Hey, guys! Long time no post. I didn't have a very good year for tomatoes, which form the backbone of my canning season, so I've been feeling a bit bummed. By the time I realized I wasn't going to get enough to can all the tomato stuff I wanted for the year, it was too late to buy a bunch at a decent price. I did buy a few late ones at an exhorbitant price just to be sure I could put up some of everything, but I also caved and BOUGHT six jars of Classico sauce when it was on a great sale last week. Felt like I had to look both ways to be sure nobody spotted me, LOL! I did put up lots an lots of applesauce. I usually do some, but this year our usual local orchard was hit by hail in August, with the result that they had fewer first-quality apples and lots and lots of seconds at $5 for a half-bushel, so I'm on my second half-bushel of mixed seconds for sauce. HOWEVER, I've done more freezing of veggies than ever before---this is my first full harvest season since I got my FoodSaver vacuum sealer! I didn't count it all, but I put up - strawberries (some plain and some with a little local honey) - corn---LOTS! - sweet peppers---I bought a 3/4 bushel and roasted about half, sliced & froze the other half in raw strips - squash---winter squash is practically free around here by November, and we got three ENORMOUS ones a few weeks ago; these I just processed this weekend, so I can tell you that I froze - 12 cups of puree (two more cups in the fridge to use this week) - 12 cups of raw cubes - 4 cups of partially cooked cubes (I found different opinions on whether it should be cooked partially first, including on threads here, so I did some of each and will see what I think). Boy, there was a lot of orange in my kitchen by the end of the session! I also didn't have any zucchini/summer squash this year---usually I'm freezing oodles of zucchini bread for winter breakfasts---so now I'm working on filling what room is left in the freezer with other fruit quick breads. So far I've found a banana muffin recipe I really like, and am experimenting with various apple breads, coffee cakes, and muffins. I made some squash muffins, and they're not bad, but I think I can do better. That's all. Just wanted to pop in and say hi and tell y'all what I've been up to! Happy harvesting, Zabby P.S. Dumbear, that green onion relish sounds excellent! I'll try it next year!

I've done a fair amount of research into this question and have found that the best way to preserve seeds is to ultra-dry them. Research done in this area indicates that seeds may remain viable for up to 40 years if properly preserved. The best method appears to be to seal the seeds in a container with silica gel. Normal "dry" seeds are (IIRC) in the 5%-8% moisture content range. Ultra-dry seeds are in the 1%-3% range. For long-term storage of seeds, the quality of the container matters. Plastic containers are all moisture permeable and unsuited to long-term seed storage. One study compared dozens of different kinds of containers and found that only pure glass (glass tubes sealed by melting the glass tip closed), metal cans (think "canning operation") and metal-glass containers akin to mason jars were suitable for long-term storage. Of these, the mason jar is probably the easiest to use. A little less effective, but still pretty good, would be commercial glass jars like the kind used to hold jam, that is, a container that is all-metal and glass with a good seal. The method I settled on was to use small envelopes (coin envelopes) to contain the seeds, label the envelopes and store them in wide-mouth quart mason jars with an inch or two of silica gel in the bottom. About 25 such packets to a quart jar seems to be optimal. Since I access the seeds periodically, I use more silica gel than they used in the research studies. The silica gel is blue and turns pink when it has absorbed moisture, so there is an easy indicator of when it's time to recharge the silica gel (which you can do by drying in an oven for a couple hours.) Note that heat is never a friend to seed preservation, but the literature on the subject indicates that seed drying is a better process for preservation than even the most advanced (and expensive) cryogenic storage. Apparently, even seeds cooled to near liquid nitrogen levels must be planted and their seeds harvested for re-freezing every decade or so to maintain viability. The research suggests that most seed banks around the world would benefit significantly from drying over super-freezing. Some seeds are NOT suitable for ultra-drying. They include seeds with very heavy, hard shells which may not allow the moisture to exit the seed. Fortunately, these types of seeds are relatively rare. So far, I've built my seed collection to nearly 100 different types of seeds. Rather than try to organize them into any specific order, I just label them with a name and a number, and use a database to match name/number for lookup. The jars all contain seed packets by number: 1-25 in the first jar, 26-50 in the second and so on. With a click of the mouse, I can view the seeds by name (with corresponding position in the appropriate jar) or number (which tells me which seeds are in a particular jar. I consider seed storage an important part of self-reliance, I grow a significant portion of my own produce, starting out after asking myself the question, "What would happen if the food supply system broke down?" and, "Why are peppers $1 each!?" What started as an experiment ("How much of my own food can I grow?") has become an interesting hobby and a source of superior produce. (I haven't bought a pepper in years!) The recent droughts already have experts predicting that food costs will double this year. With the dollar teetering on the edge of collapse, being able to grow your own food just seems prudent to me - and a stable supply of good seed is critical to that effort.

