Canning through the seasons

   

    Canning season is slowly... slowly coming to an end. This year has been a crazy canning year from June till now. When a "blessing becomes a weight" should be the title of this years canning season.... yes I will feel differently this winter when I am enjoying it all. It is hard to say no to free food but it is hard to deal with when it all needs to be eaten or preserved in a short amount of time. Um, especially with a toddler helping! Freezing wasn't an option this year as our freezers are full of the extra chicken we raised. So now on the other side of the canning season I can look back to evaluate how things went and give you my tips and recipes.
    Anytime you are spending time preserving the harvest or preparing larger quantities of food it is best to make a plan. I write a list of supplies, make sure I have a meal in the crock pot and make sure my area/tools are all clean. It is also good to evaluate whether you have enough supplies like jars, lids or freezer bags/containers before you start. Once everything is ready we start the process of turning abundant produce into lovely little treats/meals to enjoy over the winter or to give as gifts.
    As a family that is trying to lessen our dependency on certain items like sugar and thickeners I tend to choose the simplest recipes. Sometimes though we will pick a tried and true recipe that contains a lot of sugar with the knowledge that we will only be eating small amounts of it. It is a balancing act. Example- we make homemade yogurt with no sweetener but then when we eat it we add a little of our fruit preserves to the top for flavor and sweetness. It is also good on unsweetened oatmeal. Trying to be completely sugar free is hard when you preserve items through canning. I found some things like tomato sauce and apple sauce do not need sugar so I never add it. I just make sure I have a mix of different kinds to get a balance of flavor. No matter what; I control what goes into all the things I make homemade so I also control the quality of the ingredients.

A seasonal calendar would be helpful.

Some recipes to inspire you:
Forsythia Dandelion Jelly!
Pickled asparagus
Honey sweetened strawberry limeade
Blueberry Maple Pecan Conserve... our favorite!
Pickled garlic scapes(tops of garlic plants)
Pickled green beans
Candied jalapenos aka cowboy candy
Easy grape juice canning
Banana Foster butter is to die for over yogurt or ice cream
Foraged Autumn Olive made into jam
A healthier apple pie filling
Applesauce blends with other fruits!
Using up those green tomatoes
We canned a lot more then this like tomato sauce, pepper relish, fruits, apple butter, salsas and more. We learned how to pressure can to add carrots, green beans, broths, dried beans and ready made meals.

Best canning shelf I have seen
One of the best canning dvds I have watched with both pressure canning and water bath canning

Next posts I will share stocking the pantry with jar mixes for easier home cooking and ferments through the seasons!

What's in your garden?

 

 I know I haven't posted in a month but I was very busy planting! I think growing things should be on everyones list to do. Why you ask? Because groceries aren't getting any cheaper, food is getting scarier(do you know what is in your food?) and it is a miracle every time something grows. I like food security so I do what I can here on my little farm.
    Some folks ask how do you decide what to plant?
Well I first look at what my family eats and uses medicianlly. I made a list of all the foods and herbs I can grow here in my climate without a fancy greenhouse. If you don't use herbs yet but would like to try to grow them and learn to use them... here is my list of where I think most families should start.

Family friendly herbs: (Remember to make sure you read the latin names and make sure none of these herbs are hybrids and are being cultivated for just their flowers or size but are the herbs you want to use in your home. To educate yourself about herbs, their uses, recipes and how to grow them try learningherbs.com)
Astragalus
Basil

