Do you know how to prepare dried split-peas from fresh peas?   I have about two gallons of peas from my garden that I'd like to use for split pea soup.   Thanks. 

First, I don't really think you want to do that!  Why not freeze them?  

Split peas are basically green peas, dried and with the fibrous hull removed, during which process they fall into two pieces.   Split peas are extremely nutritious, inexpensive, and have a considerable amount of healthy fiber.  Fresh ones cook up quickly, but the older they are, the longer they will take to tenderize.  A blender or food processor helps if this happens. 

My grandfather had a neighbor, Roy, with a much smaller farm than Grandpa's.  Roy was an intelligent, kind man who never married, doing subsistence farming by old methods quite happily with the help of his hired man Wasi, an equally elderly war refugee from Poland. He never modernized his farm at all except for eventually putting in a party-line telephone and electricity.  He had one horse, using single-horse cultivators, plows, and other equipment.  (He also raised free-range geese, who invariable chased me into Roy's house whenever we visited when I was little, them honking and me screaming.)   

One time when my grandfather was helping Roy with a chore, I began to whine, wanting to go home for lunch.  "I'll feed her,"  Wasi happily  volunteered.   He took my hand and led me into the house, setting me down at a table in a room cluttered on every surface with ancient embroidered doilies, books, magazines,  newspapers, the inevitable farm collection of parts, supplies and hand tools, and lots of dust. 

Pretty soon Wasi was back with two glasses of milk and two plates, each with an huge, peeled hard-boiled goose egg, an enormous green onion and a big salt shaker.   Sitting across from me, wreathed in a proud smile, Wasi began dipping his onion and egg in salt, eating a bite of one, then a bite of the other.  "Eat, eat!" he urged.

I had been taught not to complain about food when visiting, and Wasi was so proud of himself I couldn't bear to object.  By the time my grandfather showed up, I had managed to eat most of the egg and about half of the largest and hottest green onion I've ever seen, before or since.   Noting my distress, Grandpa apologized to Wasi for having to rush away, insisting he had something urgent to attend to.  "Take the onion," Wasi insisted, bobbing and grinning while shaking on more salt.

In the car Grandpa took the onion away from me, saying, "You really didn't have to eat that.  I couldn't even have managed as much as you did of one of  those hot things."     

Included in Roy's modest crops, produced to keep his animals, Wasi and himself nourished through the long, cold Pocono winters in Southwestern New York,  were beans, peas, corn, oats and wheat, all planted and harvested with primitive equipment.   

This is how Roy harvested his beans and peas.  With his horse pulling a small wagon, Roy walked his fields, gathering the drying vines and piling them on the wagon.  Taking them to his huge barn, he would lay them out on the clean plank floor.   In a few days when they were dry, he would make a pile and have at them with a flail, something like a giant numchuck, or like two baseball bats fastened  together with a piece of chain.   After he whacked them for a while, he would rake up the vines, leaving behind the beans, pieces of pods and bits of broken vine and dried leaves.   Then he would sweep everything into containers.   The first windy day, he would open up both huge barn doors to let the breeze through.  Measuring out a quantity of beans into a wide flat basket, Roy would toss the beans into the air, letting the wind blow away the chaff and catching the beans in the basket.   When cleaned, he would put them in a burlap bag.  To make split peas, he would put a small amount at a time in an old bag and flail it greatly.  This would loosen the tough hulls.  Then he would repeat the winnowing to let the breeze remove the hulls, too.

Sometimes when Roy had bumper crops, instead of using the flail, he would harness his old horse and patiently walk the it round and round and round and round.....    I often wondered what he would do if the horse needed to heed nature's call.   I would watch for that, fascinated and intrigued, but it never happened when I was there.

If your peas are past their prime and you prefer not to freeze them, here's how to dry whole ones.

First, heat a large pot of water.   You will need about 1 gallon of water for each pound of peas.   If you have a spaghetti pan with an inner strainer pan, this works fine.  So does a wire basket or steamer, as long as the holes are small enough so the peas cannot fall through, or a large metal colander or strainer.

Then prepare another pan or large bowl with ice-cold water.

