Weekly Gardening Thread
HR2749 The Food and Safety Enhancement Act coming up for VOTE in SENATE. BEWARE THE RESULTS!
Living, Growing Architecture[Heavy Graphics Warning] This One Is Fun!
Posted on 09/04/2009 4:00:01 AM PDT by Red_Devil 232
Good morning to all of you gardeners. A couple of FReepers have sent me alerts to threads posted on FR that many of you gardeners might find informative or interesting. I have posted links to them below the Gardening Banner. Thanks to Freepers tubebender and Califreak.
Weekly Gardening Thread
HR2749 The Food and Safety Enhancement Act coming up for VOTE in SENATE. BEWARE THE RESULTS!
Living, Growing Architecture[Heavy Graphics Warning] This One Is Fun!
I hope all of you will stop by.
This is typically a low volume ping list. Once a week for the thread and every once in a while for other FR threads posted that might be of interest.
If you would like to be added to or removed from the list please let me know by FreepMail or by posting to me.
Morning,
I went by yesterday and had a bumper crop of peppers. Largest in size and volume of the year. Tomatoes are thinned out and slowing down. I already pulled the squash and eggplant and will pull the old peppers, strawberries and one of the tomatoes tomorrow.
We planted our lettuce and green seeds yesterday and expect to transplant in a week or so.
HR2749 The Food and Safety Enhancement Act coming up for VOTE in SENATE. BEWARE THE RESULTS!
Good Morning RD, thanks for reminder on HR2749..
what a summer !
In WNC daily rain keeps tomatoes scare, been rough sledding .
Thank you for the ping.
Weird summer...many in area had tomatoes wiped out by blight, but I am up to my ears in them. Loaded with salsa; and wife will be taking her first shot at making her own sauce this weekend...hot peppers coming on strong. We have already gone through our first homemade pumpkin pie; others have yet to even harvest pumpkins. G-d Almighty has been with us this year...
It was that wet cool Spring that did them in. Too weak to fight off the powdery mildew and bugs. Everybody in the garden had to give up except for those that grew from seed and had later harvests. Lesson learned. So I will pay close attention to the weather next Spring.
Morning, Red, since you mention eggplant, I ran across an eggplant dish in a buffet resturant recently. I thought that it was lasagna, as I piled plenty on my plate, then I saw the little homemade tag that said eggplant caserole. Well, it was very good, and I have located a recipe for a similar dish that includes mushrooms(optional) also. I haven’t tried it yet, but I think that it will copy the resturant very closely.
http://www.cooks.com/rec/doc/0,1935,155180-249193,00.html
RD
Your group might consider taking a stand against The Food Safety Enhancement ACT of 2009, since it will affect you:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/2331751/posts?page=90
Yes we have been following it. Thanks.
All I have left is potatoes and sweet potatoes. They were planted mid June, so probably still a little early to harvest.
Tomatoes did better this year than last, but almost all were cherry tomato size, and those were the Early Girl and Better Boy varieties. So something was not right.
Did fairly well with pole beans. And got a couple of squash. Onions, carrots, cantaloupe and corn were basically a bust.
I’ll have to plan a little better and start earlier next year, and hopefully will have a larger planting bed ready.
Well, I will probably be tilling my garden for some fall veggies today. It’s just so dry here and I pulled up all the summer garden last week.
We do have a chance for rain later today and through Monday, so that should help.
Add me to your ping list, please?
Corn?
I have health issues, so I barely get anything resembling gardening done and I don’t have room either.
I had a little bitty compost heap-about six by eight. On one of my lazier days, I did a weird three sisters thing there. I threw out some bean, squash & corn seeds in a random pattern & poked them into the compost just for the heck of it.
The plants took off like gangbusters at first. Later the squash got crowded out, but I got enough tiny ears of yummy corn and green beans to have for dinner a few times. I hand pollinated the corn. The ears were really small. I’m guessing because it was so crowded together.
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I have grown potatoes for the first time.
Also planted mid to late June. S, how is it that you decide they are ready to harvest?? Just pull some up and look at them?
Potatoe Newb in Central MD.
That living architecture thread is cool. Sadly, The Reed People portions reminds me of a low-budget set from a Kevin Costner movie, LOL!
The ones around here have no fear of humans, I guess, because of their speed. Any suspicious move and they can get out of Dodge instantly. They have a very high metabolism (1200 heartbeats per minute) and must constantly feed to stay alive.
A handfull of "hummers".
My only contribution to this thread: I planted giant pumpkins a few months ago. One by one, they all died. I think my soil was too hot, as it was heavy with compost and manure. I tried to buffer it by raising the ph of the water I gave them, but to no avail.
This has bummed me out big time. Oh well, maybe next year.
