In this article you’ll find out how to grow, harvest, and use lemongrass — even if you live in cooler climate regions! Native to South Asia, lemongrass (Cymbopogon citratus) is a delicious plant with a unique lemon-like taste that is often used as a flavoring in Asian foods and beverages.
Once you know how to grow lemongrass, you’ll want to grow it every year thereafter. We love using our fresh lemongrass in Asian soups, desserts, and drinks.
Ducks vs chickens: which is the best option for backyard poultry? What are the pros and cons of each? Can you raise ducks and chickens together? This 12-point comparison will help you answer all your poultry questions so you can make the best choice for you!
I got ducks for the first time this year and I have to say I enjoy them far more than chickens. I have one friendly chicken but all my ducks are sociable and some even affectionate. I have decided from now on to focus on raising ducks and I plan on starting a small farm in the next year in Vermont. I had no clue how intelligent and social they are, it’s really been an eye opener for me and I love watching them grow and I truly look forward to raising more.
Thank for the info, Brent! Do you mind sharing what duck breeds you have? Best of luck on your new farm in Vermont – gorgeous area of the country up there. The Tyrant and I accidentally wrecked a boat on the Vermont side of Lake Champlain last summer, but that was our fault, not Vermont’s.
Thank you! I have 3 pekins, a rouen and a cayuga duck. One of the pekins and the cayuga seem to be the most affectionate. Daffy, Donald, Daisy, Darkwing and Ping are their names. Vermont is gonna be a big experiment but I’m up for the challenge. Gonna do the whole farm and homestead thing (except my ducks will be strictly egg layers, fertilizer providers and most importantly, pets.)
I have been interested in getting chickens for egg laying purposes, but after reading your blog I want ducks now! I had always kind of wanted a duck just to have around as a pet because I love them. Is it possible to both have a duck pet that has imprinted on you that will also lay eggs? Or is it best to get them after they’re hatched so they aren’t as attached to you?
Hi Alex! Yes, it’s possible to have a pet that also makes you breakfast (or as you termed it, “a duck pet that has imprinted on you that will also lay eggs”)! A couple recommendations:
1. Don’t ever just get one single duck. They’re highly social animals and they need another animal around in order to be comfortable and happy. Ideally, that other animal(s) is a duck, but we’ve had friends who had a duck and a chicken and both animals bonded to each other despite being different species. There are even people we’ve seen online who have a duck and a dog that grew up together, so it seems like anything that can provide 24-7 social/emotional support will do.
2. In our opinion, you want your ducks to like you and not be too terrified of you regardless of whether you get them for egg-laying purposes or not. The reason for that is, like any animal or pet that you keep, your ducks may occasionally get sick or injured. If/when that happens, you need to be able to inspect them and care for them without giving them a heart attack. Here’s an article we wrote with 3 tips to get your ducks to like you: https://www.tyrantfarms.com/how-to-get-your-ducks-to-like-you-three-tips/
Hope this info is helpful! Please let us know if you have any other questions.
Not sure how you consider ducks to be “birds that wouldn’t destroy our garden when foraging”. Ducks are just as bad as chickens from our experience – ours jumped into our 2′ tall raised beds and tried to eat all of our peas and cucumber plants, tops off the onions, carrots and garlic, and even the leaves from red bell peppers. On the ground during free ranging they also demolish marigolds, calendula, sage, fuschia, hydrangea and even nibbled at the base of the ferns so much so that they never grew back this year. Yes, we get almost an egg a day from each and they are really funny with very distinct personalities and we don’t regret having them,, but they are definitely not any easier on the plants, and next year we are definitely not letting them free range in the veggie garden!!!
Woah! That sounds pretty intense! What breed do you have? We do no-till organic gardening with mulch over our soils, so by “not destroy” we meant they don’t completely dig out the beds. If left in a veggie patch unattended, they can definitely wreak havoc on the plants – especially salad greens. However, we let them ours into certain garden beds every night (especially ones with taller perennial plants) and the mostly judge forage for insects, slugs, worms, etc and add fertilizer in the process. Sorry yours are little garden monsters!
Do you put heater or heat lamp in the duck pen in the winter? If yes, what kind of heater and at what temperature?
No, we don’t. We live in a relatively mild area (Ag Zone 7B in upstate South Carolina). Ducks are very well adapted to cold weather so our coldest spells aren’t enough to be much of a bother to ducks. As long as they have dry bedding in their coop at night, they’re good to go. We will put down a heat mat or cable to keep their water from freezing at night though.
Thank you for your reply. I have a lot of questions that I would love to know about raising ducks, to make the life of my ducks better. I have a white layer and a Rouen, 10 months old. During the rainy days here in California, I’d like to keep their pen clean and hope I can get some tips. Are you still housing the ducks in the coup showing in the picture?
* How do you keep the floor clean? What materials you use for the bedding, what kind of floor is it? How often do you change the bedding ?
* Do you leave food inside the coup for them? I leave some food inside because I don’t want to let them go outside when it rains. They tend to get totally soaked in the rain and I’m afraid they can get sick because of that. I only let them out when the rain is over, but sometimes it might rains for a couple straight days. What type of feeder you use? How often do you refill it?
* What kind of heat pad you use for the water?
