Dehydrating Green Beans Out Of The Garden

August 21, 2020 Sarah

August is the season for picking fresh green beans. Well, at least for us here in the PNW on the islands!

Grab a couple pounds in the morning, when it is cool out. While you can dehydrate without blanching, they beans will rehydrate better (faster) if you take the extra step.

Dried Green Beans

Directions:

Take fresh green beans*, wash and sort, tossing any shriveled or limp ones. Cut off the tips on both ends, then slice or break into bite size pieces.

Bring a large pot of water to boil, preferably stock pot with a pasta insert (if you have one). Add the beans to the pot and blanch for 2 minutes (if using an insert, add to the pot when bringing water to a boil).

While they are blanching, fill your sink with ice and cold water. If using the insert pull up and drain into the pot, quickly shake beans into the sink. If not using an insert drain into a colander, then submerge the colander into the ice bath. Or, grab beans with a sieve and dump into the sink.

Once cooled, take out and shake off in a colander. Spread the beans on mesh lined dehydrator trays. (Need a solid made one that won’t break the bank? Nesco is a good option without dropping hundreds of dollars)

Dehydrate at 135° for 10-14 hours, until completely dry. Let cool down on counter before packing into glass mason jars for storage.

Check a couple of hours after packing to make sure you have no condensation in the jar. If so, they were not dried long enough and give them a bit more time. Otherwise, seal the jars and store in a dry, cool area, preferably out of the light.

We add in a food grade desiccant packet, and then seal the jars using a Food Vac mason jar sealer (these come into stock here and there right now, due to demand) to extend the shelf life. Best used within a year, but dried goods can go farther with proper storage.

*You can of course use yellow or purple beans as well. The color on purple changes when you cook them, they revert to green.

~Sarah

Root Cellar Soup

August 14, 2020 Sarah

This summer has been hard for growing (it’s been cool since spring, with just a few days of truly warm weather and we had a lot of rain into mid summer), but a couple items have grown well: Potatoes, onions, and garlic. All of which store well in root cellars, leading to long term recipe creations. This soup is quick to make and warms the body. Even in summer. When it is 52* out. Also will be pretty darn good come December….

Potato flowers….

Walla Walla sweet onions.

Root Cellar Soup

Ingredients:

5 strips precooked bacon*, chopped
2 tbsp neutral oil, such as avocado
1 pound white or yellow potatoes, chunky cut
1 large sweet onion, finely chopped
1 head garlic, peeled and chopped
¼ tsp each: dried thyme, oregano, parsely
3 Tbsp all-purpose flout
2 cups boiling water
2 tsp broth concentrate(used chicken)

Directions:

Heat a medium pot over medium-high heat, add in oil and bacon, then the potatoes and onion. Saute for 5 minutes, stirring often.

Add in garlic and dry herbs, cook for a minutes, stirring.

Turn down to medium heat.

Sprinkle the flour on, cook till the flour has browned, a minute or two.

Stir in the water and broth concentrate, stirring constantly. Turn heat to low, and let the potatoes finish cooking, stirring often. The soup will be very thick, add more water as needed, if you like it thinner.

Taste for seasoning, add as desired.

Serves 2 to 3.

*I buy the shelf stable precooked bacon strips for storage (it has a shelf life of around 6 months). It gets dinner on the table quickly and the kids can cook it up quickly.

~Sarah

Gardening · Homesteading

The Pandemic Poultry Story

August 12, 2020 Sarah

You ever wake up and freak out that YOU MUST HAVE CHICKENS NOW or life will be off kilter? That was me in March of this year. It just clicked into my mind that we needed to make a decision quickly and quit sitting on the fence about farm animals. I contacted my egg lady, Jessica, and asked her to hatch me some chickens and she set out on that. Now then, that takes time of course. It was nearly a month before these came home:

So there I was…standing in Tractor Supply with a dozen Pekin Ducks for a $1 each, wondering if I had lost it. While waiting for the chickens to even be chickens.

Just remember….those cute little things grow up to be this:

Pool parties and eating fresh veggies daily.