We've done a good deal of clearing over the years. There is a big difference in stripping out an old growth forest and clearing out brush and "weed" trees. Most places, its natural for young growth to "burn out" occasionally. Sucker and colony trees, like Quaking Aspen, live mostly underground and will actually benefit from burning out the area and removing competition. We found that the best way to handle stumps is to dig a deep hole (think 10 feet at least) and to push all the trees and brush into the hole with the stumps. The "earth" walls of the hole will insulate the fire and create a much hotter fire than a surface burn. This will significantly improve how much the brush and stumps burn down and shield the heat from surrounding flora (a hot surface burn can kill trees more than 20 feet away). After the burn, fill in all but the top foot or so and compacting with the excavator bucket every couple of feet; then return the top soil and lightly compact. You will still get a depression over the next few years from the final decomposition. I prefer to surface burn everything, then bury the stumps more than 6 feet deep. I even out the ash pile with a box scraper, then disc the soil before planting. You need to bury the stumps below the frost line or else the frost may eventually return them to the surface before they fully compost. As far as brush, remember the 2-2-2 rule; any branch or stick 2 inches or less in diameter within 2 inches of the ground should be decomposed within 2 years. If you don't fully burn your brush pile, the decomposition may rob the soil of nitrogen and you won't get the growth you'd expect from deep rooted plants. You can tell if your having too much decomposition if you dig a post hole and it smells like manure. Just to be safe I would plant an nitrogen fixing cover crop the first year. Talk to your conservation office to make sure the plants you put in aren't invasive in your area. Even native plants can be invasive or bad for your goals if left unchecked. Also make sure you check with your local conservation people to see if there are any local disease problems to look out for. For example, I love black cherry and its a good conservation tree for North Iowa, but my particular area has a lot of a black knot fungus that makes it a poor choice for dense planting.

Debbie, I do live very near (less than 2 miles) from the most violent city in the country. It's ghetto from one end to the other, there are no good sections of this city left where decent people can live. It IS very scary. The info I posted was absolutely FIRST HAND, and only the tip of the iceberg. You see, I used to teach in that city and my husband is a utility company bill collector who visits these people in their homes. If you think what I posted is scary, you'd be absolutely terrified if you ever actually saw the city. Back on topic--sadly, the people who live there are 4-5-6th generation welfare families. Most don't have or remember any relatives who worked for a living. Collecting welfare, food stamps, and other forms of assistance IS the family business. They have no education, and honestly--many don't know that it's NOT good for their children to be fed bbq potato chips and soda for breakfast. My state is spending an unbelievable amount to keep these people going, keeping them housed, fed, cool, stocked with phones, etc. I think in this discussion, we have to remember that there are 2 very distinct groups of people who get food stamps and other assistance. I don't think anyone here has a problem with offering short-term help to those who have hit a temporary bump in the road. That's what the system is for and I think we're all glad the aid is there for those folks. But it's abominable that those of us who work hard, scrimp at home, save coupons, wear old clothes, don't use air-conditioning, who limit the size of our families to numbers we can support---then have to turn around and pay huge amounts in taxes to subsidize those who are content to scam the system unnecessarily. That's the thing that those of us who are upset are complaining about.