* What type of container you use for water? Is there any tips in disposing leftover water? I dump it on the ground but it creates a mess in the raining season.
* If possible, can you post some pictures of the coup interior, the floor, wall, bedding and feeding areas?
Thank you so much Aaron!
Tina, responses to your questions:
Q. During the rainy days here in California, I’d like to keep their pen clean and hope I can get some tips. Are you still housing the ducks in the coup showing in the picture? How do you keep the floor clean? What materials you use for the bedding, what kind of floor is it? How often do you change the bedding ?
A: Our ducks are in a fenced back yard and only go into their coops at night for protection from predators (possums, raccoons, etc). The coop rests on the ground on top of a hardware cloth strip – this prevent any predators from digging from underneath to get to them. We use pine shavings to keep their house dry and clean. Just a quick top up of the shavings each night before they go in. Once the shavings have built up to about 12″ deep, we remove and compost the shavings, and start over. (A complete bedding changeout happens about once every two months, I think.)
Q. Do you leave food inside the coup for them? I leave some food inside because I don’t want to let them go outside when it rains. They tend to get totally soaked in the rain and I’m afraid they can get sick because of that. I only let them out when the rain is over, but sometimes it might rains for a couple straight days. What type of feeder you use? How often do you refill it?
A: Yes, we have food and water inside for them. Nothing fancy: just ceramic bowls propped up off the floor a bit on a rock or piece of log to keep them from pooping in them or tipping them over. We top up their bowls each night before we “tuck them in.”
As far as rain goes, ducks love rain and cool weather. If your ducks get totally soaked after a short rain, that might be an indication that their feather health isn’t as good as it should be. “Like water off of a duck’s back” is quite accurate – their feathers should be well-oiled and highly water-resistant. Good diet, adequate sunlight, and good water to clean/preen themselves in is the ideal recipe for healthy ducks and duck feathers. They will get wet after a long rain or a long swim (along their underbellies) but they’re dry again a few minutes after preening.
Q. What kind of heat pad you use for the water? What type of container you use for water? Is there any tips in disposing leftover water? I dump it on the ground but it creates a mess in the raining season.
A: It seldom gets cold enough here for us to have to resort to heating the water in their coop. When it does, we just use the seedling heat mats we have from seed starting. I believe there are heated bowls you can buy now where the heating elements are built into the dish, if that’s a problem for you. We use fallen leaves and triple ground wood chips in the areas where our ducks spend their day to prevent it from becoming a mud pit (and possibly a good site for parasites and anaerobic/pathogenic bacteria). We also have a lot of fruit and berry plants back there so we just dump the duck’s water on the mulch around the base of those trees.
Ducks love the rain – they are water fowl, let them go out and have fun! They can stand temps down to 15 deg F. Get a heated bucket – we got one on Amazon for $40 and it works like a charm – and dump the old water in your garden – great fertilizer! Strongly recommend the book “Duck Eggs Daily” and the author’s blog as well, lots of common sense tips.
Thanks for the suggestion. I checked out Amazon, there were so many heated buckets. Can you post a link to the one you’ve got? TY
Sorry we missed your questions, Tina! Responses below:
1. “During the rainy days here in California, I’d like to keep their pen clean and hope I can get some tips. Are you still housing the ducks in the coup showing in the picture?” Yes, we’re still using the same coup we built four years ago. We haven’t really moved it at all, so it’s sunken into the ground and is starting to get some wood rot. Our next coup will probably be constructed from a lightweight aluminum.
2. “How do you keep the floor clean? What materials you use for the bedding, what kind of floor is it? How often do you change the bedding?” We put a think layer of pine shavings down each night before we put them up. We do this for about 6-8 weeks until it’s really built up, then we shovel out all the bedding and use it as a base for our compost.
3. “Do you leave food inside the coup for them? I leave some food inside because I don’t want to let them go outside when it rains. They tend to get totally soaked in the rain and I’m afraid they can get sick because of that. I only let them out when the rain is over, but sometimes it might rains for a couple straight days. What type of feeder you use? How often do you refill it?” Yes, we put food and water (with fresh greens) in with them at night. We use metal no-tip bowls. Unlike chickens, ducks LOVE rain, so let your girls out to enjoy it! The wetter and colder the better, assuming they have good feather health and are generally healthy.
4. “What kind of heat pad you use for the water?” In our area, it’s very seldom to get deep freezes that cause their water to freeze at night. When that happens, we use soil cables and/or heating mats that we have for seed starting.
5. “What type of container you use for water? Is there any tips in disposing leftover water? I dump it on the ground but it creates a mess in the raining season.” We use no-tip metal bowls. We dump the water into our no-till garden beds that have heavy mulch on them, so it doesn’t ever create a mud pit.
Neat! Sounds like you’ve got some interesting chickens there. I’ve never heard of chickens fetching. That seems like a very intelligent chicken.
