Canning

Yesterday i managed to complete my first canning session.  All by myself.

I had 8# of tomatoes collected up. Which seemed to take forever since everything is ripening so slowly.
I found a good recipe for stewed tomatoes (hubby loves those). I washed, blanched, skinned and chopped them, cooked them in a pot for a few minutes to get things hot. I used my dishwasher to heat the jars and keep them hot.  I packed the jars and put them in the cooker.  I didn't have as much trouble adjusting the lid as i thought i might. By following the directions it was fairly fool proof.  The cooker heated and pressurized faster than i had expected- not in a bad way, but i had imagined waiting forever for the water to boil---  as if it were a full stock pot.  But it turned out to be pretty efficient.  I vented it for 10 minutes- used my digital timer and kept an eye on the gauge and the jiggly weight.  When the time was up i shut everything off and let it depressurize, which also happened faster than i had imagined it would.
The lid came off the cooker pretty easily and i used the can lifter thingie to remove the jars to a soft towel on the counter top.
The can contents bubbled for much longer than i expected, so that was interesting.
I did have a few cans that puked out some contents inside the pressure cooker, this made the inside of the aluminum discolor unfortunately- but its cosmetic i guess.
This morning it looks as if the cans are all tightly sealed. Maybe i lucked out.  I think i didn't do a good job removing any air pockets when i packed the jars. Also my tomatoes were pretty dry.  I have planted romas before, but this year was not ideal growing conditions being so dry in the last few weeks. I think there were a lot of internal air pockets within the flesh and pulp.
I do have a few jars whose contents are lower than the others.  I don't have enough experience to know whether or not if this is caused by the cans puking during processing or from the contents softening and losing volume.
So that is how my first try went.
I unscrewed a few rings to test the seals, they all seem very tight so far.

I think i need to reorganize the pantry. Its a flipping mess.

I asked over here at Fresh Preserving Forum  if i could try canning carrots with sugar to make an easier "Candied carrot" dish. Canning the carrots in a light syrup should allow me to simply add butter to the drained and heated carrots and serve them.  There's the matter of safety though, carrots are low acid, but i have a pressure canner so it should be possible, somehow.  But i'm making sure.  They are pretty helpful over there. If it might be risky, i will be told without any beating around the bush. Heh.

I might not get much of anything more out of my garden for canning, but i'm sure i'll get plenty of practice with apples. We go to a local orchard every year and always come back with too much. We have so much fun picking that we get carried away. We buy a good deal of apple sauce so making it at home won't be a waste. I'm also interested in making canned apple pie filling.

I have been enjoying the scent of orange blossom for the last few days. My venous orange has developed its flowers better and they have a scent now.  Only one at a time though, so i don't think any self pollinating is going on.  I'd like to see fruit, but i don't expect any. I love the smell, its not strong enough to float through the air from just one bloom, but getting in close and braving the little spikes is rewarding.

I'm having a watermelon dilemma. I have no idea how to tell if they are ripe.  I read that thunking them can work, smelling them, the patch on the bottom should be a certain color...   I can't decipher the thunk,  i can't get down far enough to sniff, and there is no patch on the bottom.  I'm sort of going by the one cantaloupe melon i have. Its netting is still green so i know it isn't ripe, i imagine if it is not, the others aren't either...?

The overnight weather has been too cool for much more growing to go on, the herb seeds have begun to germinate and we had some good rain last night and yesterday.  Its been needed. The rest of the week is supposed to be sunny and in the high 80's. So i'll be watering again soon.

I have gotten a few more ears of corn. Most are still small, but i have gotten one or two really good sized ears.I'm told the flavor is excellent.  So far the "Incredible"  has won for flavor.  There are a few small corn borers in them occasionally, they aren't too big so far but they will get bigger. I think its too late to do much about them since they are inside the ears no pesticides will reach them. I may just grab all the ears i can right now, clean out the bugs and serve the corn.


I was able to order my Excalibur dehydrator yesterday as well.  I can't wait for it to arrive. Between my Food Saver and the dehydrator i should be able to put together some instant meals without preservatives. 
I think this should conclude the kitchen collection.  I can't think of anything else i might want at this point.
Supplies are all i need.
I found a website called WebStaurant that sells vacuum bags that should work with my FoodSaver, they are a thicker mil number than what Tammy at Dehydrate2Store suggests. They might be even cheaper than the inferior generic bags at WalMart. I think i will try the oxygen packs that Tammy uses,  i'm not looking for doomsday level storage, but where i might not be confident that i have gotten my foods to the proper state of  dessication, the oxygen packs will add a level to my peace of mind. Honeyville seems to have the best price and the most fair shipping rates. Especially since it is the only thing i should need from them $5 shipping is great.  I found other places that carry the oxygen packs, but the prices are nothing special and the shipping is ridiculous.