Calendula
Chamomile
Chives
Cilantro
Dill
Echinacea
Garlic
Hyssop
Lavender
Lovage
Lemon Balm
Marjoram
Oregano
Peppermint
White Sage
Spearmint
Stevia
Thyme
Yarrow
Also learn to correctly identify chickweed, plantain, and nettle on your property or at a park. They are great herbs to learn how to use in your home.
    After herbs I make a list of vegetables and fruit we eat. Then decide what I can grow in my area. I also look to see if any of these plants come in a perennial version so I don't have to plant it every year. Some vegetables like spinach, celery, onions, and a few others have a perennial version. When this list is made I then start to find sources for all these goodies(We use Fedco, High Mowing Seeds and Seed Savers for most of our plants and seeds).
   We built raised beds for tender annuals so we won't need a rototiller and they won't get compacted from walking on them. In these boxes we plant peas, onions, carrots, lettuce, radish, beets, bush beans, tomatoes, peppers, summer squash, broccoli, cabbage, cucumber, parsnips, and turnips. Annual herbs like cilantro, basil, calendula, nasturtiums and dill get planted with the vegetables we use them with in recipes. Calendula and nasturtiums benefits all plants so they get put everywhere there is open space. We eat the petals and flowers in salads. Square foot gardening is a great way to get the most out of this type of space.
    We do have a perennial bed that we grow rhubarb, horseradish, garlic, walking onions, Good King Henry, sorrel, lovage, parsley, and asparagus in. Next to that we have raspberries in red and black. There is also an area my husband wants to try his hand at the Three Sisters this year. This is an area that he will till and plant with corn, beans and squash interplanted.
   As we cut down old trees and bushes that are starting to die we replant with edible or medicinal trees. We like willow, apple, peach, nectarine, prune plum, pear, apricot, crab apple, elderberry, nanking cherry, hazel nuts, paw paw, witch hazel, blueberry, honeyberry, currants, gooseberry, korean pine, white pine, chestnut, rugosa rose, Slippery Elm, sugar maple, and grapes. Now you may not have room to grow all that but you can pick a few that your family might use.
    One last advice... if you remember me mentioning permaculture in my last post... this is how I fit some of these items together. It is called a guild of plants that are beneficial to each other. Say you have a small crab apple you can tuck in your backyard. Under that tree you could plant chives, a comfrey plant, alpine strawberries and maybe a couple currant bushes all within the drip line of that tree. It uses your space wisely, helps the tree gain nutrients deeper in the ground, helps fight off certain disease of that tree, provides insectary for beneficial bugs and gives a little shade to the other plants. Oh and it looks pretty! Put a little garden bench near there and you are ready to enjoy the beauty.. oh that is a relaxing benefit to you!
    If you have any questions please don't hesitate to contact me. I love giving advice in this area and helping others get started with a small or larger garden. I don't pretend to know it all about gardening or permaculture.... just enough to make me dangerous or inspiring depending on how you look at it.

Spring in our permaculture garden

My husband taking a break after building 10 garden boxes. 

Horseradish peaking out

Rhubarb peaking out

     Gardening can be made much easier by first studying your growing area. Now I consider myself more of a accidental gardener or maybe a more intuitive gardener if you will. I am not found of measuring soil moisture, nutrient content or ph level. I just don't think God meant for it to be that difficult to grow food.  I do however look at the area and become aware of what likes to grow in the soil naturally because this can tell you the same things all those tests can tell you without having to decipher the numbers. So how does this all apply to the kind of garden we are putting in.... a food forest hybrid garden? Well as I talked to the lady at our local ag center she was surprised by what we were doing. She asked why we wanted to do a permaculture garden, saying "that is unique." I explained that it just seemed natural to set-up a system of growing that the perennials, fruit bushes and fruit trees help each other to gain the nutrients they need and help to make them better able to fight off disease and insects. She had her doubts that I can produce enough food to do a small CSA.... so I take that as a challenge not just to prove her wrong and grow lots of food but also to educate others on the benefits all around to a food forest garden. More bees, butterflies, birds, no chemicals, flowers, less weeding, etc. 

So what is in the garden and what will go in the garden as the season progresses? 

    We put in 10 raised beds for annuals that don't need permanent planting, can be rotated through the years, need some trellising, and can be successionally planted. I didn't make them deeper because the soil underneath is really good. Using raised beds for annuals keeps the ground looser because your not walking in the bed and you don't need to buy a tiller. I also don't like using heavy equipment when I can use a hand tool or an animal to do the work for me. 

    The fencing is almost done. That is to keep my dogs and the large population of deer out of the main garden. There will be more trees and bushes outside the fence but they will be more deer and dog resistant. Some will be to give the wildlife something to share as well. Some plant/trees for outside the garden are elder berry, paw paw trees, redbud trees, wet area wildflowers for near our creek, nanking cherries, lavender bed, a perennial flower bed, hazelnut bushes(closer to the house), jerusalem artichokes, ground nuts, and in front of the house a small culinary herb garden. 

    Our soil is rich from being in the flood plane of the Schuylkill river. That sounds great but it makes for some challenges with plants that prefer poorer dryer soil like lavender and some Mediterranean herbs. We will be planting the lavender bed on a hill with good drainage, sand added and marble chips to help reflect the suns warm rays. We also picked 2 kinds that do well in our northern climate; Hidcote and Grosso. I will be using them for making herbal salves, lavender water, sachets, and bundles to sell. We won't be growing enough at this time to consider making our own essential oil.

