Garden thread.

Started by peg_688, April 12, 2006, 08:45:41 PM

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jonseyhay

Amanda,
The persimmons are not an Australian native. China or Japan, I think.

Do you have any persimmons recipes you could share? We have been looking for something to do with them apart from using them as a fresh fruit.

Amanda_931

I'll see what I can turn up.  Pudding or bread recipes should be pretty widely available (for the latter, try zucchini bread with less sugar, or banana bread with persimmon pulp as a straight substitution).  Saw a mention of preserves, which should be fairly easy to invent--run ripe fruit through a food mill (or especially with the bigger Japanese ones, just cutting them taking the seeds out, running through the food processor or grating or...., add sugar, cook on very low heat stirring constantly just like making apple butter, or you could add some kind of neutral tasting juice and some pectin.

I've thought the breads I've tasted have been over-spiced, couldn't tell what fruit was in there.

The beer is mentioned a bunch of places.  As an all-local beer during the Civil War (presumably by white people) or as something that only "negroes" would drink.  Got a couple of the more promising ones opening now, none very useful unless you've done a fair amount of brewing.

My dad had a hard time getting the recipe out of whoever had mentioned it to him, he made it for a couple of years.  It was definitely alcoholic.  And maybe better the 2nd year.

Here's one description.  I'm wondering if the "pone" part of the description referred to the locust pods.  I don't remember any liquid falling out--and I took some apart from a tree I have last fall.  

Apparently I was wrong there, I found another description in which the pone is described as a mixture of persimmon and wheat bran (2nd link--it's essentially unreadable--try highlighting the words you want).

http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/VA-news/VA-Pilot/issues/1996/vp960214/02130111.htm
http://ftp.rootsweb.com/pub/usgenweb/ga/clarke/bios/bs126waller.txt

QuoteThe kids would gather persimmons and locust pods in the fall as they fell off the tree, Crawford said. She described the dark brown locust pods as shaped like a banana with a sweet vein along the edge.

``My father would mash up the persimmons like a pone and put them in a big bread pan, bake them,'' she said, ``and when it got cold, he'd break up the pone.''

He would cut off the top of the locust pod which would release the sweet syrup from the vein. Then he would layer the persimmons, the locusts and a little sugar and water in a big wooden keg, topping off the layers with more water, Crawford said.

Then her father put the keg under the house and let it brew a couple of months. When the brewing was over, he would strain off the liquid and the result was persimmon-locust beer.

``It tasted like lemonade, but it was not intoxicating,'' Crawford said. ``It couldn't have been, because my father was a Presbyterian minister!

``I thought it was better than lemonade,'' she went on. ``We had beer and molasses cookies on cold, snowy days!''



Texan_lost_in_cali

#78
Well I just harvested garlic, I get a hand full of strawberries every day, a hand full of rasberries a couple of times a week. There are two bell peppers on the plants right now, jalapenos seems to be having problems with the humidity here this year, and I just planted more squash than anyone can use if it all produces.

bil2054

Sounds great, Texan.  Especially the raspberries! [smiley=thumbsup.gif]
I raised garlic just one year, intending to go commercial.  My shoes got tossed, per usual, and that ended the venture.  Fortunately we "madeup" sufficient to harvest and divide the crop.  Best garlic I ever had, if not the best relationship. [smiley=rolleyes.gif]

Can one really have too much squash?  I love the stuff, though it's too hot lately to cook much of anything.  Did you know some folks make beer from squash?  Probably only crtain kinds, but maybe worth looking in to if ya have a surplus crop. [smiley=wink.gif]


Texan_lost_in_cali

Well the problem is that I have been seed saving so I thought I would try one of everything, and planted three seeds just incase a couple failed. Now I have atleast five kinds of squash growing and if they are like zucchinni I need to find a way to market them quick!

Sassy

Back to the persimmons - my mom used to make a wonderful persimmon jello.  She also gave me a recipe for persimmon cookies which I used to make when I could get all the persimmons I could use.  You can freeze the pulp & use it for baking.  Don't have the recipes, though... they're somewhere around but haven't had time to look  :-/

Amanda_931

#82
Persimmon pulp and kanten (sort of like jello) sounds almost traditionally Japanese.