I hope this method works for me. I'm tired of freezer-flavored veggies. The bags they come in from the store are no good for preventing flavor leaching and freezer burn. I use frozen veggies for soups the most, so drying them will be the best way to keep them for this use.

I found another planting guide chart. The type that help gardeners plant according to feeding a family of determined size. It looks good, but it shows me just how small my garden really is. Even with intensive methods i don't think i could get my plot to produce on this scale.  But it does great as a supplemental, hobby  or snacking garden.

The recently seeded grass enjoyed the recent rain, looks almost ready to mow

On Wednesday i found a caterpillar.  I was hoping to attract one of these by planting carrots-  its a swallowtail caterpillar, maybe a black swallowtail, but i'm not certain. They like things in the carrot family, dill, parsley, fennel etc.
It was getting ready to pupate when i found it, so it attached itself to the side of the jar i put it in almost immediately.

Its hard to get pictures of something inside a glass jar....

When i woke up this morning, it was the same as last night (above picture) by the time i had mad my first cup of coffee, fed all  the animals and looked at the caterpillar again, it had pupated:

I forget how long it takes these guys to metamorph...  so i have to do some research. If it looks like it will be too late in the year for this one, i should be able to refrigerate the chrysalis  and then let it warm up again in the spring to be released.

So, that is what has been going on around here! :o)

Success and failures of an assorted nature...and drama too.

A couple times over the last few days i have tried to put together a video "garden tour" for fun.
I have run into a number of problems.  For one, file size. Blogger only allows 100MB videos. At low resolution and with my camera, this means about 4 minute clips.  Which isn't that bad.... but...it means i have to film in short increments and watch the camera timer.
I also have trouble keeping a steady camera. My camera is a decent one, but it has no in-film zoom, so i have to move the camera in close.  The more the camera is moved, the harder the video is to watch.  My limp does not help things and the harder i try to keep it steady, the jouncier it seems to get.  This would be almost instantaneous motion sickness for easily affected people like myself.  In fact, thinking about it makes me a little nauseous.

Another issue is that (and i never would have imagined this)  even though my garden is tiny, it takes me more than 15 minutes to film it all and point out each variety i have planted- even if i prattle on really fast.  If i have to speak slowly and move the camera slow and steadily, that time will increase further.


Now, for me, this is not actually such a bad thing. I could put up with most of the above myself. But where i have decided to make a public Blog of this garden... i should probably think of the people who are nice enough to stop by and who may want to watch the videos.  I wouldn't mind an array of ten, nine-minute videos of my garden to watch some day in the middle of February, but its unlikely that as nice as my fellow gardeners can be, not everyone will be as fascinated with my garden as i am! :o)


So i'll need a balance.  But i really want to do this, so i plan to keep trying. Its been frustrating, but its fun and i do like a challenge!


On the weather:
Wednesday, we had some big storms roll through.  I think we managed to get about 1.5 inches of rain. We needed it very much. We were lucky to not get much for high winds, but in Southern Maine there were some actual tornadoes that touched down. This is highly unusual.  I have not read or watched the news reports, but hubby has and he said there was a lot of damage.


Cuttings- the ones a dear friend sent me.... well there was a lot of failure on my part.  They didn't take for me. It may have been the soil i used, the surrounding temperature, the moisture level, any trauma they endured travelling through US Mail...lol
But i did have one glimmer of success! One of the hardy kiwi cuttings has taken root and is pushing up some new leaves.  Its pretty thrilling since this turns out to be an "against all odds" result.  The type of hardy kiwi is unknown, the sex is also unknown, but i think some research will help these questions be answered. Whichever it is, i will need to buy it a mate if i expect to get any fruit from it.  Of course that will be at least a few years out ahead and it still has a Winter to survive.

You can see the shiny new leaves:

 And here's the Autumn Olive from seed, while i'm posting pictures.

I have started work on the side flower bed.  This has caused a little bit of friction with our nice neighbors. When we bought the house, there was a short fence along the side in question.  About a year after we moved in, the fence was so rotted we had to take it down.  The fence had been placed so that it was right through the middle of the flower bed, cutting it almost in half lengthwise.   Our neighbors eventually started tending that little strip of escaped plants because it buts right up against their pavement and would have just become an eyesore.

The fence could not have been installed because of the paving, but where we now know the lines and the pavement is breaking up, we will be able to get more precise.
The end to the right is where some goldenrod and the raspberries are taking over.  The goldenrod will be removed and the raspberries will be salvaged.