    The plants and trees that were in the garden area have been pruned. The perennial bed that grows asparagus, horseradish, garlic and rhubarb has been cleaned up for spring. To that we will add Good King Henry a perennial spinach, Lovage(celery like), and more walking onions. In between the rows I will plant parsley to help with the health of all the plants. We may need to add more asparagus to the bed too. I will add purple asparagus to the empty spots. Around the perimeter we have 2 nectarines, 2 pears, a willow tree, and 2 hollies. We will add 4 apples trees, 2 crab apple trees, 2 peach, 1 apricot, 1 plum, clove currants, gooseberry, honey berries, raspberries and in one corner a three sister area(corn, squash and dry pole beans). Under fruit trees and berry bushes we will plant perennial herbs and plants. We ordered 75 alpine strawberries, assorted herbs like thyme, chives, borage, lemon balm, meadow mint, and comfrey. 

    There is some shade in the garden which I am hoping will provide us with some gourmet mushrooms too. Only time will tell what we will continue to grow. Also as the fruit trees grow and give more shade we will have to add a different set of plants to the mix. 

    Eventually in the actual forest we will plant ramps, goldenseal, wintergreen, ferns and some hardwood trees. They may not all take but we are going to try. 

So this may seem overwhelming to some but I challenge you to try a few edible perennials around your home. Maybe even a fruit tree and some berry bushes. It is fun to experiment and see what grows. 

Happy spring everyone! 

Herbal Remedies

    One of my previous posts was a list of things to do for fall/winter. On that list I had that we would make our families remedies; so here are somethings we have done so far. In the background you can see Herbal Vaccine and Children's Composition cooling. In the front I have started gathering my ingredients for the Cold Kicker AKA Fire Water(no actual water in it). Just an FYI about the Cold Kicker.... make sure you use gloves! We also started some tinctures for Blackberry Leaf, Hawthorne Berry, Yellow Dock, Milk Thistle and this weekend some Black Walnut Hull. I should have started all of these in August but time just got away from me. We choose these remedies because they seem to cover many areas that we deal with over the year. You may have other issues you deal with in your family so you may be drawn to totally different remedies. Some good sources for education are Learning Herbs, More than Alive(has a wonderful free ebook), Mountain Rose Herbs blog and for a more in depth study you could sign-up for the Family Herbalist course through Vintage Remedies(where I am currently a student.) For supplies if you don't grow or forage them for yourself, go to Mountain Rose Herbs, Bulk Herb Store or More than Alive. These are the suppliers I trust for quality and price.
    As we settle in to this new home and land we will forage for more food and medicine. I will share as we learn what plants we are finding and how we are using them. We live in a valley in PA so it may be different from where you are but maybe you can gleam some info from it. We know we already have lots of stinging nettle, jewel weed and burdock. In the past they planted comfrey, grapes, horseradish, some nut trees, and raspberries. It has been fun finding out what we have here and dreaming about what we will plant. I love perennials so I plan on putting in lots of perennial plants, vegetables and fruit.

Make sure to label anything you create with the herb, alcohol or glycerine and the date you did it. 

The Cold Kicker brewing on my counter.

Spring

Spring really brings out in me the need to reorganize and clean-out. So as I reorganize my pantry, freezer, fabric stash, herbs, etc.  Today though my encouragement is to get on over to The Stone Soup website and sign-up for a cooking class. I am taking the one on Master Meal Plan and it is the best and easiest meal plan ever. Also click around to see her recipes and try a new one this week. So far we are enjoying them. I love the 5 ingredients recipes too.
I am also enjoying the virtual cork boards if you will of pinterest.com. Being a visual person I need these ideas to keep me going. So please share in comments.... have you caught the spring clean-out bug yet? What areas are you working on organizing?

