Weather – How I Can Do That

Being a Garden Sleuth

For the last couple of years it seems like there has been one trial or another when it comes to gardening. And there comes up more and more questions in online communities that sometimes feel repetitive. The one bit of advice I seem to give more times than not is…

Your plants are living and they communicate with you.

Here in the Pacific Northwest we faced another cold spring, even though it wasn’t as cold as last year. As a general rule, we transplant and direct sow seeds around Mother’s Day, mid May.

It wasn’t so long ago that when we planted at this time that our gardens would start of a little slow for a couple weeks and then we’d see some rapid growth.

Last year, local community members thought that their inexperience killed off their crops and it was entirely their fault.

Are garden pests present?

On the subject of stunted plants, I currently have a summer squash that is stunted. I know for a fact that it’s due to a squash vine borer because of the split vine. No amount of fertilizing is going to get that summer squash to grow.

It’s easy to see when a start is not growing.

Finding the answer takes a little detective work.

The beans had a few leaves that didn’t make it. But they’re still primed to grow with some warm days on the way.

What have been your environmental conditions?

Each plant that grows from a seed relies on its DNA to tell it when move on to the next stage of its life cycle.

We can start our seeds inside a greenhouse or our home to get a jump start on the growing season. But no matter how early you start a seed, the start will stop its physical growth until a little DNA switch gets flipped by the weather. Whether it’s the amount of sunlight, day time temperatures, or night time temperatures… there are environmental indicators that plants look for before they say, “Now is the perfect time to grow.”

As I mentioned above, this spring has been uncharacteristically cold.

For my tomatoes has been fun to watch this year. I planted some from a seed company. And I planted others from seeds that were harvested from tomato plants that were local and went through last year’s cold spring (which was much worse than this year). The tomatoes that have the seed memory of a cold spring have grown much better than the plants that grew with a seed memory of another region.

Can fertilizing compensate for this growth discrepancy?

Yes. However, if your seeds don’t have the DNA memory of what it’s like to grow in a cold spring, they’re going to struggle a little until they figure out what’s going on with the weather.

My pepper plants have some damage from the hail. However I have a theory that these starts faired better because last week they got planted with some rich compost on their roots. They had the nutrients to fortify them against the elemental attack.

This is the prime reason why it’s important to either save seeds from the plants that you grow or purchase starts from people in your community who grow from their own seeds. From their seed memory, they are ready and geared to thrive and flourish with micro-regional weather. (I share the same grow zone as some southern states, however our springs and micro-regional weather patterns are going to be quite different.)

But it’s also not just seasonal weather that affects the health of your plants.

This past week we had a hail storm. It’s been several years since we’ve had hail in my community. And these weren’t cute tiny hail stones. These were enough to hurt if we stood out in the storm.

After the storm I went out to check on my garden. And it looked like they were all going to be resilient and bounce back just fine. Especially seeing how we were expecting a couple of nice warm days.

The problem is that once the sun did come back out, I noticed that something was wrong with the plants. I first noticed it with my tomatoes. And I thought it was a tomato issue. But I looked elsewhere and saw other plants were affected also.

My tomatoes were hardest hit. But they don’t like the cold to start start with. This little stunted start was the hardest hit. The larger plants have the same beige pick marked damage that just looks like it was assaulted from the hail. But at the same time meets some of the descriptive marks of mosaic virus.

This was an important clue to take note of.

My husband sent some pictures over to a friend who has more experience under her belt than we do. With the little information that my husband provided, her opinion was a mosaic virus.

Before her recommendation I was leaning toward an iron deficiency or damage from the hail storm, leaning toward the hail damage because we went from perfectly healthy and happy plants to having visual distress in a couple days.

Whether damage, iron deficiency, or a virus; all three have different care
steps.

This is where you need to be a detective and look for clues.

Here is my amaranth, which pretty much look identical in leaf damage as my tomatoes do. From all I read, so far it doesn’t look like amaranth isn’t effected by the mosaic virus. Which means these guys were just beat up by the hail. So this is one example of why I’m leaning toward my tomatoes just being damaged by hail.

We were concerned for mosaic virus, but after reading up on it we noticed that other plants, not listed on list of plants commonly infected with this virus, were showing the same distress.

The biggest clue for us is that my second garden, miles away, also all had healthy plants and two days after the hail storm showed the same markings.

