Canning Abyss

.

Not so many of you are posting these days. I know why, too. You have entered the canning abyss. I am there as well, but doggedly attempting to keep up with sharing what I am doing, so that I can do my part in saving the world. Well, my little part of it anyhow.

I keep meaning to fix this photo, I know it's cut off at the right edge, like all of them, but I will probably never do it and I want to post it anyhow. The sweet peas that are making me envious enough to plant some of my own next year.



>

Yesterday morning, after Bible study and chores and such, more canning meant a sudden trip to town on a mission to obtain more granulated sugar for 'berrious' endeavors. Also, the chickens seemed to be hungry, so we had to pick up some feed.

On the return home I tackled more jam making. When you've got over 4 gallons staring at you because there is no room in the fridge, you've got to do something quick! So small batches at a time, since I learned that the pectin actually breaks down after too much heat, I made three more batches. The first one was just Hot Blackberry Jam, in which you chop up peppers to spice it up.





Michael doesn't like it too hot, so I put in about a 1/2 cup to 10 cups of berries and 6 cups of sugar. It gives it just a little fun zip, without leaving any burning sensation in your mouth.

In the mean time, Michael once again left for the netherworld of the lower garden. He is like me, in that the trudging up and down the hill is tiresome in the heat. Such babies we are. I am very grateful for our home, but my thoughts do occasionally wander to the luxuries of flat land. A large, green and shady yard off the kitchen door, with chairs and tables to sit in and watch the flowers grow, and a hammock swaying gently between a couple of gorgeously perfect trees. The garden gate just at the edge, invitingly beckoning to...

Never mind, back to reality. Michael grabbed several baskets and went down with the camera.

Here is the melon patch with all the marker flags Michael put in the other day. They really help.





Bob? Is that you? (Inside joke for Veggie Tales fans.)





Now here you see our "Three Sisters" garden.
Where is the first sister, the one with the corn rows, you may ask?
She's been pulled down by her bean-pole second sister and choked to death.

The youngest sister, the fat and plump Squashita, is battling Bean-pole, for dominance, and it I think will eventually win.





This is how it looked a couple of weeks ago.





Lessons learned. 1. There is a reason you don't plant so many beans around your corn. Half as many beans, not half as much corn. 2. Need more space. Need much more space!

Michael is chomping at the bit to get his hands on those broom corn stalks. He took the machete down and checked them out.





Oh, and while we're at it, I took this picture of the grass that is now thickly growing over what used to be mere horse pasture dirt and weeds every summer. Cool!





Back to Michael's photos. Here is that giant pumpkin. There's Michael's size 9 foot next to it. Victory is not so sweet since it looks like there may be some bet welching going on...
Hmmmmm......





So we are letting the plant grow more pumpkins. They'll be nice for more holiday decor.





These beans are fun. We planted a variety of pole beans, as well as a bunch of pinto beans from the store, so I have no idea what beans are what.





My mistake on the melon naming the other day. That honeydew was not a Prescott Fond Blanc. This is.









So this melon was perfect, maybe a little past ripe.





This one was a little under ripe, but still good.





And the PFB was completely under ripe. It's supposed to be bright orange and very fragrant. But we did more reading up and Michael is confident he's got more of an idea now.





Here are the ones he missed before flagging.





Boy at play.













Sadly, that one rolled right into the garden. LOL Volunteers next year!





Back inside, I am making two more batches of jam, but these are hotter and with spices.

I added about 2 cups of Jalapenos to 12 cups of berries and 7 cups of sugar, as well a couple of teapoons of ground cloves. Yummy! I've also done this to strawberry jams in the past. The batch was slightly too big, though, and I cheated and added a little liquid pectin to set it.





I made 15 pints of blackberry jam yesterday.





Then still had more berries to use up, so I made another 3 quarts of blackberry pie filling. This time I cut down on the water to half. I was not pleased with the runniness of the first batch, and I also wanted more berries in proportion to the liquid. Here is a comparison of my first batch on the right, with the reduced liquid batch on the left.