Back to Eden

Wow, I love how God changes your perspective in a short time and redirects your thoughts back to Him. No matter what I will never look at gardening the same way again after watching this video. I have either had or have helped in the garden since I was very small. My mother had a very large garden that we ate from and stored for winter months. Since accepting Christ as my saviour I have seen my faith interwoven in all that I do and not just another part of my life. Gardening is no exception. But until I watched this film did I not understand how much more my faith SHOULD be a part of everything I do. WOW. You can watch the 1 hour 43 minute movie online if you have a good connection or buy the DVD. I will be buying the DVD even though I already watched it... it needs to be shared with everyone but especially those who garden. If God chooses to bless us with more land in the near future where we can share on a larger scale this kind of gardening then dare I say we might have found how we can connect in ministry with others. That is not to say you can't use God's way of gardening anywhere you live and no matter how little you have. Watch the trailer (link below)and let me know what you think.
http://www.backtoedenfilm.com/about/trailer.html

Matthew 11:28-30 Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

Matthew 11:28-30 Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

Matthew 11:28-30 Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

Winter CSA

Our biweekly Winter CSA

 So as I watch our little garden outback slowly go to sleep for the winter and I dream of spring planting we are eating from our winter CSA. Last year it was a lot less but this year we decided to give them one more try since I am not fond of the grocery store. We were pleasantly surprised with the abundance and variety. I even giggled a little when I saw the stalk of brussels. Our favorite way to enjoy most of these fall veggies besides raw is to roast them with a little walnut oil. Last night(would have had a photo but it disappeared to quickly) we had a piece of ham, roasted carrots and brussels. Simple but naturally sweet. The fun thing about this CSA compared to the summer one is they never tell you what anything is. It is a scavenger hunt through the seed catalogs to identify everything. I normally do ok with this till I got to the large roots in the back??? They are not turnips or beets but actually a very large chinese radish. So they are all for me since I am the only big fan in the family. Oh, I can sneak in a few slices on their salads but these are 2 huge roots that need to disappear in 2 weeks before I get more. So that pile on the table and the other squash, apples, potatoes, and onions I have stored are what we are eating for the next two weeks. With an organic CSA being about $23 a week(but we actually pay the whole thing at the beginning of the season) we try to eat only what they give us and what we have stored from the harvest. So every other week I wait to see what they give me and what meats my freezer holds before I plan what we will eat for the next 2 week. One of my favorite cookbooks to use with this way of planning is "Simply in Season" by  Cathleen Hockman-Wert and Mary Beth Lind. Our favorite from the cookbook is Maple Walnut Scones with maple cream added to the top when they are warm from the oven.

Today being one of those "elfing" days... Cookies, sewing, and sending cards, oh my!
Actually my thoughts keep going to another countdown in my head.... the one where winter ticks away while you drool over seed catalogs... ok, I do. I LOVE fresh from the garden veg and fruit. I thought those catalogs weren't supposed to come until January in the midst of some winter blizzard. Well, anyway while I am contently warm in my little home waiting to see what God has next for us, I think about what I might plan for next year's garden.... or not plan. So as not to get frustrated over the not knowing if or what to plant in a garden I may or may not harvest... I can still learn more about the fruits and vegetables I would love to grow someday. So what I am starting next week when the gifts are all wrapped and we finish up our last week of school for 2011 is a index card file of all the plants I dream of growing someday. Some I have already grown and others I don't have room to grow here... like asparagus and horseradish. It is good to learn about the different kinds your family likes and when they get planted and harvested. Which ones are best for storing and which ones taste best. That will keep me busy all winter and make for a nice resource when I am done. Also we did sign-up for next years CSA so we always seem to have a nice abundance of wonderful vegetables and fruit from that. I even started seed saving the past 2 years of some of our favorite vegetables from the CSA and friend' gardens.
Our favorite seed catalogs:
Johnny's Seeds
Fedco
High Mowing Seeds
Baker Creek
The Cook's Garden
Renee's Garden

Beautiful dirt

I think of connecting with God's creation as a spiritual experience. I get excited when spring comes and I can get in the garden to plant those first seeds. After what seems to be a long winter... and I love winter; you start to see the hope in the green shoots springing up from the ground. Beautiful colors are not too far behind. What is the best though is to see the earthworms a plenty in the vegetable garden.

This year we amended the soil with compost, peat moss, and vermiculite. Last year we had dumped the compost into the garden and it took almost a year to break down which affected the poor plants we tried to plant in it too soon. So today according to the farmer's almanac is the perfect day to plant some peas! So we are putting in peas, spring onions, and broccoli. We are in zone 6b.
Some helpful sites for planting your garden-
Growveg planner
Square foot gardening
Farmer's Almanac