Our comment system was broken for a while so our responses looked like they were posting but weren’t. Anyway, two years later, thanks for sharing! How is your duck flock doing? And your now-twelve year old? 🙂
I’d have to disagree with chickens not being cuddly. I love ducks too, but I love my 8 chickens more than even my cats. I raised my chickens from 4 weeks old, not day one, and the majority of them are all socialable and even cuddly. Daisy, a blue andalusian, loves to sit on my feet or hands when I go into the run. She will trample the others to get to me and then will follow me around while I do my chores. She jumps on my lamp when I sit down as well. Dixie, another andalusian, flies up to my shoulders to chill there like a parrot. Tater, an easter egger, climbs into my lap every afternoon for a nap while I stroke her. April, a salmon faverolle, loves her chest rubbed and will come up to my and nudge my hand like a dog until I do it. All of my chickens are very personable and I love them tons, even though they are just chickens. They will all eat out of my hand and my white marans, Elsa and Betty Lou will on occasion play fetch with their treat ball. After I throw the ball, Elsa will push it back to me with her beak and Betty will walk behind her, eating the treats as they come out. Not bashing ducks by any means, because I love my two ducks as well, but they aren’t near as cuddly as my chickens and they were raised from day one with hours of handling daily (one is a welsh harlequin, another is a giant pekin, and the other is a buff).
I. JUST. LOVE. THE. DUCKS! We have layers (chickens) regularly, last year we got pekins for meat, this year, we are letting them live to see how we like the eggs. Ducks have so much personality, I just love them! My 10 yr old is always outside with them, loving them, and they snuggle up with her, nibbling on her neck and ear…it’s so darn cute! They have a special noise that sounds like a whistle when they call her and they start calling her around 7 am which is when she is typically up! How can you not love that?? Sadly, it’s time for the freezer for one of them (the odd female)….daughter can’t wait to make something with the down. Yeah, we’ll see how it goes….will definitely get more than 3 next year. Maybe get rid of the chickens.
Thanks! If I ever get in a postion to get some I’ll take you along to do the sexing LOL
one more question or two. How much do the Harlequins cost? On the chart iit had food cost, is that after foraging?
Sorry, Patricia. Comment system was broken for a long time and we didn’t realize it. Cost – it depends on where you get them and the quantity. Most breeders will give you a quantity discount, but if you just want a few birds, or you want them to be a sexed run (all females), it will cost a bit more. We got most of ours from Metzer Farms. It’s about $5-$6/duckling, but they’ll charge a “small order fee” of $40 if you just order a few birds.
What is the threat by hawks once they get grown?
There is a breeder in TR that sells Welsh Harlequins and other ducks for less than $10 each when they’re young. That’s where we got our first four. The problem with that approach was that we didn’t know how to sex the ducks (and neither did he) so we ended up with 3 males / 1 female. We know how to sex them now, so we’d be pretty confident picking them out in the future. Our second set (3 females) was ordered from a well-known breeder, Metzer Farms, on the west coast. As soon as they hatch, Metzer sexes them and puts them in the mail. Ours arrived a day later at 6am at the post office and they called us immediately to pick them up from the loading dock. Obviously, the second batch was a bit more expensive. Including shipping, the total price per bird was probably about $25 including the extra food we had included in their shipping box. If you buy more than 10 birds, they give you special pricing.
Sorry, our replies are a bit out of order here. 🙂
Q: What is the threat by hawks once they get grown?
A: We’ve heard that hawks will still come after them when they’re older, but we haven’t had that problem. We have a lot of hawks around and our older birds are out foraging in the yard all day long.
Q: On the chart it had food cost, is that after foraging?
A: That stat comes from the Holderread book. We haven’t precisely measured our ducks food consumption by weight per bird. Our guess is that this stat refers to total food consumption, not just their feed. Ours probably get a lot higher percentage of their diet from “foraged” food since we also give them tons of fruit and veggie scraps each day. Basically, you can probably skew those feed to forage ratios depending on what you have in your yard/garden and/or what food scraps you’re willing to cut up and feed them (they can’t eat big pieces of stuff).
Okay I am convinced. I want some. I love ducks anyway and don’t like chickens (my dislike has grown since I have someone who lives behind my house who raises roosters who are chained in their pens and who crow all day, multiply that sound by 30-50). But I need to taste some duck eggs. When I was growing up my Grandfather had a bird game farm in La. My grandmother would use duck and quail eggs frequently, but that’s been a long time ago. I hope I can get by the Swamp Rabbit and check it out as well as get some duck eggs.
Ha! We remember you telling us about your chicken fiasco when you were over. Sorry to hear that it hasn’t improved. Neighbors should have more common sense than to have crowing roosters in a residential neighborhood. 🙁 Our male harlequins can’t even quack – they just make a raspy noise that sounds like a frog croaking. The females are the ones who can make some noise when they get excited, but it’s just an occasional honk. How interesting about your background with your grandparents! Since you don’t remember the taste of duck eggs, definitely stop by the Swamp Rabbit to give them a try to make sure you like them. We’d offer you some, but our oldest female is still 1-4 weeks from laying and the 3 other females are about 2 months away. We can’t wait until we get fresh eggs. We’re curious to see the taste considering how good their diet is here. They get quite pampered with all kinds of fresh organic produce and insects. 🙂
Find out how to make chestnut spread infused with spruce needles, a delicious fall, winter, or holiday spread made from chestnuts and edible conifer needles!
We recently created and shared this chestnut spread with friends and family. It was a big hit, so now we’re sharing it with you!
