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season: late-fall
section: putting up
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- persimmons sweeten only after the first hard frost. pulp them through a sieve, freeze in pint bags. winter pudding starts here.
- cabbage at its peak for kraut. the cold tightens the heads and the leaves crack when you cut them.
- root crops want damp cold. carrots, beets, and turnips pack in moist sand at thirty-two to forty degrees. cabbage keeps slightly drier.
- onions and garlic want dry cold. fifty to sixty percent humidity, hung in nets or braided.
- hog killing weather comes with the first hard cold snap before christmas. country ham takes seven days of salt for every inch of thickness, then six to eight weeks in the salt box, then six months hung in the meat house.
- render the lard from the butchering. strain hot, jar warm, store cool. it keeps a year.
- pecans drying on screens. when the kernels snap clean, shell what you'll use this year and freeze the rest.
- the last apples go to butter. cook them down with cider until a spoon stands up in the pot.
- cider that didn't get drunk turns to vinegar by spring if you leave it open under a cloth.