When the water comes to a boil, plunge the peas into the boiling water to blanch them for about 3 minutes.   Remove them and plunge the strainer or steamer into the cold water for 3 to 5 minutes to stop the cooking process.   Remove from the cold water and let drain very well.

Heat your oven to 135 to 150 F.  Lay the peas out on cookie sheets with edges, or on jelly roll pans, in a single layer.  Don't crowd them.   Put in the oven for at least four hours.  (If you use an electric oven, jam a pot holder in the door to hold it about 1/2 to 1 inch open, to allow the vapor to escape.  Gas ovens are vented and don't need to be propped open.)  

After four or more hours, turn off the oven and leave overnight.  Peas should be wrinkled and extremely hard.    Store in a dark place in bottles or other air-tight containers until ready to use.    (Note:  if you live in a humid climate, or it has been raining, reheat your oven to 135 to 150 F for about forty minutes just before sealing the peas into airtight containers.  This protects from mold spores.) 

In very hot, dry climates, you can easily lay the peas out on clean butcher's paper or pans in the attic and dry them for two or three days.  (If you have mice or other pests, don't do this.)  Heat for forty minutes in the oven before storing, to eliminate any mold, weevils or other pests.

To make split peas:  place the dried peas in a cloth bag, and whack them a lot or stomp on them until the hulls loosen.  Toss in the wind to remove hulls.   Reheat in oven to kill weevils or bug eggs, and store in airtight containers.

Alternative:  get your can opener and one of those famous red and white cans, and you know what to do.  See Quick Split Pea and Veggie Soup.

Or just buy packaged split peas.  Dried peas, lentils and beans are one of the best buys in the American market, and full of nutrition and fiber.   Seriously, split peas are so much trouble to process from fresh peas that it's hardly worth it, unless you want to try it once for educational value.  Do your kids have any numchucks?

I have an acre of vanilla plants here in Hawaii. I'm expecting my first seed pods this coming summer. I'm looking for a recipe for curing the 'bean'.  Any suggestions?

I guess this is retribution for having given a lecture on the papaya plant, about which I am somewhat knowledgeable.   I have never even seen a vanilla plant.  I forgot it was actually an orchid.  The closest I have ever been to a vanilla bean is Watkins' Double Strength Vanilla!

I am doing some research into papaya and was told that the papaya tree only produces fruit for 2-3 years and is then cut down and a new tree is planted. 

Is this true? Is no fruit produced after the first few years or is just that so little is produced that it is not commercially viable to keep the trees around for more than 2-3 years?  Do the trees produce fruit in the first year also?  I'd appreciate a response.  Thank you.

 While this isn't a garden site, everything we eat certainly comes from the soil, and I do happen to know something about growing papayas, so....

Your confusion stems from a misconception.  Papayas are not trees.  They are tall, stalky bush-like herbs that only vaguely resemble trees.   Their hard pithy stem (trunk), is hollow like a reed.  They do not have a deep taproot like a real tree.  Like any plant that doesn't propagate itself with runners or leaf reproduction, it has a limited life span.  Papayas also have several enemies. 

• Papayas need warm weather.  Even a touch of frost will kill them, as it kills the topmost growing bud.
  
  
• Like tomatoes, papayas are extremely prone to nematode infection in the roots.  This cuts the nutrition available to the plant, causing it to dwindle on the top, stop producing and eventually die.  
  
  
• Papayas need moist soil.  They benefit greatly from mulch, which also helps hold the nematode infection in check.  Even better is fertilizing with compost, chicken or other manure, fish fertilizer, composted sludge or colloidal phosphate.   Naturally, if you use sludge, you should be sure of your source and be certain it is both toxin-free and well-composted.  Once papaya plants get dry, it's hard to get them to continue growing and producing.  If watered and fed adequately in direct sun, however, they can start to bear when just a few months old and continue for 1, 2 or rarely 3 years.
  
  

• The fruit is attacked by the papaya "wasp", actually a fruit fly, which lays its eggs under the skin of the green papaya.    When the fruit ripens, the eggs hatch into larvae (little maggots) which start chomping away  on the interior of the papaya.

