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Safety snapshot of mobile work before merging upstream chat-v2: - Qortino AI: QDN pack discovery/download (Q-Share ids), external app storage, install validation, teach/report Q-Mail, PDF thumbs+zoom - Android share target "Quitter" with native ShareReceiver plugin - Categorized device saves (Images/Videos/Audio/Documents/Apps/GO state) - createNamedFile helper: cordova-plugin-file clobbers global File Co-authored-by: Cursor <cursoragent@cursor.com>
62 lines
3.0 KiB
Markdown
62 lines
3.0 KiB
Markdown
# Harvest and Preservation
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## Harvest timing and handling
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Pick in the cool of morning; handle like eggs — bruises rot first. Leafy
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greens cut-and-come-again (outer leaves, plant keeps producing); beans and
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zucchini picked small and often to keep plants productive; tomatoes at
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full color (or before first frost, ripening green ones indoors);
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potatoes after tops die back, cured 1-2 weeks dark and airy for storage
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skins; onions and garlic when tops fall, cured until necks are papery;
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winter squash when rinds resist a thumbnail, cured warm for two weeks,
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stems left on.
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## Root cellaring without a cellar
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Storage crops want specific climates: potatoes and most roots — cold and
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humid (4-8 °C; a cool basement corner, insulated garage box, buried
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barrel/bin, or in-ground clamp under straw and soil); onions and garlic —
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cold and dry, hanging in mesh; winter squash — cool-room dry (10-15 °C);
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cabbage — cold and humid, outer leaves on. Check stores every couple of
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weeks and remove anything softening — one rotten potato takes the box.
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Carrots and beets keep beautifully layered in boxes of barely damp sand.
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## Fermentation: preservation plus nutrition
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Lacto-fermentation needs only vegetables, salt, and time — no energy, and
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it adds vitamins and probiotics. How to make sauerkraut, step by step (the
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master recipe for all vegetable ferments): shred
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cabbage, 2% salt by weight (20 g per kg), massage until brine flows, pack
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into a jar below its own brine with a weight, loosely covered, at cool
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room temperature 1-4 weeks, then cold storage. Same method: carrots,
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beets, turnips, green beans, cucumbers (add a grape or oak leaf for
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crunch). Cloudy brine and sour smell are correct; surface white film
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(kahm yeast) is skimmed; anything fuzzy or foul is discarded.
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## Drying
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The oldest, cheapest method: herbs hung in bunches; fruit, tomatoes,
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mushrooms and thin vegetable slices dried in a dehydrator, low oven with
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door cracked, or sun (dry climates) until leathery-to-brittle; store
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airtight and dark. Dried tomatoes, fruit leather, and dried mushrooms
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concentrate flavor as well as shelf life. Blanch most vegetables briefly
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before drying to preserve color and vitamins.
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## Canning, briefly (safety-critical)
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High-acid foods (jams, fruit, pickles in vinegar, tomatoes with added
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lemon juice or citric acid) are safe in a boiling-water bath. Low-acid
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foods (plain vegetables, meat, broth) are only safe in a pressure canner
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following tested recipes exactly — see the food-storage chapter's botulism
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warning. When in doubt: freeze, dry, or ferment instead.
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## Freezing and the grid question
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Freezing preserves quality best but is hostage to the grid; treat the
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freezer as the short-tier store and keep the deep tier in dried, canned,
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fermented, and cellared forms. A full freezer holds safe temperatures
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roughly 48 hours unopened (24 half-full); grouping frozen bottles of
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water inside buys more. If power fails long: pressure-can, dry, brine, or
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cook-and-share the thawing meat before it warms above 4 °C for more than
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a couple of hours.
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