The "Gan"-"Green Thumb"

“Gan-Green Thumb” Garden Tip: Save Your Leaves!

2011-12-04T19:03:00.000-08:00

I haven’t actually tried this tip yet (I recently read it in a book), but it sounds like a great idea and if it works, it will help me to overcome one of my big gardening dilemmas.

First, the dilemma: Since my dogs seem to lay barren anything that is growing in the ground in our yard, I have wanted to get more involved in container gardening. The “experts” have given multiple reasons why container gardening is a great thing, and I suppose it is. My main objection has always been that in order to have a container of any decent size, it takes so much soil! Why not just use soil from our garden to fill them? Because our clay soil is just terrible and is one of the other problems that we are working like crazy to resolve. Therefore, container gardening just seemed like such an expensive proposition that I limited myself to just a few containers each year.

Now for the remedy: Leaves! If this works the way the book proposes, I will be so happy. The idea is to save your fall leaves in bags and use them to fill the bottom part of your pots (about one-third to one-half full, depending on the soil depth requirements of your plant). By only having to add potting soil and compost to the top portion of the pot, you can save some money. (I am also excited to have another way to use the tons of leaves our trees drop each year; I never like to have organic material end up in a landfill!) For containers that will hold my “permanent” plants, I will probably continue to fill them to the top with my soil/compost mix. But for seasonal things (like tomatoes, etc.), I will use the leaf trick. After the season is over, I will remove the soil from the top of the pots and then add the “weathered” leaves to the compost heap or maybe even directly into the garden soil depending on its state. I’ll let you know how it works!

I can’t tell you how excited I am! You see, last summer, I found the most wonderful container for the times that I want something a little larger. It is just the right size, it’s strong and durable, and comes in a variety of colors. Even better, I was able to pick one up on sale last summer at Wal-Mart for only $5! Just drill a few holes in the bottom and add a little piece of old window screen and you have the perfect planter. I am pleased to present to you my new favorite gardening container….the party tub (also marketed as a child’s toy bin)!

I just loved this orange one. I’ve also seen them in red, purple, neon green, bright yellow, and for those who are of a milder taste, even black. The leaf trick now makes it possible for me to have these babies sprinkled all over my yard, filled with vegetables of all kinds. Yippy!

Stands, Cans, and a Brand New Plan!

2011-07-16T14:53:00.000-07:00

I have been working on a food storage plan for a while now (half-heartedly, anyway). There are many reasons that people undertake a food storage program. If you are a Latter-Day Saint, then you know that your church leaders have been encouraging and counseling members to do so for many, many years. Some people get into food storage as protection from economic or natural disaster. (Sometimes the economic disaster is personal. Most of the people I know who actually have lived off of their food storage did so after one or more family members lost a job. All of them have said that not having to worry about feeding the family helped a lot!) Some people use it as a hedge against inflation. Some people simply like having a large supply of the basics on hand because for those who do a lot of “home” cooking, it makes it very convenient. Some of us get into food storage for a combination of the above reasons.

My original approach to food storage was to simply store A LOT of the foods that we use on a regular basis. I soon accumulated an incredible amount of cans, and keeping them rotated and organized was quite a chore. This is when I originally became acquainted with a company called “Shelf Reliance”. They sell a wonderful food rotation system. I was able to catch them when they were having a sale and order the size and configuration that was perfect for my needs. It has become my very favorite item in my kitchen (even better than my polka-dot bake ware):

It’s very simple to use; you load the new cans in the top of the row and take cans from the bottom of the row. That way you are always using the oldest food first, saving you from having tons of stuff expire because it got pushed to the back of the shelf:

The company offers other sizes and configurations, including small, single-row units that will fit on your existing kitchen shelves. The one I got just happened to be the one that was perfect for all the stuff that I had (plus, it holds around 400 cans!).

For my staples, I frequently went to the LDS cannery near me. If you want rice, flour, powdered milk, etc., their prices are really good (as long as you don’t mind canning it yourself). In just a few trips, I was able to add lots of #10 cans to my stash!

I also have been trying to learn to garden – my dream is to someday live in the country and grow a lot of our own food. We even bought a dehydrator so that we could have the option of dehydrating all of the wonderful things that we would be reaping from our garden. There’s just one little catch: I just can’t seem to get the hang of the whole gardening thing. Granted, each year is a little better than the last, but there is still much to be desired. (If you look through the archives of this blog, you can see the whole sad story unfold!) I must say that I read many wonderful blogs with interest and amazement, and I find so much inspiration there. For example, just the other day I was so very impressed (and just a tad envious) when I read about the harvest of blue berries that the maven from “Bee Haven Acres” enjoyed from her 100(!) bushes (to see for yourself, click here).

To make matters worse, in addition to my poor gardening skills, we live in the city, on a typical city lot…eighty-percent of which is totally shaded by two huge oak trees in the front and two huge oak trees in the back. Even though I am not going to give up on gardening (I will conquer!), I know that if we are going to live off of what we grow any time soon, I think we will be pretty hungry. Therefore, I recently decided to really get with the food storage program. After taking inventory, I found myself thinking, “I sure hope we like beans and rice and apple chips”. Yep. Variety was not abundant in that pantry. Well, if I can’t grow it and the LDS cannery doesn’t have it, I was just going to have to find another source to get a better variety of food into my storage program.

I will tell you that there are other companies that offer food storage products, but I remembered the “Shelf Reliance” company and decided to check them out. To supplement the items that I already had, they feature a whole line of freeze-dried fruits, berries, vegetables, dairy, and other products. Did you know that there is such a thing as powdered eggs and powdered sour cream? Yep, there is! You can also buy a #10 can of the powdered cheese that is similar to that found in macaroni-and-cheese dinners (although a lot of people like to sprinkle it on their popcorn for some cheesy goodness). One unique feature of “Shelf Reliance” is that if you buy at one of their home parties (or through an independent consultant), you are able to not only purchase the #10 can size, but you may also buy a size called the “pantry can”. About three pantry cans fill a #10 can and it is perfect for smaller families or those with limited space, or to use as a “try me” size for an item with which you are unfamiliar or unsure.

Even more exciting for me was the Shelf Reliance automatic home delivery plan called the “Q”. There is a feature on their website that will help you figure out how much food storage you need for your family based on the number of adults and children, plus their desired daily caloric intake. Or, if you know what you want, you can go through yourself and make a list of items that you want in your food storage plan. It will then ask you for a dollar amount that you want to set as your monthly budget, and using that budget, it will pull from the items that you have listed in your plan and set up automatic monthly shipments. It is my own understanding about the following points: The minimum dollar amount for your budget has to be enough to cover whatever is the most expensive item on your plan. Another thing that you really have to consider is that once you commit to set up a plan, you are committed for at least three months. After that, you are free to suspend shipments or leave the plan. Also, once you commit to a monthly budget/dollar amount, you are not able to change the amount during the first 3-month trial period (although after that, it can be adjusted). However, you are free to adjust which products you want with each shipment if you do not like the order of items the plan has set up for you. Once you are set up on the plan, you will receive a shipment automatically each month.

Therefore, this is something to not commit to lightly, but I was ready! I was so tired of saying each month, “I really need to order some butter powder and vegetables or something this month,” only to have the end of the month sneak up on me with no food storage ordered. This plan was made for me! I will always budget for something for which I am committed, and sometimes I just need a little kick in the tail to get me going. I am so excited to have a plan and actually be working each month toward my goal!

In fact, I am so taken with this food storage program and the “Thrive” line of food products that I just signed up as an independent consultant. If you would like to learn more about Shelf Reliance, you can visit my personal website (click here). Also, I love teaching others about food storage and emergency preparedness, so if you are interested but not sure where to start, feel free to contact me with any questions you may have!

Have a wonderful week!

Homemade Granola Bars and a New Mission

2010-10-22T12:35:00.000-07:00

I have a new calling at church: I am now the Second Counselor in Relief Society (Relief Society is the women’s organization in our church). This means that I am responsible for all of the meetings that are not Sunday meetings. Our big “optional” meeting is held once a month, and in our congregation it’s every third Thursday evening. Many years ago it was called “Homemaking Meeting”, then for awhile they called it “Enrichment Meeting”, now it is just called “Relief Society Meeting”. During these meetings we focus on a variety of areas: spiritual progress, homemaking skills, family relations, service projects, crafts, etc. The “Gan-Green Thumb” and I will be reporting on the worthwhile things we learn there and we will share our new knowledge with you.

Last night we had several things going on, but something of interest might be the cooking demonstration that was given for a recipe using oats. Here is the recipe that was given at the meeting:

Homemade Granola Bars
4-1/2 cups rolled oats (regular, not quick)
1 cup flour (I like to use whole wheat flour)
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp vanilla
2/3 cup butter, melted
1/2 cup honey
1/3 cup brown sugar, packed

Optional: 1/2 cup mini chocolate chips (raisins, dried cranberries, and other dried fruit, whatever you like!)

Combine all ingredients but the chocolate chips (or whatever optional ingredients you are putting in). Mix and then add the chocolate chips in and mix again. Press into a greased pan (Pam works great!). Bake at 325 degrees for 18-22 minutes. Enjoy!!