Here is a cooling spot out of the work area of the kitchen. The spare room, which is now canning storage. I turn the overhead fan on to cool the bottles a bit before 'storing' them on the floor.





Then I still had tomatoes to do, and trying to get it all done before we had a movie night. So I used the "Italian Tomato Sauce" recipe from the Ball book and made three and a half quarts.





Here is my canning cache so far.









Michael made stuffed jalapenos again, and I made veggie sandwiches, and we turned off the light, lit candles, and watched "City of Embers", all achy and tired on the couch. Then we watched the light of the full moon through the windows and made up limericks for fun before going to bed.

Sleep was sweet.

~Faith

The Promise of Clear Skies...

.

...was kept only briefly. We did our usual morning stuff of study and a sugary breakfast, using up some blackberries that were picked a little early..





While I did some clean up, Michael picked as much as he could get to again. A little squash.





Overdue okra. It's OK. We don't want to eat it anyway. And YES! You see grapes! They escaped the evil black rot. I'm not sure which of the 30 varieties these are, but they are french wine grapes. Yummy!





More peppers and cucumbers.





Then, he marked out the melons in our patch... 65 markers, but they only mark groupings, not individual melons. You KNOW what is going to happen, don't you... They will all ripen at the same time.





I put off doing the pickle relish, because it was time to get out and try to catch up on yard work before rain arrived yet again. We have counted 3.5 inches this week.

This is what we needed to tackle first. The tall, seedy grass nearest the herb and flower beds.





We mowed low and raked, then dumped the grass into the sink holes down by the cherry bushes.





Then Michael picked some of the blackberries.





This is looking pretty bad. I could not mow here nor in the vineyard until the berries were all picked and the canes tied up again. This took many hours that we did not expect to spend here.





Meanwhile, the marigolds that I never did transplant into the veggie garden are looking spunky.





And the sunflowers and cosmos look great as well. Too bad I've been too busy to actually go get bouquets.





I think this is poke weed. Natives to this area say you make "poke salad" with it, which is not really a salad at all, but cooked greens. It is also poisonous in a certain form, so I've not pursued this yet. It grows ALL over and gets quite large if you don't pull them up. I mean like small TREE large, and fast!





But moving on to the rest, I had to raise the mower up all the way. We will have to mow again tomorrow, lower, if it doesn't rain again. The mower kept cutting out from all the wet grass.





So here are the blackberries we got today; about 4 gallons.





I used up about 1 gallon making hot blackberry jam with our jalapenos.

Just used a simple sugar recipe. I discovered that the spoon test is to be done with a cool spoon, away from the pot... That would have been nice to know on my first go around.





Kind of a seedy place, here.





I finished the pickle relish and it turned out very well.









And then, while the last of the stew was reheating, I quickly tossed a few peppers into the dehydrator.

Jalapenos and sweet banana.





Habanero and um.... I've forgotten. Not very professional, is it. EDIT - Czech Black.





So we missed our home group tonight, getting caught in the blackberry patch, and I'm ready for bed.

Tomorrow I'd like to catch up before the rain, but I'm not counting on it!

~Faith

.

Sewing, Mowing, Canning!

.

Today was our Civil War sewing meeting. On our way past the neighbors' house, we dropped off a quart of blackberry pie filling and a dozen eggs from our chickens. The eggs are getting a little dirty, as the hens have decided to forgo the roosts and sleep in the nests. So we've changed out the straw and locked up the nest boxes at night again. Looking forward to sparkly eggs tomorrow. :)

I have almost finished my replacement corset, but got stalled due to the bones I had ordered not fitting.





Gladly, we were able to use them for a dear friend of mine, Elaine. So I spent the whole morning being able to help others.

