Seed Potatoes

AI ordered some seed potatoes form Wood Prairie Farm.  They're in Maine -- I almost felt guilty from ordering someplace other than Idaho!  But I survived it.

They have so many different varieties--how can you choose?  And I don't need a whole pound of each variety I want to try.  For one thing, I would seriously go over budget.  But I can't eat that many potatoes anyway.

So I ordered their Organic Potato Blossom Festival.  I don't care about the "organic" part of it.  I think "organic" is way over-hyped.  But this has a nice mix of potato varieties, a pamphlet on growing spuds, and a recipe book.  The potato varieties were selected for "their exceptional blossom beauty and fragrance":  Red Cloud, Carola, Cranberry Red, All-Blue, Onaway, and Butte. 

The Wood Prairie catalog itself contains a wealth of information about the different types of potatoes (the ones included in my order are itallicized):

Texture	Uses	Varieties
Soft Moist	Steamed	Cranberry Red
	Au Gratin	All-Blue
	Sauteed
	-----------	----------
Creamy Mid-Dry	Baked	Carola
	Steamed	Rose Gold
	Creamy Soups
	-----------	----------
Mealy Dry	Baked	Swedish Peanut
	Mashed	Butte
	Fried
	-----------	----------
Waxy Moist	Boiled	Onaway
	Soups & Stews	Reddale
	Salads
	-----------	----------
Waxy Mid-Dry	All purpose	Caribe
	Baked	Elba
	Boiled	Prairie Blush
	Salads	Rose Finn Apple
		Russian Banana
		King Harry
	-----------	----------
Firm Dry	Baked	Red Cloud
	Fried	Yukon Gold
	Boiled	Island Sunshine

I'm really looking forward to getting try see and smell all the beautiful blooms.  And, of course, to tasting all these varieties.  Well of course I'll have pictures of the plants blooming, and of the potatoes.

Bean and Squash Seeds

I also ordered some seeds from the Vermont Bean Seed Company (guess where they're from). I got some Dragon's Tongue beans, which I'm really excited about. You can pick them early for green beans, or let the beans mature for shelled beans, or let the pods dry on the bush for dried beans. These beans also have a built-in color indicator! When the pods turn from green to yellow with purple stripes, they're ready to eat as a snap bean. When you pick them and cook them, they turn green, so you know they've been suitably blanched and you can freeze them. Or can them, I suppose. They are a bush bean so I won't have to trellis them. I think I'll plant them out by the fruit trees. I have plenty of room there, they'll get lots of sun, and like all beans they're nitrogen fixers so they'll help fertilize the soil.


I also ordered some Scarlett Runner beans. Who can resist the pretty red flowers? They can also be used at all three stages: as green beans, shelled beans, and dried beans. These do require a trellis. I have some 1X1s out in the shop. So I think I'll drill some holes in them, string some twine, and make teepees. The runner beans should be beautiful growing up the teepees.

I ordered a couple rhubarb plants. Again, I'll plant them out by the fruit trees (which, come to think of it, is where the wildflowers will go). I won't be able to get any stalks from them this year, but in a couple years I should start getting plenty. All the more for rhubarb sauce and leather.

I ordered 1 pound of Jerusalem Artichoke tubers.  What is it everyone says?  "They are neither from Jerusalem nor artichokes".  They're actually related to the sunflower.  I think they look like Maximilian Sunflowers, if you're familiar with them.  But these have edible tubers.  I've never eaten any, so I hope I like them.  If not, at least they'll be pretty flowers that should attrack bees and butterflies.  And I think they grow thickly enough to act as a hedge.  Maybe I should plant them around the fruit trees that the deer keep "pruning" for me!

And I ordered a couple packets of Snackjack Pumpkins--one for my little brother and one for me.  These pumpkins have shell-less seeds.  That's right.  You can roast them or eat them raw, and you don't have to take the shells off.  Yipee!  Their flesh is supposed to be good for pies, too.
Ooh, and I ordered some Turk's Turban Squash seeds.  I don't know how they taste, but they look too cool to pass up.

Wildflower Seeds

I took The Prudent Homemaker's advice and purchased some wildflower seeds from Wildseed Farms.  They're in Texas, but they have seeds that will grow all over North America.  I got 1/4 pounds of the Western Wildflower Mix, plus some chicory, yarrow, shasta daisy, Laura Bush petunia, and gloriosa daisy.  And they threw in a free packet of seed mix.