**This is a basic recipe. . . if you like other things, try putting them in and make it your own recipe! Nuts, seeds, coconut, peanut butter. . . the options are endless! Note that if you add a lot of optional ingredients, you might want to increase the butter and honey in order for the mixture to be cohesive and not too dry.**

So…How Ya Bean?

2010-10-17T15:38:00.000-07:00

Dry beans are a great food storage item. When stored properly they have a long shelf life and they are a great source of protein. The food cannery that I utilize has pinto beans, white beans, black beans, and dehydrated refried beans. Since I do a little emergency preparedness/food storage newsletter for my group at church, I was on the prowl for some recipes using those items. I was surprised at how easy it was to find recipes using beans that are already cooked and then canned – those recipes are everywhere in abundance! But I was somewhat discouraged at how few recipes I could find using uncooked, dry beans.

The solution: I just needed to find a chart that would tell me how many dry beans equaled one of those cans of cooked beans so I could do a little “translating”. That was when I discovered that there is actually an agency that is devoted solely to dry beans! Can you believe that? Yes, it’s true – The U.S. Dry Bean Council is there to promote the consumption of dry beans, and they have a great website! On this website you will not only find some recipes, but you will find information on soaking beans, cooking beans, storing beans, and cooking with canned beans. And, yes, I was able to find what I was looking for; here is information from that website from an article they call “Counting Beans”:

One 15-ounce can of beans = one and one-half cups cooked beans, drained.
One pound dry beans = six cups cooked beans, drained.
One pound dry beans = two cups dry beans.
One cup dry beans = three cups cooked beans, drained.

There is a website for the University of Nebraska Cooperative Extension in Lancaster County which also seems to find beans exciting. On this website you will find some recipes for beans, as well as articles with titles such as the following :

“What amount of beans should we eat to gain their health benefits?”
“Aren't dry beans considered an "incomplete" source of protein?”
“How do canned beans compare to dry-packaged beans?”
“How do you cook dry-packaged beans?”
“What can you do if dry beans give you “gas"?”
“Can one dry bean be substituted for another bean in recipes?”

So there you go…if you have wanted to have beans in your food storage, but weren’t quite sure what to do with them, there are resources, as well as a whole Council out there to help you! (If you really want to have some fun, type in “recipe for pinto bean fudge” into your internet search engine. You will be amazed at how many websites pop up!)

Summer Garden 2010 Final Report: The Good, The Bad, and The Really, Really Ugly

2010-09-08T18:12:00.000-07:00

This was the third year of summer gardening for “Gan-Green Thumb” and I, and The Thumb was in fine form. There was plenty of devastation throughout the garden, a testament to the power of idiocy and a hidden mean streak targeting all things green. Here is our final report:

We cannot grow tomatoes. They start out great, and the plants even get some pretty good size on them. But they have two enemies that we just cannot seem to overcome, no matter how much we spray and treat. The first enemy is something called “blossom drop”. I’m pretty sure that our summer daytime temperatures of 975 degrees were to blame for this. I may try to start earlier in the season next year and just do some greenhouse/covered gardening. The second problem I encountered was what I think might have been “blight”, although I’m not totally sure. After being unsuccessful with various treatments, I pulled the plants up in order to prevent them from contaminating the rest of the garden, just in case it really was blight. If we are going to have tomatoes, I guess I will have to barter for them with something that I CAN grow.

Our corn burned up. Especially the corn that the Old Coot had put in containers – it is hard to garden in containers when it’s 975 degrees. You just can’t keep things from drying out in two hours. I can’t explain what happened to the corn in the back of the garden. I’ll be bartering for that, too.

The little cherry bushes that we planted were massacred by the Golden Marauder. They are coming back up from the bottom, but I don’t know how they will EVER contend with her. She’s tenacious and unyielding, and seems to have some major grudge against them.

The Golden Marauder:

The green beans were a mixed bag. They started off great, planted in a little planter which was placed just outside the protection of the garden fence. They grew and grew, using the fence as a trellis, and making little green beans like crazy. Then the leaves started turning yellow. I checked for pests and disease – nothing. “Gan-Green Thumb” swore innocence in the matter. There was no explanation. Then my mother came in from sitting on the back porch.

“I know what’s wrong with your green beans,” she said. “I just saw Toffee lift his leg and pee all over them.”

Eeeewwww! I decided to leave the green beans for the birds and the squirrels. Even they didn’t want them. Next year we will plant green beans INSIDE the fence.

Here is Toffee, The Leg Lifter:

The cucumbers that I planted died (I think the Old Coot had sprayed some forbidden chemical in the spot in which I planted them earlier). The cucumbers that he planted lived and grew, but we are still waiting for cucumbers (I have picked ONE so far). I’m hoping that cooler weather will help pull them through.

Our strawberries did just what they were supposed to do, and they put on some pretty good growth. I look forward to watching and picking them next year.

Once again the blueberries did GREAT! The birds in the neighborhood had a beak-smacking good time with them. Next year there WILL be netting placed over the blueberry bushes.

The blackberries were quite productive also, not that we got to enjoy them. Next year there WILL be netting placed over the blackberry bushes.

The grapevines recovered from the attack by the Golden Marauder which occurred early in the season, and they put on some really good growth. I look forward to seeing some grapes next year (I think I will need more netting!)

The bell pepper plants have me confused; they grew tall and wide early in the season. A couple of them are taller than I am. But no peppers, all summer long. I decided to keep them alive anyway, and now that it is no long 975 degrees, there are peppers popping! I look forward to actually picking some soon.

And now, for the greatest success of all: My black-eyed peas. They did great! No bugs, no disease, just peas, peas, peas. The only problem was that I only planted only one small row, so there was never enough at any one given time to do a lot of good. Next year, I will just forget about those stinking tomatoes and give all of that space to black-eyed peas.

So there you have it. Another summer garden has lived and died, and I learned a little more this year. I have not yet decided if I want to mess with a fall garden (although logic says that would be the thing to do when living in the heat of Hades). However, I have a lot going on this fall. Of course, there is always time to read and attend some classes and garden club meetings. “Gan-Green Thumb” and I will keep you posted!

Injury Alert: Heat Exhaustion!

2010-06-18T11:47:00.000-07:00

As the season has progressed, “Gan-Green Thumb” and I have done our best to fight the bugs and fungi that have threatened to creep into our garden. Things have gone pretty well on that front so far, although my plants will probably never be featured in a magazine that shows pictures. I am beginning to wonder if my tomato plants might be showing signs of “early blight”. After reading more about it, I am pretty sure that my tomatoes last year might have fallen victim to this. So I’m spraying and doing what I can to try to save my tomatoes (once it starts, can you ever really stop it?) "Gan-Green Thumb” strikes again!

However, more than bugs and fungi, my biggest foe this year has been something that I can’t do a whole lot about: Texas heat. I don’t even know what this month’s water bill is going to be. I once watched a home gardening show produced out of Utah, and the hosts were actually talking about watering ONCE A WEEK! Were they kidding? Everything here is just absolutely baked, even with constant watering. Here is a picture I took at 5:00 p.m. of ground that had been soaked earlier in the day (about 8:00 that morning):

The Old Coot Who Married Me has been doing some experiments with various kinds of container gardening, but Texas is not conducive to that. These pots were thoroughly watered the night before (about 8:00 p.m.), yet this is what his plants looked liked by high noon the next day:

Fighting the heat has been my biggest struggle this month. So how is everything else going? Let’s take a look:

One of The Old Coot’s peach trees has major problems:

Is it the heat? That was my guess, although he has found some evidence of damage on the tree that he suspects was caused by the 10 million squirrels that live in the neighborhood. This is likely, since “Gan-Green Thumb” and I have found lots of peaches on the ground that have been enjoyed by the squirrels:

The grape vine is recovering (thanks to a barrier put up by The Old Coot), but there will not be grapes this year:

My bush cherries were finally planted, and at first glance seem to be doing okay:

But closer inspection reveals that the Golden Marauder has struck again!

Despite their struggles, the tomato plants are seeing a little progress:

The birds and squirrels got most of the blueberries, but there are still a few left. Occasionally the Old Coot and I find a lone ripe blueberry (they never ripen at the same time!), and whoever is lucky enough to get it will giggle like a kid while chewing that ONE berry for all that it’s worth!

The pepper plants have a lot of growth on them, but I’m not really seeing any peppers yet:

The strawberries have a little growth on them, but they sure look hot sometimes:

The corn in The Old Coot’s “experiment” is hanging in there:

His green bean experiment is hanging, too:

And joy of joys (for a Southern girl!), the black-eyed peas are coming along, too (Mom and I picked some this morning):

The Old Coot pushed his blackberry bush underneath our tree, and it is doing well. (I asked him if he was trying to make it easier for the squirrels to get to them and he laughed):

The Old Coot also scored big when he passed by a house that was getting rid of an old-fashioned claw-foot bathtub (it was missing a foot). His was tickled to death when the owners said he could have it, and we planted some of our raspberry bushes in there. They seem to be pepping up a little now that they are out of their little pots:

And the plants that are doing the best out of everything in the whole yard? The plants that were planted by the squirrels! You see, I buy a wildlife mix that has “pumpkin” seeds in it (although it was cantaloupe that grew from them last year) and the squirrels always have to “hide” a few:

Maybe I should just forget gardening and turn the whole yard over to the squirrels!

