Slow Cooking Safe Meals 
Who can resist coming home after a long day of work to dinner already cooked and only one pot to clean? Slow cookers are a fall and winter staple, and with proper use, they are a completely safe and energy efficient way to serve up your favorite meals during this busy holiday season. Follow these tips to ensure the food coming out of your slow cooker is delicious and safe:
- Slow cooking is a great way to tenderize tougher, less expensive cuts of meat. Follow your slow cooker's manufacturers guidelines and recipes to ensure food is reaching proper temperatures while cooking.
- Start with clean hands, equipment, and utensils.
- ALWAYS thaw any meat or poultry before putting it in a slow cooker. If frozen pieces are used, they may not reach a safe temperature quick enough and could possibly result in foodborne illness. There are only three safe ways of thawing food; in the refrigerator, under cold (70°F) running water, and in the microwave (if being cooked immediately).
- Preheat your slow cooker and add hot liquids, if possible. Preheating or cooking on the highest setting for the first hour will ensure rapid heating of the food and may reduce time it spends in the Temperature Danger Zone (41°F - 135°F) where bacteria can grow at rapid rates.
- Never use the warm setting to cook food. It is designed to keep food hot once it has finished cooking.
- Avoid lifting the lid when cooking, if possible. Each time the lid is raised, internal temperature of the slow cooker drops 10-15 degrees and cook time is slowed by 30 minutes.
- ALWAYS check the internal temperature of meat and poultry with a food thermometer before taking a bite. Minimum internal cooking temperatures - Roasts: 145°F; Poultry: 165°F, Soups, stews & sauces: 165°F.
- Do not leave cooked food in the slow cooker to cool. Eat food immediately or separate into shallow containers and refrigerate within 2 hours.
- Do not reheat leftovers in a slow cooker. Reheat in a microwave or stovetop (to internal temperature of 165°F) and keep warm (at 135°F or above) in slow cooker, if needed.
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 4-H Update
December
Last day for the cookbook contest. Which 4-Her will sell the most #ExtensionEats cookbooks for the holidays? Buy a cookbook from a 4-Her and help support all Extension programming in Burke County!
Camp for Christmas
Gift Certificates are available for 4-H Summer Camp 2018.
Burke County will attend camp at Betsy-Jeff Penn 4-H Educational Center in Reidsville the week of June 17 - 22, 2018. Send a kid to camp for Christmas!
January 2, 2018
Due date for Project Record Books and Awards Packets
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Burke County Beekeepers
December 12, 2017
6:00 pm
The Burke County Beekeepers Association (BCBA) meets monthly at the Burke County Agricultural Building located at 130 Ammons Drive in Morganton. There is a featured speaker each month and the public is invited to attend. The BCBA is a chapter of the North Carolina State Beekeepers Association.
The December meeting will be the Beekeepers annual holiday dinner. Please bring a favorite soup, sandwiches, chili or dessert for this holiday celebration. Please email John Waters at [email protected] or call him at 439-3211 to let him know what you will be bringing or to find out what you might bring.
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Winter Feeding Areas for Livestock 
As we move into colder weather, it is time to think about strategies for winter-feeding of livestock. Choosing a poor location for winter-feeding can negatively impact both soil and water quality. A significant amount of run-off can occur if winter-feeding is conducted around streams, ponds, flood plains or creek bottoms. Storm-water runoff from these areas can carry mud and manure into nearby water bodies, creating water quality problems.
Always, feed in well-drained locations. These should be areas that don't allow runoff of mud and manure. The farther from surface or ground water resources, the better, as it is less likely for water pollution to occur.
Next, producers should consider using confinement feeding allowing livestock to access a structure or paddock for feeding but then return to a larger pasture. These smaller "sacrifice" pastures reduce the area damaged from winter-feeding. Place water and mineral supplements away from feeders, so livestock will be enticed to eat and then move out and away to water and minerals. This will help lessen the volume of manure at the feeding areas and spread it throughout the fields.
Finally, heavy-use area pads around winter-feeding areas are a worthwhile investment and can greatly reduce mud and rutting from tractor and hoof traffic. These pads are constructed using geo-textile fabric, crushed stone and dense grade aggregate.
By making these considerations for winter-feeding of livestock, producers can greatly reduce the potential to contaminate water resources and can improve production.
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There is still time to apply for the 2018 Extension Master Gardener class that starts in January.