I found a macrobiotic recipe for something with apples, if anybody wants to try adapting it--or just making the apple.

jonseyhay

A thanks for the links Amanda. I tried the griddle pancakes with some icecream last night while watching the cycling, tasted great. Might have a go at the rice custard tonight. ;D


Deana

Cecilia: I think what you are growing in your pond is hydrocleys nymphoides; water poppy. Listed in NZ as an invasive water weed.

How about some update pics on the veggie gardens? I didn't plant spring or summer and sure missing the fresh produce now. Trying to get the beds ready now to plant for fall/winter.

Deana

CREATIVE1

Wow!  Haven't visited this thread before, lots of good stuff.

Have a question.  We are moving to 4 acres on Dow Mountain in the Olympics, Washington State.  There are only six homesteads on the mountain, some summer only.  The mountain is full of edibles and medicinals--every kind of berry (mmm-wine), mushrooms galore, self-heal, horsetail, etc., etc.  Intend to harvest whatever I can from the mountain and also plant mostly stuff to eat, fruit trees and some veggies, but am kind of concerned about some of these plants spreading into the woods where they don't belong.  Our sunny flat area is about 100' by 150', surrounded by forest and streams.  Any thoughts?

glenn-k

We commonly let our vegetables go to seed and they only seem to go around the area we take care of --- as long as you aren't growing frankenfood -- Monsanto -- Genetically modified -etc I wouldn't worry about it.


CREATIVE1

The greatest service

which can be rendered

any country

is to add

a useful plant

to its culture.


THOMAS JEFFERSON

peg_688

#88
QuoteWow!  Haven't visited this thread before, lots of good stuff.

  #1:  We are moving to 4 acres on Dow Mountain in the Olympics, Washington State.

 #2:   but am kind of concerned about some of these plants spreading into the woods where they don't belong.  


 #3:    Our sunny flat area is about 100' by 150', surrounded by forest and streams.

 Any thoughts?

 #1:  Plant stuff that like lots of rain most of the year :o

 #2: MTL others have planted stuff that spread , I wouldn't be to concerned unless your planning on really wierd / exotic type plants / shrubs etc .

Heck the state used to plant scotch broom beside the hwys nothing much more invasive and stinkie / bad for folfs with allergys than scotch broom  >:(

#3: Plan on using that stream water for the crops if you can , summers have been dry / dryer the past few years .

So a few thoughts  :-[




peg_688

Garden update , fall soon to be here, front tomatoes & strawberries ,



Pretty dry

   

Better shot of front lots of fruit :)
 



 

Lots of watering this summer :o  Just onions , tomatoes and various lettuce left, looks funkie , taste great ;)


Sassy

PEG, your garden is still looking nice  :) - have you had much rain this summer?  I just pulled a bunch of parsnips out of our garden & fixed them today - Glenn likes them fried in butter.  We are finally getting some tomatoes & green peppers ( deer got on the roof & ate the pepper plants way down)  we have a lot of swiss chard & beets & turnips, carrots & finally getting some squash but they are taking forever this year - & mostly getting male blooms which don't make squashes.  Anybody know how to remedy that?

glenn-k

Buy straight squash plants next year???? :-/

peg_688

#92
Quote
#1:  PEG, your garden is still looking nice  :)

#2:     - have you had much rain this summer?

#3:    I just pulled a bunch of parsnips out of our garden & fixed them today - Glenn likes them fried in butter.  We are finally getting some tomatoes & green peppers ( deer got on the roof & ate the pepper plants way down)  we have a lot of swiss chard & beets & turnips, carrots & finally getting some squash but they are taking forever this year -


 #4:    & mostly getting male blooms which don't make squashes.  Anybody know how to remedy that?