  Insecticides are useless against this pest.  Many people bag their green papayas to protect them from the wasps.  Plastic bags cause rot; paper ones get wet.  In rainy weather, the fruit is more prone to molds and fungi when bagged.  It's hard to win.  A Dominican friend taught me to attach a bunch of red ribbons that flutter in the breeze, and that seems to help. I've read about growers who attach bright dangling mirrors and things, but I don't know how well that functions.

• Most papayas are female or male, but some varieties are bisexual.   If not, one must leave a non-producing male tree amid each group of female trees, which produce the fruit.  The male flowers are on stems, the female ones are fat and stubby.  
  
  
• A flower blooms in the crevice where each leaf attaches to the stem.   The plant should be kept moist and well fed so every flower has the best chance of development and all the leaves grow to maximum size to feed the growing fruit with energy from the sun and carbon dioxide.  Their bearing span is limited to how many healthy large leaves they can put out, so promotion of early and steady leaf production and fruiting gets the most out of each plant.  As it gets taller, the spent leaves where the fruit has ripened dry up and fall off, and the trunk grows thicker, eventually getting  woody, until it cannot thicken more.  The top stem dwindles in size, and the tree bears only puny small fruit or none.  The roots start to harden or have nematodes, restricting the absorption of nutrients from the soil.   It's now time to start over with fresh new plants.

Papayas are extremely nutritious.  They are high in antioxidants including lutein, enzymes,  vitamin C and vitamin A, folate, and minerals including calcium, magnesium and potassium.  See more nutritional information at 5-a-Day.

Most are yellow-orange to light orange, like a cantaloupe.  The flavor is somewhere between a peach and and muskmelon.  One variety has a deep orange-red flesh, with higher vitamin A content and a richer flavor.  This is referred to in Spanish as "papaya mamey" or "fruta bomba mamey".  This reference, mamey, is to another tropical fruit, no relation, which has that color.  The darker variety of papaya also has a flavor slightly more like that of the mamey.   This is the variety that we grow for our own use.

By the way, papaya is called just that in many Spanish speaking countries, but is called "bomb fruit" in others, particularly Cuba, as "papaya" has several obscene connotations which we will not go into here.   Suffice it to say that the word is not said in proper company in those countries!

Where did the papaya come from?  Probably southern Mexico and Central America.  From there it has been distributed throughout the tropical and sub-tropical world.  See a short History of the Papaya from Dole Foods.

Papaya is a valuable food crop in the tropics, not only for its vitamin A content when ripe, which is often in short supply, but also because of its versatility.  Papaya flesh is usually eaten ripe, and most people in the USA think this is the only way to use it.  Not so!

• Ripe papaya is considered by many to be a digestive aid.    It can be used in meat recipes as well in the usual fruit dishes, being included in recipes for salsa, marinades, pickles and jam.
  
  
• Tenderize meats by wrapping them in green papaya leaves.  Prick through leaves with a fork and put in refrigerator for a couple of hours.  You can also include some pureed papaya in meat marinades for flavor and tenderizing effect.    Meats are sometimes cooked in the papaya leaves, which tenderizes as it adds a strong flavor. 
  
• Green papaya can be peeled, boiled and mashed like potatoes, and eaten with butter, salt and pepper.  It's also used in salads; see Green Papaya Salad from the Global Gourmet, or Spicy Green Papaya Salad.
  
  
• Papaya seeds are used for various things; they are reported to be an aphrodisiac, although there's no proof of this.   They can be used in salad dressing:  see Papaya Seed Dressing.   They can be eaten with the papaya, or used as a seasoning, as in Papaya with Papaya Seeds and Lime, or Hawaiian Spiced Sesame Seed Crusted Ahi On Ocean Greens with Fruit Relish.    They have a peppery flavor, too strong for some.
  
  
• The entire fruit reportedly has medicinal value.  See anecdotal info in "Papaya, the Wonder Fruit" by Barbara Simonsohn.   More technical information on the subject can be found at a  Cornell University site, Carica papaya.     See a reprint cut from a lengthy USA National Genetic Resources Program document, if you are interested in more history, odd utilizations, useful qualities and some precautions.
  