We cannot completely discredit a viral infection in our garden without testing it. But we can continue to watch the plants and operate as if we are dealing with this virus (trimming effected leaves off in increments so not to handicap the plants’ photosynthesis, not composting the trimmings and expired plants, cleaning garden tools thoroughly, keeping other plants from growing in their direction, and next year planting the tomatoes (and other effected plants) in a totally different section of the garden).

While I’m fairly certain that I’m dealing with hail damage, prudence says that I also act with caution against the mosaic virus. There is nothing to say that I’m not seeing two issues at once.

My Echinacea took the most beating here. And this damage to the stalk looks exactly like the damage on my tomato leaves. As this is stem damage (the leaves were fine) and they match the leaf damage on the tomatoes, this becomes my lead points of evaluation for my garden in this moment.

I know that not everyone is going through what my garden is going through in this season. These are just examples of how to analyze your garden and the conditions that you are facing this year or in a growing season to come. Sometimes answering your garden woes are as simple as looking up a description phrase in Google and looking at the images to confirm or eliminate potential problems. Sometimes you need to crowd source and pick other gardener and farmer’s brains. Just remember that when you crowd source, people respond with their experience and thinking of what’s going on in their garden at the moment. They don’t know all the additional details, like you just had a hail storm or your neighbor sprayed their property with a chemical that negatively impacts your garden because it carries on the wind. People don’t know if you had contaminated water and your water service provider mails out a letter stating such information two weeks after the fact. Unless you look for pests, you may not be aware that the problem you’re facing is coming from a vine borer, aphids, locusts (or other insect) that has come to your property and hasn’t been there in past years. Or maybe you just bought a new house and the previous owner had diseased crops that they let compost in the ground and that information wasn’t passed on to you in the bill of sale. Or maybe you picked up a load of manure for your garden, but it wasn’t disclosed to you that the animals are hay that was sprayed with Grazon.

I just want to make a special note to give a heads up on this issue of Grazon (a Dupont product) and how it’s silently affecting crops, ground and water health. Here is the video from a farmer who lost whole sections of garden plots. We first watched this video and became aware of this issue. You can source the right materials, but sometimes you have to go further back on the food chain to see where the problem lies. I thought organic manure was the end all bench mark. Now it looks like we have to look further. Here is a very detailed article from 2017 to further jump start your research. This one will open your eyes on the product Grazon. Not just this product, but actually all herbicides. Even if you choose not to use herbicides on your property, you might be buying product from someone who does use it on their property.

There are so many things that can affect the health of your garden and plants. Just be aware that the solution may not be as simple as “just fertilize it”. Sometimes you may need to be your garden’s own detective and look for clues to set you on the right path to bring health and recovery to your garden.

What hidden little gems have you learned from your garden?

Saving My Freezer!

Now that Fall weather has set in, there’s one concern that comes up every year. What do we do when the power goes out this year?

You would think that with the frequency that my surrounding area loses power due to snow fall, that there would be changes in the electrical system. Or even something as simple as taking preventative measures to eliminate more outages. But instead the average number of outages remains the same. And the outage time remains the same, 24-72 hours. Some areas have outages for longer.

But none of them have hit the fame as the President Day’s Storm of ’92. Roads were thick sheets of ice. Trees were breaking from an obscene amount of cumulative ice. And the power lines were down just from the weight of the ice on the lines. That’s not even taking into consideration the transformers that were blown.

I remember that my family had no power, with snow and ice, for longer than a week. I wish I could remember how much snow we had that year. And I wish I could remember how long we were really without power. My family did quite well in that storm because we had a wood fireplace, where we could keep one room sufficiently warm, with a flat top that we could cook on.

Even with all the power outage skills that my husband and I have, it only mildly prepared us for the day that an Otter Pop propped our freezer open this past summer.

Fortunately for us, the freezer had only been ajar for a couple hours and we caught it before we had a complete loss of our frozen foods.

And for as much as working in campus dining wasn’t exactly my job of choice, I do value the information that I learned getting my food handler’s permit. In this particular instance, I had the information to easily recall safe temperatures to prevent food borne illnesses.