The spread has the consistency of hummus, however the flavor is quite unique. It has the sweet nutty flavors of chestnuts combined with the delicious orange skin-rosemary flavors of spruce needles.
We serve it either as a standalone appetizer with crackers or on a charcuterie plate.
Spruce needle-infused chestnut spread: quite a wonderful flavor combination!
While we call it a spread, don’t let that limit how you use it. It can just as easily be deemed a “chestnut mash” and served as a dinner side akin to mashed white or sweet potatoes.
The nuts/seeds produced by female Ginkgo biloba trees are an edible seasonal delicacy that should be eaten in moderation. In this article, you’ll find out how to identify, process, and eat ginkgo nuts!
What were you doing 200 million years ago? If you’re a Ginkgo biloba tree, the answer is pretty much the same thing you’re doing today.
That’s because Ginkgos are one of the oldest living tree species in the world, surviving virtually unchanged from their Jurassic ancestors. Equally impressive, each tree can live to be thousands of years old and they’re incredibly robust. In fact, six ginkgo trees (which were already hundreds of years old) growing in close proximity to the atomic explosions of Hiroshima survived the blasts.
One of our favorite things about Ginkgo trees? Their delicious nuts.
When perfectly cooked, ginkgo nuts should be jade-green in color with a gummy texture. They’re very easy to overcook! We’ll detail how to cook them to perfection in the recipe below.
Pineapple guavas (Feijoa sellowiana), aka feijoa, produce delicious edible flowers and fruit that taste like exotic tropicals. In this detailed guide, you’ll find out how to grow these unique evergreen plants in cooler climate regions — and how to eat the flowers and fruit!
Pineapple guava fruits harvested from our plants in October on the outskirts of Greenville, SC, Zone 7b.
I had a Kakariki feijoa and White Peruvian Guava flower at the same time in our green house. They cross pollinated and the Karariki fruit that resulted hard larger guava like seeds, which when planted produce 50% of Feijoa and 50% Feijoa.
I’d be amazed if these two species could cross given that they’re not very closely related. That would be really interesting.
loved the article! thank you for putting so much time and effort in to it. just wondering why you don’t prune in the winter? I read in a feijoa book that winter was the best time to prune.
Thanks for your question! We edited our pruning section for clarification as follows: “Our local University Extension at Clemson recommends pruning pineapple guava plants in late winter. However, since our plants are also edible landscaping plants, we do additional light pruning throughout the warm months when the plants are growing rapidly, being careful to avoid removing flowers or fruit.”
Find out how to identify and use the fruit of black tupelo (Nyssa sylvatica), an attractive, long-lived tree native to the eastern United States.
I. Black tupelo introduction
II. How to identify black tupelo
III. Recipe: Black tupelo whipped honey butter
Warning: Rule #1 in our Beginner’s guide to foraging is never eat anything you’re not 100% certain you’ve correctly ID’d AND you’re not 100% certain is edible. This applies to black tupelo fruit and all other wild foods you’re not presently familiar with.
You may be familiar with tupelo honey, made by honeybees foraging Ogeechee tupelo (Nyssa ogeche) along the swamps and rivers of Florida and Georgia. Well, we’d like to introduce you to another relatively unheralded and more widely dispersed tupelo species that you’ve likely encountered if you live east of the Mississippi River: black tupelos (Nyssa sylvatica). And unlike Ogeechee tupelos, black tupelos can and do grow far away from bodies of water.
In our area (Upstate South Carolina) native bees and honeybees alike enjoy the spring flowers of black tupelos. A significant portion of the commercial honey produced here comes from tulip poplar and black tupelo flowers.
However, black tupelo fruit (which are drupes that resemble berries) are not something most foragers or chefs know about or use.
Black tupelo fruit harvested in mid-October near Greenville, South Carolina.
Hi Andrew! Black tupelo trees probably do make great climbing trees. As for when to sex them, that’s technically possible to do as soon as they start flowering (which apparently can take decades), but you’d have to bring flowers to a university extension for sexing unless you’re smarter than we are – ha! Or you could wait and see if your tree bears fruit after flowering. Our understanding is that most wild black tupelos are polygamodioecious, meaning they have either male or female flowers plus bisexual/perfect flowers on the same tree, so they’ll typically produce fruit. However, if you get flowers but no fruit, you’ll know you either: a) have a male, or b) have a female but no male close enough to serve as a pollenizer.
If you don’t think crabapples can be gourmet food, these maple syrup-candied crabapples might just change your mind. Add them on top of our oat-pecan crumble cake (which is gluten-free), and you’ll be swooning for this seasonal delicacy!
This is one of the best dessert recipes we’ve ever created, so we’re happy it was made with the lowly crabapple. We say “lowly” because most people hold crabapples in such low culinary regard that the fruits are rarely used in the kitchen, instead left to rot in piles under their trees.
Can candied crabapple crumble cakes cause crabapple course correction? If nothing else, they’ll help create fun sentences.
We hope more people will start appreciating crabapples as food because they have incredible culinary potential. The intense sour and bitter flavors of the raw fruit are mellowed by cooking, becoming downright magical. Cooked crabapples taste like a flavorful apples crossed with cranberry crossed with almond.