INJURY REPORT! The First Casualties of the Gardening Season!

2010-04-25T14:41:00.000-07:00

When “Gan-Green Thumb” and I planted our garden this year, we knew that there would be problems, but we didn’t know that they would come so soon! As you know, at last report, things were going well, but sadly, there are injuries, and possible casualties, in our garden. Come view the sad evidence with us:

The first thing that struck me was the condition of the grapevines. What on earth could have happened here:

“This looks like the work of Molly Hatchet, aka: ‘The Golden Marauder’!”

“I’d be willing to bet on it!”

“It looks like the Golden Marauder struck the raspberry bush, too! Absolutely diabolical!”

“I don’t think the Golden Marauder did this. It might be time to do a little spraying!”

Is anything going right in the garden? The lone blackberry bush, safely out of reach, seems to be doing okay:

They Old Coot’s experiments seem to be doing alright, too:

The strawberries and tomatoes are growing:

The corn and black-eyed peas have popped up, but I think that they were planted to far apart to qualify for “companion planting” (I never get anything right on the first try!). The marigolds are good and stinky, and hopefully will keep the Mexican bean beetle at bay:

The blueberries actually look like blueberries now:

Yet, the Golden Marauder continues to do her dastardly deeds. Here she is with some of her newest handiwork:

I have a feeling that if we actually were to have to live off of what we could grow, we might just starve to death!

Ready…Set…Garden!

2010-04-13T19:49:00.001-07:00

It’s that time of year again…”Gan-Green Thumb” and I are ready to start gardening. Gardening in Texas can be tricky; you have to plant your vegetables late enough that they are not in danger of frost (and here you never really know when the last frost will be), but you also have to plant them early enough that you can harvest them before the fire of Texas summer burns up the whole yard. This will be our third year to garden. Our first year was pretty much a wash-out (“Gan-Green Thumb” started way too late), and although last year was better, we still have a long way to go. But we are excited and ready to get going on this year’s garden and put to use all of those books that we have read.

There is a new threat to this year’s garden, however, and it is even more destructive than the “Gan-Green Thumb”: Molly-Anna Marie. She’s our new golden retriever puppy.

Yes, she’s cute, and oh-so-soft, but when it comes to plant life, she can tear out a newly planted violet in record time. She also loves to dig in the square foot gardens and stomp all over EVERYTHING! We will see how much suffering is caused in the days to come!

I have eagerly awaited the return of my four beloved blue berry bushes. I bought them year-before-last, and they were just tiny twigs (I had read on the internet that it was best to have two different varieties). Knowing that they liked soil that was more acidic, I planted them in pots with a mixture that was about 1/3 potting soil and 2/3 peat moss (give or take a little). I also give them a little shot of azalea food now and then. They have done so well! In fact, they have done so very well that they really are outgrowing their pots. Where we are going to plant them is still under much discussion, but they definitely need a new home soon:

I had ordered something called the Hansen bush cherry last year, which I have since read is not that great. However, here it is, and two of the three plants that I ordered actually survived the winter. It is another little critter that will need to come out of the pot before next year (I think I may need to buy some acreage!).

Miss Molly-Anna has done quite a number on my young grape vines, chewing some of the branches off at the base, but there is a little bit left, and they are looking pretty good:

One thing about which I am really excited is that this is the first year we have had a dedicated garden spot (besides the square foot gardens). I learned in a gardening class that tomatoes and peppers really do better if they have some room. I'm thinking that corn will probably like some room, too! The Old Coot Who Married Me borrowed a tiller from a friend and tilled up a little area in the back:

He has even been working on a simple little fence (to protect from golden-haired marauders). It will also be used as a trellis for the cucumbers and zucchini that I planted next to it:

The gate has been built, and is ready to be mounted:

The square foot gardens are still intact, and my raspberries are looking like they might need a little more “foot-space”. We are hoping to find an old, antique style bath tub or a stock tank to plant them in, because we have learned that they will take over the whole yard if they are not contained at all!

Since we absolutely LOVE strawberries, I decided to dedicate one of the square foot gardens to them, with enough room to run (I hope!):

The Old Coot Who Married Me has some experiments of his own going, including something that he calls “vertical gardening”:

My bell peppers are okay so far:

And I even have some little tomatoes starting:

This may look like some terrible dirt, and I admit that we have a few more years of amending this soil to get it in shape, but this is actually a row of corn with a row of black-eyed peas planted directly in front of it:

I am trying something called “companion planting” which is a concept put out by the book, “Carrots Love Tomatoes: Secrets of Companion Planting for Successful Gardening” by Louise Riotte. The idea behind this book is that certain plants do well when planted with other plants. Supposedly, the black-eyed peas will provide the corn with needed nitrogen, while the corn stalks will provide support for the peas to climb. I will later plant some marigolds among all of this, which are supposed to repel the Mexican bean beetle. Those little critters did a real number on our peas last year, and I was angry! If the marigolds don’t work, I will see if I can get some DDT or a flame thrower! (You don’t mess with a Southerner’s black-eyed peas!)

Here are more “Old Coot” experiments (our soil here is awful!):

And here are my compost bins:

I wish I could have the compost set-up that is recommended by the “Dirt Doctor”, but it is an open system and we have had too much trouble with mice around the green house, and they don’t need to be fed any more than they already are! The large green barrel is a compost bin that I ordered a couple of years ago. It does everything that it claims to do, and it was easy to assemble. However, for those who are budget-minded, a trash can with some holes drilled in it (as seen on the left of the picture) is almost as good. I have enjoyed having compost bins – between my recycling efforts and my composting efforts, the amount of trash that we set at the curb each week has been reduced significantly. However, my compost does not seem to “cook” as fast as I would like, and I obviously have more to learn before I am a “master composter”! I had to buy compost this year, which did not make me happy, but compost is not only a natural way to fertilize your soil, it can actually help to change the texture of that awful, clumpy soil that we have (over time). There is a website that I found that is dedicated to composting, and I will be spending some time there!

Once again we have cute little peaches making an appearance!

Will the birds and squirrels get them all, like they did last year? Will the mocking birds eat all of the blue berries once again? Will “Gan-Green Thumb” lose the battle with the Mexican bean beetle this summer? Will Molly-Anna Marie just take the whole garden out, saving us the struggle? Check back in a few weeks for answers to these burning questions!

A Call For Help!

2010-03-10T09:05:00.000-08:00

This blog is all about various aspects of emergency preparedness: food storage, gardening, basic preparedness skills, etc. But unfortunately, there are some things in life for which nothing will prepare you.

It has recently come to my attention that there is a little girl, only 11 months old, who is battling stage 4 cancer. This family needs all of the help and support that they can get! If you are interested in learning more about Penelope (Penny), then please visit the family's website:

http://pennies4penny.org/

Thanks!

Website Alert! "Dinner in a Jar"?

2010-02-22T18:56:00.000-08:00

The Old Coot Who Married Me is a member of an amateur radio group, and last Saturday night there was a group social. Since The Old Coot was in charge of the social, I decided that it was important for me to attend as well, mostly to support him. I was so glad that I went! My Friends Jay and Lauren were both there, and as always, it was so great to see them. Even better, My Friend Lauren, who is always on the prowl for new ways to use food storage, was all excited about her latest find. It is such a simple idea, I can't believe that I haven't seen it used in this way before, but I'm glad that I know about it now.

The website that she referred me to is called, "Dinner is in the Jar". The idea is similar to all of the "Cookies in a Jar" that many of us have seen at Christmas: the dry ingredients for cookies are layered in a Mason jar, ready for mixing, and all that you need to do when you are ready for cookies is add the sloppy stuff like eggs and oil. Well, the lady on this website has decided to do the same thing for meals by putting dry ingredients like rice or pasta, along with spices and dehydrated vegetables, etc., in a jar or a sealed mylar bag, and then when it's time to cook, there are just a few "add-ons". The cook book that she offers has the recipes for the items that go in the jar, as well as labels that you can photocopy and attach to your jars that list the add-on items and directions for cooking.

For example, the recipe for "Pasta Soup" lists macaroni, lentils, plus some spices that go into the jar, with the add-ons being simply 1 pint of cooked chicken cubes (I like buying the canned chicken just to have on hand for "crunch" times) and the 10-1/2 cups of water required for cooking. Since I just bought the book, I haven't had a chance to try the recipes yet, but they sure look good, and it is definitely an intriguing idea. "Gan"-"Green Thumb" and I will report back soon with the results of our first dish. In the meantime, please check it out!

Winter Storm – A Chance to Test Our Emergency Preparedness

2010-02-12T19:16:00.000-08:00

As I have stated before, watching the events that unfolded in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina forever changed my thinking, and I have become determined to make my family as self-reliant as possible. Being a novice at many things, I have just had to guess on how prepared we really are, especially since I live in an area that (so far, at least) is not prone to earthquakes, hurricanes, etc. Well, this week Texas saw snow, and our area actually saw more snow than we have ever had in a one-day time period. It was pretty fun, well, up until the point that our power went out. But even that had its “up” side because we got a chance to see where we really are as a family as far as being prepared goes (our home is all electric). Like pretty much everything in our lives, we learned that we had our strengths and our weaknesses.

