Val's SS journal- Fair food! Yea!

[Denim Deb]

While I've never planted a 3 sisters garden, I do plant my corn and my beans together. But, I normally plant bush beans. (For those that care about the spacing, I plant it in 4 ft blocks. The corn is 8" apart, w/a row of beans in between them. That gives me 49 corn stalks and 78 bean plants in that amount of space.)

Don't know about the squash, but plant the corn a bit B4 the beans. Once the corn is up to about at least about a foot or so, plant the beans. Or, just let the corn get as tall as it's going to get B4 planting the beans. I've found if you plant them at the same time, you don't really get any corn.

 

[valmom]

OK, I have capped my first bottle of kombucha! And I have some questions. I grew a scoby from a commercial unfiltered, organic, raw bottle of kombucha from our local coop- there wasn't one when we bought it, I drank 3/4 of the bottle and filled it up with tea and a bit of sugar and left it for a week, and I have a scoby. Now, how can I be sure it is right? Just be daring and taste it? Does kombucha go through alcohol and to vinegar if you leave it too long? (SO asked me if it is alcoholic- I didn't think so, but I don't know what will happen with the home made version).

I just decanted a bottle and refilled the original bottle back up with tea/sugar. I really need to find a big fermenting jar! The largest mason jars I have are quarts, and I suppose they will work? Should I always decant the whole thing and bottle it, or should I take out what I want to drink and top it off? Any help appreciated!

 

[miss_thenorth]

Congrats! It goes throught stages. Sweet, tea tasting, then kombucha stage, then vinegar tasting. The key is to let it sit long enough to get to the kombucha stage befor it gets to vinegar.

I always filter the whole jar, but keep some with the scoby an add it to more sweetened tea. and yes, it is slightly alcoholic, that is the whole fermenting process, but its not enough to give youa buzz. My kids drink it.

big pickle jars work well, any big jar that you can find will work well.

 

[valmom]

Thanks! So, this one is 9 days fermented, and it still smells and tastes like kombucha rather than vinegar, so I guess we are OK still Now to grow up the scoby to the point where we can drink it more often than once a week!

 

[valmom]

Another kombucha question- I am up to 2 scobys in 2 quart mason jars. I want to make ginger flavored but, of course I didn't look up the directions. I just added my ginger to the hot tea to brew with it to add to the scoby, and the directions (I think from BB) say to add the ginger when you bottle it. Did I just kill it? Or will it just not work as well?

And if I wanted cranberry kombucha like in the store what would I add? Cranberry juice? At the end? Dried cranberries?

 

[miss_thenorth]

I usually do a second ferment to add a flavour. Not sure, but don't think you killed it. But to be safe, I would take the ginger out, and when you go to bottle it, add the flavour.Oh, and not sure on the cranberries, I would assume either would work, but you might want to add a bit more sugar, since cranberries are very tart.

Let us know how that goes.

 

[valmom]

By a second ferment- do you mean add the ginger after the week ferment, add more sugar and let it sit longer to ferment more? If you add in more sugar and let it go longer, won't it go to alcohol?

 

[valmom]

The summer season is moving into full swing in spite of the weather. My kombucha is now up to a half-gallon mason jar, and I think I'm not putting enough sugar in it- it is going vinegar-y after a week.

It seems everything I do needs sugar! The kombucha, feeding the bees, feeding the hummingbirds, and today I made the first jam of the season. I picked strawberries- the farm down at the end of the road has berries and apples u-pick- and they are really suffering this year with all the wet and cold. Many many mushy berries and mold growing on many on the vine. But, I got enough for my batch of jam. When I first started making jams I made every single fruit that ripened up here! Needless to say, we did not eat all of it! So, year by year I've been paring it down to what we really love- strawberry, blueberry, and possibly raspberry (my SO likes it but I don't). So now I have 12 lovely half-pints on my counter. Just in time for my in-laws (who I LOVE!) to come and visit and take some home. Watch me not have enough jam for the year this time because I gave it all away. But, they appreciate it. I don't give away jam to anyone who doesn't appreciate it!

And, I finally mailed off a box of soaps to my mother- she is out and put her order in Now I have to figure out how to make soap in the summer without air conditioning.

And, my chicks get mailed to me tomorrow! Arriving Wed or Thurs am- the post office said they will call me between 6:30am and 7 when they arrive! I can't wait

 

[freemotion]

Another kombucha question- I am up to 2 scobys in 2 quart mason jars. I want to make ginger flavored but, of course I didn't look up the directions. I just added my ginger to the hot tea to brew with it to add to the scoby, and the directions (I think from BB) say to add the ginger when you bottle it. Did I just kill it? Or will it just not work as well?

And if I wanted cranberry kombucha like in the store what would I add? Cranberry juice? At the end? Dried cranberries?

I add the flavorings after the kombucha is bottled up and not with the scoby. Many spices have anti-fungal and anti-bacterial properties and can throw the balance of the scoby off.

 

[valmom]

Well, I scooped out the ginger from that ferment and added it after I bottled it. It wasn't there long enough to kill the scoby, thankfully. It isn't very ginger-y, though. I'm thinking of adding powdered ginger to zing it a bit.