This week you are receiving a cabbage. A cabbage is a nice thing to have. Good for slaw which is good with fatty food, warm food. Good for boiled dinner, good for fermenting, and good for frying up with noodles and other vegetables. Some of these cabbages are modest and doubled up and some are as big as the moon and might be more than you can handle so we thought we’d talk a little bit about how to store them.
Cabbages can be kept fresh and edible for four months with the proper storage techniques. These incredible crunchy Cruciferous creations just need some place that is cool and somewhat moist to hunker down. If you want to get specific they need a place where they can sit undisturbed between 32 to 40 degrees F and 95 percent relative humidity. Since most of us do not monitor humidity, lets talk nitty gritty.
The fridge is ok for about a month, any longer than that and the cabbage will begin letting go, layer by layer, and drying out. First peel off any flappy leaves and then wrap the head in a wet paper towel. Not wet but, moist...as in, hold it under running water for a bit and then squeeze it out. Next put it in a plastic shopping bag tied at the top but with a dozen holes poked in it. That's it, check it out after two weeks and look for slimy leaves that may need to be peeled back – fresh cabbage should be easy to find by peeling back just one or two leaves.
A better option is to store the cabbage in a traditional root cellar wrapped in newspaper. For this method it is not necessary to remove the outer enfolding leaves. If you have a cool dampish cellar, maybe a few bats in there, then you are good to go. Im telling you those old New Englanders had more knowledge in their pinky toes than we seem to posses in the entirety of our people and so the cellars of old homes are usually perfect for vegetable storage. If you were harvesting your own cabbage from your backyard then you could even keep all of the leaves on it and the roots too – this would be optimal. With this method you can get three to four months out of your little moon.
The most interesting and least practical way of storing your cabbage is to bury it in the garden. First you dig a little hole for it about two feet deep and line the hole with a thick bit of hay. Then you drop (gently now) the cabbage in there and cover it with more hay and then a piece of something sturdy and strong like a tarp or burlap. Top this with a few scoops of soil, enough to cover the whole mess up and leave out a tail of your fabric so you can pull it all back like a hood when the time comes. Maybe mark this funny little operation with a post or a stick so you don't forget it when the snow falls. Potatoes, carrots, turnips, rutabagas, and on and on can be stored like this as well.
You are also receiving Kohlrabi....good luck.
Eating well aint easy, you know that by now, and keeping our vegetables fresh is an entire project in its own right. We wish you luck in your food storage experiments. Be safe out there.
Stowell P Watters
the veg
Potatoes
Kohlrabi
Beets
Carrots
Bok Choi
Head Lettuce
Cabbage
Garlic
W. Squash
Onions
Cabbages can be kept fresh and edible for four months with the proper storage techniques. These incredible crunchy Cruciferous creations just need some place that is cool and somewhat moist to hunker down. If you want to get specific they need a place where they can sit undisturbed between 32 to 40 degrees F and 95 percent relative humidity. Since most of us do not monitor humidity, lets talk nitty gritty.
The fridge is ok for about a month, any longer than that and the cabbage will begin letting go, layer by layer, and drying out. First peel off any flappy leaves and then wrap the head in a wet paper towel. Not wet but, moist...as in, hold it under running water for a bit and then squeeze it out. Next put it in a plastic shopping bag tied at the top but with a dozen holes poked in it. That's it, check it out after two weeks and look for slimy leaves that may need to be peeled back – fresh cabbage should be easy to find by peeling back just one or two leaves.
A better option is to store the cabbage in a traditional root cellar wrapped in newspaper. For this method it is not necessary to remove the outer enfolding leaves. If you have a cool dampish cellar, maybe a few bats in there, then you are good to go. Im telling you those old New Englanders had more knowledge in their pinky toes than we seem to posses in the entirety of our people and so the cellars of old homes are usually perfect for vegetable storage. If you were harvesting your own cabbage from your backyard then you could even keep all of the leaves on it and the roots too – this would be optimal. With this method you can get three to four months out of your little moon.
The most interesting and least practical way of storing your cabbage is to bury it in the garden. First you dig a little hole for it about two feet deep and line the hole with a thick bit of hay. Then you drop (gently now) the cabbage in there and cover it with more hay and then a piece of something sturdy and strong like a tarp or burlap. Top this with a few scoops of soil, enough to cover the whole mess up and leave out a tail of your fabric so you can pull it all back like a hood when the time comes. Maybe mark this funny little operation with a post or a stick so you don't forget it when the snow falls. Potatoes, carrots, turnips, rutabagas, and on and on can be stored like this as well.
You are also receiving Kohlrabi....good luck.
Eating well aint easy, you know that by now, and keeping our vegetables fresh is an entire project in its own right. We wish you luck in your food storage experiments. Be safe out there.
Stowell P Watters
the veg
Potatoes
Kohlrabi
Beets
Carrots
Bok Choi
Head Lettuce
Cabbage
Garlic
W. Squash
Onions