A big thing that I did right was that I actually listened to the weather forecast for once. In our area, the weather can be so hit-and-miss that many times when you hear a forecast predicting inclement weather, it is easy to roll your eyes and say to yourself, “Oh, whatever.” This time I took the report seriously and went to the grocery store before things got bad. There was plenty of fresh bread, milk, etc., in the house. In addition to a house full of food that needed cooking/heating, we had lots of things to eat that didn’t require cooking. We were set. If we did need to cook, Robert had a little camping stove and fuel squirreled away that he bought at a garage sale (garage sales are a great source for acquiring that type of thing at a great price). I did realize, however, that while we had plenty of food in the house, we didn’t really have a decent supply of drinking water. Not a problem for a power outage for us, but if there was ever a major problem with our water supply, we might not be so happy. Need to work on that.

One thing for which we have always been grateful is the fact that we made it a point to buy a house with a fireplace. While it isn’t exactly an inferno, it did keep the house pretty warm, especially when we closed the other rooms off and congregated in the family room. Another plus was that we had plenty-o-plenty of firewood, all of which was free. Living in a residential area, there are at least one or two trees each year that get a good pruning, or even cut down. Unless those home owners also have a fireplace (most don’t), that wood ends up on the curb, waiting for collection on trash day. Robert volunteers to haul it off, and so far no one has ever turned him down – it’s a win/win for everyone.

The fireplace is definitely an asset, although I will say that now that I seem to have so many problems with breathing and sinuses, I will probably get a wood burning stove if I ever get my house in the country. With no electricity to operate a blower, we have to leave the doors on the fireplace open in order to get maximum heat, and the burning wood drives me nuts. There is a new product I have seen advertised that I am quite taken with. The Vermont Bun Oven is a wood burning stove that will not only heat your home, but also allows you to use the top surface for some basic cooking and there is an oven on the bottom for baking. Yes! My little house on the prairie will have one!

The second item for which I was grateful has also served to humble me through the years. You see, my husband is a tool collector; I can’t even tell you how many different tools and “toys” he has. I just know that he has stuff everywhere, and his “stuff” has been the subject of many discussions. When he told me a few years back that we really needed a gasoline powered portable generator, I found myself thinking, “Woof – another new toy to clutter up the garage.”

Well, today was not the first day that I was glad that he bought that thing. We have used it a couple of times before, after losing power during thunder storms, and it always comes in handy. Our big thing is that our freezer is usually pretty stocked, plus there’s the refrigerator, and we hate the prospect of losing all of that in the event of a long-term power outage. The generator provides enough power to run our refrigerator and freezer, plus something small like a lamp, and my husband always runs an extension cord over to our next-door neighbor’s house to help him out. (Note: If food safety is a concern, the Texas Cooperative Extension has a neat fact sheet, “Handling Food and Drinks When Losing Power” that is quite informative.)

We did learn a lesson today: You need to fire the generator up once in a while, when you don’t actually need it, if you want it to start right up when you do need it. I believe The Old Coot said this was in the instructions, and was something he meant to do, but just never got around to. It took him quite awhile, and a lot of struggling, to get it going today. We will be performing regular maintenance on our generator in the future.

I also learned to appreciate my cell phone. I am not a fan of cell phones; I generally find them intrusive and annoying, and I think most of us talk way too much. But it did come in handy today because we recently “bundled” our cable, internet, and land-line phone service. Even though we had purchased the battery back-up pack for our land-line “black box”, it died way before we were able to get our generator going, leaving us with only our cell phones, one of which I used to report our power outage. I guess I’ll have to rethink my opinion of both cell phones and bundled services.

A tiny hero in our “emergency” scenario was actually something I had bought as a fluke, as stocking stuffer gifts for many members of our family. I’m a big fan of QVC and they have something known as a “Today’s Special Value” (they pick one product each day and offer it for a 24-hour period at a really great price). Right before Christmas they had offered these really cute, little flashlights . Initially I liked them because they were in a set of five and came in really cute colors like lime green and purple:

They are exceptionally bright:

But what really sucked me in was the “glow-in-the-dark” ring that makes the flashlight easy to spot in the dark:

In fact, Mom was the first one to know that the power had gone off when she got up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. When her table lamp would not come on, she was able to easily spot her flashlight’s glow ring (she keeps the flashlight on her nightstand). She then came and told me about the power outage, and it was easy for me to spot my flashlight, too. Who knew that something so insignificant could be so helpful?

We were too busy taking snow pictures and trying to get the generator going to listen to the radio, but we do have a crank-powered radio available to get important information if we need it.
Well, that was our winter storm experience. Our power DID finally come back on, and we DO love electricity. There are some things we still need to work on, but overall, the steps that we have been taking towards being prepared did pay off – the day was not too bad!

So That’s What I Did Wrong With My Tomatoes! (Notes from a Class on Gardening)

2010-02-01T18:30:00.000-08:00

“Gan”-“Green Thumb” and I are lucky enough to live in a community that offers free classes on organic gardening every-other month at our local library. A local nursery, feed store, and a product line called “Nature’s Guide” are the sponsors, and there’s a new guest speaker each time. We recently attended a short, one-hour class that was taught by a very knowledgeable man by the name of Sabino Cortez. Among other things, Sabino is regularly heard on the radio show “Living Natural First”, and he also has his own company and website called Erath Earth . I have to say that I probably learned more about gardening in Texas in the one hour that I spent listening to him than I have learned in many months. Mostly, I found myself slapping my forehead and thinking to myself, “So that’s what I did wrong!” My forehead was glowing red by the time I left the library!

The big eye-opener for me was that even in January we are supposed to be thinking of our gardens. This is the time to be getting beds and garden spots ready. To control weeds in our lawns he recommends putting out the corn gluten meal early (it is known as a pre-emergent, meaning it is meant to stop weeds before they pop up; once they’re up, it’s not so effective). There is an article on the “Living Natural First” show blog that talks more about natural weed control, if you are interested.

Tomatoes: This is where I failed miserably in my first gardening attempts. I got a few tomatoes, but that whole thing about harvesting them throughout the whole summer seemed like just a myth. Here’s what I learned, to the best that I can make out my notes (I absolve Sabino Cortez of any lack of memory on my part):

Start garden prep now; compost is one of the most important amendments that you can add to your soil, especially for vegetables. Lay down a layer of compost between ½” – 1” thick on your soil and work it into your soil gently, keeping it at the top 2” of soil. He stressed using good quality compost. He said that it should be “fine” textured – if you can recognize individual components of the compost (such as wood chips, etc.), then it probably isn’t “finished” yet. Unfinished compost will actually grab nitrogen from the soil to use to help break down the unfinished components. A good compost looks like soil. Of course, some of the best is the stuff you do yourself; you always know what is in it. If you want to be “organic”, he said that you have to be careful of “bulk” compost when buying from an unproven source, as it sometimes has herbicide in it. (I had a little trouble following this part, but if memory serves, some compost has horse manure in it, which is generally not a problem. However, if the horse ate hay that was treated with herbicide, then it passes through, and goes from hay - to horse - to manure - to compost - to your garden. Once introduced into your garden, it can be a factor for up to 15 years!) He gave us a way to test compost for herbicide: Plant a raw peanut in a pot (they grow fairly quickly). When the plant has some growth on it, including some leaves, make a compost tea from the compost in question and water the peanut plant with it. If there is herbicide in the compost your peanut plant will usually die within 24 hours.

He also recommended something called “soft rock phosphate” (a natural form of phosphorus), and he stressed that tomatoes and peppers need this. If I’m reading my notes correctly, he recommended picking out the spots where you want to plant tomatoes, digging a nice deep hole, and then mixing at least 30% compost with the soil before putting it back in the hole, stopping at about 4” from the top of the hole. For that top 4”, mix ½ to 1 cup of soft rock phosphate with the soil, and fill it up!

Another amendment that he recommended was dried molasses. This helps to provide carbohydrates that all of those microbes in your soil need in order to “colonize”? (Who knew there was so much stuff happening out there!)

A major mistake that I made last year was planting my tomatoes in 5-gallon pots. Tomatoes like a lot of root space – if you have to plant them in a container, it will need at least a 10-gallon container. But overall, the deeper the soil, the longer the plant will hold up, with 3-4 feet between each plant.

All vegetables are “full sun” plants.

Good compost will give tomato plants all the nitrogen that they need to get started. Don’t give tomatoes nitrogen until they have fruit. From what I understand, if you give nitrogen at the beginning, you get a tall plant with lots of growth, but not much fruit. Once you see the fruit forming, then you can add some nitrogen; however, he stressed that you should not put the plant food too close to the base of the plant. You should put it about 6”-8” on the outside of the plant.

Another “Oh, no!” moment came when Sabino talked about watering your new tomato plants. He said that we should plant our new transplants, water them well, and then walk away. Don’t water them again until they start looking “droopy”. Apparently too much water is a real culprit because constant watering means that the tomato plants don’t develop a large, deep root system. This deep root system is needed when that 101 degree Texas sun is beating down on us in the middle of summer. The bigger the plant gets, the further away you water – it needs to “look” for water.