A couple of my meats were between 38-39°F. Most were further away from the danger zone. And the majority was still frozen solid. My defrosted meat was still safe so I cooked that all up and prepped my pressure cooker for canning hot packed meat. The rest of the compromised meat, that could safely sit in my fridge and defrost the rest of the way, was saved to process the next day.

So with storm season quickly approaching, what plans does your family have for saving food for when the power goes out? Or even your freezer gets accidently propped open? Or your fridge fails you for one of a handful of reasons?

If your fridge or freezer contents can be handled in a timely and food safe manner, there is absolutely no reason why you can have zero food waste when the unforeseen happens.

Pressure Canning

Just about everyone I talk with, who are familiar with food preservation have the skills of water bath canning (the process of canning in glass jars acidic foods). I’m sure you’ve seen people’s canned jams, jellies, tomato sauces, and fruits. Foods that are under the pH value of 4.6 can all be water bath canned, be shelf stable for 18 months, using current lids (when stored properly in a cool dark place, like your pantry or storage closet).

What about the rest of your food that is not acidic; vegetables, milk,
butter, and meat?

That’s where a pressure canner comes in.

Before moving on, I want to acknowledge those who say that they mama, grandma, or auntie still water bath can everything (even the food above a pH 4.6). I’m not going to argue with your mama, grandma, or auntie. Food is one area where I prefer to not take my chances. The risks I make in life, I prefer to make elsewhere. Pressure canners can be purchased for less than an Instant Pot. So I choose to use the pressure canner and encourage everyone else to use a pressure canner as well. It also has the least processing time. Those who claim to water bath meat do so with a processing time of over 3 hours. With the pressure canner, processing time runs from 75-90 minutes (for elevation 1,000 feet above sea level and lower) depending on the size of your jar and type of meat you’re canning. So from the money and time perspectives, the pressure canner is still the best way of processing (all other food risk issues put aside).

Another bonus to investing in a pressure canner is that it’s two canners in one. You can pressure can with it as well as water bath.

Pressure canning weights and processing times vary dependent on the elevation at which you are cooking.

Another subject that can bring some heated conversations is cold pack vs. hot pack pressure canning meats. What you need to know is that cold pack means that you put raw meat into your jar and the processing time cooks your meat. Hot packing means that you cook your meat until a little pink is left and then you pack it in your jar with a stock or water. There are safe ways of processing both ways, when you look at the cuts of meat, how it’s packed, and what proven canning recipes state.

A bit of it comes down to common sense decision making as well. For example, the meat that I took out of our compromised freezer (38-39°F) was safer to hot pack. The reason is that once you come to 40°F bacteria start to grow and cause problems. So I immediately cooked the ground beef, even a little longer than until only slight pink remains, because I didn’t want to start the canning processes with a possibility of the meat being compromised. When canning, the meat nearest the center of the jar doesn’t reach the high temperature to kill off bacteria as quickly as the meat nearest the edge of the jar. So by making sure the meat would all be thoroughly cooked (between pan and canning), I make the chance of food borne illness less. Of course, this meat I’m going to use before the other meat I have canned, but this is all about making the choices that make sense with the science behind food preserving.

Something worth noting, that in the ideal situation where there is no compromise to your meat, how you can it is going to determine how it turns out. In the instance of ground beef, if you hot pack it, you will end up with canned beef that is small crumble in shape and texture. If you cold pack ground beef you will end up with a product that is solid–comparable to a meatloaf or a pressed meat like SPAM. So if you’re canning meat in a non-emergency setting, think about how you would like to use your canned meat. Because that is going to help you decide how you preserve your meat.

Things to Watch Out For

Obviously, the first signs of failed seal are if your lid buckles or the lid never seals to begin with.

When you remove your jars from the canner you can immediately spot the first failure type, a buckled lid. It’s any type of warping that you see on the lid. Even if the seal feels sound, it could be a false seal that will break on your shelf after you let it sit for a week or two.

Think of this issue as soundness of a structure. When you build a house, you don’t use warped wood or a broken foundation because it can cause problems to the soundness of the house in the future. Everything could be fine for a few years, but the time comes where the house gives way to other problems because of unsound structural sources of the house. A buckled lid may have a sound seal, but it’s only a matter of time before it fails.

In this instance, it’s just best to remove the lid and reprocess the jar. Your food is not going be harmed by processing it a second time. But, giving it a new lid with a proper seal is going to give it the sound structure your food needs to be safely preserved on your shelf.