When we bought the new lot we had our entire property surveyed.  My premise was that i wanted to have every inch of soil that i owned, but i didn't want to take anything that was not mine even by mistake.  The surveyor pins show that the entire flower bed does belong to us (as well as a good bit of their pavement), however, they have been tending it for at least a few years so she is not wanting to let it go.  The neighbor lady is also not happy that we are planning to put a fence back there.  The neighborhood kids (that we refer to as "The Hooligans") use our yard and theirs as a highway and step on anything in their path & steal things along the way, so we want a fence to stop this. 
Its going to be a neighborly fence, maybe 5' high, not so high that an over-the-fence conversation cannot be had...
I tried to explain what i plan to do with the plants that are in there but i'm not sure if we are understanding eachother.    I'm also not sure if she isn't understanding what plants are flowers and which are weeds...
Its a hard conversation to have. I'm trying to not sound like i'm saying
"The whole thing is mine, the plants are mine and i'll do whatever i want with them."
---Though, essentially, i could say exactly that. 
What i did tell her is that i am going to remove all the plants and bulbs, sort them and decide which to give away, put back or place somewhere else.  I told her that she could have all of what she wants-  there is a ton of Iris and yellow lilies in there-  some i am giving to my mother,  but she can pretty much have the rest of them.  
Some of the problem is that i don't quite know if she understands that i am not just getting rid of everything completely.  When we first moved in, i gutted the long-neglected beds and split everything that needed splitting, rearranged things that were in unsuitable places ...  when i was in the middle of that project, she was almost in tears, thinking i was getting rid of all of the former owner's flowers. They had been long time friends and i understood, the lady was part of our extended family too and i respected that, the beds needed work but no i wasn't destroying them. 
My hubby and her hubby have talked and he's ok with whatever we want done... but i think his wife is having some trouble.   I think much of it is due to failing health and without sounding disrespectful, a touch of senility setting in.  She is also the reason that 'beautiful' box elder eyesore is still standing instead of a dwarf, ornamental flowering tree that i offered to put in it's place.
Like the first time i messed with these beds, i'll simply have to do my work despite her fears and when its done i think she'll realize that my plans weren't as frightening as she thought they'd be.
Of course its going to take me 10x the amount of time to complete it compared to when i wasn't disabled.
Its easier on the involved when something seems to happen overnight.  Like last time, it took me two days.  It was started and finished before she could get too much more upset with me, but this time she will have weeks to fret about it.
 I am going to use some highly visible colored rope to string a line along the survey pins, hopefully to assure her that i am intent on playing by the rules.  I really think that she has a lot of trouble dealing with change of any sort.  I fully expect to have similar issues as i grow older. I can see it starting already, so though i am frustrated with her i understand, but i still get to do what i want with my own yard.
There's always something dramatic going on around here! lol

The beans have slowed down in production and the summer squash have picked up. I think i will only plant one of each next year.  Unless i am prepared to can them.  Shredded, they make a great bulk filler for spaghetti sauce.  


I won't be able to get my pressure canner for at least another 2 weeks, so the beans i have will need to be frozen. 
I was worried that i won't be able to use my canner this year since i probably didn't plant enough cukes for pickles and the beans are running low, my swiss chard tasted like mud this year and i won't have any fruit in quantity for preserving....but then i remembered the  15 tomato plants i have growing....  what better garden produce to practice canning with.  Its what everyone seems to start with.
I will also have winter squash and i am pretty sure that can be canned.  Since i am getting a pressure canner, i can preserve most anything in it, including beef and chicken or recipes that include meats.   Wouldn't it be nice to open a jar of pre-cooked chicken or tenderized beef?  Chicken could be chopped and made into chicken salad,  beef would make quick work of a soup or stew..among other things.
The Ball book has a number of recipes for cooking ahead, worth trying at least once....

Hubby went and picked up my landscape edging yesterday. It looks like nice stuff,  but he wants me to hold off until the lawn is prepared and seeded.  I have no idea when that is going to happen, so i'm not too thrilled to wait to get started on that.
I like to get things going shortly after getting the notion in my head. But between having to wait an unspecified length of time before i get started and knowing it will be longer and more painful to do than it should be, i'm getting all anxious over it.
I just want it done! :o)

Other than this, not much else is going on. The garden is still weedier than i like, but nothing has raided it recently, i still need to use BT on the brassicas because i saw some caterpillar poo on one of the cabbages and dime-sized holes are forming on my kale leaves.   Last time i grew tomatoes they were attacked bu hornworms and destroyed my plants in one day.
I'm a little uncomfortable with BT, but not enough to stop me from using it when i think i need it.