Another mistake I made when wanting to undertake organic gardening is that I pretty much equated “organic” with “don’t do a whole lot”. It still takes work, especially in the area of pest and disease prevention. Waiting until you have a problem is too late; you really need a weekly, routine foliar feeding in order to prevent insects from getting a foothold in the first place. He talked a lot about compost tea, garlic, and orange oil. If you would like to learn more, the “Living Natural First” show has a wonderful organic glossary that gives a quick summary on many products and treatments used in organic gardening, and it is brief enough that even a novice like me stayed interested and understood it.

I think I will have more tomatoes this year!

If you live in Texas, then I have another neat resource for you. I found a website called “Texas Home Vegetable Gardening Guide” and it is through the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension. Even if you don’t live in Texas, I would bet that your local extension agency has something similar for your area. I found this guide when I was looking for the average date of the last spring frost for our area. In addition to giving “last frost dates”, this guide addresses which vegetables are best suited for large or small gardens, gives light requirements for certain vegetables, tells which vegetables are easily transplanted, and much, much more! More than anything, I was surprised at how early some plants are supposed to be planted. According to this guide, in my area, there are things that I need to be thinking about planting soon! Anyway, this guide looks great to a novice like me.

So there you go; “Gan”-“Green Thumb” and I are getting excited about our prospects for having at least some limited success this year. We’ll let you know how we fare!

Happy planting and good luck!

How to Get Kitchen Staples With a Long Shelf Life at a Great Price

2010-01-16T18:45:00.000-08:00

If you are trying to accumulate a 3-month supply of basic food, or if you just like cooking from scratch and using basic ingredients, there is a resource that few people know about, and even fewer utilize. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints has long encouraged its members to try to accumulate at least a 3-month supply of food (a longer-term supply is even better) and a small supply of drinking water and other essentials, and they are masters of providing for the welfare of those members in need, so they actually operate canneries throughout the country. These canneries have some basic foods such as white flour, oats, sugar, etc., that are stored in the cannery in large bags (think 25 pounds or so), and basically you provide the labor of canning the food that you want in #10 cans or in mylar pouches. Since the church does not make a profit on the food, the prices are very reasonable. Currently you can buy a #10 can of white flour (4.8 lbs), with a shelf life of 10+ years (when stored in a dry place at 75 degrees or lower), for $3.05 a can. A #10 can of regular oats (2.7 lbs), with a shelf life of 30 years, will set you back $2.10 a can. (Note: prices are subject to change.)

The reason that I like the cannery so much is that it has everything you need: the food is there (no outside food is allowed in to prevent contamination), as well as the cans, the oxygen absorption packets, the lids, and the canning equipment. Like I said, you just pretty much provide the labor. If you plan on what the food storage goals are for your family and go to the cannery on a regular basis, you will be surprised at how quickly you will progress toward those goals. I also like the fact that the #10 cans have such a long shelf life.

It is my understanding that those who are not members of the LDS church but want to utilize the cannery are encouraged to go to the cannery with a friend who is LDS. However, many canneries will not turn non-members away, even if they cannot attend with a member of the church, as long as they adhere to the policies and procedures of the cannery. I would encourage you to call the cannery in your area to verify this before you go, just to be sure, as it may vary by individual cannery.

Want to know if you have a cannery in your area? There are canneries located in Canada, the eastern United States, Utah, the western United States, and South Africa, Tonga, and American Somoa. I have heard that there is a new cannery in Georgetown, Texas, but could not find it on the list.

The order form for the cannery is available on-line. It lists the the items that are available, the shelf life of each item, and the weight of the packaged item. The PDF even has a feature that allows you to fill out the form and it will do the math for you so that you can pre-plan your trip and take the form with you to the cannery. The price per can includes the cost of the food, the can, the "oxy" packs, and the lids. You will receive two free plastic lids for each 6 cans that you buy, but you can buy additional plastic lids if needed. If you are into dehydrating food and/or using your Food Saver and like to use oxy packs, they also sell oxy packs separately. (I buy a bag of 100 for $8.00.) Prices and item availability are subject to change, so check regularly and before each trip so that you aren't surprised.

I would encourage you to call the cannery that you plan to attend to get all of the information that you need; however, I will share my experience with the cannery nearest me and hopefully you will find the information useful for your next trip.

Our local cannery generally is by appointment and they like to make the appointments for groups of between 2 and 8 people. However, at our cannery, each Wednesday morning, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., is reserved for individuals and no appointment is needed. Be aware that even though they are open until 3:00, they want you to be leaving by 3:00, not showing up at that time. The people at the canneries who are there to assist you are volunteers and generally have a set shift that they "work". Plus there will be a "group appointment" coming in around 5:30 for which the cannery will need to prepare.

Children under the age of 16 are not allowed inside the operating area of the cannery. If you have small children, maybe you can sweet-talk a friend into watching them for you in exchange for a can of hot cocoa mix!

Open-toed shoes are not allowed in the cannery. Trust me, as a total clutz I am always glad to wear my sneakers for protection!

Don't wear your "pretty" clothes. You may think that you can delicately scoop all that stuff into the can (okay, maybe you can do it, but some of us can't!). My Friend Lauren and I recently canned 36 cans of flour together, and for a little while there we looked like we had been in a snow storm!

When you first go into the cannery there is a shelf that has some food on it that has already been canned. This is food that someone did not purchase, and you are encouraged to look on this shelf first for items that you want (it might save you some time).

As I said earlier, the food at the cannery comes in large bags or boxes (around 20-25 pounds or so). If you open a bag and only want, say one can of pinto beans for example, you do not have to purchase the contents of the whole bag, but you do have to can the whole bag. The cannery does not want any opened bags of food attracting unwanted pests. The excess cans that you don't want will go on the shelf for someone else to purchase. This is why I try to plan each trip in such a way that I am buying several cans of the same thing instead of "one can of this, one can of that, and one can of something else". You could end up doing a lot of canning without much to show for it!

Our local cannery is not set up to deal with electronic transactions of any kind. It is strictly cash or personal check, so plan accordingly.

Our cannery is a little bit of a drive, so on one of my early trips I decided to "make it count". I loaded my little 4-door sedan down. Unfortunately, I learned that just because all of those boxes will physically fit into my car doesn't mean that my shock assemblies can handle it. That early trip resulted in my poor husband having to do a total replacement on said shock assemblies. He was a much better sport about it than he should have been! I'm much more careful now: I'm reasonable in my loads, I mix in some light items like oats or macaroni when I'm getting flour and milk, I spread the weight of the load all throughout the car, or better yet, I try to go with a friend who has a vehicle who can handle it!

There are some prepackaged cases (6 cans/case) of specific items that you can just swing by and pick up: pinto beans, quick oats, white rice, hard red wheat, and the "starter kit". The starter kit has two #10 cans of hard red winter wheat, two #10 cans of white rice, one #10 can of pinto beans, and one #10 can of quick oats.

I like the fruit drink mix. It has a shelf life of 2+ years, currently costs $6.90 per can, and it is a powdered orange drink that reminds me of that powdered orange drink that the astronauts used to drink. It is high in vitamin C, and kids seem to like it. If you find that it doesn't mix as well as you like and is too grainy, I was told by someone who grew up drinking it that his mother used to mix it with hot-to-boiling water and then just let it cool before serving and this completely dissolved the crystals.

I go to the cannery on a fairly regular basis now, and I have come to actually enjoy these trips. It is a little bit of work (I won't lie), but it is so nice to know that my pantry is beginning to be stocked with lots of the "basics" that have a long-enough shelf life that I don't have to be constantly worried that it will go bad before I can use it. With my recent purchase of regular oats, stay tuned for some oatmeal-applesauce muffins that "Gan"-"Green Thumb" and I will be making soon!

Website Alert! Wonderful Websites to Visit!

2009-12-29T19:44:00.000-08:00

In our never-ending quest for knowledge, "Gan"-"Green Thumb" and I spend a little bit of time "surfing" the web, and we never cease to be amazed at the incredible websites and blogs that are out there. There are people who know so much more than we do, and we are happy to introduce you to those people and resources that we have found so that you can judge them for yourself!

The first website that I want to share is pretty much just a recipe website (allrecipes.com), but it has a feature that I truly appreciate. There is actually a feature on there that allows you to list four ingredients that you want to use, as well as up to four ingredients that you don't want to use (think food allergies or severe dislikes), and it will look for recipes using the ingredients that you want. This is a great way to try new things using those basic food storage items that you are collecting! I love it!

The next website is one that I find simply amazing. If you want to get going with food storage, but you just don't know how to get started or what to do with it once you have it, a lady named Crystal has the most wonderful website. Trust me, if you have some spare time, you could certainly spend some of it here! She doesn't just take cheesy pictures of her thumb, either -- she actually has video of things you want to see! Crystal inspires and humbles me, all at the same time.

The last website that I want to share is another site found by my son-in-law, Jeromy. In fact, here is his e-mail, pretty much as he sent it:

"Also found this neat website tonight...
This site talks about what the Red Cross recommends for disaster preparedness... If you go to 'Get a Kit' then 'Kit Contents' you can download a spreadsheet that you put in the number of people who are in the family, and the number of days the kit will cover and it auto fills in the shopping list for you.

Also, there is an interactive website that goes with this... Once you 'click here to begin', you can watch the videos and hit next through the steps. On the page for 'Get a Kit' then 'Create Your Own Kit', you can fill in the number of people the kit will cover, the number of days, and if there are medications or pets to be concerned for. Then after it calculates the amount of water and food and other things for you, click the link in the lower right to email the list to you or your family members.

