Weird Anne: canning

Showing posts with label canning. Show all posts

September 2, 2009

stuff

I really am worried about all the coldness at night on the garden. It was in the 40's the last couple nights! I hope things will be ok.

We canned salsa and spiced blueberry jam yesterday. Also started some more salsa but didn't finish it - gonna do that today.

Also today going to get the chicken coop started on a deep litter method. I hope it works as well as some claim - if not SR is going to have a laugh at us! LOL!

AND... we got the go ahead to start on another addition!! So we need to get things marked off and lined up. This one is going to be MUCH larger - like 10' x 20' !! And we will also be redoing the south side of the house at the same time (this is where we are adding onto). We asked SR what he's going to do with his new east wing when we are gone and he said --- I'll just move a prostitute in! LOL! Old men are weird!!

later...

August 25, 2009

garden update

Image by Chris Radcliff via Flickr

Yesterday I was able to get more jars thankfully! Why is it that all stores see canning as a seasonal thing? It's not! You can do it year round.

I had to go to 2 different stores to pick up 6 more cases. I really wish I could of found some at a yard sale or something. I've spent probably about $200 on jars this year alone! It's a good thing that they can be reused!

I've only got about 12 jars of stuff that I've gave away in the last year. I've not got even 1 jar back.

Image by SuziJane via Flickr

I've got enough tomatoes ready to go for salsa, but I don't have enough peppers. They just aren't growing for me this year at all.

Image by jonbro via Flickr

Next I'm gonna start hitting up all the people I've seen with apple trees in their yards for free apples! Apple butter here I come!

later...

August 22, 2009

stuff

Been awhile since I've posted, it has been to hectic here! That and I've been too sick!

I was sick the past 2 weeks - you name it, I had it! I thought I was better this past week but nope. In fact this morning I woke up coughing - UGH!

I also had the GREAT fortune of stepping on a rusty nail last Monday. So I had to go get a tetanus booster =( Good thing about that is it didn't hurt like it did back in junior high LOL!

One by one everyone else in the house has been sick too except SR. It is truly a sad sight to see your little 5 year old girl hold her head and say - my head's hurting. =(

Well the Kaos King didn't get sick per say but did suffer a massive out break from something. He was swelled up really bad. We still don't know for sure what it was. We took him to the hospital but the quack out there spent a total of 50 seconds in the room with him so I don't think it's possible she got the diagnosis correct. She said poison sumac. But his brother was with him and didn't get it? Oh well they gave him a steriod shot and some steriod pills and that cleared him up. And once he stopped itching it has all went away.

This all happened with the Kaos King because he was hired to do some yard work for a neighbor. They even paid him $6 an hour, which he loved! I told him to let #3 go down there with him and help out. He made $20 which he put with the money he made from them earlier this year so he can buy a new mp3 player. It took me about a week to pick out the best one for his money but I finally did and it's on it's way here!

On the garden front --
Our fall garden is all planted and mostly sprouted now. I made sure and left LOTS of room between things in it LOL! Thats because I crowded so much in to the other garden and it was a pain to harvest things. I've had hardly no luck at all with the onions I planted which really sucks! The other stuff seems ok so far.

We have been pulling out all kinds of plants because they are done. So far here's the list of what we've pulled -- cucumbers (thankfully!!), zucchini, spagetti squash, corn, onions, garlic, a couple extra cabbages, some of the pumpkins (both kinds), and slowly pulling beans here and there. For some reason even though we counted the days for proper pumpkin and winter squash planting they all finished WAY early! Darkside was very upset since his pumpkins are ready now and it's not October yet!

We FINALLY are getting tons of ripe tomatoes!! And peppers too! And a couple big eggplants, too. I've made 2 batches of salsa so far =) It's so nice to have ripe tomatoes that we grew!

I also made some dilly beans -- we don't like them LOL! But we tried =) I've been pickling almost everything in sight lately. There were just too many cucumbers!

Oh then a neighbor brought down some more cause she said they couldn't use -- SURE! LOL!

Tried to be nice and give some of our abundance to a friend but he don't want it =(

We've also been trying to remodel the bathroom, which hasn't been working out the best. I've also been trying to talk SR into building another addition onto the house. The addition that I'm proposing is only 10' x 20' which don't seem like much but I think it would make so much more room here. I really need more room so I can get all my food here and not at the storage place. Everyday we think of something else that is in storage that we need to go get. There is only 2 very small food cabinets here. They are like 2' x 2' !! I have all the rest of the food stored in various spots through the house, in the van, and in the trunk of my car!

