Gravy's Cooking Thread
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Yeah, my list wasn't well thought out. The chives survived the winter, as did the mint, and some lemon something we've got. I can't remember exactly what it is, but it's a lemony, minty something.
Everything else was demolished by winter. I think part of the issue is that I have the herbs in a raised bed, and the frost just thoroughly penetrated it.
I put in 15 basil plants last week, and they're already taking off. I plan to make a lot of pesto this fall.
Everything else was demolished by winter. I think part of the issue is that I have the herbs in a raised bed, and the frost just thoroughly penetrated it.
I put in 15 basil plants last week, and they're already taking off. I plan to make a lot of pesto this fall.
Crone
Bronze Baronet of the Realm
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Wife's tomato plants are producing fruit like a vengeance! Suppose it's that time of year and expected, but no idea what we are going to do with 15+ tomatoes sitting on our kitchen counter before they all go bad.
Cold tomato salad? Anyone have any suggestions?
Cold tomato salad? Anyone have any suggestions?
Joeboo
Molten Core Raider
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Yeah we just planted our tomatos last weekend. Hell, 2 weeks ago we were still having overnight low temperatures in the 30s(and then a couple days after that, a daytime high of 90, goddamned Missouri weather), I was afraid we were going to dip below freezing, so I held off on planting our garden.
Nothing we grow survives the winter except our Asparagus and Strawberries. Those come back on their own every year, everything else dies and we have to replant in the spring. (various tomatos, peppers, squash, herbs, etc)
Nothing we grow survives the winter except our Asparagus and Strawberries. Those come back on their own every year, everything else dies and we have to replant in the spring. (various tomatos, peppers, squash, herbs, etc)
Selix
Lord Nagafen Raider
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Salsa. How many do you need to make/experiment making your own ketchup? 50?
3 ways to deal with this.
1. For plants that haven't sprouted just put mulch down. Helps keep temperature level through short freezes.
2. Cover plants with overturned milk carton, cup, whatever. Only needs to last during the freeze
3. Painters plastic. You can lay it over the plants or you can spend 15$-20$ and create a whole PVC hoop combo that you can easily roll the plastic on and off. Idea also works well for netting for your strawberries.
Some warning. Mint is a voracious weed. Let that get outside of your garden and it will take over. Best way to do it is container gardening but it WILL try to get out of it's container on a regular basis and if you cut it and leave the trimmings on the ground THEY WILL GROW.
Erronius
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I remember as a kid we had a garden that was like an acre or two, I kid you not. Corn, okra, beans, potatoes, you name it we had it. And of all of that stuff, tomatoes ended up being a PITA. We canned so we planned to put up scores of canned tomatoes, but that also meant that we'd end up with a bazillion tomatoes falling off the vine that would just sit and rot because we'd get tired of fucking with them. In the winter the thought of having sliced tomato with salt and pepper sounds fantastic but you reach a point when enough is enough. By the end of the tomato season all you would smell in that area would be rank, nasty rotting tomatoes.
Also, your strawberries live? Ours were always just barely getting by and the berries would be the size of a pencil eraser at most.
If you ever want to dig up some asparagus at my place, let me know. We don't mess with it anymore and it comes up wild...I'd just rather not have to mow around it anymore.
Also, your strawberries live? Ours were always just barely getting by and the berries would be the size of a pencil eraser at most.
Abefroman
Naxxramas 1.0 Raider
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Shoulda picked the tomatoes when they were green and ripened them when you needed them.
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chaos
Buzzfeed Editor
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I made this tonight:
Chinese Orange Chicken Recipe | Epicurious.com
it took like an hour and a half and not a single person in my house ate any but me. Whatever, fuckem. It was good.
Chinese Orange Chicken Recipe | Epicurious.com
it took like an hour and a half and not a single person in my house ate any but me. Whatever, fuckem. It was good.
Erronius
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In addition to what Deathwing said, I'm not even sure where we would have been able to store hundreds or even thousands of green tomatoes.
I want to emphasize that we didn't do 10 plants, 20 plants...it was probably north of 50 (and I'm honestly guessing, I can't fucking remember but it was a lot). We had debates every year over how many seeds to start, there was always the concern that we wouldn't have enough but in the end it was just too many &*#$#ing tomatoes for anyone to deal with.
We also tried selling vegetables but we never really has much success. In fact it was never really worth the effort in the end to try pushing tomatoes when you'd keep finding people wanting to pay you less than what they pay at the fucking grocery. We had the same issue with eggs. Take ~50ish hens and all the cost that entails, then have people wanting to pay you $1 per dozen. And these were nice, big brown eggs too, not those nasty storebought ones.
Mind you that was before this current trend of niche/whole foods trend or whatever you want to call it.
Gravy
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chaos
Buzzfeed Editor
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My wife is sick or something, idk, and my oldest is going through an extreme finicky eater phase. Which is ironic because we used to brag about how good she was with trying new foods etc. So once she saw it and started freaking out,t he younger two follow her lead like they do in everything else. I keep thinking that I will let her start helping me cook, she's 5 so there are things she can do, but I don't think it will help, she just makes up bullshit to not eat. It is a control thing so I try not to give in to it but you can't starve the fuckers so meh. At this point the only thing I can get her to eat regularly is broccoli, green beans, fried chicken, stick cheese, crackers, and tacos. Everything else ranges from either a challenge to her forcing herself to vomit rather than eat it (as she did last week with my bomb ass fucking braised short ribs).
Abefroman
Naxxramas 1.0 Raider
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My grandparents and other family never had that problem because they just gave the ones they couldn't can or put in storage to other relatives and friends. They kept them in the cellar and those things kept for months till they need to ripen them. I can see how you could run out of space quick if you grew that many. Store bought tomatoes will always suck because of the variety they plant for ease of transport and because there just isn't a cost effective way to transport them after they get gassed without exposing them to cold.