KITCHEN GARDEN PROVIDES VEGGIES ALL YEAR

For all of us die-hard gardeners, the world is just not right when something green is not growing. That’s why late fall and the winter months seem so terribly long.

Kitchen gardens provide the perfect solution to the winter doldrums. The concept is really very simple; it is growing vegetables from veggie stumps and vegetable scraps. These are usually tossed but, with just a little work, they can regenerate many times over.

Many varieties lend themselves well to this method. A few of the more popular ones are:

CELERY

 

Celery stalks can be grown from a stump. Merely cut the bottom two inches off the bottom of a celery stalk and plant it root-side down in a saucer of water or into one or two inches of potting soil or moist sand. Leaves, then tender stalks will appear from the center. When it is well-rooted, put it in a bigger pot and enjoy fresh stems and leaves for months.

LETTUCE, BOK CHOY AND CABBAGE

Place leaves from these plants in a bowl with just a little water. Put the bowl where it gets plenty of sunlight and mist the leaves with water a couple times a week. After a few days, when roots and new leaves appear, plant the new plants in soil.

LEMONGRASS

This herb grows just like grass. Place the leftover root in a bowl or jar with enough water to cover it and leave it in the sunlight. After a week, put it in the herb garden or a pot.

BEAN SPROUTS

Soak a tablespoon of your favorite beans in a jar with shallow water. Leave overnight and then drain the water and put the beans in a container. Cover the container with a towel overnight and rinse in the morning. Keep doing this until sprouts appear and reach the size you want.

AVOCADOS

Wash avocado seeds and use a toothpick to suspend them over water in a bowl. Water should cover the bottom inch of the seed. Keep it in a warm place but not in direct sunlight. Check the water each day and add more as needed. It can take six weeks for the stem and root to appear. Once the stem is 6 inches high, cut it back to 3 inches. When leaves appear, plant the seed in soil, leaving half an inch above ground.

POTATOES

 

Potatoes can be started from peelings. Cut the peelings into two-inch pieces, making sure that each piece has at least 2 or 3 eyes in it. Allow them to dry overnight and then plant 4 inches deep in soil, with the eyes facing up. In a few weeks you will have new potato plants.

SWEET POTATOES

Cut each one in half and suspend it in the same manner as for avocados. Roots will appear in a few days and sprouts can be seen on top of the potato. Once the sprouts are 4 inches long, twist them off and put in a container of water. When the roots are an inch in length, place them in sand.

GINGER

Ginger is easy to re-grow and it will provide you with a steady supply for months. Simply place a spare piece in potting soil. New shoots and roots will appear in about a week. Pull it up and use it again. Be sure to always save a piece of rhizome from each new plant so you can keep the cycle going.

PINEAPPLE

Cut off the top and insert a few toothpicks to hold it above a container of water. Keep it in direct sunlight and change the water every other day, making sure to keep the container full. Roots will appear in about a week. Plant them in soil outside and in cooler climates, keep them inside.

GARLIC

Just pull a clove off and plant it with the roots facing down. Place in direct sunlight and once roots appear, cut them back so you get a bulb. Part of the new bulb can be planted again.

ONIONS

Cut the root of the onion off, leaving half inch of onion attached. Cover lightly with potting soil and keep in a sunny area. For green onions, put the entire white base with the roots in water and set it in direct sunlight. Change the water every few days. Snip off what you need and let the rest grow.

PUMPKINS

Take your jack-o’-lantern and wash and dry the seeds. Spread the seeds in a sunny area and cover with soil. Even easier, you can plant the entire jack-o’-lantern, just fill with soil and plant the whole fruit.

PEPPERS

Save the seeds, plant in potting soil and keep in direct light. These grow fast so you can keep saving seeds over and over.

TOMATOES

You can have those fresh tomatoes and BLT’s all winter. Plant seeds indoors in pots, make sure they get plenty of sunlight and water a couple times a week.

