When the garden has finished producing

reply to post by virraszto

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Just thought I would mention it just in case, you probably already know, if the wood in your box is made from pressure treated wood, don't eat anything from it as pressure treated wood has arsenic in it and it leeches out into the soil.

If you don't have enough room in your freezer for all of the corn on the cob, you can just cut the kernals off and put them straight into a freezer bag and then can be frozen without any preparation. We made it this way one year and it was fine, actually tasted really good.

reply to post by goose
Pressure-treated wood has arsenic in it?

Ummm... I can't count the number of pressure-treated planters we have had over the years, never seemed to hurt anything. I guess that's one more reason for people to complain I haven't died yet.

Do you have eny more info on this? There have been many ways of pressure-treating wood used, from the old creosote to the new 'YellaWood' treatment. Do/did they all contain arsenic?

TheRedneck

That's a good point to bring up about pressure treated wood. Not everyone knows about that.

The wood for my box isn't pressure treated. I still layed a thick piece of plastic down on the bottom and stapled the plastic to the sides before filling with dirt. That way no wood touches anything. I just hope the plastic isn't harmful.

My beans are coming up real nice. They are cornfield beans, so since I didn't plant corn this year, I have to rig up something for them to climb. My bean seeds are heirloom seeds that have been in the family over 100 yrs.

In my son's garden (looks like a farm to me) there are so many watermelons this year, which has led to a request that I help heading up watermelon pickle brigade -- but I don't remember ever putting them up before? Insert confused momma graphic here:

Does anyone have any good ideas on putting up watermelon pickles or putting up watermelon in general.

Many thanks in advance.

reply to post by virraszto
I checked it out on YellaWood's site, and sure enough, they warn against using their product for growing boxes... which is a good thing to know, since I just bought some PT lumber for a strawberry planter! Now I think I'll layer it with plastic to keep any arsenic from leeching into the soil.

Good catch to both you and goose! I just wonder how we survived before anyone knew about this...

TheRedneck

Well, after last night's storm, my garden is flooded. I put straw down in the garden, so I wasn't sure until I walked out there and checked it out. I had to walk through ankle deep water, and sure enough, my garden is also flooded.

It flooded a couple weeks ago so bad I had to go out and replant my beans. They are about 6 or so inches high now and I hope the water drains very quickly.

This has been a crappy summer so far. Way to many storms and not enough nice weather. I hope it gets better. I'll be really bummed if my garden gets ruined.

About that pressure treated wood---you're not supposed to burn it either.

reply to post by TheRedneck

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Great Thread! Super important. Star and Flag!

You know, I was just thinking about the same thing...

So many vegetables... So little time to preserve. I hope I can pick up a few good tips.

I'm pretty good at it now, but you start dying when you stop learning...

A search page address with several recipes: www.mamma.com...


One recipe address: southernfood.about.com...

Sounds like a treat considering salt, sugar, cloves, cinnamon and vinegar are some of the things in the recipe.

Fwiw, the rind is what's used.
Eat the good part, compost the dark green skin and can the rind.
A good use of the whole melon methinks....

reply to post by endrun

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I just tried your recipe with cucumbers out of my garden and I'm waiting for them to chill. I can't wait to see what they taste like.

I'm a little intimidated by canning but that was really quick and easy.

I'm still waiting on zuchini as it got a late start but I plan to do this with them as well.

Thanks for the tip.