I have developed and interest in canning this year, due largely to this thread. I discovered that my wife has a small Cook’s Essentials pressure cooker/canner that holds 4 jars, but she has no manual with it. I searched online and Ebay for one, to no avvail. Could anyone out there advise me on some basics, like the adjustments on it, water level, and anything else that would help us? I was in the house the day that my mom’s blew up 35 years ago, so I know to be careful with these things.
I believe that’s true...probably at least four x four rows for sufficient pollenization. If you have a smaller area, just try 6 x 6 or even 8 x 8 plants.
What model?
I did a block of 16 in a 4 x 4 bed and got enough for dinner for a couple of weeks. It would have been more, but a woodchuck so large that when I saw it I thought it was a bearcub stripped the rest. I no longer blame my cats for not solving THAT vermin problem - he'd make three of any of them.
on the bottom of the cooker it reads : 918640633 under that number it has 99:::::: it also has 6L being made in Spain, i’m sure that would be 6 liter
On Ebay, there is one that looks identicle to it at: http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-Cooks-Essentials-Pressure-Cooker-NWOB-NLA_W0QQitemZ370226003699QQcmdZViewItemQQptZCookware_Bakeware?hash=item5633307ef3&_trksid=p3286.m20.l1116
We planted almost 4 acres of pumpkins and they look great. Hopefully we'll be able to sell them. We're going to put in a strawberry patch in October and see how that goes.
I inherited my late MIL's big ol' Mirro pressure cooker and have never had a manual. The first time I ever used it I followed the general instructions in the Ball Blue Book and everything worked fine. I've been using it ever since and I had never used a pressure cooker before. They all work basically the same, but have a couple of different way to exhaust excess steam.
Good luck!
yes sir, that looks like it, jus a minor differance in the shape of the handle, but the controls look exactly the same, as does the shape of the pot, and the lid. I see that one has a differant name that I can not make out.
Thanks, I just thought that I knew how to scour the internet!!! :)
The Fagor RAPIDA Pressure Cooker line consists of the following models:
4 qt. pressure cooker (item #918011938) includes instruction manual with recipes.
6 qt. pressure cooker (item #918011947) includes instruction manual with recipes.
10 qt. pressure cooker / canner (item #918010289) includes instruction manual with recipes.
Here is their web page http://www.fagoramerica.com/cookware/pressure_cookers/rapida_line/rapida
On the right hand side near the botom is a link to Product Manuals. They are in a PDF format.
Hope this helps.
Whis I lived closer because I would be over and picking!
My fingers and brain are not working together! 918
My pleasure ... hope that you can use the info.
Thanks a lot for the info. Fagor RAPIDA 6 qt appears to be the original mfg for the Cooks Essentials. The manual is 90+ pages and contains much info on cooking times, plus recipes. Again, thanks for the effort expended.
Anyone know why?
It could be that there is not enough volume of water when filled with 4 jars to adequately process. Anyway, next canning project, I will use it, may only place 3 jars in it, though.
I forgot to mention that in researching this subject online earlier, I came across a handy website that has downloadable user manuals for all kinds of items, from tools, cameras, appliances, etc.
Checking in from high in the Colorado Rockies. I am about 15 miles east of the continental divide at about 8,500 ft elevation on a mountain ridge and right next to the Roosevelt National Forest. While gardening the lack of production due to cool temperature is made up for by having views of about 60-80 miles of the continental divide mountain range. It is September 4th and the 4th of july tomatos have not ripened yet. They got a slow start due to the cool summer, but are now loaded with tomatos! I counted the green tomatos on just one plant and counted 41! Hope they get ripe before it freezes. I will try to protect with plastic as long as I can. So far I have harvested two cherry tomatos, one batch of beans, some small red potatos and lots of turnips. I noticed I have some Topaz beans getting large. I plan to harvest them as snap beans instead of dry beans. Not sure they will get to the dry stage before it freezes.
Could it be that the smaller cookers don’t come with an insert to keep the jars seperated and off the bottom of the pot?
I will be using the PVC irrigation system again next year. It has worked very well. I will change where I start the main feeder lines. My garden is on a slight slope and the area toward the rear needed more water pressure to get everything flowing up hill and the plants toward the center of the garden got more water than they required. So my main feeder lines will all be up slope next year. I don’t know why I ignored gravity this year!LOL
Just saw radar for Texas looks like y’all may finally get some needed rain!
Are you prepared for the snow this weekend?
I did not know that. I have two pressure cookers that my mother used. They have to be from the 1950’s. I am sure they would work but I am just not comfortable using them and have not tried. I am going to purchase an All American pressure canner next year.
I have been to the dripworks site - nice stuff!
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