I can see how the sharp ground would not be good for earthworms.
You have some great yard plans for this spring, etc.
Okay, here you go...
When you use carrots, keep a bit off both ends, sans the green shoulders, since they can be bitter.
When you use onions, keep the outer layer or 2, then chop as usual. You may want a couple of the skins for color, or maybe not, but not too many. I used them for years, and my grandmother before me did, but 2 years ago the onions were really 'off' and so were the skins. The flavor they imparted wasn't good at all. So, I stopped using them. I could probably go back to it now, as the onions are fine these days, but it's been coming out so well that I hate to make any changes. If it ain't broke...!
Then, celery. Imagine a stalk all together. First, I take a thin slice off of the very bottom, to remove the dirty looking part. Then, I cut the whole bottom off...maybe an inch or two. That couple of inches...depending on the size of the celery to begin with, is for broth.
Then, when I lay out the ribs to be washed and chopped, I keep from the top knuckle up, on each one, as well as the darker leaves. I use the light leaves inside for whatever I'm making that day.
I used to take a large Ziploc, and put all of the bits together in it, and put it in the freezer until I had enough to make a broth with, or until I was ready...whichever came first, along with pieces of raw chicken from whole chickens, which I rarely use these days. I'd usually put the backs, wings or wing tips, and necks in for broth.
These days, I use the breasts, then make chicken salad or chicken bisque with it after cooking.
But then, I learned that some weeks I used a lot more carrots one week, or too little celery, so my 'soup bag' was not balanced, and therefore neither was my broth.
Now, in the freezer, I keep a carrot bag, an onion bag, and a celery bag. I can take as much or little as I want out of each for my broths.
The vegetables don't need anything done to them to freeze them.
My preference is to be a little careful with the amount of carrots in a broth, to prevent it being too carroty, and to be generous with the celery.
But, while I use the base for soup, I also use it as a base for gravies, and other non-soup foods. The extra carrots are not so much a problem with soup, but it really seems to come out when I make certain gravies, etc.
I cut the vegetables pretty small these days, as I mentioned, and I get much more flavor, in a shorter length of time than using larger pieces.
The very outside of the chicken, if using breasts, may look dark, but that's just staining from the vegetables, and is just on the surface. It doesn't negatively affect it at all. You can cut the breasts into 2 or 3 chunks before cooking.
Well, there's not much else to tell. Use salt, but you may want to skip herbs and such. That way, it's a fresh palette for anything that you make, whether that's different flavor profile soups, or something like brothy rice or gravy. Plus, all flavors become stronger if the dish has you reducing it.
I hope that this helped!
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