So that is all for today.

Koolickles, broccoli and midsummer pictures...

First, Koolickles.  Its another example of what those crazy southerners will do with pickles.  Its really not that crazy to me, though i never lived in the south i have seen odd foods from all over the place since i grew up watching cooking shows.... 
I think the first time i saw Koolickles was on an Alton Brown show not too long ago so for all my not-freaked-out-ishness, it is somewhat new to me.  The original recipe calls for dill pickles, sugar, and Kool Aid packets... red colors seem to be a must. Grape is reported to not work, lemon lime flavors are said to be nice, but are less preferred. Fruit punch, strawberry and cherry are the top choices.  Some recipes say to drain the juice and replace it with what is basically a double-sugar mix of Kool Aid.  The recipe i followed said i could add the Kool Aid to the pickle brine and add it back in. Some recipes say to slice the pickles lengthwise and some say leave them whole or buy a jar of spears.

I don't eat sugar, so i had to do some looking to see if this can be done with Sugar-free mix. It turns out that it might be possible.  So that is what i am trying.

The Victims.  A one gallon  jar of Mt. Olive kosher dills.  

The accomplice....

I'm taking the lazy way out. This may backfire. But if it backfires i'm out a jar of pickles...ho-hum.   I'm just going to dump 2 of the little cups of mix straight into the jar.   If it turns out to be too much flavoring i bet i could dump the juice out of the jar and refil with water and let it sit for a few days to purge the salt and flavoring a bit.

Ok, straight into the jar:

Looks sinister

Into the fridge for 1-3 weeks....

Ok, back to gardeny things...

I have Broccoli!  I noticed it the other day.  The plants that got shredded the least and that i left to recover have recovered.  The florets are understandably small

Polfast tomatoes are getting bigger.

All the tomatoes have been treated to prevent blights.

Cucumber!

FGS- Full garden shot

 Grapes...   the famous Marechal Foch....   this thing is so healthy looking.

Reliance...  i finally tied it up.

I tossed some flax seed into the garden in Spring. They had started to smeel like they might be going rancid.  Many of them sprouted...they don't take over much so its nice to have little blue flowers like this popping up here and there

I'm wondering what is up with my beets and rutabagas.  I need to take a closer look at them.  The beets are supposed to be 45 day and its right about that time now.  The packet said Spring planting was correct, but they seem to be late.  I think that area of soil isn't as yummy for them as it could be...though the beans just behind them are growing like mad.  The two rutabagas that i keep snipping the tops off of kept sending up flower stalks so i pulled them last night. Their roots looked woody and like they had tunnels through them....  they may have wireworms...  this would explain why my beets are slow... but i did pull a beet and the root of that one had no tunnels, but it wasn't any thicker than my thumb.  I managed to break it in half and it smelled sweet and had some juice to it.  It has been a long time since i have grown beets so i don't have much background to go on.  The rutabagas were 100 day type, so its too early to expect them to be getting ready....  but  i don't know if the reason the rutabagas were trying to go to seed was because of the attack on the roots...  they are the only ones that were trying to go to seed, so maybe they were the only ones affected?  This does not seem likely.  I noticed some green larvae on the rutabagas, so i'm going to apply some BT.  I have been picking cabbage butterfly eggs off the leaves of kale, collards et al, but the rutabagas have too many leaves to do this well and i noticed the butterflies are laying eggs on everything in the garden, not just the cole crops.

I had to pull back the birdhouse gourd quite a bit yesterday. It was laying hold of my rosemary and salsify plants in the next row over.  I almost have to say that planting them was a mistake.  My garden is simply too small.  They really need to be allowed to climb something, but i way underestimated what they would have needed to climb anyway. They are spreading in the rows like a large green glacier.... i had to rescue the watermelon vines from them as well.  They really would take over the entire garden if i let them.

The pumpkin plant that appeared in the walking row this Spring, and that hubby wanted me to keep is becoming a pest.  It has blocked my passage through that end of the walkway,  on the other side are my summer squash plants...it is a tight fit getting through.
I need to remember to plant squashes in the center of the row and at the end of the garden no matter what the garden planner says.  I planted 2 side-by-side and that is not enough room to keep them from coming out the side.
With my small garden, there wasn't enough root space for the Summer Squashes to grow this large, i had slightly dwarfed plants....  i don't now! lol

I have been able to pick about 2# of green beans every other day for the last week.  I may try and practice some small scale canning of them.  I have never canned solo before...  i borrowed Ball's Complete Canning book from the library the other day, so i'll do a quick read before i start trying.