quote:

Originally posted by coues:
WE are making a few raised beds from an 18ft garage door that was replaced.. Just a few cuts and L brackets and screws.
coues
ds

Excellent!

Yesterday my wife made a low country boil and used potatoes and corn from our garden. Tomorrow night she is stir frying squash, zucchini and onions from the same garden.

When I was a kid in Germany (this was shortly after WW2) the average family had a garden plot that was approximately 4 ft. square that they used to feed their family. Hard to imagine today but that was how it was. You did it or starved. + Oh+BTW, since I was an American kid I never did climb the hill + milch the coo; I just went to Kaffee tringken.

I've already started canning beans. I just pulled up my onion and garlic crop and I do believe I will dehydrate many of them for storage purposes.

If I get a good potato harvest I will also pressure can them. I stocked up on lids when the scamdemic started but am now looking at buying reusable canning lids for the future.

I also just bottled (yesterday) my first 5 gallons of elderberry wine. I have another 5 gallon carboy just about ready to go too.

Wine



Beans

Just planted my fall crop.

We just finished canning 24 quarts of potatoes, 24 pints of salsa and 24 quarts of marinated tomato and cucumber salad.
coues
ds

Damn, you and Ann are both making me hungry! I grew up in a canning(bottling) family. Not only is it better tasting than store bought food, but there is a pride in, and a deep appreciation for all of the work that went into growing, caring for and canning that food! Speaking of salsa, my family used to bottle a wonderful chili sauce that was heaven on tacos, hash brown potatoes and eggs, among other things!

UEG, canning is so easy. Nothing to it at all. I recently canned up the meat from 8 rabbits. Lovely stuff.

As I recall, we canned tomatoes, tomato juice, pears, peaches, bing and sour cherries, sweet pickles and dill pickles, sweet and hot peppers, jams (apricot, strawberry, and my favorite-raspberry, and other berries), venison, fish, beef, rabbit, chicken, squash, string beans, carrots, potatoes, corn, beets (including pickled beets as well), asparagus, chili sauce, salsa, relish, grape juice from our grape arbors, peas, our own horse radish (damn it was hot!) from our own horse radish roots, apple sauce, etc. etc. etc. We rarely bought from the store. Unfortunately, I now live in an area not conducive to large scale gardening and canning (Las Vegas). Thanks for letting me re-live the memories! By the way, we also used to make our own lye soap for washing our clothes. Best thing for whites!

You did very well!

Use enough gun that sauce sounds good.. you all did a lot of good work there.
We made a large batch of lye soaps last year.
We used the fat from several hogs we butchered,
This gave me something to do while recovering from my shearing off the top of my right tibia.lol
coues
ds

To me, gardening and canning are also great therapies, in addition to the food preservation and harvesting.

You are so right! I find that over the years I find much more enjoyment in the canning that in the gardening. Saving all the peaches until enough to make a run of preserves. I save all my tomatoes in the freezer until fall + when it gets cool outdoors I dedicate a weekend to making + canning salsa. There is no feeling like that experience when it's cold outside, you're making salsa, (if friends are over that they are NOT in your way )+ your house smells like Heaven! Canning sessions are an experience that everyone should experience at least once. I can not even begin to describe the inner feeling that I get when doing this deed. In an abstract fashion, this follows suit to my own personal feelings that I tend to enjoy the reloading process over the hunting.

My canning tomatoes have been trickling in slowly so far so I have been freezing them until I get enough.