TURNIPS

Salvage the tops of turnips and put them in a container of water. New green tops appear in a few days. Allow roots to grow until they are ready to be transplanted. This works for many root crops like beets and parsnips.

CHERRIES

You can grow an entire new tree from a pit. Keep it in cold storage a few weeks so it will germinate. Clean it, put it in nutrient-rich soil and put it in the fridge in a lidded container. Leave it three months and then plant outside.

APPLES

Remember Johnny Appleseed? Apple seeds can be planted, just allow them to dry first. However, several seeds from the same apple will yield different kinds of apple trees. You will need at least two trees for them to grow well. This technique can be used with peaches, nectarines and plums too.

LEMONS

Save your seeds and grow dwarf trees inside. Meyer lemons produce smaller plants so they are a better choice for indoors. Just clean and dry the seeds and plant in rich soil. Be patient though, you will have to wait a couple years for your efforts to pay off.

HAZELNUTS AND CHESTNUTS

These trees can also be grown from seed. Just dry them out well before planting and remember to plant more than one for cross pollination.

This is just a partial list of fruits and vegetables that can be grown right in your own kitchen. Now, you can’t get much fresher than this!

POPCORN ISN'T JUST POPCORN

Who doesn’t love popcorn? Well, I know a couple folks, there just has to be something wrong with anyone who doesn’t like this light, fluffy salty treat for the taste buds.

For us connoisseurs of America’s favorite snack food by volume, we know that popcorn is a lot more complicated than just one snack. After all, you can add most any flavoring to it ranging from cheese flavoring, chocolate, spices and caramel, to name a few. There are also many different varieties of popcorn to choose from, something that will suit everyone’s palette.

To help distinguish which kind is most suitable to your taste, there is a little popcorn 101 information that needs to be clarified. What few people know is that all corn is a human invention. It cannot exist naturally in the world but rather it must be planted and protected by humans. It is believed that it was developed in central Mexico at least 7000 years ago from a grass called teosinte.

Many folks who are unfamiliar with the ways of the country believe that popcorn can come from the large fields of corn that they see. Not so. There are actually three types of corn. Dent corn, so named for the dent that forms on top of the kernel as it dries, is commonly known as field corn. Sweet corn is higher in sugar than dent corn. There are over 300 varieties of sweet corn plants which are harvested in their immature stage and eaten as a sweet summer treat.

Then there’s popcorn. This is a special type of corn that has a dense, moisture-resistant shell or hull. This strong hull allows pressure to build up inside the kernel when heated until the whole kernel explodes (hopefully!). Even though other whole grains like amaranth and sorghum can also pop, popcorn is what we all know and love.

There are basically just two kinds of popcorn; butterfly and mushroom. The main difference between these two is the shape of the kernel. Butterfly, also called snowflake, is best known for theatre popcorn and homestyle popped popcorn products that are usually eaten with just salt and butter.

The mushroom type is perfect for confection-coated applications like caramel corn. Its sturdy, baseball shape is minus the butterfly wings of the theatre variety and stands up to the processes of candy coating because it has more surface area. It also takes flavors very well, stays fresh and crisp longer than its butterfly cousin and is less prone to crushing.

Popcorn gets even more complicated. In each of these kinds, there is a wide range of quality, flavor, color and size variations. In each of these variations, there is also white and yellow varieties. White popcorn is a bit smaller than yellow and has a neutral, pure popcorn flavor. It is excellent for flavorings and seasonings. Some types of white are Lady Finger, Baby White, Sweet Baby Blue, Tender White and more.

Yellow popcorn is a little bolder. It pops up with a yellow tint and looks more buttery which is why it is favored more at movie theatres. It also has a more distinctive flavor. Yellow types include Baby Yellow, Big and Yellow, Extra Large Caramel as well as others.