I must be getting better at sewing, because last week I pulled up some fabric, and spent an hour whipping up an extra corset for Elaine. I amazed myself. My first corset took 4 weeks and 4 people to help me. :-P

After the meeting I made a trip to the hardware store for bones. Yes, extra long and strong zip-ties, or tie-wraps.





I should be able to get those in, then put in the grommets for the lacing next week.

We came home and attempted to get mowing done but, once again, the storms have come and watered us out. The grass is a good 8 inches high and going to seed, so I want to be really careful where that seed goes when we are mowing next to crops and beds.





Yesterday we had managed to mow at least around the house and greenhouse, but had to rake up all the cut grass. Very time consuming.









By this evening we had two of these trailer loads of cut grass. Some went to the compost pile, but I think I will use a lot of it as mulch to cut down on weeding time in the herb and flower beds.





We've still got the crop areas to do and, frankly, it scares me.

Michael began yesterday morning by picking produce again. It's become a daily ritual the last week or so; Michael picks, and I work to do something with it in the kitchen.

So I began working on a blackberry pie filling recipe.









And, in trying to juggle freezer contents, put an old, frozen, half-price pot roast in the crock pot...





With a variety of found veggies, carrots, celery, onion, potatoes, and green beans from the garden, along with one of my favorite seasonings - mesquite.





We've been eating on this now for two days. :)

Here are the peppers from the morning. I would love to can some, but I don't quite have enough of them to justify running the canner, so I'm being more creative.





The summer squash, which has finally slowed down, went into the dehydrator again, and the cucumbers went into my first effort at canned pickle relish.





Michael also tried his hand at first time melon picking. Always an art form, we figure he might as well begin learning now how to pick them. He hit the jackpot with this first one, I believe it is a Prescott Fond Blanc.













Not so well with his first watermelon. He'll get better quickly.





My first inclination was to dice the veggies for the pickle relish. I soon tired of that; after about one cucumber, as a matter of fact.





So the 3 quarts of cucumbers, 3 onions, and 6 bell peppers went into the food processor, and then were to be soaked in 2 quarts of ice water and 3/4 cups of pickling salt for 4 hours.





When that 4 hours was up, I drained and resoaked them in plain ice water for an hour, drained them and then poured 6 cups of boiling apple cider vinegar with a mixture of 2 cups of sugar, 4 tsp celery seed, 4 tsp mustard seed, 2 tsp ground allspice, and 2 tsp turmeric over them. That whole mixture is in the fridge now, marinating and waiting for me to can it tomorrow morning.

It tastes like pickle relish, so it must be right.

Meanwhile, for a mid-morning snack we eliminated the jalapenos by stuffing them with cream cheese, diced jack cheese and powdered garlic and onion.





They were delicious. But we discovered that, though the smooth green ones are perfect, the older jalapenos, with the cracked skins are hotter than we appreciate.





Another picking, is an unripe spaghetti squash. The best way to learn is to make mistakes, so I know Michael is learning much more quickly by bringing his hard work up, and cutting into it. He's doing great! :)





Adding in freshly picked green beans to the stew...





And back to working on the blackberry pie filling. I got out all our frozen blackberries and there were not quite enough, so I filled in the rest of the berry need with raspberries and blueberries from the freezer as well.





This was my first use of Clear Jell. I got this at the Mennonite market for a good price.





And while I mixed that with sugar and spices...





I went to wave to Michael and see how he was doing.





Stirring the water into the Clear Jell mixture and bringing it to a low boil to thicken it.





And here is the pickle relish, ready to marinate for 36 hours in the fridge. I did not have any red peppers, so it looks a little bland, but the flavor is great.





Putting by a large garden's worth of produce is new to me. I am looking forward to when I can do these things without having to think so hard about them and am much quicker.

By this time it was nearly dark, Michael came in for shower and we enjoyed stew together as we relaxed.

I'll let you know how the relish turns out tomorrow!

~Faith

.