The Western Wildflower Mix has a lot of lupine, some california poppy, blue and scarlet flax, tickseed, african daisy, cornflower, wallflower, dame's rocket, black-eyed susan, corn poppy, and several others.  It should attract lots of beneficial insects as well as bees and butterflies. The chicory and yarrow are both good for improving the soil.  And of course, the petunias, shasta daisies, and gloriosa daisies are just plain beautiful.  Well, they're all beautiful.   I should really have planted these last fall.  But they'll do OK planted this spring.  I just can't wait until next fall!

I'm going to plant these out in the field, around the fruit trees.  I didn't get enough seed to plant the whole area this year, but this is a good start.

Dehydrated Frozen Corn

I've read in several places that you can dehydrate frozen vegetables.  So I finally decided to give it a try.  I bought a couple bags of frozen super-sweet corn and spread then, still frozen, on the fine mesh tray liners in my dehydrator.  It turns out that 2 bags was exactly the right amount, as each tray can hold 1/2 bag.

I dried the corn for about 6 hours.  I stopped it an hour or so into the drying and stirred the corn around a little.  The pieces closest to the center of each tray dry faster than those near the outside edge.  So they dry more evenly if I stir them up at least once.

One problem I have drying things is that I often want to dry them while I'm at work.  But I'm gone for longer than most foods take to dry. If I leave them drying while I'm gone, they'll be too dry by the time I get home.  So I grabbed an electric-socket timer that I had on a lamp, set it for 6 hours, and plugged the dehydrator into that.  Worked great.

Here's what the dried corn looks like.

The dried corn makes a great snack.  It tastes really good.  Well, it tastes like sweet corn.  I took it to work and everyone who tried it said they liked it.

At first I just put the dried corn in a zip-lock bag.  But that was awkward.  So I finally hit on the idea of using a small RubberMaid pitcher.  It worked great!  Take off the cap to fill it, then just flip the flip-top to pour some out.

It was so well, I went out and bought some frozen peas to try.

Apple and Cherry Fruit Leather

I made some apple and cherry fruit leather the other day (actually, it was about 6 weeks ago).  It was really easy.

You know you can make fruit leather by just spreading a big jar of applesauce on a lightly-oiled leather tray and drying it, right?  Well, that's pretty much what I did.  I just pureed a can of drained bing cherries and added it to the applesauce.  You can use applesauce with no sugar added.  If you use the stuff with sugar in it, it'll take longer to dry.  And it's plenty sweet without added sugar.

    


















It turned out that I needed a bit more than 1 jar of applesauce to fill up my 4 fruit-leather trays.  So I just dropped spoonfuls of pure appleasauce in with the cherry applesauce already in the tray.  I thought it might look artistic.

I dried it for about 6-8 hours (I can't remember for sure), and it was ready to roll up and cut.  I used a small serated knife to cut it up.  But an electric knife actually works better.

You know, it was fine, except that it really didn't have a lot of flavor.  I couldn't taste the cherries at all.  But then, I snuck a cherry out of the can before I pureed them, and it didn't have a lot of cherry flavor either.

I munch of pieces of this now and then.  To be honest, I don't gobble it up like I did the rhubarb leather I made last summer.  But it's still good.  I keep it stored in one of those Glad  disposable plastic containers, and it's holding up just fine.

Gaia's Garden 2nd Edition Set Me Straight

Well, I couldn't resist.  I stopped at the book store the other day and picked up a copy of Gaia's Garden, 2nd edition.  I've been reading it the last few days.

It reminded me that to make progress building my food forest, I need to be planting soil-building plants.  So I'm scrapping my plans to get some honeyberry bushes this year.  Instead, I'll get some Seaberry (also called Sea Buckthorn) bushes, since they are nitrogen fixers.  And I'll plant a mix of annual and perennial flowers that attract beneficial insects and also help build the soil.  I think I'll plant my squashes out there, too.  Then after I harvest the squash, I can slash the plants and let them compost in place.  And comfrey.  I defintely need some comfrey (it can be cut for compost-in-place 2-3 times a year). 

I'd best get busy!