#1:  Thanks :)

#2: Less than 1"in the past 2 1/2 months  :o

#3: All that sounds good :)Except the deer eatin your stuff, they're pretty tasty cooked right ;D

#4:Eat the blossums batter them with a egg flour batter then fry them, sort of taste like Morrell mushrooms , not good for ya ;) , but good tasting :)

Sassy

PEG, I guess I'm going to have to try cooking those squash blossoms (almost sounds like Bush's endearing name for Karl Rove - lol) but it seems like too much work & mess!   :-/

peg_688

Quote from: Sassy lin =1144892741/80#93 date=1157384767PEG, I guess I'm going to have to try cooking those squash blossoms (almost sounds like Bush's endearing name for Karl Rove - lol) but it seems like too much work & mess!   :-/


You are way to interested in politics if you know the shrub's endearing names for staff members or is Rove some Democrat :-/

 Anyway you should try the blossoms , it's not all that messy and cooking , they say , is fun . They are really good , almost worth planting squash just for the blossom , but then what do you do with all the squash that frows  :-/People in the past have avoided me cuz they though I'd try to giveum squash ;D ;DAt least that what I think they avoided me for :o  


Sassy

#95
Well PEG, I hate to break it to you, but Karl Rove is the "brains behind the man" - he's the "Deputy Chief of Staff" heading the Office of Political Affairs.  GW Bush's pet name for him is "Turd Blossom" (ya made me haveta tell ya!)

"GWB has referred to Karl Rove as the 'boy genius', the 'architect' & 'turd blossom' a Texan term for a flower which grows from a pile of cow dung... he has also been referred to as Bush's brain...  

The documentary "Bush's Brain" depicts Rove as the most powerful political consultant in America today, in essence
a co-president, according to USA Today."  from Wikipedia

(Woodrow Wilson referred to Col. House as his brain... Col House was one of the brains behind the Federal Reserve & also a strong influence on Wilson to enter WWI although Wilson ran on the platform that the USA would not enter the war - plans were in the making months before he was re-elected...)

Is that enough history for you, PEG?   ;D :-/   Hope I didn't soil the "garden thread" for you...  :-/

peg_688

Quote


# 1:   Well PEG, I hate to break it to you, but Karl Rove is the "brains behind the man" - he's the "Deputy Chief of Staff" heading the Office of Political Affairs.  GW Bush's pet name for him is "Turd Blossom" (ya made me haveta tell ya!)


#2:  Is that enough history for you, PEG?   ;D :-/  

#3:      Hope I didn't soil the "garden thread" for you...  :-/


#1:  Ya so what ::)Just another politican / advisor , taken my money, I'd heard the name but who cares , can I change it ? N0 , does it matter, MTL no!  Every pres. has advisors , James Carville comes to mind a  a real beauty ;D

#2:Mo than enought ::)

#3:Well it smells a bit here now and I don't remember spreading any cow poop :-/

Amanda_931

I was on a list once where somebody thought about planting Kudzu in the south because it was a nice pleasant plant.

I think we discouraged him or her.  But every once in a while somebody runs across that very old book that proclaims that the stuff would be the most wonderful thing possible for the South.

Right here I fight Japanese Honeysuckle, (exotic) multiflora roses, Japanese and Chinese privet, and possibly native blackberries, ragweed (regular and giant), poison ivy.  Other horrors include Canadian thistle, some horrid exotic polygonum--I've got lots of that, tap roots can go down 6 feet, I understand, and the only serious cure is black plastic for a month as it tries to reach the light.  

The local bamboo guru swears (true from my experience) that if you can and do bring a mower in every spring even the worst of the running bamboo is fairly easily controlled.

But the same is probably true of the ##$@!!&&&**\\!! privet.  When this place was surveyed there were two spots the surveyors didn't go through at all--privet thickets.   Back in the 1820's they would have been cane-brakes (native bamboo), nearly impassable as well.

But I have friends who say they have no trouble multiflora rose or privet, just keep the ground mowed.  (Can't get a mower down in the stream, the privet got beyond the mowing stage before I bought the property--bulldozers have been suggested--a bush-hog got airborne trying to cut the stuff)  


Where Creative1 has her place the list of mostly exotic horrors will probably be different--the Siberian blackberries may be overrunning the native which are bad enough.  

Her neighbors--or the county extension agent--can probably tell her what to avoid if she wants to remain on speaking terms with her neighbors--at least the greener ones.

Sassy

We have plenty of poisen oak & star thistle in our neck of the woods... there's also a lot of blackberries & wild grapes along the streams & rivers in a lot of places around here.

Amanda_931

I think I need to post a picture of a privet thicket  (the blackberries can be just as evil)  ;) .

We cut a lot, though to use as supports for the clay/straw wall at the barn.