{"id":1443,"date":"2011-07-14T03:00:07","date_gmt":"2011-07-14T07:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/?p=1443"},"modified":"2011-07-14T03:00:07","modified_gmt":"2011-07-14T07:00:07","slug":"q-and-a-cleaning-wallo-waters-and-kale-and-swiss-chard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/2011\/07\/14\/q-and-a-cleaning-wallo-waters-and-kale-and-swiss-chard\/","title":{"rendered":"Q and A: Cleaning Wallo’ Waters and Kale and Swiss chard"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cleaning Wallo\u2019 Waters<\/strong><\/p>\n

I finally took your advice and bought some Wall-o-Waters this year and planted our tomatoes earlier than the recommended date. Actually I chickened out and only planted them 3 weeks early, but they did so well that I’ll be brave next year and plant them a full six weeks early.<\/em><\/p>\n

Here’s my question: How do I clean and store these things? Somewhere along the line dirt got inside some of the tubes. I’ve tried hosing them and just can’t get the dirt out of the very bottom corners. How do I get them dry so that no water remains to form mold? Or is that even a problem?<\/em><\/p>\n

Charlene Nelson<\/em>
\nCasselton, North Dakota<\/em><\/p>\n

Not really. Some of mine are more than 20 years old and sure look cruddy, but perform perfectly. You can swish them around in some detergent\/bleach water, which will help, but they won’t look “new” again. Just dry them in the sun for a couple of days, then fold them up and put them in a storage container. I have two large plastic totes for mine, which I keep in the basement. — Jackie<\/p>\n

Kale and Swiss chard<\/strong><\/p>\n

My question is about kale and Swiss chard. I just picked 2 grocery sacks full of Swiss chard and kale. Pretty bitter tasting. What is the secret? Should I dehydrate it? My husband thinks I took up garden space to grow this and it tastes terrible. What do you do with yours?<\/em><\/p>\n

Jacqueline Wieser<\/em>
\nSidney, Nebraska<\/em><\/p>\n

I’d try to cook up a batch first. Use plenty of water, then throw away the water and taste the greens. They should be much less bitter. I’ve never had bitter tasting chard or kale. Is it very mature? Sometimes mature greens get a little strong; harvest it younger. It will come again after being cut if the first go-round was too strong for your taste. Heat will also cause bitterness. Both crops like cooler weather, so again, the second cuttings might be much better. — Jackie<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cleaning Wallo\u2019 Waters I finally took your advice and bought some Wall-o-Waters this year and planted our tomatoes earlier than the recommended date. Actually I chickened out and only planted them 3 weeks early, but they did so well that I’ll be brave next year and plant them a full six weeks early. Here’s my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,9,13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1443"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1443"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1443\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}