I Wish I Liked Squash - or - Long-term Food Storage

I'm not an expert on food storage or nutrition, but it seems to me that there are three basic kinds of food we should store for long-term disasters:  protein, starches, and fruits and vegetables.  Well, four, if you included fats.

Everyone knows that meat is a good protein source.  Fish is also good, and some people argue that it's healthier.  But meat and fish can be expensive to store.  Even if you do the work of preserving it yourself--which is a lot of work--you still have to buy or otherwise acquire it first.  Some people are in a position to raise beef or chickens for food or eggs, but not everyone can do that.

Fortunately, beans and grains can help provide the protein we need, and they're a lot easier to store than meat.  Don't get me wrong, I still want to store lots of meat.  But by adding beans and grain to my diet, I can get by with less meat, and still have enough protein.  Remember, though, that beans and grain are each not a complete protein so you have to eat both of them.  I read recently that "they" are no longer saying that you have to eat beans and grains in the same meal.  As long as you eat them the same day, that's OK.  That said, there are so many beans-and-grains recipes or traditional meals, that it isn't hard to eat them in the same meal.

Starches are important because they have the bulk of the calories that will keep us from starving to death,  and we have lots of options.  The beans and grains you can eat for protein also provide starches.  Beans are chock full of fiber--which most of us don't eat enough of.  And whole grains have lots of complex carbs, and also vitamins and minerals.  And of course, grains can be ground into flour and baked into all kinds of yummy things.  Beans and grains are inexpensive to buy in bulk and they're easy to store long term.  You can buy them already packaged in sealed, airtight buckets, or you can package them yourself.  Delta69Alpha has several youtube videos about how to do that.  You can check out his channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/delta69alpha .  Of course, if you're storing whole grains for use during a disaster, you'll need a hand-operated grain mill.  And you'll want to store whole grains because they store a lot longer than flour or rolled grains.

Potatoes are another great starch option.  Potatoes have a lot of nutrition if you eat the skins along with the potatoes, and they store well.  Potatoes are easy to grow, and they are attractive plants.  You can buy dehydrated potatoes in several forms:  shredded for hashbrowns, sliced, and potato pearls (whatever those are).  And we all know you can get boxes of mashed potato flakes at the grocery store.  I think it's good to have a supply of dehydrated potatoes, because although potatoes store well, they don't store for an entire year.  So you can eat fresh potatoes when you have them, and stored potatoes when you're out of the fresh.

Now, here's the reason I wish I liked squash.  Squash are very nutritious, and can provide a lot of complex carbs.  They are easy to grow, and the plants and flowers are beautiful.  Winter squash store very well, and some of them are gorgeous.   There is carnival, which is small enough for individual servings:  http://www.territorialseed.com/product/9913/221 . There is delicata squash, which has a bush and a vining variety:  http://www.territorialseed.com/product/1121/221 .  There is fairy squash:  http://www.territorialseed.com/product/1119/221 .  There's sweet dumpling:  http://www.vermontbean.com/dp.asp?c=51&P={266797CE-5A61-428F-BEA2-69936D7F5C4B} .  And there is turk's cap squash:  http://www.vermontbean.com/dp.asp?c=51&P={DBD5A95C-2399-45CA-92B8-87D680F7AFF7} , just to name a few.  (Sorry about all the links.  I don't have pictures myself and I didn't want to violate copyrights).  But I simply don't like the taste of squash.  Pumpkin pie is about the only way I like to eat winter squashes.  That said, I'm growing some this year anyway.  I simply can't pass them up, and who knows--I may find a recipe I like.

And that brings us to the fruits and vegetables.  Fruits and vegetables do have carbs, but not enough to rely on them during a crisis.  But with fruits' sugar content, they are often a great pick-me-up.  And fruits and vegetables have lots of vitamins, minerals, and other phytonutrients.  Of course we all know we should eat plenty of vegetables with lunch and dinner.  And fruits are great for breakfast and desserts.  Fresh veggies and fruits are always good when they're in season, and many of them are easy to grow.  You can can them, or make jams and jellies from the fruit.  You can also dehydrate them for use throughout the year.  And you can purchase them already dehydrated or freeze-dried.

There are, of course, lots of other things to consider for long-term food storage, but this is a pretty good place to start.  Now, off to find a good squash recipe.