Cauliflower mushroom “steaks” are made by cooking and smashing chunks of cauliflower mushroom between two heavy pans, thus creating attractively flattened pieces of perfectly cooked cauliflower mushrooms. Due to speed, ease, and results, this cooking method is our newfound favorite way to make cauliflower mushrooms.
There are lots of cauliflower mushrooms to be found from late summer through early fall where we live in the Southeast US. On our most recent outing, The Tyrant spotted a large one but recommended I leave it rather than harvesting it.
Cauliflower mushrooms in our area are Sparassis crispa, which are parasitic to pine trees. This one is growing right next to a pine tree and emerging through the pine leaf litter.
Why? We already had another cauliflower in our fridge from a previous foraging trip, and cleaning cauliflower mushrooms is a chore. Plus, she said, “I don’t really like cauliflower mushrooms.”
American persimmons (Diospyros virginiana) are a delicious native fruit with features that make it quite different from Asian persimmons. In this recipe article, you’ll discover how to make American persimmon panna cotta, a beautiful dessert that brings out the best flavors from raw American persimmon fruit!
We grow Asian persimmons and love them. They’re large, sweet, last a long time, easy to process (virtually no seeds), and maintain a creamy texture after cooking.
We also have numerous nearby spots where we can forage loads of American persimmons, so we don’t bother to grow them.
A handful of forest candy: ripe American persimmons.
Which type of persimmon do we like better — American or Asian?
When it comes to fresh eating, a perfectly ripe (read: not puckery) American persimmon is hands down a better flavor than any Asian persimmon variety we’ve ever tried. American persimmons are candy sweet but they also have rich, nuanced undertones.
An Instagram friend described them as tasting like “little pumpkin pies,” which is pretty accurate!
One-pot roasted chicken with chestnuts and crabapples is a simple and savory fall meal you’ll love. Perhaps the best part about it? You can use the ingredients to make amazing mashed chestnuts — they taste like mashed potatoes but better!
Our Asian chestnuts are producing loads of nuts right now and we also have a pile of foraged crabapples in our fridge. Thankfully, these two seasonal ingredients pair beautifully.
Chestnuts and crabapples: a wonderful seasonal pairing.
Chestnuts are sweet and starchy. Crabapples are a vastly under-appreciated food, in our opinion. Once baked in this recipe they’re like a combination of apples, cranberries, and almonds all in one.
So if you have chestnuts and crabapples handy, you’ve come to the right recipe!
In this article, you’ll find out how to quickly turn fresh chestnuts into chestnut flour! The only tool you’ll need to make this delicious and versatile gluten-free flour is a food processor.
We’ve been making our own chestnut flour from homegrown Chinese chestnuts for a decade. (See: How to grow Chinese chestnuts.)
As such, we’ve figured out lots of little tricks to simplify a process that might otherwise take a long time.
These chestnuts won’t be roasted on an open fire, they’ll be processed into chestnut flour and used to make a wide range of recipes.
Hi. We had a bag of chestnuts that we forgot about and they all got dried out. I tried roasting them to see if they would be edible, but they’re very very dry. Do you think I can grind these up for flour? Thanks.
If your chestnuts aren’t moldy and they don’t have any off flavors, then they should be fine to make into flour. Keep in mind that, at this point, the nuts are going to be very difficult for a food processor or blender to pulverize. You might end up breaking the machine instead. So, cooking them in water to soften them prior to pulverizing and drying may be necessary. Assuming you don’t have a huge number of chestnuts, another option is to make chestnut mash that you can enjoy immediately: https://www.tyrantfarms.com/chestnut-crabapple-mash/.
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Aaron – can you believe that I made 2 cups of flour last year and my wife didn’t use it??!!?? I just threw it away, but I’m cutting up chestnuts now for another attempt – she assures me she’ll use it this time!
There is sometimes a hard white spot in the chestnuts and it looks bad, so I always cut them out, but I was wondering what that was. Do I really need to cut it out or will it harm us if we eat it?
Thanks,
Reggie
Oh no! You need to make sure you use your homemade chestnut flour this time, regardless of whether your wife participates. A simple chestnut flour breakfast porridge is a great way to start and only takes a few minutes to make: https://www.tyrantfarms.com/recipe-chestnut-breakfast-porridge/. Also, if you store it in your freezer, chestnut flour can easily last over a year.
As for white spots, I don’t recall seeing such a thing in our chestnuts, so I can’t say for sure. We always process our chestnuts within a few days of them falling, so they’re quite fresh. You don’t want to use moldy chestnuts, but mold is typically dark in color, not white.
Hi on what temperature do you dry the chestnuts in the excalibur?
Hi Caitlin! Sorry for missing that detail. The exact temp isn’t important since you’re basically just drying the chestnuts long enough for the nutmeat to shrink down and separate from the skin/testa. 110F is good.
Thank you so much for answering so quickly. This is the first time we use the excalibur, can you give some guide lines with checking the puree? How long did yours take untill completely dry? It probably depends on the thickness of the puree, but I really don’t got a clue which time to aim for 🙂 can I watch out for certain changes in structure to know its done? Anyway, thanks a lot, the chestnuts are in the dehydrator now for the first round and I will let you know how things worked out.
