Find tips from gardening to canning fish

......in OSU Ext. Publications Catalog

Jul. 24, 2013 Written by Henry Miller

Statesman Journal

• Our Oregon Outdoors

It isn’t the first website that you think about when it comes to hunting and fishing.
It sure wasn’t for me. I was looking for information about how to kill whatever it is that’s boring holes in the Fuji apples on the tree in the backyard.
So I went to my go-to source for all things gardening, and what do you know?
There’s a ton of great information online from how to peel and butcher a deer or elk, along with some great recipes for the results, all the way to how to pickle, smoke and can fish.
Bookmark this site: extension.oregonstate.edu/
What is it?: The Oregon State University Extension Service, an incredible free resource for a wealth of diverse topics.
Check this out: Under the “Statewide Resources” pull-down menu near the top of the page, click on the link to “Publications Catalog.” On the right-hand side of the page, click on “Nutrition & Foods,” and voila, up pops the list of brochures and pamphlets on the topic.
Along with “Storing Pumpkin and Winter Squash at Home,” there also are more relevant topics for the outdoorsperson, from “Pickling Fish and Other Aquatic Foods for Home Use” and “Canning Seafood” to “Smoking Fish at Home – Safely” and “Home Canning Smoked Fish.”
There’s also a killer pamphlet for campers that’s also a fun activity with kids titled “Making Dried Fruit Leather.” It takes a couple of hours to make … and about 15 minutes for an 8-year-old to consume.
For the hunter: How about “Canning Meat, Poultry, and Game?” Or there’s my personal favorite, a complete illustrated walk-through of big-game meat care and butchering titled “Big Game from Hunt to Home.”
Cost: You can order the hard-cover publications from the Extension Service for a range of $1 to $3 (the big-game processing manual). But you also can download each of the publications for free as a PDF.
Great stuff: The Extension Service publications library is an incredible resource on an amazing variety of topics.
Such as: I found out I’ve got to get some insecticidal soap for that Fuji tree. Oh, and there was an informative publication about how to prune it once the leaves are off in the fall.
hemiller@StatesmanJournal.com, (503) 399-6725 or follow at twitter.com/henrymillersj and friend at facebook.com/hmillersj