Canning and Preserving

 

I'll pick my garden once more this morning and then summer gardening is over for me. The garden is still producing, but I'm off to Colorado for a month. Emily will continue to pick vegetables, while I'm gone. And while I'm gone, I'll be dreaming of and planning a fall garden to start on my return home. 

You may remember that this was my first year gardening at the lake. Even with the learning curve of gardening in a little different climate and completely different soil, I consider the garden a complete success. The fruit trees were a sweet treasure and gave us lots of fruit to enjoy and preserve. The discovery of our Granny Smith apple tree was the best and although it only had two apples, I'm sure that next year there will be even more. 

I'm going to leave you now with a few pictures of our rewards.

Our peach tree was loaded this year, but the two cold snaps we had in early spring stunted their growth, I believe. They had their fair share of bird pecks, a few had worms and we had a branch break from a combination of a lot of peaches and the branch being weighed down by rain. The deer and squirrels finished those off. But all in all, we harvested quite a few peaches. And with the plums we picked earlier, I was able to put up quite a few jars of peach and plum jam. I, also, froze a few bags of peaches and made a couple of peach cobblers.

 My tomatoes did really well, this year. 

This tomato came from my garden and I probably have a dozen lying on the kitchen counter with that many more in the garden ready to be picked this morning. I've enjoyed quite a few tomato sandwiches and I'm surely going to miss them. And although I didn't plant enough to can, I bought enough from the farmers market for that. I canned 21 jars of tomatoes. Oh my gosh, we are going to enjoy tomatoes and rice this winter. 

21 jars

By the time I took this picture, I had already given away quite a few of the 31 jars of peach and plum jam that I preserved. That's a table full of hard work right there.

I planted one zucchini plant and it took over a 4 x 4 raised bed. The thing was a monster and grew monster fruit.....well, mostly because I didn't get to them in time. 

I was away for a week and when I came home, I had two gigantic zucchinis. You can see one of them lying there behind the zucchini bread. I really thought they weren't any good, but after cutting the seedy part from the middle, there was plenty of flesh left on the sides. From those two zucchinis I blanched and froze four bags, made two loaves of zucchini bread, grated the last one and got enough to make six more loaves of zucchini bread or maybe add to a pot of soup, this winter. 

 6 cups grated zucchini

 2 cups in each bag and each bag will make 2 loaves of zucchini bread.

For the zucchini bread, I followed this recipe. The only change made was that I used pecans instead of walnuts. It was delicious....more like cake than bread. I will make this recipe again. 

 

And lastly, while Cliff, Sawyer and I were at lunch yesterday, we must have had a heck of a storm blow through because we had a fallen tree across the drive, when we got home. 

My posts will take a turn, now, to our adventures in Colorado. If you don't mind, I would appreciate it, if you would whisper a prayer for safe travels. You know I can't stand to fly!

Talk soon, 

Laurie

Canning Tomatoes

There is just nothing better than rice and tomatoes and homemade biscuits. It's one of Cliff's and my favorite meals. And there are no better tomatoes in the world than the ones you can yourself. It kind of makes me feel like a pioneer woman. And although I can't make a decent biscuit to save my life, Cliff's mama can. I mean they are downright melt in your mouth delectable. And she loves to make them for us.

Of course, I didn't grow enough tomatoes to put up, so I headed on down to the farmers market to buy what I needed. Last summer, I canned 25 lbs. of tomatoes and they didn't last through the winter. So this year, I  bought twice that amount. Yep, 50 lbs. Well, law! When I started preparing the tomatoes, I got a little bit overwhelmed. I had to channel Granny to get through it. It took me nearly 4 hours to wash, blanch (makes peeling easy), and to cut them up.

 
But once that was done, I started prepping the jars and it felt like I could see light at the end of the tunnel. Humph! There's always something. It quickly became obvious that I would need more jars. After a quick trip to town, I was back in business.

I used the boiling water bath method and that took the rest of the day. Every year, I learn something new or a better way in the process than the year before. Next year, I'm definitely going to have a couple of gas burners to get the job done. The stove is too slow!!
 
I lost 2 jars because by the time I was ready to put the jars in the bath, they were a little too cool. When I put them in the hot water, the bottom just popped right off. I soon figured out that if I put the jar rack in place at the top of the pot and place the jars on it until the heat from the water below and the steam heated them up enough, I could submerge them in the boiling water bath, safely.

 

I finished with 11 quarts and 20 pints. I think that will do!!

Roll out the biscuits Ms. Wanda. We're ready for some tomatoes and rice!

 Laurie