Need to make a veggie tray - ugh!
bbstx
2 years ago
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Need help planning veggie garden
Comments (18)OK, that is at least part of the problems. Your roots are cooking. My philosophy is to match the mulch with the plant's life cycle, ie, I want the mulch to break down over the plants' lifetime. For example, for annual vegetables I would recommend a mulch like straw (not hay which has more seeds). The straw will break down relatively quickly, usually within 6 months, especially during the warmer parts of the year (OK, I meant hot). Other good choices include such things as leaves, pine needles, and even shredded paper if you are in a pinch. For perennials, in my experience, there is nothing better than shredded bark or wood. If you are going to go the route of straw ( I think this is one of the best choices), I suggest you get some newspaper and lay it underneath the straw. Put down 5-6 sheets of newspaper and make sure it is wet down thorougly, then put the straw on top. The reason you do this is while straw has fewer seeds than hay, it still contains some seeds which could still germinate. The newspaper will prevent the majority of from germinating in the soil (also a good "worm food"). Any that do, can easily be pulled out because their roots are in newspaper instead of the soil. A word of warning, DO NOT GET BERMUDA GRASS STRAW, unless you want more of it growing around. Alfalfa is one of the best, but most expensive. There will be a bunch available soon since Halloween is almost around the corner (hard to believe). A final choice which I didn't give but still works is using compost. If you have a pickup truck, you can call a local compost company and drive down there and have the stuff loaded into your pickup truck. An average pickup truck will be able to hold about 1 cub yard of compost, or 27 cubic feet. It will cost you between $10 and $25 for a cub yard this way. Again, use the newspaper underneath to prevent any airborn seeds from getting established. You can use part of the compost to mix with your soil, and the remainder as a mulch. Remember, no matter which mulch you use though, keep the mulch at least a couple of inches away from the base of the plants. Since mulch attracts many critters (most of them good), they will like the stems of the vegetables just as much as the mulch itself--so do yourself a favor and don't add the vegetables to their main course. On another note, when you are ready to get rid of your cypress trees, find a local company that will shred all of the wood for you. That is a free source of mulch right there to use in other areas of your yard where you might have perennials growing. Good luck and HTH Here is a link that might be useful: Mulch Properties...See MoreVeggie tray question
Comments (46)Ok in case anyone is interested, I just did two experiments: First I blanched four similar sized pieces of broccoli, two for 45 seconds, two for 90 seconds. (Cook's Illustrated recommends 1-1.5 minutes for broccoli.) For each cooking time I shocked one and let the other just sit on a plate. I placed them all in the fridge for a while to cool down. Result - They were all pretty similar, but side by side I preferred those that had been shocked. The stems were the same but the flowers (or whatever you call them) retained a firmer texture on the shocked florets. The time differences had less of an impact. I repeated the experiment, but this time added a splash of vinegar to the water. Maybe I didn't add enough vinegar but I didn't notice any difference off-hand. (How much do you use, Gina?) Because I needed to get rid of the vinegar, this time I gave the un-shocked veggies a quick rinse under tap water. This time I couldn't really discern much difference at all. My guess is that the quick rinse was enough to stop the broccoli from steaming, so it helped keep the texture of the flowers. My takeaway, next time I do a bunch I will stick with 45-60 seconds and will definitely shock them. My thinking is that with a larger amount of florets piled up there will be more residual heat to steam the flowers and this is what I don't want to happen. YMMV, of course, and I'd expect different veggies to benefit from different blanching times....See Morelayout -- ugh -- gc needs me to make a decision
Comments (44)There's no basement (we're in a So. Cal. split level built alongside a hill). We don't have a mudroom or a laundry room to borrow storage space from. The laundry is in a closet off of the family room. We're currently storing paper towels and bulk items in the wetbar that we don't use (also in the Family Room -- but it's going to get the boot one of these days). The wall between the dining room and family room is only 4" thick -- total, although I'm probably going to beef this up slightly because the family room is currently covered in paneling (it's been painted, but as long as I'm remodeling, we might as well fix that) and there's no insulation in the walls. Other thought I had was to do a partial half wall with support columns there to open the family room up to the dining/kitchen area. I would have to keep part of the wall so I have something to set my barrister's bookcase against, but a half wall would let the cook see the TV. I could move the message center/backpack storage into the closet in the Family Room with a bit of an interior closet remodel (it's currently our games/toys/crafts/office supply closet). That wouldn't be too inconvenient since it is just around the corner from the front entry at the top of the stairs. Here's my floor plan again to help with visualization. The master bedroom is missing from this drawing (it's on the other side of the kitchen) and the kids' rooms/bathroom/linen closet on the third level are not quite to scale (they were sleeping when I was trying to draw it out). Here is a link that might be useful: Floorplan...See Moreugh, can you quick make me a dip please?
Comments (8)I love that dip and anything Mexican/Tex Mex. Have you all fixed this Mexican cheese dip? I have no name for it but it is delicious, even though it has one weird ingredient. The amounts depend on how much you want to make. We make a lot so we can reheat it in individual bowls for lunch. Add to crockpot: 2 large or 3 medium size Mexican Velveeta Cheese blocks, I always get mild...broken into chunks for a faster melt. 1 bag Frozen Chopped Broccoli, completely thawed and drained. 1 can Chopped Mushrooms, drained Cook on Low or High, depending on the time you have, stirring every now and then until it's steaming hot....See Morebbstx
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