But nah, they are a lot of fun and we have enjoyed them so much. Ducks have personalities! However….as it comes with all poultry we had to start culling drakes, and found a home for 4 of them, leaving us with 3 more (and 5 hens out of 12!). The ducks started laying eggs this week, at 17 weeks. One in particular loves building nests.

I have found they are great for when I am cleaning the gardens. Just toss it over. If they don’t eat it, well, the wild rabbits will. They love carrot tops, gone to seed lettuce, green beans, beet tops. It’s a cheap way to supplement their tummies and to use a lot less commercial feed.

And you get very large eggs. They range from 50 to 95 grams!

But back to those chickens. They came home and grew. I was however anxious using heat lamps on them. I just don’t like them. So I started researching how do off grid folks raise chickens in say…..Alaska? Well, they don’t use lamps and the chickens survive. Since mine were late spring, our house was holding at 67* in the small bathroom they were living in. I used a small safe heater if it got really low at night. But they fared well and started sleeping on a good schedule. And they feathered faster. By the start of Week 5 I was done with having poultry in our house, and they were moved out to their coop in the gardens.

So tiny then, but growing fast.

3 of them would become roosters eventually. And all 3 had to be put down. 1 was violent to my kids, the other 2 were trying to kill 2 of the hens. Culling them wasn’t easy, but we did it humanely and with respect to them. Once the roosters were gone we noticed the hens relaxed and were healthier.

The first of the hens produced her first egg at just past 15 weeks. The other 4 have not yet, but they will get there.

Meanwhile….I ended up with other hens due to adopting them.

First came Myrtle and Byrtle, but sadly within a week Myrtle showed she had a bad infection from Strike Flies. We had to put her down as she was in very bad shape. Her hen mate Byrtle was fine and healthy thankfully. Not long after an old friend approached me with 1 year old hens that needed a new home and Byrtle got new friends: Color, Cupcake and Sunny. Those 3 are pets and love human interaction, which the boys love. All 4 are good egg producers and good at keeping the orchard bug free.

We built two separate fenced areas for the coops, due to the age differences, but also the older hens coming in unknown disease wise.

Did I go overboard? Maybe, but I enjoy it overall. The spring gave me the kick to finally jump in. Mostly the work load is low, and it gets me to go outside and stretch, to take care of them. I’ve learned a lot about what to do and not to do. And the long game is finally paying off with all those eggs!

~Sarah

Gardening · Homesteading

Late Summer Potatoes

August 3, 2020 Sarah

Just because it is August 3rd doesn’t mean you cannot keep planting new crops. You still have many weeks of good warm weather filled with the sun here in the PNW. All of August and often the first 3 weeks of September.

If your kitchen or pantry has red, yellow, white, blue potatoes* that look like they are growing arms in the heat, or are turning green in a bowl….go plant them for an early fall crop.

You have time to get a quick late crop in, if you do it container style. Go find the biggest pot you own (no smaller than a 5 gallon bucket, and if you are using a bucket, drill drainage holes in the bottom). Add a little potting soil, then dump the potatoes in and cover to the top with more soil. Water heavily, and let settle. Add more soil if needed, to bring up to the top.

Park in a very sunny area, and water every day. Sunny is important as we are slowly losing light every day. The potatoes will shoot up quickly with lush leaves.

Once the leaves turn yellow and start to look like they are withering, knock the container over, and sort out your potatoes. I usually do it on a grassy area and have two buckets: One for potatoes, one for the leaves and plant material. The soil I add to our compost pile. Look carefully as you will have sometimes the tiniest baby potatoes to pick out.

Being a late crop you might have lots of “new potatoes” (meaning smaller), but you will have a tasty crop.

Rinse well outside with a hose, then I wash inside as well, and air dry on paper towels, on the counter. Store in a brown paper bag out of the light, in a cooler area (but don’t put in the refrigerator). I use our pantry for ones we will eat in a couple of weeks. If you store in a cellar, make sure it is in a rodent proof box (hardware cloth on the sides).

