great. I dehydrate some for seasoning in off times, but love fresh celery.
I think I will try growing more edibles in pots next year to see if I can copy (in a very small way) some of the sucess seen on many websites about growing food in small spaces.
Maybe this might be of interest to you SE. You could copy it with buckets instead of beds. One bucket per square foot.
https://www.ccmgatx.org/media/4152/4-Spring-Into-Vegetable-Garden.pdf
and this chap has the best method of growing spuds I've ever seen. He's another of my heroes
Thanks Sal I love info like this.
I'm going to have a go at the potato system myself this season.
Edit to add, B&Q have cheap builders buckets that would be perfect for the square foot system for £1. so you could get setup pretty cheaply and just start with a couple then build the numbers up as you get better at it.
Edit to add, B&Q have cheap builders buckets that would be perfect for the square foot system for £1. so you could get setup pretty cheaply and just start with a couple then build the numbers up as you get better at it.
Up here quite a few folks grow their spuds in rolled down Bin Bags !!! They back roll them put a bit of soil / compost in and add the spud, as the plant grows they just add more soil to the bag gradually filling the bin bag to about 30 inches or more high, they average ( they tell me) about 30 spuds per bag)
Blackberries do well here, but if you have access to any pastures with fencerows, I prefer to get the wild ones. Very small seeds, but smaller berries.
We have blueberries as well, but with the drought, we had blueberry raisins this year.
Peas (I grew up calling them crowder peas) are easy as well here. My Mom had a half acre one year and blew the pea market out of the water for a long time. I shelled peas that summer until I nearly threw up....
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I love blackberries, but due to our elevation they don't grow wild around here. Last summer I planted some thronless blackberries. They did good in the summer but I won't know until spring if they survived the winter.
My blueberries did good for awhile, put out lots of berry's, but then the plants started dying off.
The raspberry and grape plants seemed to do good this summer.
I found this crib sheet (love crib sheets) on square foot gardening. http://plantandplate.com/p-downloads/PlantandPlate-SFG-spacing.pdf I reckon you could adapt this method for growing in pots quite easily.
To me it just makes sense to work with plants that grow well in your area, but also stuff you actually like to eat. Local farmers markets will show you what people are growing near you.
The container gardening is a great way to supplement your food supply. One well cared for tomato plant can produce as much as ten that are just left on their own in the garden. The potatoes in containers are a lot easier to pick as you don't have to dig them up, just dump them over and pick them up. I'm lucky enough to have enough ground here to grow in but would work with whatever I had to at least supplement my diet. That first taste of a fresh vine ripened tomato is so worth it.
The container gardening is a great way to supplement your food supply. One well cared for tomato plant can produce as much as ten that are just left on their own in the garden. The potatoes in containers are a lot easier to pick as you don't have to dig them up, just dump them over and pick them up. I'm lucky enough to have enough ground here to grow in but would work with whatever I had to at least supplement my diet. That first taste of a fresh vine ripened tomato is so worth it.
I'm at 1400 ft here so no real difference than growing at sea level. A greenhouse would help extend your growing season a lot. When I build my next place here I want the greenhouse to be part of the house. Basically I want a wall of south facing glass with growing space, then another wall I can open up the house to it when wanted. It would serve as a solar barrier from the cold, making the house more moderate and give me a place to grow stuff year round.
I have a new respect for a can of peas now. After learning how much work it is to get one little bowl of them, I'm suprised a can dosent sell for 20.00!
We had some in a 20x20 raised bed this year. We only produced about 40 pints.....
I think $20 is a little light lol!
I think $20 is a little light lol!
I got the turkey deboned and have a large stockpot simmering for canning broth today. I think it's going in the fridge tonight and will reheat and can tomorrow though. I got all the drain pipes in the kids place today too, but mostly just ate a lot and was kind of lazy. I guess it's back to work tomorrow, yuk.
I didn't do anything today... I have a food hangover... bad one...
Had a very lazy Christmas weekend, though did manage to do some cleaning in our bedroom, lol. But another long weekend coming up, so hopefully.
Machines do it now too, which is the only reason. Painstaking work by hand....even once you have the technique down (which I did as a kid).
Machines do it now too, which is the only reason. Painstaking work by hand....even once you have the technique down (which I did as a kid).
Well, I'm not canning peas much anymore after the first experience. I have a load of them in the greenhouse right now, and should go pick them tomorrow, if I muster the energy. Tonight I just finished canning the turkey broth. I got twenty nine pints, and deboned the rest for a decent bowl of dog food for the outside dogs tomorrow. I also did 12 pints of oven canned 15 bean mix. I really like the 15 bean soup packs. Wallmart has them fairly cheap, and the variety of beans makes it more interesting for me in soups and such. I still had some white wine to rack tonight, but think I'm about done now. I think I'll enjoy a glass of it instead of working on it.
Well havnt done any preps this week but had a little done for me.. Got some ditty bags and some Mountain House meals for xmas ... Cant beat free!!!
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No you cant!!! I hear the Mountain House Meals are pretty good, I have never had any of them myself. I have learned how to dehydrate some of my own, but the shelf life is not so long. I got some heirloom seeds that I requested from sis and my sweet hunny got us a wood burning stove & then my very own tractor that had a frontend loader for $1 (totally separate from the stove)! The local yacht club had to vacate the property quickly after it got sold out from under them so basically sold everything that was worth something very cheaply! Honestly I LOVE free and am always on the lookout for freeby or nearly items. You just need to look for it. . .
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Ok I totally missed and too tired to search for, what went wrong when canning peas?
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Some years are better than others. . . this year from what I hear from others that I have talked to has been tough! This would include other members here and family / friends spread out in our country. I was able to have a bumper crop of both green beans and dried beans but anything else I tried to grow was hardly even worth it. . .Fortunately, the crop I had put up the pervious year lasted me through this year. I just hope I can do better this year!! If not, my stockroom will dwindle down even more. Don't give up. . . It is worth it in the long run!!
