Category Archives: Garden

End of the Summer Garden

October 17, 2008Canning, Garden, ThoughtsCanning, Garden, Thoughtswarren

We wrapped up the summer garden last weekend. Mentally, we checked out of it a few weeks ago, completely exhausted from canning and drying and pickling and cooking. Gardening and canning is exhausting work though we both really enjoy it (don’t ask us now, ask us in February) and it gives us a lot of time to work together towards a common goal, chat about the day or the future or our dreams. It provides us with fantastic nutrition and exercise. We have no fear of a vitamin D deficiency in the summer sun. It’s just the right thing for us to do.

It is equally good to put the summer garden to rest though. We get to take a break and enjoy a bit of the work that we’ve done.

I don’t suppose to have any real idea of our ancestors who really survived on the land, but I think I feel a small bit of the relief of having food put up, of the rest of fall and winter, and the simple joy of seeing stuff transition from seed to seed.

Ok, enough pondering life. We gathered a bunch of cayenne and jalapeno peppers (will they ever end?!), black beans, green peppers and tomatoes (those are 6 gallon buckets in the first pic) at the close of the garden. We actually picked several crops of black beans that had dried on the vine over the course of the summer. Anyone pulling up the plants early to harvest dried beans is missing a huge second or third crop.

Anyhow, Emily spent a good part of one evening shelling the last crop of black beans. Mo, our cat loved the seed pods. He chased them all over the place. We dry the beans on a clothes drying rack covered with cotton fabric which is held in place with clothes pins. The cool thing is that the entire rack folds down almost flat and is easy to store.

It’s also a lot cheaper than some of the fancier racks and the cotton fabric can be washed unlike some of the window screen versions that some folks have made.

Anyhow, we are done with our summer garden. We are planting garlic tomorrow but that is fairly low key compared to everything else. ‘Tis good to have a break!

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Sunflowers – redux

October 15, 2008Garden, ThoughtsGarden, Thoughtswarren

Earlier this summer, I posted about our first year planting sunflowers. They were glorious and grand and a lot of fun to watch turn into the sun as we worked in the garden. Such beautiful plants couldn’t be left with just a single post. I had to bring them back into the discussion as I am sure you have been curious how things turned out.

As it turns out, sunflowers grow very tall and get very heavy with the weight of seeds. I didn’t really think things through when I planted them. I watched them grow and was awed by their stature. Of course, like Andre the Giant, sunflowers are in a different atmosphere with winds that we normal Earth-bound travelers don’t feel. Sure enough, I lost a few to winds and gravity (which still works by the way). As I am a quick study, I staked those that remained and we harvested 7-8 gigantic sunflower heads. I had no idea when to harvest them of course and the first thing that occurred to me was that when the birds start devouring the crop, they must be ready. Thankfully, I have access to the internets and was able to find that when the fronts turn brownish and the backs tun yellowish, they are ready.�

Emily and I started de-seeding them this week and found out that sunflowers produce a very sticky sap. I am still dragging my one cat to the office each day as he is glued to my left hand. Anyhow, we pulled the seeds from the face of the flowers and winnowed them in a screen sifter I built from 1/4 inch hardware cloth. Most of the debris was removed by that process but we still put the seeds in the freezer to take care of any critters that couldn’t be persuaded to leave. We plan to roast the seeds which I suppose would have killed anything still attached also, but it just seemed grosser that way. Anyhow, after a 2-3 day freeze, we roasted them and will have several mason jars full of seeds!

Hot peppers

September 5, 2008Canning, Food, GardenCanning, Food, Gardenwarren

I like hot peppers of various types. Over time, it seems that my taste buds have become less sensitive. I remember when jalapenos used to send me over the edge. Not so much any more. As a bit of a pepper junkie, I decided that we need tons of peppers to satisfy my cravings. In the excitement of late winter/early spring seed-starting, we planted hot peppers in sufficient number to feed my entire family for a year. We planted jalapenos, hungarian wax, cayennes and habaneros.

I have been drying pepper rings, I have canned peppers by themselves, I have thrown peppers in salsa, pickles, spaghetti sauce, and on everything I eat fresh. Still, we have millions and millions of peppers. I had to resort to something extreme and strange to use up some jalapenos.