The thirteen-week training starts in mid-January at the Burke County Agricultural Building. It meets on Wednesdays from 9:00 until noon. Classes are both lecture and hands-on and many knowledgeable speakers come to work with the class. After completion of the class, each new Extension Master Gardener is required to give forty hours of volunteer time to the Extension horticulture program during the next year. Volunteer hours can be earned in a multitude of ways and there are always activities to satisfy every interest. Class size is limited and applications are being taken now. The fee for the 2018 class is $125. If you would like more information or would like to have an application, call our office at 828-764-9480.
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Seed Catalogs - The Gardener's Wish Book
Garden catalogs are starting to arrive in our mailboxes now that fall is really here. What better way to pass a long, cold winter than to turn the pages and imagine what your garden would look like if you ordered one of everything in the book.
Temptation is a hard thing to fight, but not everything in the catalogs is suitable for our climate. Burke County is located in zone 7, according to the USDA planting map. Most catalogs give a hardiness recommendation for each plant they offer for sale. The lower the number, the colder the winter temperature. Plants listed for zones 7 and lower survive our winters very well. Plants labeled for zone 8 and above are not cold hardy enough for this area. Pay attention to this information and it will save much time and money.
Another piece of information available in most seed and garden catalogs is whether or not a plant needs a pollinator. It is not very wise to buy just one apple tree. The plant needs a certain pollinator to insure fruit production. The pollinator is often a very specific variety. This is true of most fruit varieties. Some fruits need pollinators and some are self pollinating. The catalog that you are considering ordering from should offer this information about every fruit variety it sells.
Information provided by a catalog is very important to the consumer. This information can make the difference between and good buy and a bad one. Catalogs supply this resource material to help the consumer make an informed choice.
Read about the plants you are interested in purchasing. It makes the long winter a bit shorter when we can pore over beautiful pictures and plan for the spring.
If you have any questions about suitable varieties for this area, call the North Carolina Cooperative Extension at 828-764-9480. We'll be happy to help you make a wise choice.
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Cookbooks make a great gift for the holidays!
Give our #Extension Eats Cookbook for a gift and help support Cooperative Extension programming in Burke County.
Recipes, tips & tricks, cuts of meat and more are included in the cookbook. These make great gifts!
$15 each
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Caldwell County Nurserymen's Association Meeting
December 7, 2017
6:00 pm
The Caldwell County Nurserymen's Association will be having their fall meeting on Thursday, December 7th, at 6 PM at the Ruritan building in Collettsville. The meeting is sponsored by Carolina Farm Credit.
Amanda Taylor, Area Specialized Agent for Nursery and Greenhouse will be providing an educational program about the top nursery issues from 2017, including ones that will likely continue into next season.
Please
RSVP to the Burke County Extension Center at 828-764-9480 or e-mail [email protected] no later than Friday, December 1st. The RSVP will
help as we prepare for the dinner meal.
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Don't Feed the Strings 
When winter comes to livestock producers in Burke County, it generally leads us into our hay-feeding regimen. This often means trudging through mud, maybe some snow and ice. Most of us are doing this in the dark and the hay-feeding season is a lot like work.
To speed up our evening chores, we may take short cuts and leave some twine or net wrap on the bales. And it's highly likely that some of our animals eat at least some of this twine, whether we want to admit it or not.
Some of this twine that's eaten passes completely through the digestive tract and ends up in manure, but a large amount of it can end up as a tangled-up ball that gets stuck in the rumen, especially plastic twine.
A recent survey of veterinarians suggests that deaths from twine blockages isn't all that common, however, it can limit intake in the rumen, and open up pathways for health problems and compromise the individual animal's health.
As producers, keeping costs low is of utmost concern. A dead animal, or one whose health is compromised, costs us money. To avoid problems with animals consuming hay bale twine, remember that it doesn't appear to be a common health concern, but it is still prudent to remove as much twine, especially the plastic twine, as possible before feeding. Anyone who has observed animals feeding on hay with the strings left on, has seen an animal with a string hanging from the side of its mouth, trying to ingest the tail of string dragging along behind, and besides, the string is hard on bush hogs and disc mower bearings, so let's get it off to start with.
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Small Fruit Sale 
Starts January 2nd
Be on the lookout for our small fruit sale, beginning the first of the year. An assortment of small fruit plants and fruit trees will be available for purchase, beginning January 2nd. Orders will be taken throughout the months of January and February and the plants will be available for pickup in mid-March. More information about the sale will soon be coming your way so start thinking about what you want to plant in the next growing season!
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