{"id":1495,"date":"2011-07-29T03:00:50","date_gmt":"2011-07-29T07:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/?p=1495"},"modified":"2011-07-29T03:00:50","modified_gmt":"2011-07-29T07:00:50","slug":"canning-salsa-root-cellar-and-heirloom-beans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/2011\/07\/29\/canning-salsa-root-cellar-and-heirloom-beans\/","title":{"rendered":"Q and A: Canning salsa, Root cellar, and Heirloom beans"},"content":{"rendered":"

Canning salsa<\/strong><\/p>\n

Do you have to pressure can salsa? I have read some books say yes some say no.<\/em><\/p>\n

Teresa Moye<\/em>
\nFayetteville, Georgia<\/em><\/p>\n

No, not with any of the recipes I’ve seen. It’s perfectly safe to can using a boiling water bath canner. Do use an approved recipe so that you get the ratio of tomatoes\/vinegar or lemon juice\/vegetables right to make it safe to can, as a high acid food, in a boiling water bath. — Jackie<\/p>\n

Root cellar<\/strong><\/p>\n

My husband and I are making plans to build a new house and would like to have a root cellar in the basement for food storage. We have been doing some reading and are finding that root cellars are supposed to be kept at 32-40 degrees. We plan to have a safe room in our home that is concrete all around (floor, ceiling, and walls). We know this room will not be as cold as 40 degrees because ground temperature is about 55 degrees and there will be some residual heat from the house. Will this be “good enough” for a root cellar environment? What else can we do to make the room more friendly to cold storage?<\/em><\/p>\n

Amy Blattner<\/em>
\nFulton, Missouri<\/em><\/p>\n

Insulate your ceiling and walls, but provide for some ventilation to keep humidity down. We have openings above the door to let air flow through the cellar. While 32-40 degrees is supposed to be ideal, our winter temperature in our cellar is 40 degrees and the summer sometimes gets to 55 degrees and we still have potatoes that are good from our last fall’s harvest.<\/p>\n

Don’t forget to include some blankets in your safe room. While 55 degrees doesn’t seem all that cool, if you’re down there, ducking a tornado or other emergency situation, you’ll appreciate some blankets to keep you cozy. Store them in covered plastic totes and they will be ready when you need them — hopefully never! — Jackie<\/p>\n

Heirloom beans<\/strong><\/p>\n

We had read somewhere that Kentucky Wonder pole beans are all “heirloom”; is that correct?<\/em>
\nWe saved some seed from last years’ plants, & planted a trial sample this year- they seem to be producing well, with normal growth. We’d hate to plant the entire crop of beans with saved seed only to find out later that they’ve gone all wacky. The beans from which we saved the seed were store bought KW seed packets. Good bet or bad?<\/em><\/p>\n

Deb<\/em>
\nMason, New Hampshire<\/em><\/p>\n

Good bet, Deb. Kentucky Wonders ARE heirloom beans and will produce true to their parent stock. Now you’re started at seed saving. What will you save this year? Isn’t it fun? — Jackie<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Canning salsa Do you have to pressure can salsa? I have read some books say yes some say no. Teresa Moye Fayetteville, Georgia No, not with any of the recipes I’ve seen. It’s perfectly safe to can using a boiling water bath canner. Do use an approved recipe so that you get the ratio of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6,8,13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1495"}],"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=1495"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1495\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}