Pretty handy lists and ideas for those who just feel overwhelmed when they are trying to get started with a bug out kit." (Thanks again, Jeromy!)

Enjoy surfing with us!

Fire Safety

2009-12-29T19:29:00.000-08:00

"Gan"-"Green Thumb" and I have to thank my son-in-law, Jeromy, for tipping me off to a great fire prevention website. Of course, fire safety is a timely subject no matter what that season, but winter is especially a good time to be mindful of this. We are inside our homes more, running space heaters and who knows what else, using our fireplaces, etc. To truly appreciate this website, you really need to spend some time checking out all of the links found at the green tabs on the top. It is chock full of publications and resources, and even has a special section for kids!

Thanks, Jeromy!

A Thought or Two About Flood Insurance

2009-12-29T18:57:00.001-08:00

Although I have known about flood insurance for awhile now, I must admit that I was quite surprised originally when I found out that most home owner's insurance policies DON'T cover damage caused by floods. Flood insurance is actually a separate policy. Although your insurance agency will usually help you purchase a policy, they are not the ones who are covering you. You are actually going through your insurance agent to purchase flood insurance from the federal government (FEMA). Prices may vary, but your insurance agent can help get the numbers for you and help you make it happen.

Flood insurance, like all insurance, is something that you might not appreciate until you actually need it. But if your area were to experience a flood, you would be very glad that you had taken care of this aspect of emergency preparedness. FEMA actually has an on-line map that can help you see where you fall within a flood-plain. Once I typed in my address and it brought up the map, I set the scale to 25% and used the "pan" feature to maneuver around the map. It worked well enough that even I could understand it!

Another thing that many people don't really think about is renter's insurance. For all those many years that we did not own a home I didn't think about it, either. Then, when my husband was in college, I actually knew two different families who suffered through losing everything in a fire. It got me thinking: even though we did not have a whole lot during this time, it was hard enough to come by the first time around. We would have been in a world of hurt if something had happened and we had to replace all of those towels, dishes, clothes, etc. So we actually purchased some renter's insurance which would cover the cost of replacing our household goods, or protect us in the case of theft. Our current insurance agent informed me that rates, etc., for renter's insurance are usually based on the county in which you live. Where we live, my insurance agency requires purchasing insurance at a minimum level of $15,000, and the rates vary from about $90 - $130 per year, depending on whether you are in a single-family dwelling or a multi-family dwelling. Most renter's policies will also protect you against liability, just in case someone gets hurt while visiting you.

Insurance: Hope you never need it, but be so glad to have it!

A Treat for Holiday Party Food "Emergencies"

2009-12-11T20:16:00.000-08:00

Have you ever had a loved one come to you at 8:30 at night and inform you that he is supposed to take a dish to the office Christmas party the next day? Are you prone to having last minute get-togethers at your house, and there are times that you need to concentrate on doing a quick tidying of your home instead of spending all of your time in the kitchen? Here is a little something that you can serve during these party food "emergencies" that will make you the "hostess with the mostest"! Just keep these ingredients on hand during the holiday season and you will be ready for anything!

Quick But Oh-So-Yummy Cheeseball

Two 8-ounce packages of cream cheese
One 8-ounce package of shredded cheddar cheese
One packet of Hidden Valley Ranch Dip mix
Chopped pecans (optional)

Let the cream cheese set out for about a half hour to soften (it will make it easier to mix). In a large bowl, mix the cream cheese, cheddar cheese, and dip mix. I usually just use a fork to smoosh and blend, and smoosh and blend, until the ingredients are thoroughly mixed together. When it is mixed, form into a ball. The cheese ball can be served "bald" or you can roll it in chopped pecans until looks like it's covered with little ants -- it's great either way.

Store the cheese ball in an airtight container in the refrigerator until it's time to serve it. When it's party time, simply plop the cheese ball in the center of a serving tray and surround it by a sea of your favorite snack crackers and you are ready!

A NOTE OF CAUTION: Do not serve this dish if you are shy; people will seek you out to praise you for your culinary skills and to try and get the recipe!

The "Gan"-"Green Thumb" Reading List

2009-12-02T19:34:00.000-08:00

I can't believe that it actually snowed the first week of December here in Texas, but that's all the proof that I need to show that it's time to spend some time indoors, possibly catching up on some reading. So, do you want to know just what "Gan"-"Green Thumb" and I like to read? We thought you'd never ask!

We absolutely love magazines -- I think I became such a big fan when my kids were little; I couldn't make it through a whole book very often, but I might at least read a whole magazine article before someone needed something. One of my favorite magazines is Organic Gardening. This is a great magazine if gardening is your main interest, and of course, the focus is on using organic methods. Some articles that you may have missed out on are: "Grow the Best Tasting Tomatoes", "Fit More Herbs in Your Garden", "A Drought Proof Garden", and "The Best Strawberries for Your Climate".

If you can't tell, my interests go beyond gardening alone -- my dream is to someday move to the country and live on between one and five acres. In addition to gardening, I would like to have some chickens running around, and maybe someday work up to having dairy goats, too. Hobby Farm Magazine appeals to this desire nicely (I originally found this magazine at Tractor Supply Company). Past issues list articles such as, "Milk Dairy Goats by Hand", "Plant Your Fall & Winter Garden Now", and "Greenhouses, Hydroponics and Cold Frames for Fall Gardening".

There is a companion magazine to Hobby Farm, and that is Hobby Farm Home (which I also found at Tractor Supply Company). Some articles that you might find here are, "Secrets to Using Unique Flours", "5 Chicken Pot Pie Recipes", "Preserve Your Barn's Character", "Easy Homemade Bread and Butter Making", and "Low-Maintenance Moss Garden".

The last time I bought magazines at TSC, I found the premiere issue of a magazine called Urban Farm. It's from the same people who bring you Hobby Farm, but the focus of this magazine is helping those of us who live on small plots in the city to find ways to live our hobby farm dream on a smaller scale. Some of the ideas that are shared here are "Turn Your Lawn into a Garden", "Container Gardening", and "Drying and Freezing Homegrown Veggies".

Mother Earth News is a magazine that I have enjoyed, for the most part. I will tell you that most of these magazines have at least a little tinge of "global warming/sustainable living" in their content (All right, already! We know!), but Mother Earth lost me a little bit when it had a couple of articles about our need to reduce our population rates. When it comes to the over-population zealots, I've always wondered which one of their kids they wished had never been born! But if you can just take it for what it's worth, this magazine has some really great "how-to" articles. Recent titles were: "5 Inexpensive DIY Greenhouses", "How to Heat with Wood", "How Much Would Solar Panels Cost You", and "Recipes for Healthy No-Knead Bread".

For those of you who are like me and not only want to live in the country, but also aspire to attaining a pretty high level of self-reliance (think individual water well and solar panels or wind generator), Back Home Magazine is great! (Also originally found at TSC!) I can't wait until the day I can have "A Compost-Heated Greenhouse", try something like "Generate Your Own Wind Power" and "Preserve the Harvest With Solar Dehydration", and enjoy "The Benefits of a Small House" and "The Struggles of Wilderness Living"!

For organic gardening in Texas, I find Howard Garrett, also known as "The Dirt Doctor", to be quite helpful. He not only has a website, but he has written several books and has a line of organic gardening products to help you try to keep your plants alive!

Now that the kids are older, I do get to read a book or two every now and then. Here are some books that I plan on wading through this winter:

All New Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew is still a favorite; I refer to it often. The focus of this method is using a 4-foot by 4-foot square (or other variation) to get 16 square feet of growing room instead of stretching your garden out into a 16-foot row. This is geared toward helping those with limited space have a garden in spite of their limitation. He also has what is the "perfect mix" of growing medium which will help your plants grow. I will say that the plants that I had in my square foot garden survived much better than my other plants (at least so far -- I'm not giving up!).

I recently bought Rodale's Ultimate Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening, Edited by Fern Marshall Bradley. It's a big old thing, and I'm sure there's bound to be something in there to help someone with a toxic thumb!

Another book that I look forward to really getting into is Carrots Love Tomatoes by Louise Riotte. This teaches a concept known as companion planting which purports that certain plants being planted with other plants can be beneficial. For example, apparently cucumbers are offensive to raccoons, so this book suggests planting them with corn. In turn, the corn seemingly protects the cucumber against the virus that causes wilt. I'm going to try some of this stuff next year!

Month-By-Month Gardening in Texas by Dan Gill and Dale Groom is a book that you can actually read month-by-month! This is just what someone like me needs!

Lasagna Gardening by Patricia Lanza and Compost Gardening by Barbara Pleasant and Deborah L. Martin will help you get the most out of all of that compost that you've been cooking up! Actually, Barbara and Deborah have the most wonderful website that I discovered while writing this post! I guess there's even more reading for us now!

I found The Big Book of Preserving the Harvest by Carol W. Costenbader while I was knocking around TSC this summer. It's a great guide for helping you preserve that big harvest that some of you actually have. It has a guide that lists the best method of storage, as well as when to harvest each fruit/vegetable and what to look for. Great!