With the chestnut puree, you want it to be completely dried out and crunchy. Any moisture left in will cause the chestnut flour to be lumpy and go bad. In your dehydrator, the puree will slightly oxidize on the exposed surfaces and crack – which makes it look sort of like cracked mud in a dried up lakebed when done. (Ha, probably not the most appetizing description!) You can achieve this result faster at a higher temperature or slower at a lower temp. We tend to avoid higher temps in our dehydrator since those can sort of cook the ingredients and alter their flavor profiles. 120F for 24 hours should get you dried chestnut puree. But again, if you detect any moisture in the puree, let it keep dehydrating.
Let us know how yours turns out!
Ok – I’m going to try this – I’m sick of throwing these chinese chestnuts away because I didn’t know what to do with them. They just go bad so fast!
Good for you! Chinese chestnuts are a wonderful food – and making them into flour is a great way to store and use them.
Nice article, thanks. My 1st candidate for your recipe search would undoubtedly be Castagnaccio – a Tuscan pastry dish that is really quite special and for me far and away the best use of chestnut flour. I have tried various chestnut pasta recipes but for me the sweetness is cloying, even when using it for a dessert.
Thanks for the tip, Russell! Castagnaccio sounds fantastic.
Are you trying to figure out how to process and eat a pumpkin? Want to know which parts of a pumpkin plant are edible? You’re in the right place!
This is Part 2 in our pumpkin series. Make sure you didn’t miss the first article all about pumpkin history, folklore, and interesting pumpkin facts.
One of the many benefits of growing your own pumpkins instead of buying canned pumpkin from the grocery store is that you can eat every part of the plant.
Yes, pumpkin flowers, leaves, stems, seeds, and flesh (including pumpkin skin) are all edible!
Why else would you grow your own pumpkins? You might enjoy growing unusual heirloom varieties of pumpkins for their unique characteristics…
Left: Long Island Cheese pumpkin is ideal for making into pumpkin pie, pudding, and other sweet and savory pumpkin recipes. Right: Pipian from Tuxpan winter squash/pumpkin is a rare heirloom bred for its large edible seeds, but its flesh is more akin to a summer squash.
It is so strange to me – and other Australians – that the US doesn’t do any of the top 3 things we do with pumpkins. We eat them roasted along with other veggies, we love pumpkin soup, and we make pumpkin scones. A forrest of pumpkins is growing in my garden and now I’m looking forward to learning new ways to eat pumpkins, especially the flowers. I hope you will try pumpkin soup – roast the pumpkin with some onion and garlic, add to a pot with stock (I use chicken but can be veg), simmer, season, blend, serve with sour cream, chives and some bacon bits if you’re into that.
It’s also strange to me that people in the US don’t eat their pumpkins… and I live here! Oddly, we here in the US love pumpkin pies on certain holidays, but those pies are almost always pre-made and purchased from grocery stores – or at best made from canned pumpkins. Meanwhile, the “decorations” (edible pumpkins) people leave sitting on their front porches for Halloween and Thanksgiving end up being wasted. Apparently, slicing and cooking an actual pumpkin is too difficult or foreign a concept. Cheers to you all in Australia if eating actual pumpkins is something that is still considered conventional practice!
The skins make excellent and nutritious dog treats when dehydrated & the liquid from cooking/draining the pumpkin can be boiled down into a yummy syrup with no added sugar. I also dehydrate the puree to crush it into pumpkin powder which is fantastic for a dog’s occasional diarrhea.
I dry my pumpkin flowers, whizz into a powder and put a little into my bread mix.
Ooh, sounds like a good use of pumpkin flowers! Are you able to add enough pumpkin flower powder to affect the color or flavor of the bread?
I learned how to bake the pumpkin to get to the puree. However, sautéing the seeds was not worth the effort.
Most pumpkin seeds are fibrous and crunchy. Perhaps they’re an acquired taste. I grew up eating them every fall and love them, but can certainly see how other people might not. However, there are hulless pumpkin seeds that you’d probably like much better. Those are what are sold commercially as pumpkin seeds, made into pumpkin seed nut butter, etc. Our favorite hulless pumpkin variety is Styrian – perhaps give those a shot next year.
Bake em in a single layer at 375F and they get nice and crispy…. Great movie night snack
I was wanting to know how you prepare the stems – not a word on that topic, despite the promise of the introduction.
I lived in Austria for three decades and their pumpkin seed oil is to die for. Good on salads, good on vanilla ice cream (not so much for cooking).
So, there really isn’t any way to cook and serve pumpkin vines and stems. It was just hyperbole on your part.
I make a heck of a champagne with an heirloom pumpkin variety that has been in Tony’s family for generations!
Hey, now… You can’t just drop that sort of information here without at least hinting at a recipe for your “pumpkin champagne.” Is it a secret? If you don’t want to go fully public, you know how to email us. 🙂
The fibrous tissue inside the pumpkin that connects the seeds to the outer flesh is called the pulp, which is technically placental tissue that pumps nutrients and water into the developing seeds. It might look weird or gross, but it’s perfectly edible, highly flavorful, and packed full of nutrients. By the time the pulp is blended into pumpkin puree, you won’t even notice the texture, but it will give a flavor and nutrient boost to your final puree.
