Plantinellen, it sounds to me like you've pretty much already got the gist of it. Rich soil, lots of water, but well-drained for the celeriac for sure, perhaps not as critical for the cutting celery. I planted both last year, and both of these seem to have survived the winter outdoors -- the crowsn look good now that the snow has melted. The regular celery is just rotted mush now by contrast. I'm sure that the cutting celery will regrow at least some useful leaves before making seed heads. Perhaps the seeds could be gathered for celery seed as well as for seed-saving. Your crawl space sounds like an ideal place to store root vegetables (hope there are no mice or voles, though).

As to canning peppers with no water bath, I have successfully done that for a few years now. I like the small, tender pepperoncini peppers and use a full strength vinegar and salt as a pickling brine. First, I wash and cut off all the stem and part of the crown. Each pepper then gets pierced with a skewer to allow air out and brine in, and is placed in the largest Food Saver canister with the vinear and salt brine. Instead of the Foodsaver vacuum, I use a more powerful pump, and pull a vacuum on them to force the brine inside the peppers. The vacuuum is left on for several minutes, as I also have a gauge to monitor its vacuum. Once I see no bubbling anymore, I remove the peppers into quart canning jars and make a fresh batch of vinegar salt brine. Each jar gets about half filled with the brine, then I pull a vacuum on them again, which makes a lot more bubbles and gets them to swell up a bit. I partially refill each jar several times, until I see very little of the bubbles. Then, I fill the jars with the brine to the headspace level, and also add a few more peppers due to them settling a little, then I add the lid. This is the final step for the vacuum and it will actually pull some of the vinegar brine out of the jars, and through the vacuum line. I have a large moisture trap that catches the liquid before the pump can see any of it. I pull the line off the top of the FS adaptor, which forces the canning lid into/onto the jar to make the strong vacuum seal. Then I remove the adaptor and rinse each jar under hot water to rinse off any liquid on the outside. Each jar gets a band screwed on, and the canning is done. This is the ONLY item I can using the vacuum method, as I do feel confident that the full strength vinegar and salt, will prevent any possibility of contamination, botulism, or listeria problems. The peppers do stay quite firm for about a year, and then start to soften a little. The last batch were milder peppers for some reason, either that, or I am getting used to the mild heat they exhibit after being pickled. Right off the plants, they are very mild and you would never think they had any heat. It only shows up after they get pickled. Next time, I plan to do a big batc of sweet cherry peppers, which are also one of my favorites. As mentioned, they are the highest acidic food that I use the vacuum pump to can.

Two adults here, as well. Wasted food is the most expensive food you purchase, so I do careful meal plans to help reduce that "forgotten" something-'er-other, especially in the crisper drawer. I dehydrate, freeze, or vacuum seal with a FoodSaver for longer storage. Instead of waiting for the celery go go limp, I'll dehydrate a portion of it. Works great in soups, casseroles, etc. I also dry the celery leaves. Can't get all those mushrooms used? Slice and dehydrate them. I make entire soup mixes with a wide variety of dehydrated foods. We eat dehydrated zucchini as a substitute for potato chips. Hard cheese keeps longer in FoodSaver bags. When grapes are on sale, I'll stock up and freeze them in FoodSaver bags. I like the green bags for bananas, as well as freezing or dehydrating bananas when I can get a deal on them. FoodSaver canisters are great for leaf lettuce and fruit in the refrigerator. They keep much longer when vacuum-sealed. When potatoes are buy a 5# bag - get one free, I make them into mashed potatoes and freeze them in dollops and vacuum seal the dollops in FoodSaver bags. Otherwise, we'd never be able to use 5#, let alone 10#... I also cook and mash sweet potatoes and dehydrate them on the fruit roll-up trays. When crispy-dry, I run them through the blender and make sweet potato powder. Reconstitutes to make mashed sweet potatoes by adding hot water. I do the same thing with tomatoes for tomato powder. Reconstitute it with water for making pizza sauce, etc. It's amazing how many tomatoes you can get in a quart jar when you dehydrate them, and even MORE when you make tomato powder. Ripe fruit can be made into fruit roll-ups. You can dehyarate yogurt. I even dehydrate lean cooked meat cut into 1/2-inch cubes. After they are dry, I package it in FoodSaver bags and stick it in the freezer. Make sure your refrigerator is 40°F, or colder, and your freezer is 0°F or colder. Food degrades faster when those temperatures are warmer. -Grainlady

Cooking2day, I'd love to send you spare change, except I put all mine into pig feed, so I can make sausage. (grin) I get casings from Butcher-Packer, based on Detroit and price depends on size. I can get about that amount (the site says it will stuff between 45 and 60 pounds) in 20 mm sheep casings for $35.50, 22 mm sheep casings are $40.50, 24 mm sheep casings are $44.67, but the 24 mm sheep Vienna sausage casings are $60.50. The hog casings are anywhere from $3.50 for enough to stuff 25 pounds, all the way up to $25 or so for larger sausage. I'll attach a link. malna, that's funny, Elery just found that site this morning and emailed it to me, since he uses an iPod and I do better with the desktop and the BIG screen, LOL. I'm old and set in my ways, plus I can print from mine! I still need to try sleevendog's sausage recipe that I saved from the past thread, the one for boudin. Here I'm lucky. I have some sandy soil and some red clay but largely I have a nice loam, a mix of everything. Every fall I add a nice layer of cow manure and stuff from the chicken coop, along with whatever kitchen compost has been mixed in. I mulch plants with old hay, straw, chopped leaves, etc. The manure layer sits on top and gets worked in every spring before planting. I don't use any chemical fertilizers/ etc and the only problems I really encounter is potato bugs, not much wilt or other plant problems. Well, unless you count purslane and lambs quarter as problems, but I react by eating those! Annie