Daylily

Thanks! I can see when stepping out the door to work a few minutes every day would be easier! But...if you commit to something...

Wormguy, just out of curiosity why didn't the other guy, his wife and daughters help? We've learned a few things from hard experiences too. I'm glad you made it through the summer!

That happened to me with pistachios. We love them and have never been able to afford many. One Christmas in Alabama when we were planting trees, I saw a display of all kinds of nuts for $1.00 per pound. I got a pound of pistachios because I was sure that price didn't include them. When I went through the checkout, they rang up for $1.00. I asked the girl if she was sure and she said yes. I said "You might want to check". She was really snotty and said "Computers don't make mistakes!" I said OK and went over and got 10 pounds. The next time we were in the store a few days later, the price had been changed!

What a disappointment!

I've been thinking this summer about gardening in harder times. I read optimistic blogs or forum posts about how this or that person has their seeds saved and when the economy fails or whatever, they will grow enough food to feed their family. It's not going to happen quite like that!

We are very experienced gardeners, been gardening since we were children and we've been married 40 years now. We have two adult children gardening with us. Sometimes things happen that you don't anticipate or can't fix, like this summer.

May was too wet to get the gardens plowed and tilled. When it finally dried out and we got things planted in early to mid June, some stuff in late June, it turned dry and didn't rain nearly the entire month of June. Then it turned cool and rainy again and the weeds outgrew most of the vegetables. Here it is August 25 and we have yet to pick any green beans or sweet corn. Tomatoes are just now ripening. We canned 21 pints of dill pickles and the cucumbers got some disease or deficiency and died.

My point is, I feel sorry for in-expereinced gardeners trying to garden when their lives depend on the food they can grow. It's hard work and you just never know what will happen. God can send the ravens though, when ever He sees we need them to feed us

I have a question What does it mean to monetize a blog?

Lumabean, I know what you mean! When I was in the 7th grade, the teacher taught a bunch of the girls in class how to knit. This happened during the recess after lunch. They started with headbands and eventually they all knit a sweater. Some even learned to knit socks. I learned to knit and made a headband but then got bored with it. I much preferred to play softball or basketball. Now I still enjoy knitting but I've never completed a sweater or a pair of socks. I started a pair of socks a couple of years ago but haven't finished them.

Thanks so much! I might try it then.

Thanks for the response. Did you find it worthwhile?

I was looking up the 1940 census for Mom. She needs to get a photo ID and doesn't have a birth record listed. so we're getting a delayed birth certificate. Anyway her mother's name was listed as Ala instead of Ola and the neighbors were Barkes instead of Barker.

I've been looking at the web site and they offer a free 14 day trial. Is it easy to cancel and owe nothing after the 14 days are up? Or do they hassle you and make it difficult?

I prepared and blanched mine as though I was going to freeze it, then put it in the dehydrator. We think it's delicious. It keeps it's bright color. The texture changes just a little but it's great cooked and as jeanettecentaur said, very good "raw". The heads that is. My stems were too tough to eat dried.

I don't think cabbage would be good for cole slaw after rehydrating. It's good cooked though.

I just filled the little dehydrator with sliced nectarines. We filled the big one with zucchini last night so It's about ready to take out. We dried some wild greens last week.

We try to sample some new wild edibles every season. Some are very good, some are good for a famine situation and some are not good at least to us. There are some really good web sites on this. I don't know them right off but google Steve 'Wildman' Brill and Holly Drake along with wild edible plants and you'll find them.

Interestingly, they all said the corn that we grew and dried was better tasting than the frozen corn that we'd dried.

I had only recently learned that one can dry frozen foods.

The class was well received! We had 7 people. One family were out of town at a nephew's graduation from police academy and one older lady wanted badly to come but her husband wouldn't bring her! They want us to have another one. One lady said we didn't have to feed them, just teach them but tasting the food is a big part of it. It makes you want to actually try dehydrating.

They all loved the food and went on and on about how good it was. We had beans that we grew and vine-dried, cornbread and hominy from corn that we grew and dried; and these veggies that we had dried: two sweet corns (one we grew and one from frozen corn),green beans, green peas, cauliflower, okra, okra with tomatoes, cabbage, mustard greens; a stir-fry of soy curls, red peppers, zucchini, broccoli, and okra; tofu egg salad with dried tomatoes; dessert was dried nectarines, pears, apples and blueberries.

DD put everything in pretty dishes and it looked so nice. After the class, the three ladies jumped right in and washed all the dishes.

I have both a Squeezo and a Victorio. We bought the Squeezo years ago and was given the old Victorio. We've used it for the past several years and it works just fine. The plastic isn't cheap and flimsy but maybe the newer ones are. We can around 100 or more quarts of applesauce every year it it gets a workout. The auger had a crack in it when we got it and it hasn't gotten worse. We looked at getting a replacement last year and they seemed reasonable but we never got around to getting one.

I dried some blueberries last week and DD dried dill today.

Hi Violet, everyone who is coming to the class is a vegetarian so we don't have to worry about jerky. I'm pretty sure none of them will be making any. I will mention eggs and cheese though as some of the folks use them. Thanks!

Ma & Pa Steel, those are good videos and quite inspiring. Thanks for the link!

Thanks! Those are good questions and some I hadn't thought of yet. I appreciate your input.

I'm sorry you were disappointed! I don't think we'll be appearing on youtube! We're too shy

Oh my that is scary! I hope you can get something that will help.

Well, we've set a date for the food dehydrating class! It will be July 22. We'll serve a lunch mostly of dehydrated foods, then have the class. Foods we plan to have for folks to sample include green beans, sweet corn, peas, cauliflower, some type of greens, cherry tomatoes, various dried fruits and fruit leathers. We'll have pinto beans and cornbread for the "main dish". We might do something with potatoes too. We're still in the planning stages.

DH and DS will show and tell how they built an electric dehydrator. DD and I will show and tell how to do blueberries, apples, fruit leathers, and more as we decide. Of course we'll talk about general principles and safety issues.

Any suggestions?

We canned a total of 94 pints of blueberries over the past few days.

TurtleMama, you can do this! I agree with Jeepers. Because you love them, you'll do a much better job. You don't have to know everything at the beginning. You learn as you go along and as your children learn. Don't be afraid to say "I don't know but we can find out!". I did this with my three kids often and they've become very efficient information getters and learners They're all in their 30s now and still love learning. We have the most interesting conversations.

You will have great fun and also experience great frustrations. But it will be SO worth it to you and to your children.