This last book is not a gardening book, but if you are into food storage, it is great, too! This concept has been around for awhile, but this new addition caught my attention and made me want to kick myself for not trying this earlier. Make-A-Mix by Karine Eliason and friends is not only good for the person who wants to use all of that flour, sugar, and dry milk that they are storing; it is also a good book for the working woman who wants to make "home-made" meals for her family, but may not have the time. The concept is simple: in the front of the book are a few basic "mix" recipes that you make up ahead of time and store in a large, air-tight container. For example, the "Hot Roll Mix" calls for flour, sugar, salt, and dry milk (this makes a large batch of dry ingredient). Using this one mix, plus whatever ingredients the individual recipes in the back of the book call for, you can make Swedish Cinnamon Twists, French Bread, Crescent Rolls, Big Soft Pretzels, Hamburger Buns, Pizza Crust, and several other things. There is also "Muffin Mix", "Quick Mix", "All Purpose Cake Mix", and make-ahead dry mixes.

Well, I guess that's enough for now -- that should keep "Gan"-"Green Thumb" and everyone busy for awhile. Happy reading!

This Casserole is Actually Good!

2009-11-09T19:57:00.001-08:00

In any food storage supply it is necessary to have some canned meat. Unlike My Friend Lauren, I have not reached the level of canning my own, so I have to buy commercially canned meat. Most of the time I buy tuna, chicken, or roast beef, and use them in some of my classic dishes using rice, etc. However, this is a casserole that uses corned beef, just in case you're looking for variety.

Let me preface this recipe by stating that I really DON'T like corned beef. This is actually a dish that I first ate at my mother-in-law's house many years ago when she invited us to dinner. I took the first bite, mostly to be polite. And then another. And then another, until it was all gone. It is actually quite tasty, even if you don't like corned beef! And even better, it gives you another option for greater variety in your food storage. Enjoy!

The Old Coot's Mother's Casserole

1 can corned beef
2 cups macaroni (measured before cooking), cooked and drained
1 cup cubed cheese
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 medium minced onion (or substitute dehydrated onion to your personal taste)
Sage, to taste (about 1-2 teaspoons, depending on how much of a kick you want!)
Crushed potato chip topping (or substitute bread crumbs in a pinch!)

Combine ingredients in casserole dish; top with crushed potato chips. Bake 30 minutes at 350 degrees. (Note: Since I don't believe there's such a thing as too much cheese, I add some grated cheddar cheese to the top over the chips during the last 5 minutes of baking -- just until it's melted.)

Dehydrating: Another Great Food Storage Option

2009-11-05T20:08:00.000-08:00

We recently had our monthly emergency prepared-
ness meeting, and since I have already taught the group everything that I know, I asked My Friend Lauren and My Friend Jay to be our guest speakers. My Friend Lauren has been doing a lot of home food dehydrating, and she gave a presentation that absolutely amazed and inspired me!

Why would you want to dehydrate food? Dehydrated food weighs less (beneficial to those who move frequently), requires less space to store, and has a great shelf life when stored properly. The only drawback that I can see is that you need to account for water to reconstitute the food when planning water storage, or store some commercially canned vegetables, etc. (which contain water), in case there was also a problem with the water supply. But as long as the water supply remains good, this is a great way to go. Also, there are many foods, such as banana chips and pineapple tidbits, that are great eaten right out of the bag.

My Friend Lauren brought many visual aids, including her equipment of choice: her food dehydrator and her "Food Saver". The brand of dehydrator that she prefers is the Excalibur brand. Why does she prefer this model? In some dehydrators the fan is located at either the bottom or the top of the dehydrator. The trays that are nearest the fan get thoroughly dry, but the food in the trays that are the furthest from the fan don't always get completely dehydrated. The fan in the Excalibur is in the back of the unit; the air flows evenly over all of the trays, giving a more consistent result. If you search the website you can buy a new dehydrator, or you can purchase a refurbished model to help with your budget. My Friend Lauren is also a big fan of the "Food Saver" vacuum sealer, and she actually prefers one of the older, less flashy models (similar to the Model 2460A). She does use a heavier bag than they sell, however. She likes to use a 3-ply bag that she finds at a website called dcprocessingequipment.com. Even more exciting to me were the attachments that you can use on home canning jars; they come in both narrow and wide mouth sizes. My Friend places her deydrated food in the canning jar, adds an oxygen absorption packet, places the top on the jar (but not the ring), and then uses the Food Saver jar attachment. After it works its magic she removes the attachment and places the ring on the lid, and she has some convenient food storage packaging for her dehydrated food. (She likes to use oxygen absorption packets ["oxy packs"] in both her bags and jars for extra protection.)

There were some items that she did not recommend for dehydration, with meat being one of them (unless you like jerky, which is actually a favorite at our house -- The Old Coot Who Married Me will pay a crazy price for seasoned jerky from the meat market!). Because of health and safety concerns, she also buys the following items commercially prepared: dried shredded cheese, powdered eggs, powdered sour cream, and butter powder. She buys these items from a company called Emergency Essentials, but there are other companies out there if you want to shop around.

However, there are many things that CAN be dehydrated. Unlike me, My Friends are "green thumb" gardeners, and dehydrating is a great way to help them preserve their harvest. However, if that is not enough, she will buy fresh produce (the fresher, the better -- junk in/junk out!) or even bags of frozen produce and dehydrate those!

The whole presentation was amazing, but there were two items that My Friend dehydrates that I would have never thought of. The first is tomato sauce. She uses the tray insert for the dehydrator that you would use for making fruit leather, and sure enough, she gets sheets of tomato sauce that look like a fruit roll-up! Amazing! The second thing that she showed us was dehydrated Bush's baked beans. Wow! I would have never thought of that! My Friend Lauren stressed that it is important to have some fully-cooked foods that can be reconstitued and then simply warmed, in order to save cooking fuel (if fuel availability is a concern).

The amazing thing is the transformation that occurs when water is added to the dehydrated food. My Friend showed us some dehydrated corn and it pretty much looked like little rocks. However, she brought a large pot of soup that she made from her stash, and the corn looked as beautiful as ever! Bananas and some other foods can be a little brown, but Lauren's new motto is, "Brown is beautiful!"

Okay, now that we are all dehydrating, what will we do with all of this dried-out food? There are many books out there with recipes for dehydrated food, but My Friend Lauren was especially excited about a book that she had just bought: "The Dehydrator Bible". She let me thumb through it and I recall seeing a recipe that called for a hunk of tomato sauce, and it even gave the size of the piece that you need! My Friends love their fruits and vegetables, and I am a big berry lover, and there were recipes in this book to keep all of us cooking and eating for quite awhile!

Where did My Friend Lauren gain all of this knowlege and skill about food storage? A lot of it was obtained by just forging ahead and trying things (she's just that kind of gal!), but she swears by a certain website. Dehydrate2Store is an incredible resource that she highly recommends, and it will give you a good background to get you started.

I am so excited about learning this new skill! Thank you, My Friend Lauren!

Start Your Garden "On a Roll"!

2009-11-05T19:57:00.000-08:00

When is an empty bakery box not really a bakery box? When is an empty toilet paper roll more than just a toilet paper roll? Answer: When you put them together and they become a mini-greenhouse! This is actually two separate ideas that I got from two separate magazine articles, but I decided to combine them. You just need to make sure that your empty container has a little height (growing room) to get the best results. Then you simply cut the toilet paper roll in half. Stand the rolls straight up in the container, fill with potting soil, plant your seeds and keep watered, and you can get a jump on your garden. When the final frost has passed and it is time to transplant your young plants, since the cardboard roll is bio-degradable and is also open on the bottom, you simply place the plant, along with its roll-container, directly into the soil (at least that's what the article claims). It's less expensive than buying the bio-degradable peat moss pots. I can't wait to try this!

My Favorite Food Storage Gadget!

2009-10-03T15:42:00.000-07:00

One of the hurdles that many people face when thinking about food storage is wondering where to put it. I have stuffed it in the hall closet, under the bed, really just about anywhere I could think of. You do what you have to when you want to accomplish a goal, and I made it work for as long as I could. The main problem that I had is that I would forget where I had put things, and by the time that I had found them, it was already past the expiration date.

Then I saw a commercial on BYU television that changed my life in terms of food storage. This commercial showcased the most wonderful system! It was a free-standing rack that held cans. Lots of cans! The neat thing is that you load the new cans into the top of the appropriate row, and you use from the bottom of the row; therefore, you are always using the oldest food first.

I ordered my unit from a company called "Shelf Reliance". They have units in various sizes, and they even have little racks that fit on your existing pantry shelves. I won't lie to you -- it definitely was what my budget would call an "investment piece", but I figured that if it helped me to keep my food storage from going bad, it was worth the money. Plus, I waited until they had a sale, and I got a really good deal on it. They do have sales from time to time, so I would advise that you check with them often.

There are other companies who sell "first-in, first-out" can rotation devices. If you want to shop around then I would suggest searching the internet for "food storage racks" or "food can racks". I cannot vouch for this particular item because I have not tried it personally, but there is a site that has plans to build your own -- great if the ready-made rack is cost prohibitive for now. (I would love to know about anyone's experience with this.)

Whichever option is best for you, there is organizational help for food storage out there!

Help From Someone Who Knows! (The Queen of Food Storage!)

