Gardening
Preserve Your Garden Produce for Delicious Winter Meals
Wooden orchard racks maximize storage space, while allowing air to reach each layer of produce.
Photo credit: Gardener's Supply Company
All your hard work is paying off with a bountiful harvest. Fresh produce is filling your garden, countertops, and refrigerator while the garden keeps producing more. Preserve some of your harvest to enjoy throughout the winter with some tried-and-true or updated variation of food preservation techniques.
Hanging bundles of herbs to dry is a long-time practice that works. Harvest herbs in the morning just after the dew has dried off the leaves. Rinse, allow them to dry, and remove any damaged or dried leaves.
Gather the dry herbs into small bundles and secure with a rubber band. Use a spring-type clothespin to hang the bundles from a clothesline or hanger in a warm, dry, airy place out of direct sunlight.
A modern twist on this tradition is the space-saving Stack!t Herb Drying Rack (gardeners.com) hung from the ceiling. You will be able to dry large quantities of herbs in any narrow, out-of-the-way space.
Extend the life, flavor, and nutritional value of squash with proper harvesting and storage. Only store blemish- and damage-free fruits and vegetables to reduce the risk of mold and decay developing during storage.
Harvest zucchini when the fruit is six to eight inches long and scalloped squash when three to six inches in diameter. Store these in a plastic bag inside the vegetable crisper drawer in your refrigerator for several days.
Wait to harvest winter squash when the fruit is full-sized, and the rinds are firm and glossy. The portion touching the ground turns from cream to orange when the fruit is ripe. Use a pruner to harvest the fruit, leaving a one-inch stem on each fruit. Cure all winter squash, except for acorn, in a warm, humid location. Then move to a cool, dry, well-ventilated area to store for several months. In the past, gardeners stored these, potatoes, onions, and fruit in wooden racks that maximized storage space and allowed air to reach each layer of produce. An updated version, Gardener’s Supply Orchard Rack, adds convenient drawers to this traditional storage system.
Boost your cabbage harvest with this trick. Remove firm full-sized heads but leave the lower ring of leaves and roots intact. The plant will form several smaller heads.
Harvest cucumbers based on how you plan to use them. Pick the fruit when it is 1 ½ to 2 ½ inches long if you plan on making sweet pickles. Allow the cucumbers to grow a bit bigger, three to four inches, if dill pickles are on the menu. Harvest those for slicing when the skin is firm, bright green and the fruit is six to nine inches long.
Turn a portion of your harvest into something delicious. Fermentation is a relatively easy preservation technique used for thousands of years. Preserve some of your cucumbers as pickles, cabbage as sauerkraut, and berries as preserves with fermentation. Store fermented fruits and vegetables in a cool, dark place or extend their shelf life by canning the finished product. For most projects, you just need the fruit or vegetables, water, salt, and spices. The desired ingredients are placed in a covered vessel, like Gardener’s Supply 3-gallon Fermentation Crock. Weights are used to keep the fruit and vegetables submerged in water throughout the fermentation process.
If your garden is still producing when frost is in the forecast, extend the harvest season. Cold frames and cloches are tried-and-true techniques used for extending the growing season. A modern method employs floating row covers. These spun fabrics allow air, light, and water through while protecting plants from frosty conditions. Cover the plantings and anchor the fabric in place. Lift to harvest and enjoy several more weeks and even months of garden-fresh produce.
Select the storage and preservation methods that work best for your garden produce, growing location, and lifestyle. Once you enjoy homegrown produce in winter meals, you will start growing more produce to eat fresh, share and preserve.
Melinda Myers has written more than 20 gardening books, including Small Space Gardening. She hosts The Great Courses “How to Grow Anything” DVD series and the Melinda’s Garden Moment TV & radio segments. Myers is a columnist and contributing editor for Birds & Blooms magazine and was commissioned by Gardeners Supply for her expertise to write this article.. Her web site is www.MelindaMyers.com.
Antiques
Advertising Thermometers
Regular readers of this column know that old advertising signs are popular and can be quite valuable. Companies also used other methods besides signs to promote their brands. Gas station pumps featured brand names on their pumps. Soda companies displayed their names on coolers full of their soda. Manufacturers gave clocks and thermometers to country stores and corner markets to help promote their products. Many advertising thermometers are very valuable, but some can be affordable for novice collectors, too.
A 1991 Chicago Tribune article reported that Galileo "produced a thermoscope, which consisted of a large glass bulb with a long narrow open-mounted neck inverted over a container of colored water, alcohol or mercury." Gabriel D. Fahrenheit invented a mercury thermometer in 1714 that was similar to those that we are familiar with today.
Most American advertising thermometers were produced between 1875 and 1940, according to the Chicago Tribune. Advertising thermometers were intended to be hung outside of buildings. Some were wood, but they were more typically made of all metal or enamel over metal. Most of the thermometers were vertical with rounded corners. Collectors Weekly’s website says that thermometers became popular in the 1920’s when “they were made by beverage, food, tobacco, automotive, and agricultural firms, as well as the health-care industry. These were hugely popular in rural areas, because knowing the temperature, as well as the wind direction, was key to predicting the weather.”
The usual antique assessment factors also apply to thermometers. Age, condition, and rarity all matter. Some advertising thermometers can be affordable to average collectors. Five 1960’s thermometers including one for Royal Crown soda and one for Camels cigarettes sold for $70 each at auction last month. A Sealtest Milk round thermometer recently went for $120.
However, plenty of advertising thermometers are worth much more. A Champion Spark Plugs metal thermometer had two wheels that could be rotated to show different options for “weather forecast” and “check service.” It sold for $7,000 in 2015. A 1950 rare turquoise colored Coca Cola thermometer that was believed to be one of a few in existence brought $9,500 in 2016. A round thermometer for Red Hat Moto Oil reached $11,500 in 2016. A rare Ace High Motor Oil thermometer fetched $12,000 in 2010. A porcelain Campbell’s soup can with a thermometer in the spot where the gold medal symbol appears heated up the auction floor when it sold for $16,000 in 2014.
Our Warren, RI online estate auction includes some vintage advertising thermometers. The preview will be held on September 12th with bidding ending on September 16th. We will also be running an estate sale at a Southborough, MA mansion on August 22nd and 23rd. The video of the webinar I presented on getting the most for your estate items is now available on our website. More information will also soon be available on the online auction and estate sale on www.centralmassauctions.com.
Contact us at: Wayne Tuiskula Auctioneer/Appraiser Central Mass Auctions for Antique Auctions, Estate Sales and Appraisal Services www.centralmassauctions.com (508-612- 6111) info@centralmassauctions.com