Many people prefer the hulless variety even though, technically, this is not a variety but rather a characteristic. All popcorn has a hull which is the outer layer of the popcorn kernel. Usually, the norm is that the smaller the kernel of corn, the fewer hulls it will have and the thinner they will be. Baby White, Lady Finger, Midnight Blue, Vintage Red and Tender White are all “hulless” varieties. Bigger popcorn varieties that have the fewest hulls are Big and Yellow, Extra Large Caramel, Sweet Baby Blue and White Meadows, which is grown in Canada.

Regardless of the kind of popcorn you choose, the science behind why it “pops” is basic for all varieties. Early Native Americans believed that a spirit lived inside each kernel and when heated, the spirit became angry, burst out and fled into the air as a disgruntled puff of steam.

Now, for the scientific explanation. Popcorn pops because its hull has just the right thickness to allow it to burst open. Each kernel has a small drop of water stored inside its circle of soft starch. Popcorn needs between 13.5 and 14 percent moisture to pop the soft starch that is surrounded by the kernel’s hard outer surface.

As the kernel heats up, water begins to expand and at 212*F. the water turns to steam and changes the starch inside each kernel into a superheated gelatinous substance. The kernel keeps heating to 347*F. when the pressure inside the grain will reach 135 pounds per square inch before bursting the hull open.

As it explodes, steam in the kernel is released and the soft starch becomes inflated and spills out, cooling immediately and forming into the shape we love. A single kernel can swell to up to 50 times its original size.

As the first bit of starch emerges, it forms a “leg” of sorts which catapults the kernel like a gymnast as the rest of the starch spills out. This is why it “jumps” as it cools. Kernels can pop as high as three feet into the air. Wow, all of this happens inside my beloved Whirley Pop popper!

With only 35 calories per cup of oil popped corn, no wonder we are in love with this snack. America eats 14 billion quarts of popcorn each year. That is 43 quarts for each man, woman and child. The world’s largest popcorn ball was created in 2013 at the Indiana State Fair. With the help of Pop Weaver, Snax in Pax and the Indiana Family of Farmers it weighed in at 6510 pounds and was 8 foot in diameter.

So, popcorn fanatics like myself, don’t give up until you find the variety that is right for you. We all have different tastes and, when it comes to popcorn, there is something out there for everyone.

Tony and Jeanine Plushnik, dear friends of ours have been on a mission with us as of late. We are in search of the perfect popcorn. So far, Tiny Tender is ranking right up there, but this mission may be never ending as new varieties pop up all the time. Who knows, we may even have to do a little experimenting and grow our own perfect kernels. That’s just about right.

WEATHERLORE FORECAST

Proverbs. Old wives’ tales. Folk predictions. Superstitions. These are all names for weather folklore, something that most folks dismiss as quackery. Some do fall into that category, but others are actually backed by scientific evidence.

Our ancestors didn’t have the local TV meteorologist to tell them what the forecast was going to be. Yet, they needed to know since they lived close to the land and weather affected their livelihood every day. So, farmers, ranchers, fishermen, hunters and all others who relied heavily on the weather learned to predict it by observing the natural world and the signs of nature.

Cloud formations, wind direction and speed, sunsets, animal behavior and the feeling of the air were all harbingers of what was to come. Today the study of weather proverbs is called paromieology. Some of it is fanciful fun but other observations have a lot of truth to back them up.

It pays to stay in tune with nature and, by watching the signs around you, you can tell what the weather forecast is for your exact location instead of the whole general area that forecasters cover. These clues from animals, insects, plants, birds, clouds and other signs can be substantiated with fact:

ANIMALS

Pay attention to how thick the animals’ winter coats are, the amount of body fat they have, where they hide their food supply and how they build their winter dens. Native Americans looked to the beaver and how they built their lodges. The bigger and stronger they were, the harsher the winter would be. If skunks have a lot of fat, it means that they are preparing to hibernate for a long winter.

If you saw chipmunks in December, the winter would be mild whereas if squirrels stash their nuts high in trees, the snow will be deep. Before a storm, game animals eat heavily, birds fly closer to the ground and spiders abandon their webs.

