Wow. That’s cool. I love hearing anything about traditional food preservation. According to Maangchi “there are hundreds of different kinds of kimchi” so turnip must be one of them.
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My brother’s first wife was Korean. She needed to eat it all the time. They buried theirs too. I couldn’t eat something that smelt like that. I remember her getting upset that I called it stinky.
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yep. if you can get past the smell its delicious but not for everyone. they have it with all their meals. very good for you and the only cabbage I’ve eaten that doesn’t give you gas. must be the fermentation that breaks it down.
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There is a black soybean that I believe that is fermented too. Sometimes it is used in stir-fries and sauces called “black bean sauce” etc. I really like it, but it is too salty to be used in any quantity. I haven’t tried natto, but I think I’d probably like it.
I love kimchi, but have had zero luck in trying to make it. I tried once with some bok-choi but it was awful. I think the bok-choi that I had planted were too close to bolting and were extremely bitter.
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This Eastern Gray Tree Frog was napping inside my Concord grapevines. I almost snipped him with my pruning shears. I thought he was a clump of dead leaves (he was hiding inside a clump of dead leaves). I was removing the clutter around him and touched him with my hand before I realized-- it’s a frog! He didn’t move a muscle. I jumped a mile, and am embarrased to say I let out an audible squeal! After snapping his picture, I ceased my pruning and left him alone.
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I actually take Natto supplements…Mk-7… try to heal these old bones quicker 
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My favorite light colored currant is Glorie des Sablon a pink currant. Very sweet, sweeter than Primus. I didn’t take any photos of the fruit on the plant, just one of frozen pink berries. I freeze them on trays, then clean and store for future use. It produces nice large berries, an old french cultivar
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Finally got up to my mountain property today. I had not been there in weeks due to various obligations. Grabbed some McDonald’s fast food and zipped up there for a long overdue checkup. Some highlights:
I found a couple nice ripe Reka blueberries- my first taste of this newly planted cultivar. Sweet, tangy, and on the sour side for a blueberry, but perfectly acceptable. A harbinger I hope of more to come in future years…
I also picked some “Fall Gold” and various other raspberries. I used my chicken nuggets clamshell as a container. As one of Donald Draper’s mistresses once said: “I like to be (eat) bad, and then be good.”
I discovered my Harrow Diamond peach on K.1 finally kicked its leaf-curl habit, and the fruit is getting bigger!
Gold Dust peach already has a red color! I cannot wait to taste these peaches…
I was pleasantly surprised that my Allegheny chinkapins have their first set of both male AND female flowers. The trees are several years old and might finally produce their first crop of nuts this fall!
The bad news? I missed some of my black rasp crop and only caught the tail-end of it.
The weeds - including poison ivy - are out of control. I’ll be weed-whacking and hand-pulling (with gloves) in the comings days.
Many of my peach fruitlets got dinged by bugs. Boo!
I found that my Fairtime peachtree whip had recently snapped in half for no apparent reason (wind damage?). It was flopped over and hanging on by just a quarter of the cambium and rhytidome. I made a splint using a bamboo stake and electrician’s tape and propped it back up, but it is wilting fast in this dry heat. Tomorrow the heat persists- accompanied by the return of humidity. This tree is probably a goner. I don’t have time to baby it… and it’s gonna be too hot to do a graft transplant. Oh well. It’s a numbers game. Every year, I hope to continue to have more winners than losers… and hope my winners get bigger and bigger and more productive.
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So, what do both currants taste like? Are they good for fresh eating? Or are they “good for processing” fruit?
Btw, will you have any gooseberries this year?
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Looks good. What other varieties of rasps do you have? Didn’t you say your Blushingstar had fruit on it too?
Don’t envy you clearing out that poison ivy, be careful with that stuff.
So, what does a chinkapin nut look and taste like?
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Chinkapins are closely related to chestnuts and can interbreed/cross-pollinate with them. They are likewise prone to chestnut blight but can cope with it much better.
They differ from chestnuts in the number of nuts produced in each burr. Chestnuts can produce up to five nuts per burr (usually three). Chinkapins produce just one nut per burr.
Another distinction: Chestnut burrs open into quarters in the fall. Chinkapin burrs open up along one suture like a clamshell.
I have eaten chestnuts before. But I have not yet had the opportunity to eat chinkapins. I am pushing the zone on these guys. They grow more readily in the Deep South (like piedmont Alabama). The furthest north the Allegheny species grows naturally is western Pennsylvania. There are other subspecies as well native to the Ozarks and elsewhere. The nuts are said to taste fantastic- perhaps even better than chestnuts. Sweet and carbo starchy with a nutty cornbread-like flavor- best roasted. There are beautiful photos all over the internet.
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Blushingstar fruitlets are puttering along. It is a mid-late season peach.
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Bill-- My Carolina Red June apples are still not ready yet. I just checked on them today. They’re still kinda smallish.
At this stage, the Williams’ Pride apples have them beat in terms of size (but my WP tree is also larger, older, and perhaps stronger than my CRJ tree)…
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Thanks for the update
The white currants have a citrus like taste. the pink has a mix of citrus and the berry flavor from reds. It’s excellent. For fresh eating only the pinks, let hang a long time. They have high acid that diminishes with hang time. When the pink is very ripe it’s excellent for fresh eating. Good in fruit salads too. The whites are mild in flavor and can be eaten fresh, not all whites, but many. All are best from processing. I like them in scones, fruit leather, crisps, and jams.
I have two gooseberry plants ripening Black Velvet, and Hinn. Yellow. Nothing to write home about, I need to try others. They take a long time to become fully ripe, I’m so new to them, I can’t tell you much. I do prefer the currants. I have enough blacks for some jam. With the reds, pinks and whites color is best used to determine when ripe. With gooseberries and black currants when the berry gives a little it is ripe. Harder to tell, and take some time to ripen. I need to grow more to get a better idea of when best to pick. The gooseberries look ripe, but have no give yet, I harvested some for jam, as this is the stage you want them for jam. I left about half on to see. I will leave some on to rot, just to see how long I can wait to harvest, the later the better with these fruits, with most fruits!
I like white currants, yellow black raspberries AKA “yellow caps”, although mine is more a brown cap! And white blackberries, combined in jams. I can’t describe the taste but it is one of my favorites. Also tart cherry and red currant jam is just killer.
I also use them in crisps, scones, and other baked products. I love crisps with walnuts and/or pecans and oatmeal in the crust, so darn good with some good coconut ice cream or your traditional vanilla. I do them in the winter with frozen berries. Fresh berries are great to use too. If frozen at times you need to remove some liquid so it’s not mush when done. I also make a peach/nectarine with red currant crisp that is fantastic too. Good in coffee cakes too!
You can also make syrups and fruit leather with currants. A pain to make leather, but it comes out like store bought.The last fruit leather I made was with yellow raspberries, wow excellent!
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This morning while out for a run, I ended up chasing Wile E. Coyote for a bit. He made the decision to run in the same direction I was headed.
I am pretty sure he was eating mulberries for breakfast, since when we both spotted each other he was under a spot where mulberries are dropping on the trail.
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Reading how the Silk Hope Mulberry propagates rather well,I took some new,somewhat hardened cuttings and put them in a fog box.Hopefully they will root.Brady
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Granny Smith?
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