Oh and.... We are attempting to incubate some eggs!! We had 12 in there but we candled them last night and there are only 5 that might be ok. Well actually SR thinks that those 5 might be ok. Personally I think that they are duds too. I believe that the rooster is still too young or not "manly" enough! But we are going to keep trying! It would be so cool if we could hatch our own babies!

Also on the chicken front - we have decided that the broiler/fryer/whatever they are definitely HAVE to go! And I say that we are SO not ready to do our own slaughtering! I don't think SR is really wanting to do any slaughtering anyway. Plus I'm thinking that his way of slaughtering - old school - is not the way I'd like to eat my chicken. Not exactly the cleanest method of preparing, know what I mean? =)

And the nearest meat processing place that will accept chickens that I could find online is about 100 miles east of here =( So we are going to do things the easy way -- take them to the auction! LOL! We found a once a month auction that isn't too far away that does small livestock. We was wanting to go to it anyway might as well make some money too! But really even if we have to give the stupid things away it'll be better than nothing! They eat tooo much!

Ok I'll stop now - this is WAY long as it is! That's the update so far though =)

later...

July 24, 2009

How Does Your Garden Grow

How Does Your Garden Grow?

Stupid Anne! STUPID %#*%%#@!! &*#@&*!

Sorry had to do it! We now have powdery mildew. And it's probably my fault.

I bought some marked down herbs about a week ago from Walmart. I thought that the rosemary looked funny but I just figured it was because it was being killed. LOL! Nope it has powdery mildew.

Which in and of itself ain't too bad. My herbs are about 75 feet away from the rest of the garden.

That. ain't. far. enough. at all!

Now the jack o' lanterns have it. Also, the spaghetti squash and zucchini.

So first we hacked some of the badly affected leaves off the pumpkins.

Next we are going to try a milk spray. I sure hope it works.

Some better news. The reason I'm posting this Friday instead of Thursday is I spent yesterday dealing with powdery mildew and I canned 5 quarts of cucumber dill relish! That used up 8 pounds of cucumbers. I have another 11 pounds ready for sweet relish too, gotta get more jars. I've also been dehydrating zucchini like crazy.

Here's a crazy looking cuke that I used for relish yesterday. It's like this because it grew around a fence panel =) Taken with my phone - not a great pic, but I was very busy! Oh and don't be alarmed with my orangish cuke LOL! I've found that alot of them are like this when they don't get picked like they are supposed to --hidden-- =)

I also finally got the rest of my box done. Right side we did last week, left side just last night.

Here's the planting order from r-l, radishes (2 kinds), carrots (2 kinds) ----that's the right half ---- onions (2 kinds) ---- 1 pot is huckleberries & 1 pot is bunching onions. I'm messing with this because the ground here has never been worked and it is VERY compacted. So I'm hoping that by doing a raised bed that I will be able to get some good root crops =) Here's my radishes already!

so it's a growin' ! =)

later...

July 8, 2009

canning

Image via Wikipedia

For the past couple of days I have been processing things for winter, either by canning it or freezing it to can when it's cooler out.

Here's what I've made so far -

cherry jelly (canned 8 half pints)
spiced blueberry jam (frozen 4 batches)
cherry jam (frozen 1 batch)
veggie relish (canned 5 half pints, 3 bowls in fridge)

I got the recipes for the last 3 from a book I received from paperbackswap. It's called Better Homes and Gardens Canning & Preserving Recipes. So far they taste great! If anyone wants a certain recipe just holler and I'll post it.

Aldi's has some more blueberries, strawberries, and cherries on sale for pretty cheap (although free is better!) so I'm sure I'll be doing more.

Plus, I still have zucchini and 2 watermelons to do something with! The only drawback is I only have 12 pint jars.

later...

July 3, 2009

picked free cherries

Image via Wikipedia

We was offered an opportunity to pick the neighbor pie cherries because they will be out of town for the next week and the cherries are ready. We did this last year through a lady of freecycle too.

Just last year realized I like Bing cherries, for the longest time I hated ALL cherries. That is because I don't like maraschino cherries. For some reason I thought all cherries tasted the same -- they don't! And now I have a deep love affair with Bing cherries

But pie cherries - I can't eat them plain! They are just too sour/tart/whatever it is. LOL! They sure do make good pies though.

We got a good icing bucket full and still have more to pick off one branch that was too high up. With these cherries we are going to make canned pie filling, freeze some, and cherry cordial liqueur.

It sure is good to get something for free (well except all the ways to preserve them!).

oh and a side note everything is fruiting like crazy! We've picked 6 zucchinis, 3 hot peppers, and a handful of tomatoes. We have fruits on everything else - YEA!

later...