I made jalapeno jelly last night. I am not exactly sure how you eat this though I have heard it is good on anything with creamcheese. The recipe is pretty simple so it’s worth a try:

Jalapeno Jelly
3/4 pound stemmed & de-seeded jalapenos
2 cups vinegar
6 cups sugar
2 pouches of liquid pectin
I de-seeded the peppers for the first batch of jelly but got tired of that so I ground seends and all for the second batch. Anyhow, puree the jalapenos until they are nearly unrecognizable. Boil them with sugar and vinegar for 10 minutes. Make sure you stir constantly and have a big enough pan as this mixture swells a lot and really smokes-and-smells-up-your-house-and-your-wife-has-to-scurry-around-to-deactivate-the-smoke-alarms-since-the-kids-are-sleeping when (I mean if) you boil it over (so I’ve heard). After the 10 minute boil, remove from heat, add pectin and boil again for 1 minute. Powdered pectin does not work very well so do yourself a favor and just use liquid pectin. Ladle into half-pint jars and water bath can for 10 minutes. You can add green or red food coloring, by the way. I prefer not to add coloring but you can color it if you’d like.

Cushaw

September 3, 2008GardenGardenwarren

I listen to this fun podcast called Geek.Farm.Life and I once heard them talking about cushaw squash. Being naturally curious (though nothing compared to my brother George), I decided to embark on the Cushaw express to see what delights lay ahead. I knew winter squash can grow pretty large but I had not really considered what that meant. They shot up pretty little heads, just like the nearby summer squash. They vined out early, just like the summer squash…but then, something happened. I am certain a genetic mutation occurred or some sort garden demon hexed them and caused them to send vines 20 feet or so through summer squash and zucchini and nearly to the peppers!

It was madness watching these cutsie little squash grow into gigantic green and white striped widow-makers! We harvested these when the skin became tough and they basically stopped increasing in size. I have read that they can keep a very long time so we will have some time to experiment. I will post again with details of how they taste and how we use them. In the meantime, beware of these garden whales!

What the heck is this?

August 15, 2008Garden, NatureGarden, Naturewarren

Abigail and I were harvesting the potatoes the other day and I dug this up…at least I think I dug it up. Anyhow, it ended up in the pile of dirt from which we were picking potatoes. At the top it seemed like a cocoon but it was very much larva-like at the bottom. I guess it was a moth or butterfly larva weaving its cocoon but I do not know what type.

That crazy thing was wiggling around and really freaking the kids out ( I, of course, was quite brave and unmoved by its actions). It was several inches long and full of ugly. I decided to just put it back in the dirt and hope for the best.

We are pretty fond of butterflies but I have sort of mixed reactions to moths…due to a bad experience with wax moths and my stored honey supers…I still can hardly talk about it!

Anyhow, we had a pretty good haul of potatoes and the kids were absolutely fantastic at helping me harvest them. I have never seen them work so hard as they did then.

Sunflowers!

August 12, 2008Garden, NatureGardenwarren

I love sunflowers. I love to eat them. I love to look at them. I love to feed them to the birds. Honeybees make a very bright yellow wax from sunflower nectar. I love sunflower wax! Sunflowers just seem to be so hopeful. I know that sounds dumb but they grow so tall and so fast. They produce a huge head and a ton of seeds. It’s pretty bold to go for broke but that’s exactly what sunflowers seem to do. It just feels like nature’s optimism to me. Our sunflowers have really started to take off making for the perfect end to the summer garden.

The bumblebees seem to like them too. We’ve seen half a dozen or more on individual flowers lately. If we had room, I’d plant an entire field of the stuff!

Zucchini pickles

August 7, 2008Canning, Food, GardenCanning, Food, Gardenwarren

We planted only a half row of zucchini fearing the plague of fruit that usually follows. I think it was a wise move as we haven’t been overrun with the stuff but we had plenty to make a couple of batches of zucchini pickles. I found the recipe at Achorn Farm’s blog. Anyhow, we made a dozen pints of the stuff. They are delicious…but a little potent! The pickling juice also stains…even clear plastic measuring cups.