Now the failed lid seal, that problem is the one that sneaks up on you. And it’s the number one reason why for good practices you never store your jars with the rings on.

Once your jars have cooled over night it’s time to remove the rings and test the seal. Pick the jar up by the edge of the lid alone. If sealed properly the jar will suspend off the lid. (I still brace myself for my jar to crash to my counter or floor, even though I haven’t ever had one do that.) If a jar is not properly sealed, you’ll hear the lid pop and it comes right off. No big deal, clean the rim of the jar off with vinegar and apply a brand new lid before processing it again.

Now the reason why we don’t store jars with rings on them is because when you go to check your jars (ideally every week), you can immediately see if a lid’s seal is broken. The couple of times it’s happened to me, I opened my pantry door, barely touch the jar and the lid clatters to the floor. Usually this happens before anything starts growing or smelling off. So, early detection of a failed seals is great.

I’ve seen many pictures and heard stories of people who left their rings on their jars. More times than not, they smell something off in their panty and have to figure out where the smell is coming from. They never say it, but I can guess the process of elimination they have to go through in removing rings. Sometimes they don’t have to touch the rings because they see a science experiment going on in a jar. A regular inspection of lids, with rings off, prevents spoiled jars from going this far.

Siphoning

There are a few reasons why your jar siphons (loses liquid). This is a great article in covering all the possible reasons. I want to point out what it looks like.

This is one of my canning sessions. These two were the only two jars that siphoned, out of the 7 in my canner. Both lost over half their liquid before sealing. Truth be told, I have no idea why these two failed (losing half a can of liquid or more is a failed seal). But with this much liquid missing, there was no way I could put these on my shelves. I could have put these in my fridge to eat the next day. Instead I chose to put in more beef stock and re-can them with a fresh lid. (They didn’t lose any liquid the second time.)

Siphoning is only a problem when you lose a drastic amount of liquid like this. Otherwise, siphoning is a common occurrence in canning and generally not a problem. Any meat (or other canned product) above liquid line will be discolored over time. It’s still good, just not visually appealing.

An interesting story is that I never learned how to pressure can from my mom or grandma, because my grandma tried pressure canning and could not figure out why she kept siphoning like this. After a few fails she just called it quits. Mom was pretty impressed when I had this conversation with her. The bottom line is that technology is pretty amazing in this day and age, where we can teach ourselves new skills and problem solve with a little research.

So please know that if siphoning was a problem with your previous attempts at pressure canning, know that making one or a couple adjustments can solve this problem for you and you can prevent it in the future.

Back to the Meat Save

As I mentioned earlier, I was so glad to have the skills to can the meat from my freezer. At first my husband was freaking out because he thought it was all lost. (And the freak out would have been rightful had I not been able to save our meat.) But his reaction is what most people have. Especially with food prices so high.

I cannot tell you the value of the calm of pulling out the pressure canner and setting up for an unplanned canning session. The best feeling of all was knowing that the whole incident was not a lost moment. My husband learned how to can meat. Up until this moment, it was something that I did and he just popped into the kitchen to find out how I was doing. But now, if we have a moment where we have to marathon can again, we can take shifts and not lose out on sleep or meat.

What are your plans for the coming storm season?

Are you prepared for a moment where your fridge is not working for you?

What cooking sources do you have for a no power situation?

Some ideas I would like open for consideration is pressure canning soups, meats, and vegetables. In a worst case situation, these are safe for you to crack the lid and eat straight out of the mason jar. Or you can warm them in the matter of minutes over your grill.

Another option is freeze dried foods. All you need alternate fuel for is to boil water. The water can then rehydrate full meals for you that are warm.

I know power outages are hard on the whole family. But by thinking in advance, it is possible to turn it into more of an adventure instead of worrying about food loss (by opening and closing the fridge) or getting burnt out by cold food.

If you’re interested in new recipes that require nothing more than a camp stove, this is the first site that I go to search, Trail Cooking. Under her tab, Trail Cooking, Sarah has an amazing list of recipes. Usually I find a handful of interesting recipes on most sites. Here, I have a list that rivals the lists I have for my cookbooks on my shelf at home. So please be sure to check out her menu offerings!

If you’re not yet into canning but still would like to prepare for no power meal options, check out The Good Steward.