My mother adores yellow papaya, scooped out and eaten plain whenever she can get some.   She lives in the north, and one of the things she misses most about Florida is that tasty fruit.  My  great-uncle Theo Tupper drank the pureed fruit like a thick juice for his digestion.  He lived an active life until 103, but I'm not sure how much of that was due to the papaya!   I enjoy red papaya cubed and eaten plain, with yogurt or cottage cheese,  in fruit salad, or used in a "batido" or smoothie.    See the following smoothie recipes.

• Mexican-Style Mango Papaya Smoothie (** Fit & Fabulous)
• Papaya Creamsicle Smoothie
• Peach-Papaya Smoothie (** SweetOne)
• Papaya, Pineapple & Strawberry Smoothie

Try them all, and you'll see why papaya is so popular south of the border.

M. Sicco & Carol....When do orange trees bloom?

04/28/02

From M. Sicco:  Can you tell me when the trees blossom in Fla?  Thanks

From Carol:  Can you please tell me what time of year the orange blossoms are blooming? I am helping my daughter with a report on Florida.   Thanks.

I've been racking my brains to remember exactly. I'm inclined to say, "when they darn well please", but that's rude and probably inaccurate as well.  I know our citrus - the calamandon, key lime and kumquat - bloomed at various times through the year, although it generally laid up during the hottest months, or during periods of drought.  Of course now we haven't any, thanks to the Citrus Gestapo and the current citrus canker epidemic.  

I imagine orange trees bloom the same.  The citrus I've had anything to do with had blooms, green fruit and ripening fruit at the same time.  Some oranges take many months to mature, so more are always on the way.  I'm sure a final answer (if there were one) would depend on weather, latitude, variety of orange and other factors.   

Lennie Bennett writes in the St. Petersburg Times:  "Here in Zone 9, the late-winter, early-spring weather is high growing season, and our gardens are at the peak of fecundity.....    I smell gardenias and orange blossoms. "

From http://suebee.com 's Encyclobeedia:  "Orange blossom honey is often a combination of citrus floral sources.  Orange is a leading honey source in southern Florida, Texas, Arizona and California. Orange trees bloom in March and April and produce a white to extra light amber honey with a distinctive flavor and the aroma of orange blossoms." 

From "Oranges":  "Orange trees are broad-leaved, shallow-rooted evergreens....  The numerous, white, single blossoms are fragrantly scented. In the United States they bloom from late February to early April. Insects pollinate the blossoms of wild trees; most commercial varieties do not need pollination."

Our Florida Garden states:  "All winter long, we can enjoy freshly-squeezed orange juice.  While we're still picking oranges off the tree, it's already starting to develop thousands of white flowers that look like tiny, little eggs when they're not open yet, and then hundreds of tiny oranges.  The flowers have a delightful fragrance, like all citrus."

Here's how to grow orange trees in pots, with some history of its cultivation over the centuries.

I was once told by someone who has now passed on, that a male papaya tree could be changed into a female tree. Can you help?   Thanks.

That's true.  See except from a page on papayas:

"Some plants bear only short-stalked female flowers, or bisexual (perfect) flowers also on short stalks, while others may bear only male flowers, clustered on panicles 5 or 6 feet long.  Some plants may have both male and female flowers.  Others at certain seasons produce short-stalked male flowers, at other times perfect flowers.  This change of sex may occur temporarily during high temperatures in midsummer.  Male or bisexual plants may change completely to female plants after being beheaded.  Certain varieties have a propensity for producing certain types of flowers.  For example, the Solo variety has flowers of both sexes 66% of the time, so two out of three plants will produce fruit, even if planted singly."

There's even a variety of fish that live in all-female colonies except for one male.  If the male dies, one of the females converts into a male and becomes the new "head of the household", so as to speak.  Which goes to prove that nature is indeed stranger than anybody.

Do you have a list somewhere of northern tree fruits and southern equatorial fruits. I am a personal trainer and would like to see a comprehensive list for the benefit of my clients. Thank you.

Sincerely,   Gary Yodokawa, POWER2B, Costa Mesa, CA

Fruit tree catalogs are one of your best sources for this info, plus there's much info on the net; on Google search, put in the phrase " fruit tree growing zones ".  For the state of California, you can find a listing in an Adobe .pdf file, California Climate Zones for Growing Temperate Tree Fruits & Nuts

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