A home food preserving thread.

[sime42]

Here we go then, a thread about preserving your own garden produce. Following on from some chat on the "How are the veggies coming along thread".

Post your recipes, knowledge, ideas etc on here. Or don't, if it's not your bag.

So to kick it off, this is the recipe that I use for making Sauerkraut. The cabbages are months off yet but shaping up nicely so I'll be using it again in the autumn hopefully.

 

https://www.wildfermentation.com/making-sauerkraut-2/#0

 

Essentially you just use chopped cabbage and salt, any amount you want but in the ratio 2kg cabbage to 3 tablespoons of salt. Plus other veg and herbs and spices as desired. Pack it all tightly in a big jar and leave to do its thing, ferment, for a few weeks, maybe a month. It smells questionable but tastes pretty good at the end of the process. 

 

 

[AHPP]

I threw some red cabbage and vinegar in some questionably clean jars and forgot about them for months. Didn't even cover the cabbage. Tipped it around a few times in the first few days. Still fine. You can't go wrong (you probably can go wrong).

Edited July 24, 2022 by AHPP

[kevinjohnsonmbe]

10 hours ago, sime42 said:

Here we go then, a thread about preserving your own garden produce. Following on from some chat on the "How are the veggies coming along thread".

Post your recipes, knowledge, ideas etc on here. Or don't, if it's not your bag.

So to kick it off, this is the recipe that I use for making Sauerkraut. The cabbages are months off yet but shaping up nicely so I'll be using it again in the autumn hopefully.

 

https://www.wildfermentation.com/making-sauerkraut-2/#0

 

Essentially you just use chopped cabbage and salt, any amount you want but in the ratio 2kg cabbage to 3 tablespoons of salt. Plus other veg and herbs and spices as desired. Pack it all tightly in a big jar and leave to do its thing, ferment, for a few weeks, maybe a month. It smells questionable but tastes pretty good at the end of the process. 

 

 

Do like Sauerkraut!

 

I lavished out on a dehumidifier last year - predominantly for the surplus apple crop. 
 

I know the cost benefit ratio will not reach the benefit side until after a plutonium ½ life - and even that is dodgy if the elec keeps going up 😂, and that there are cheaper ways of preserving Apple, but the nipper loves the apple rings and that makes it all worthwhile. 
 

I did slow dry quite a load of 🌶 beside the fire one year while the Mrs had a pal staying. 
 

She looked like she’d been CS gassed!

 

That was worth it too 😂

[Stere]

Cider or wine vinegar is alot nicer to use in pickles than the malt or pickling vinegar imo but its abit more expensive.

 

 

Korean Kimchi  is abit more trendy than kraut cabbage but basically the same i've nor tried  fermenting methods only done pickles.

 

Have a shit load of cucumbers atm keep meaning to do some more pickles  feeding several cucumbers each day  to the chickens.

 

This time of year always have a glut in the garden always end up with way more than can eat corgettes going crazy  all broadbeans and french climbing beans and peas  have come ready at once etc.

 

 

 

 

Edited July 25, 2022 by Stere

[coppice cutter]

The wonderful John Seymour always preached that the various arts of preserving your self-grown food were just as, if not more, important than producing it in the first place.

[Conor Wright]

55 minutes ago, coppice cutter said:

The wonderful John Seymour always preached that the various arts of preserving your self-grown food were just as, if not more, important than producing it in the first place.

He wasn't wrong either. 

[coppice cutter]

19 minutes ago, Conor Wright said:

He wasn't wrong either. 

He wasn't wrong about much.

 

Here he is commenting on 'progress' in Sub-Saharan Africa.

 

 

Totally contrary to the common narrative (as he seemed to be on most things!) but makes a lot of sense.

 

Sorry for the de-rail!

 

 

[kevinjohnsonmbe]

34 minutes ago, coppice cutter said:

He wasn't wrong about much.

 

Here he is commenting on 'progress' in Sub-Saharan Africa.

 

 

Totally contrary to the common narrative (as he seemed to be on most things!) but makes a lot of sense.

 

Sorry for the de-rail!

 

 

Prophetic!

 

Certainly as relates EU which remains one of the greatest barriers to the (so called) 3rd world being able to achieve the full potential of value added to raw crops. 
 

Did however laugh to hear him waxing lyrical about the need and benefit of spreading muck though - given the plumes of fag smoke and reference to 15% interest I’m guessing early-mid 80s and possibly before bTB and contamination of the watercourse was a ‘thing.’

 

 

[Stere]

Makes alot of interesting points. The timelines of if his future predictions of peasants going back to the land etc  with regards to fossil fuels peak oil etc.

 

Being a peasant farmer is very hard toil physically. Its not  very healthly on the body to be spending long hrs doing the  same repetitives manual tasks of hand weeding crops etc.  I think he kind of glossed over that aspect.

 

There is an idea that where humans went wrong was way earlier when agri was first invented.That  hunter gathers had alot more free time and were healthier.

 

Alot of predictions about the collaspe of the current conventional fossil fuel based society have being made for yrs but haven't yet materialized  not yet anyways.....

 

Wouldn't like to live without a chimney though wood smoke still  is terrible cause of poor  health in "3rd world" places a  enclosed stove and a flue is a cheap worthwhile technology .

Edited July 25, 2022 by Stere

[coppice cutter]

55 minutes ago, kevinjohnsonmbe said:

Prophetic!

 

Certainly as relates EU which remains one of the greatest barriers to the (so called) 3rd world being able to achieve the full potential of value added to raw crops. 
 

Did however laugh to hear him waxing lyrical about the need and benefit of spreading muck though - given the plumes of fag smoke and reference to 15% interest I’m guessing early-mid 80s and possibly before bTB and contamination of the watercourse was a ‘thing.’

 

 

I think that in retrospect the widescale shift from FYM to slurry has been a poor move for the land. After nearly thirty years of using slurry, I've now returned to FYM and the change in soil condition over the past five or so since the change has been profound.