08-22-2021, 11:39 PM
(08-22-2021, 12:09 AM)wiperhunter2 Wrote: Wow, that's a great haul on Green Beans and those Bell Peppers look really nice. Do you blanch your GB's or Freeze dry them? How about the BP's how do you process them? When we grew them, we use to stuff them with burger, then freeze them. Great pics. Maybe I'm forgetting what your garden did last year but it looks like yours this year is do very well, do you think it is better than last year?
We just are not fans of stuffed peppers, so now we dice some for use in winter chili but most are sliced for freezing in vacuum packed bags to use in stir frys. we eat a lot of stir fries. We have tried freeze drying some and they just didn't rehydrate very well, same with dehydrating some - they just never were as good freezing them. We recently pulled our last ones from last year's garden. I planted a mixed color pkg of seeds many got frosted badly so they were replaced with the red ones which were all we could find by that time. We have a lot more pepper plants this year with putting some in the ring planter, some in GH, and some in the old sweet potato planter box.
For GBs - we blanch them for 4 minutes, drain well and lay on towels till dry, then we put them on cookie sheets in the freezer so they are individually frozen, then they get bagged up and they go back in freezer. This allows us to take as many as needed for a meal putting them back in the freezer. 3lbs per bag. works well. They'll get used up before next summer's harvest. Also the bush beans are nice to pick from as they don't grow too tall out of reach. Also we spaced out the seed plantings on them. The GH pole beans are always too high for easy harvesting due to the boxes are so deep the plants start out 3ft already so they reach roof by bean harvesting time.