Food Safety in a Power Outage – Tips from Dr. Susan Barefoot

This is one of the many books in my collection but the only one to focus on growing big, bigger and biggest vegetables. If you want to grow giant vegetable for exhibition or to get large crops then there are many pointers in ‘How to Grow Giant Vegetables’ by Bernard Lavery and below.

Our transatlantic cousins still benefit from the Pilgrim fathers gardening knowledge taken to their shores centuries ago. The potato famine of 1845-50 caused Irish farmers to discover the Idaho potato. Now these and other horticultural favours can be returned by this book of organic homespun tips.

A meal kit delivery service sends a box of food ingredients to your home that contains everything you need to prepare a complete meal, including the recipe and instructions for preparing. There are dozens of companies offering meal preparation kits, and they provide a convenient and delicious way to make dinner with no grocery store runs, little planning, and minimal prep. You simply go to the company’s website, pick the meals you want to make, choose the number of meals you want to purchase for a week, and select the number of people who will be eating. Most companies offer a variety of menus, and many include options for dietary restrictions and child-friendly diets. Meal delivery is truly a simple and convenient way to deliver delicious meals with little effort.

Poke bowls, fish salads, originated in Hawaii and then became popular in California. The popularity of this dish has spread across the United States in 2018 and into 2019. According to Eater.com, the number of Hawaiian restaurants has doubled in the past two years. Poke bowls can be a healthy meal, and they offer a lot of diversity in one dish. So, it is easy to see why they are so popular.

Yes, you read that right – snowman hands. When I started teaching food safety practices to children I wondered how to teach them about proper hand washing. We all know how important it is to thoroughly wash our hands before preparing food, after touching raw meat and poultry or any other potentially contaminated surface. We can easily explain to children (and adults!) that singing happy birthday twice, while scrubbing hands, equals the prescribed 10 to 15 seconds that we should do while washing. However, how do you explain how much soap to use to create a good lather?? The answer: snowman hands! Use enough soap that your hands look like a snowman’s hands after rubbing them together! I have found great success with this tip while teaching children (and now my own children) to wash their hands properly. And guess what – it takes a good 10 to 15 seconds of scrubbing soapy hands together to create those snowman hands! Bonus to the singing of happy birthday while washing hands! So next time you are washing your hands, use enough soap to create snowman hands. This will help prevent the spread of food-borne illness (and those nasty cold and flu bugs too!).

How to avoid common pitfalls that can turn Holiday Meals into a foodborne illness disaster and how to handle leftovers safely? For more details see, HGIC 3566, Food Safety Pitfalls at Thanksgiving & Beyond.

Any day now, temperatures should drop, and we will begin what I believe to be the best season in South Carolina – the Fall! This is not just a football-induced admiration. Fall is a great time to be outdoors and on the water. It’s also our best season to appreciate the culinary treasures of our estuaries – shrimp and oysters!

There are two approaches to fertilization. First, have the soil analyzed by a reputable lab and follow the scientifically based recommendations. The second often referred to as “a general approach,” is to buy a bag of fertilizer and follow the instructions noted. The recommended method is to have the soil tested and analyzed. This informs us which nutrients are required and the specific amounts. This method is the most cost-effective and environmentally friendly way to approach fertilization. Soil test results provide us information on which nutrients are deficient and the quantity to add to help improve the tree’s health and production.

During these uncertain times, as we cope with keeping ourselves and our families healthy and practice social distancing, many are asking how the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) affects the safety of our food supply. The US Food and Drug Administration reports that “Currently there is no evidence of food or food packaging being associated with the transmission of COVID-19” (USFDA, 2020). Unlike foodborne gastrointestinal (GI) viruses like norovirus and hepatitis A that often make people ill through contaminated food, SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19, is a virus that causes respiratory illness. Foodborne exposure to this virus is not known to be a route of transmission. Grocery stores and restaurants providing take-out food, are taking the necessary precautions to keep consumers and their employees safe. However, consumers should continue to practice proper food safety and personal hygiene practices. It is also important for consumers to follow the additional recommendations given by the CDC in order to stay safe (CDC, 2020). Along with the safety precautions given directly related to limiting the spread of the coronavirus, here are some practices that should be followed when purchasing and preparing food:

Lily of the Nile or agapanthus (Agapanthus africanus and hybrids with this species) is a blue-flowered perennial that grows from a rhizome (fleshy root). Each rhizome sends up several shoots. Rhizomes also reproduce, so over time, a one-gallon plant of a vigorous cultivar like ‘Blue Storm’ will make a clump 2.5 feet wide. One of my large-leaved, unnamed cultivars has spread 3.5 feet in all directions.

The recent news that all Pyrus calleryana cultivars – the most common of which is the Bradford pear – and several Elaeagnus species have been added to the “do not sell” list in South Carolina has generated a lot of buzz and a lot of questions from homeowners. We’ll try to answer some of those questions in this blog post.

Utility companies have the thankless task of maintaining the right-of-way for above-ground utility lines to keep the power on. Gardeners and residents often gasp in horror upon seeing the tree and large shrub pruning performed to keep the lines clear. It is a necessary evil. But in many cases, following a ‘right plant in the right place’ mentality will avoid plants interfering with the lines.