If birds flock and migrate early, it indicates a harsh winter. And who doesn’t look to the wooly bear caterpillars for weather wisdom? Experts are still out on a limb as to how reliable they are but, the saying goes that the wider the brown band in their middle then the milder the winter will be.

PLANTS

Various plants like clover close up when rain is approaching. When the winter is destined to be hard, some fruits and vegetables like apples and onions have thicker skins. When crops like acorns, rose hips and other nuts and berries are heavy, it will be a hard winter. It is how nature stays in balance; if she gives us a harsh winter, then she gives us more provisions than usual.

Without taking into account heavy fall rains and winds, if leaves fall early the winter will be mild whereas if they fall late it will be wild. On the same note, “if there are mushrooms galore, much snow is in store; no mushrooms at all, no snow will fall.”

BAROMETRIC PRESSURE

Many folks have barometers that accurately predict if moisture is coming or not. This is where we get our low pressure systems (storms) or high pressure systems (fair weather). How your body feels can also be a good barometer. When the air feels heavy and you are lethargic, the pressure is dropping and precipitation is on the way. Many folks swear that their joints ache when the pressure is dropping. On the other hand, if you are energetic and the air is crisp and light, it indicates that high pressure, or good weather, is on the way.

Many have mentioned that they can “smell the rain.” Who hasn’t noticed that clean, fresh scent after a rain? The reason for this is that the lower air pressure and higher humidity that comes with rain cause the ground to emit a sweet, rich smell.

WIND

Wind speed, velocity and direction are probably the best indicators of changing weather. When the velocity picks up and there are swirling and gusting breezes, it means that a low pressure front is approaching with foul weather.

 

Wind direction is one of the easiest signs to watch. East and northeast winds are counterclockwise currents of low pressure. Southerly winds are indicative of warm and humid conditions, most likely associated with rain. Winds from the north and northwest usually indicate cool, crisp good weather.

There is a simple bit of wind forecasting that each of us can do anywhere. Stand with your back to the wind. If the clouds are moving toward or away from you, the weather will likely stay the same. If the clouds are moving from left to right, the weather will get worse. When they move from right to left, the weather will get better.

MISCELLANEOUS SIGNS

“Red sky at night, sailor’s delight; red sky in the morning, sailors take warning.” The pink and red sunsets are caused by dust in the dry, clear air. Most of our weather systems come from the west so, when it is clear, it means fair weather is heading our way while storms are heading away from us. It is just vice versa when we see a red eastern sky in the morning, the moisture is heading our way.

This pretty much holds true for rainbows too. “A rainbow in the morning is nature’s warning.” Seen in the western sky, it is increased moisture that is heading our way. An evening rainbow in the evening means rain is moving away.

“Circle around the moon, rain or snow soon.” A halo around the moon is caused by refraction, reflection and dispersion of light through ice particles suspended in high altitude clouds and warns of impending moisture.

“When chimney smoke descends, our nice weather ends.” This is because when the air is very dense with moisture, it forces the smoke downward whereas when the air is lighter it allows the smoke to rise.

“When dew is on the grass, rain will never come to pass. When grass is dry at morning light, look for rain before the night.” If there is no dew on the grass, it means that skies are cloudy or the breeze is strong, both of which may mean rain.

When there is heavy cloud cover at night, it means warmer weather the next day because the clouds blanket the earth, acting like an insulator and keeping the heat in. However, if clouds persist the next day, temperatures will drop since the clouds prevent the sun’s warming rays to enter. For this reason, it only frosts when there is no cloud cover.

Ben Franklin once said, “Some are weather-wise and some are otherwise.” Since time began man has been fascinated with the weather and trying to predict it. Rightfully so because weather affects all of us. Even if we are not fascinated by it, it would benefit all of us to pay a little closer attention to the weather signs that are around us every day and to not discount weatherlore too quickly.