Salsa

August 2, 2008Canning, GardenCanning, Gardenwarren

Tomatoes are starting to ripen so we’re starting to can salsa. We were given a great recipe by a friend last year and are making it like crazy this year. I didn’t keep track of how much we made last year but I suspect it was 25-30 pints. We are planning to make a lot more this year. From last year’s work, we learned a few things that has made the first batches a little easier. Roma tomatoes seem to peel the easiest for us.

We freeze the tomatoes in advance and then let them slightly defrost before peeling them. In a half-frozen state, the skins just pull right off. We never make double recipes because our recipe requires that we boil the brew for 10 minutes. Boiling something thick for that long splatters all over. Our pot isn’t big enough to even really contain a single recipe. We also hand chop onions and green peppers but use a processor on the hot peppers. Most folks seem to like big chunks of sweet peppers and onions but a big chunk of habanero can bring about a religious experience…usually losing religion actually!

Anyhow, we love salsa! We eat the stuff on tacos, eggs, baked potatoes and with nacho chips. Typically, we make two varieties, one pretty hot and one mild. Emily is starting to enjoy the hotter variety so we may increase production of that. We usually use a mix of jalapenos, cayennes and habaneros though we haven’t found habaneros for sale yet. Our crop of them failed miserably. Enough about that…the point is, salsa has to be one of my favorite things to can. Bring on the ‘maters!

Corn

July 30, 2008Bees, Family, Garden, NatureBees, Garden, Honeybeeswarren

I mentioned in an earlier post that the bees were really working the corn tassels a couple of weeks ago. I got some pictures (click on them…they are pretty neat when full size!) of

honeybees as well as a bunch of
blue orchard mason bees that were around. It turns out that the starlings were really working the

corn too. This weekend, we had to harvest a bunch of the corn before the birds did. We ate some for supper this weekend and Emily

froze most of it still on the cob. She blanched the ears for 6 minutes then let them cool. Once cool and dry, she then wrapped them in cling-wrap and put the ears in freezer bags. We probably harvested half of the corn so we’ll see what the birds left us later in the week!

More on the pressure canner

July 24, 2008Audio, Canning, GardenAudio, Canning, Gardenwarren

We canned a bunch of green beans last night with the new pressure cooker. I really enjoy using the All-American pressure cooker for a number of reasons. It seems to come to temperature very fast. This could really be a perception thing since it has a temperature gauge.

With a normal weighted-pressure cooker without a gauge (see pic below), I always watch the pot never knowing if it is almost at pressure, if the heat is actaully climbing, etc…and, of course, a watched pot never boils. With this canner, I can see the temp and pressure as soon as it boils. I also like this canner because it does not have a rubber gasket to break down and fail. The All-American is formed in a shape such that a metal-to-metal seal is formed. It is also American made (of course) which I appreciate.

Now, the bad stuff…you have to get the lid and base of the canner lined up just right or a seal will not form and the canner will not get to pressure. We ran into this problem last night on our second load of green beans. I didn’t realize it was not sealed until it got pretty hot. I couldn’t just open it and try again (it was still very hot, even though not to pressure). We’ll recan the beans tonight since it was almost midnight when we figured it all out. We’ll just put new lids on the jars and try again.

Most times this canner seals fine but I always have to gently pry the lid from the base after it cools.

It forms a very tight seal. The manual says that a screwdriver placed just right will break the seal (and it does) but I wish I could just pop the lid off every time. It is possible that I am not aligning the lid right when I screw down the bolts that hold the lid and base together. I think that task is nearly impossible though. This is a small issue but an issue nonetheless.

Finally, the All-American is very heavy compared to other canners. This is good and bad. It has a substantial feel to it for sure. The problem is that it is not recommended for glass top stoves and it is heavy to move when full. the price is fairly high but it should last a lifetime. It just has a quiality look-and-feel which I really appreciate.

I sort of like the sounds of canning so I recorded some of what we were doing last night with the canner. I hope you enjoy this “sound-seeing tour”. Click the arrow below to hear it :

Canner sounds

My Home Among The Hills

Life in WV!