[…] Click here to read our post showing you how you can easily process your own fresh pumpkin into a puree that can be used in lots of different pumpkin recipes, including this delicious, whole wheat pumpkin pancake recipe. […]
With a pile of crabapples and American beautyberries in hand, we set out to create a simple sparkling cider that you can make without specialized equipment or commercial yeast. We think you’ll love the results as much as we do: fermented crabapple-beautyberry cider!
You’ll be amazed by how easy it is to make this fermented crabapple and beautyberry cider recipe. Special thanks to Aunt Anne & Bets for alerting us to their crabapple tree – we owe you a bottle!
Looking forward to this! what is the purpose of citric acid? Also why both maple syrup and sugar?
Citric acid raises the acidity levels to help improve the taste/balance the sweet while also promoting the right types of microorganisms. The sugar in both the cane sugar and the maple syrup will help feed the microbes and create the bubbles. The maple syrup also adds a very unique and delicious flavor. Enjoy!
Looking forward to trying this. What is the purpose of the citric acid?
Find out when, why, and how to grow citrus trees from cuttings in this helpful guide (assisted by nurseryman Ryan Merck of Blue Oak Horticulture).
Over the past decade, we’ve successfully grown over a dozen varieties of citrus in pots in Greenville, SC (ag zone 7b). Years back, we also successfully grew cuttings from our Meyer lemon and Buddha’s hand citron trees.
As a result, we now have three mature and highly productive Meyer lemon trees and two Buddhas growing in large pots. We’re now pretty well maxed out on the number of citrus trees we can grow in our small space, but our friend Ryan Merck has no such limitations.
Ryan is the owner of Blue Oak Horticulture, which offers a wide variety of edible and ornamental plants to Upstate South Carolina home owners, farmers, and businesses. While his primary passion is native plants, he also has a fondness for citrus.
Ryan also has an incredible passive solar greenhouse he designed and built himself (perfect for citrus cultivation!), which we featured on our sister site, GrowJourney. Given his space and interest in citrus, Ryan decided to use cuttings from our citrus trees to start growing his own.
Below, we’ll detail Ryan’s step-by-step methods of propagating citrus trees from cuttings and his tips for helping you do the same.
Here are a few of the delicious reasons we grow and propagate our own citrus, despite it being a lot of work.
Thanks a lot for the information
I want to start a Horticulture project with my students and integrate with the Biology class and besides I am interestes in citrus trees Many of the citrus varieties in Puerto Rico are disapearing due to climate change and Citrus Green. Last year I had a strong desire for a real Grapefruit not a Pomelo one, and i told my wife”You know what if I see someone sealing grapefruts on the side of the road like the ones I use to eat abundantly when I was a kid, I would give $ 5.00 for one grapefruit.
The citrus green has done a lot of damage, Aparently in a Australia there is a variety of a plant thar has a Peptide that is resistent to Citrus green, not too many people have access to iit. There is also a home test in putting Iodine inthe suspected trees to see if have the condition and is not a nutritional deficiency.
Bless You All, Health and Prosperity to your family
Mr Sanoguet
Thanks Mr Sanoguet! Yes, citrus greening is an absolute nightmare for growers. Thankfully, we *currently* live outside the range where the Asian citrus psyllid that spreads the disease can live, so we can very easily grow our citrus organically in pots, as long as we can keep them sheltered from our cold winter temperatures. Let’s hope that many additional resistant citrus cultivars are produced in the near future!
The most delicious and decadent Asimina triloba / pawpaw dessert you’ll ever eat! This no-bake pawpaw cheesecake is surprisingly easy to make and features the sublime flavors of RAW pawpaw fruit. Since cooked pawpaw can develop off flavors and cause some people GI distress, no-bake cheesecake is a better alternative than baked cheesecake.
This delicious, picture perfect pawpaw cheesecake recipe had a far from perfect start. Trial and many errors for the win!
We feel compelled to tell you how this recipe started, so you can understand how and why it arrived at its final form…
We had 25 pounds of homegrown and foraged pawpaws to eat. It was also Semana de la Tyrana (aka Susan the Tyrant’s birth week).
Thanks Richard! Perhaps there was some other chemical reaction beyond any interaction with citric acid in the lemon juice that caused the off flavors in our pawpaw pulp. There also seems to be pretty wide variability between fruit depending on location or even individual genetics, so it’s possible the reaction was specific to the pawpaws we were using, not something that could be generalized to all pawpaw fruit. All we know is that lemon juice was the only thing we added to the pawpaw pulp. The flavor was good/normal when we put it in the fridge at night, but awful by the next morning even though it looked fine and had no visual signs of oxidation.
11 Comments
nancy meyers
May 31, 2022 at 11:55 amhi Aaron, thanks so much for the informative article on lemon plants! We love Thai food and lemon based soups but actually I was looking at them to deter copperhead snakes! We have a small pond and waterfall with large stones around and mini Japenese maple trees….so ideal locale for snakes. We moved in 6 months ago and our pond guy found the snake under a rock. Do you know first hand if lemon grass plants also deter snakes? Thank you!