Never waste ugly potatoes** that turn green or start shoots. Even the most wrinkled up, dehydrated tater with shoots will grow. Just get it into dirt!

Waste not, want not.

*It’s late for Russet potatoes though. If you have a garden in the ground (not raised beds) you can plant those in the fall, to winter over to spring. Russet potatoes need space, and a longer grow time. Wintered over potatoes need to be in the actual ground, to help protect with winter freezes. Once winter is over, the potatoes shoot up early, similar to how garlic comes up in spring.

**While seed potatoes bought commercially are touted, it is fine to use grocery store potatoes to grow from. Commercial potatoes (standard grown) are treated sometimes with chlorpropham so they don’t bolt, which retards/slows down growth. Even those potatoes will eventually grow. But for best bet, use potatoes that are obviously sprouting/growing (the arms coming out say that). Or buy locally grown potatoes and use those to start from, which usually are not treated.

~Sarah

Gardening · Homesteading

It’s Time To Plan Fall Crops

July 21, 2020 Sarah

It’s crazy to look at the calendar and see July 21st and think “We need to get planning for fall”, but alas, this is the week to get going. If you are in a temperate area, zones 7 to 8, you will want your fall crops in the ground or in seed pots by first week of August. This summer was trying for us on Whidbey Island here in Washington State, as we only started seeing “normal” temperatures after the 4th of July. Much of our crops are 2 to 3 weeks behind, due to cold and wet weather from spring till the 4th. So succession crops are not happening as fast as they should, but it isn’t hard to adapt. We are zone 8A here, though we used to farm in Zone 7 when we lived on the mainland, so below will cover much of Western Washington.

Faced with what is happening in our states, our country and our world, a fall garden is a wise choice for food security. It doesn’t take a lot of time to get it going, and you can eat till first freeze, when the days are getting short. And frankly…watching and tending a garden is good for the soul. It gets you outside most days, you get fresh air and sunlight. Enjoy the end of summer as it slips into fall.

This isn’t a huge list, but recommendations for some of the more popular seed choices.

Depending on where you live, you may want to invest into frost cloth if you have early freezes (we don’t here).

If you have children and you have open pollinated (not hybrid F1) crops going to seed right now, consider doing seed saving for the spring, and get them to make some seed packets!

Beans:

Sow every 2 weeks direct seed, bush beans can be seeded up to early to mid-August for fall crops. Bush bean varieties grow faster than pole, and are preferable for fall.

Beets:

Last week of July to mid-August for fall crops. Seed every 1-2 weeks till then.

Broccoli:

Transplant first week of August. Get into pots now.

This crop grows best as a fall crop. It can bolt to seed in early warm springs. Protect late summer plants from summer heat with shade cloth.

Carrots:

Seed August 1st for fall crops. Seed every 2 weeks for continuous harvesting.

Chard:

In most summers grow it continuously, when it’s too hot for lettuce. Seed every 2 weeks for continuous harvesting through mid-August.

Garlic & Shallots:

Direct plant October to November, before hard freezing. Buy now for fall.

Kale:

Plant by August 1st for fall crops. Seed every 2 weeks for continuous harvesting.

Kohlrabi:

Plant by August 1st for fall crops. Can sow direct or start in pots late July.

Lettuce:

Resume seeding end of July to plant fall crops through mid August. Can direct seed or start in pots.

Onions, from seed:

Green onions can be seeded every few weeks for a continuous crop, through mid August.

Peas:

Direct seed August 1st for fall crops.

Bush takes less time than tall climbing varieties, and are preferable for fall.

Potatoes:

Plant July and on for fall crops. Grow smaller varieties for best results (save the russets for summer). Ensure they get plenty of sun, fall grows well in large containers.

Radishes:

Resume in August for fall crops. Seed every 2 weeks for continuous harvesting.

Spinach:

Direct seed or start in pots August 1st. Seed every 2 weeks for continuous harvesting.

Squash (Zucchini):

Can be seeded through late July.

Turnips:

Sow every 2 weeks direct seed, through mid-August.

~Sarah