2009-10-03T09:39:00.000-07:00

When it comes to striving toward the goal of long-term food storage, no one has helped me more than a lady by the name of Wendy DeWitt, and I've never even met her. She came and gave a presentation in our area a few years ago. I didn't go, but the Old Coot Who Married Me went, and he came home and told me all about it. What I heard changed my attitude about my ability to actually achieve having a decent level of food storage for our family.

For years I had been under the impression that having "food storage" meant having a ton of wheat -- with which I had absolutely no idea of what to do! Wendy DeWitt changed all of that! Her message was simple: store what you eat (plus a few of the basics). Instead of accumulating immense quantities of things I wouldn't normally use, I started looking at what we would normally eat for breakfast and dinner for one week. I then made a list of the ingredients that I would need to make all of those meals and multiplied it by 52 weeks. This would be what I would need to have a year's supply. I could then start buying items while they were on sale, and fill in my menu ingredient list. If you would like more ideas on buying food storage, including setting a food storage budget, The Idea Door has some great ideas!

Is a year's supply a little too overwhelming for you? Then strive for a 3-month supply. Is three months still a little much? Start with striving for a 2-week supply. Why two weeks? Because if there was ever a "health" scare that required a quarantine (is anyone thinking "swine flu"?), you could expect it to last a good two weeks.

The good news is that if you missed Wendy Dewitt's presentation, too, then you can watch it thanks to the internet! She also has a blog that is worth checking out, and she wrote a neat little guide on food storage and solar cooking called, "Everything Under the Sun".

I hope that you find her as inspiring and informative and "Gan"-"Green Thumb" and I have found her to be! She truly is the "Queen of Food Storage" for me!

How Long Will My Food Stay Fresh? Ask an Extension Agent!

2009-10-03T08:36:00.000-07:00

Whether you are looking at long-term food storage, or just keeping the groceries for the month fresh, it's important to store items in the proper way and have a good idea of each item's shelf life. This is where I have found state/county extension services to be a great resource. Whether it is food storage, gardening, or emergency preparedness, extension agents have a wealth of knowlege to share and I always have found them to be more than happy to help.

One of my favorite information sheets on food shelf life is from the Texas AgriLife Extension: "Safe Home Food Storage" . Another good information sheet is from the Virginia Cooperative Extension and is called "Food Storage Guidelines for Consumers".

Our area is prone to thunderstorms with high winds and we sometimes lose electrical service; the longest that we have been without service is about a day and a half (just enough to start worrying about the refrigerator!). I found the information from the Texas AgriLife Extension Service that tells how long refrigerated food will stay fresh after the power is off to be very helpful. In fact, this website has a whole list of great information about disaster preparedness and recovery!

Whole-Wheat Pancakes

2009-10-02T18:12:00.000-07:00

For those of you who have some wheat stored away, here's another recipe to help you use it. The thing that I really like about this one is that there is no wheat grinder involved -- plus, almost everyone likes pancakes! ("Gan"-"Green Thumb" likes pancakes "drowning" in maple syrup!)

Whole Wheat Pancakes

1 cup milk

3/4 cup wheat

2 eggs

1/8 cup oil

1 Tablespoon honey

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder

Place milk and wheat in a blender and blend at high speed for 4 minutes. After 4 minutes, turn blender off and and add eggs, oil, and honey, then blend on "low" speed. After these are blended in, turn blender off and add baking soda, salt, and baking powder; turn blender on just long enough to get these ingredients blended in -- DO NOT OVERBLEND! Pour batter as normal and cook. Makes about twelve 5" pancakes.

A Great "Hy-Bread" Recipe!

2009-09-30T18:00:00.001-07:00

Through the years many people who were involved in food storage saved mainly the basics: rice, oats, beans, and of course, wheat. Wheat is a great staple, but only if you know what to do with it. The "Gan"-"Green Thumb" and I are not especially experienced with baking bread. That makes the bread machine that my mother-in-law gave me several years ago even more valuable. There truly is nothing better than home-made bread, and with today's bread machines doing the work for us, even the busiest family can have some.

The Old Coot who married me comes from a family who actually makes the real deal, but even his aunt had a recipe for a bread machine. The reason that I like this recipe so much is that it allows you to incorporate some of the wheat that you have been storing into this recipe, without it being too much. The wheat that I add is a little coarser than most people would probably use. This is mainly because I don't have an electric wheat grinder, and running it through the manual grinder ONCE is enough for me. If you don't want coarse wheat flour, by all means, feel free to run it through the mill another time or two (or invest in an electric grinder). Either way, this bread is great! ("Gan"-"Green Thumb" told me that it wished it had a nose so that it could smell it baking!)

White/Wheat Hybrid Bread for Bread Machine
1-1/3 cup ice water
1/3 cup oatmeal
1 cup wheat flour
2 cups white flour (you can use regular flour, but flour for bread machines gives a lighter loaf)
2 Tablespoons powdered milk
1½ teaspoon yeast (rapid rise works best)
¼ cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1½ Tablespoon butter or margarine
Mix the dry ingredients (except for margarine) in a mixing bowl. Put ice water into the bread machine first, add the dry ingredients, and add butter last on top. Use the “rapid rise” setting (or whatever setting on your machine is closest to 3:20).

In Case of Emergency: Put Your Cell Phone on "ICE"

2009-09-30T17:13:00.001-07:00

This was a tip that I saw on a local news broadcast. If you were in an accident of some kind and were unable to speak for yourself, who would you want to have notified? This news story offered that your cell phone could be a tool that emergency responders might use to reach the one person who needs to know most if you are incapacitated. By having an entry labeled "ICE" ("In Case of Emergency"), you are able to designate who you want to have notified first in case of emergency. This is an especially good idea if you have teenagers out there, driving around on their own. Of course, it's not a surefire thing: if you have your phone password protected, it might take emergency assistance personnel/healthcare providers awhile to figure out how to get into your phone, and phones are sometimes thrown clear of an accident scene. So it's a good idea to have other emergency information on you in other forms. But if you have a simple, ancient, no frills phone like this old lady has, and if you keep that phone in a purse, etc., it is another tool that offers some measure of help!

Things I've Learned About Gardening:

2009-09-30T16:58:00.000-07:00

It can actually be too hot for things to grow. Depending on what you want in your garden, if you live in Texas, find a way to plant early.
Organic gardening is hard! At my house, insects and fungi thought many of those organic tonics were snacks. Next year: DDT or a flame thrower! (Just kidding!)
Squirrels and birds can eat even more fruit than people do.
Don't plant vine-type plants in a "square-foot" garden without a trellis. They take over everything!
It takes four blueberry bushes to get one pint of blueberries.
If you have a bald spot in your yard, plant a vegetable there. The grass will grow like crazy as soon as you do!
If you use popsicle sticks as plant markers, squirrels and dogs will steal them out of your garden and use them for chew sticks.
If you figure out the price per pound for home-grown food (for those with a toxic thumb), it's probably about $30 a pound. But the experience you gain toward being self-sufficient: priceless!

Let Me Introduce Us!

2009-09-30T11:27:00.000-07:00

I would like to take this opportunity to introduce you to my thumb. At the beginning of my venture into gardening (summer of 2008), I was praying that I would have what is commonly called a "green thumb" (even though it is short and stubby, and distinctly unmanicured). After two summers of gardening, I have come to the sad realization that my thumb is not "green", but alas, it is actually "gangrene". It is tainted, diseased, and toxic to all plant life. Whether it's planting too late in the season, or attracting every pest and fungus in the state, I don't seem to be on top of the gardening thing. But, I want to keep trying! I feel it's important.

I first realized that gardening, and self-reliance in general, are important after Hurricane Katrina. Seeing what the people there went through after the hurricane made me realize that sometimes the most reliable help is yourself. I truly think that the difference between being a victim and being okay can often be the knowledge and skills that you acquire before an emergency strikes.

The second motivation came when I was called to be the "Emergency Preparedness Specialist" at my church. It is my job to teach our church members about food storage and general emergency preparedness. I'm pretty sure that the local church leaders picked me after a discussion that went like this:

"Is there some knit-wit that we know who has never made bread, done gardening, does not know how to sew, and knows nothing about emergency preparedness?" our Bishop asked.

"I think I know someone," came the reply.

"Good," came the answer. "Let's call her to this position."

So I have had to learn as I have gone along. I am the first to tell you that I AM NOT AN EXPERT IN ANYTHING! The only thing that I have going for me is that I have found some really good sources of information, which I would like to share with as many people as possible. Oh, and there's the fact that I actually am enjoying learning about all of these things. There are things that I didn't know that I didn't know. I even enjoy my feeble attempts at gardening. When you are not very good at it, it makes every tomato and pepper that you harvest even more of a treasure.

The main thing is that I believe that the time to learn is NOW. I figure that I can learn what works and what doesn't during this early time, and hopefully by the time I really need to know what I'm doing, I will have it all worked out. I can honestly say that this year's garden was much better than last year's, and the things I learned this year will help me be more successful next year.

If learning about self-reliance and being prepared appeals to you, and if you are not faint of heart, then I invite you to follow the adventures of my thumb and me as we wreak havoc with nature and try to survive. Check in with us often (we plan to post items frequently). We need all the cheer leaders that we can get!