Aaron von Frank
June 1, 2022 at 11:17 amHi Nancy! Thanks for your kind words and glad you enjoyed the article about growing lemongrass.
We’ve also read that lemongrass can deter snakes but we find this claim dubious. While we’re certainly not snake experts, here’s why we don’t think lemongrass or other plants make good snake deterrents based on their chemical compounds/smells:
1. Most plants (including lemongrass) don’t release a strong smell until they’re damaged (cut, crushed, etc). We doubt the very mild external scent of lemongrass would be enough to deter snakes.
2. Apparently, if a snake is born in an area with strongly-scented plants that might otherwise deter snakes that aren’t acclimated to those smells, they instead form positive associations with those plant smells. In that case, snakes born around lemongrass would actually find lemongrass attractive.
There are plants with physical characteristics (such as a spiky/thorny texture) that might repel snakes, such as cacti. However, snakes can easily crawl under or around such plants.
I wish I could offer better news or advice here. One thing to note is that the vast majority of snakes are non-venomous. Eastern king snakes even eat copperheads and other venomous snakes. So don’t fear all snakes that appear around your pond, and learn how to identify different snake species in your area to distinguish those that pose a risk versus those that don’t.
Last note: years ago, we built a backyard pond for our ducks (https://www.tyrantfarms.com/how-to-build-a-backyard-pond-with-diy-biofilter/) that is now home to quite a few frogs, but we have yet to see a snake in or around the pond (knock on wood). Perhaps our ducks keep them away. Does that mean ducks are a good snake deterrent? Perhaps so. We think they’re probably better snake deterrents than plants. 😛
Arrow
March 24, 2022 at 2:47 pmI love cooking with lemon grass! Im wondering if the stalks can be cut up and frozen to use in Asian dishes later…or is it better to dry them and add dried lemon grass to soups etc. Im concerned about it getting a woody texture and not too great for eating after freezing or drying.
Aaron von Frank
March 25, 2022 at 11:05 amOur general rule with lemongrass: fresh is best, frozen is second best, dried is ok, but not as good as the first two options. A few notes:
1) This rule is specific to the thick stalks at the base of the plants, not the papery leaves. The leaves are what are typically dried for teas. The lemongrass stalks are what is used in cooking.
2) When freezing the stalks, be sure to use vacuum-sealed freezer bags. You don’t necessarily need a fancy tool for this, you can just suck the air out of the top of the corner of a freezer ziplock bag then immediately seal it closed. Before freezing, it’s also best to cut the lemongrass stalks into the sized pieces you’d use for cooking.
Hope this helps and answers your questions!
Ricky Reyes
January 4, 2022 at 6:55 amGreat quick article. Now I can grow and eat it.
Thanks,
Ricky D. Reyes
Buddy May
December 5, 2021 at 8:05 pmHello Aaron,
Have just Finished reading your article on lemon grass. I hope to visit Asian store we have just off
And see if they have any lemon grass with roots. Thoroughly enjoyed your explanation. Thank you very much.
Have had time to visit my farm? Google 600 Rutledge lake road for location. We have a 20 acre lake on the site that i use for watering garden. Don’t believe I mentioned that to you.
Again 5hank you for your articles and wishing you and family a Very Merry Christmas
Aaron von Frank
December 6, 2021 at 12:03 pmHi Buddy! Sending you an email now…
Sheena
May 17, 2021 at 10:23 pmMy coworker gave us lemongrass in a small pot. She told us to keep it in partial shade for a couple of weeks before transplanting to a bigger pot. But we noticed it wasn’t doing well and googled and found it does better in direct sun which we have plenty of in AZ. We have made sure it was watered and misted and in sun but the leaves got all dried out and pale (not spotted) and so we finally transplanted it thinking it needed more room. 2 weeks later it’s still looking very dry and pale but the stalks just below the soil look green. What am I doing wrong?
Aaron von Frank
May 18, 2021 at 10:15 pmHi Sheena! My guess is that there are a few things going on here… First, lemongrass does prefer full sun IF it’s already been “hardened off.” That’s garden lingo meaning it’s been acclimated to full sun. If your friend gave you lemongrass starts, she likely had them in more of a shady spot as the roots were getting established in their containers. By putting your lemongrass into the full Arizona sun without a graduated hardening off process, you basically gave them a severe sunburn which is why they looked brown and papery on the outer leaves. The green you’re seeing just below the soil surface likely indicates that the plant is still alive and you should see new growth emerge within the next 2-3 weeks. Please check back and let us know, thanks!
Annemiek van Moorst
December 18, 2020 at 1:05 pmThanks for this nice article. I live in Italy in zone 8b and succeeded in overwintering lemon grass last year. I do hope the same will happen this year becaue I cannot put all inside – too many. One of my favourite herbs. Also very nice for making sorbetto.
Aaron von Frank
December 18, 2020 at 10:54 pmThanks, Annemiek! We’ve overwintered lemongrass a few times here in Zone 7b, but we’ve also had it die at least 50% of the time. It all depends on how cold of a winter it is. Easiest way to make sure you have some lemongrass to grow next year is to dig up and transplant one or two stalks (trimmed way back) with roots attached into small pots that you overwinter indoors before transplanting back out in the spring. Lemongrass sorbetto – oooh!