Death Machine {a.k.a. Pressure Canner}

Am I the only one that uses a death machine any more? Otherwise known as a pressure canner...

Who am I kidding, there are very few of us canning aficionados left. I {heart} canning, it's one of my favorite things to do. Something about seeing the pantry shelf lined with fresh garden produce to be enjoyed all year long...you really don't know what you're missing.

Just finished a fresh batch of green beans...now in a few months when it's cold and dreary outside, I can put a little piece of fatback (you probably don't know what that is if you are north of the Mason- Dixon line - too bad for you), render the fat, then put the canned green beans in with some frozen {fresh} corn cut from the cob, finish with salt and pepper. Green has never tasted so good.

Go ahead, take a chance on canning. Look at it this way, if the apocalypse comes and you are forced to hide out in your bomb shelter, you'll be glad you have all your canned beauties to choose from...with or without the fatback.

image courtesy of me

What's Up Doc?

It's been awhile since I've done a gardening post. The garden went really well this year, everything I planted produced a harvest. Booyah! After the summer garden came the fall garden, which has turnip greens, beets, carrots, cabbage, and broccoli. I'm harvesting turnips and carrots daily now - I'm actually shocked at how good the carrots did. I'm shocked because I'm really just winging this whole garden thing...but maybe all the organic matter {aka chicken sh*t} I've put on the garden is helping too!

I've also been mixing in the beet greens with the turnip greens when cooking those and it makes a huge difference in the flavor - granted I like them either way. Just planted about 30 cloves of garlic too but I've been having a slight squirrel problem with digging in the bed. You may want to say a prayer for that squirrel...he's gonna need it.

image courtesy of me

Can You Dig It?

So its been awhile since I've had a garden post. The garden is churning out many delicious beauties like these potatoes and garlic. It was my first time growing both of these and they were so easy. The trick with potatoes is definitely to keep them mounded as they grow and you can harvest new potatoes early or nice big spuds when the plants die back. I'm going with a third option of both! New potatoes have been delicious {roasted in the oven with olive oil and fresh rosemary, dag!} and the large potatoes have been great for fat-free scalloped potatoes {with milk, butter, cheese, breadcrumbs}...did I say fat-free? I lied.

The garlic is quite amazing. The trick is to keep weeds out {weeds bad, very bad} - you can grow garlic and you can grow weeds but you can't grow both, so it's your choice. I've been nursing the garlic since late last fall and it was harvested in June. All of the June rain helped some of the garlic bulbs split right before harvest, thanks alot rain! You really don't want alot of rain before harvest as the bulbs will split and also the skins aren't as dry as you want. However, most survived and I hung them in bundles in the drafty garage to cure for at least 4 weeks. I was so surprised at how crunchy fresh garlic is, not like that faux Chinese garlic you get at the grocery store. This home grown garlic is full of flavor but really mild - I'm definitely down with planting a larger crop this fall.

Of course I've been harvesting the usual suspects as well...corn, tomatoes, squash, zucchini, cucumbers, basil, peppers. Cantaloupe is taking its own sweet time but I have my fingers crossed that it will turn out well.

I can't believe it's already time to plan the fall garden. It will include the following cast of characters: beets, turnips {tons of turnips actually}, carrots, another crop of cucumbers, broccoli, brussels sprouts, who knows what else.

Anyway, if you haven't tried gardening {and you like vegetables}, you should give it a whirl. For the cost of a pack of seeds, roughly less than 2-bucks, you too can have your fridge overflowing with the good stuff...much less than the supermarket prices and oh so much better. I'll step down from my produce box now. Happy digging!

images courtesy of me

Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary...

...how does my garden grow?  Pretty damn good at the moment.  The sun and rain have made the garden explode!  The potatoes, corn, and garlic are doing so well - now if I can only keep the crows and rabbits out, I'll be doing good!  You know how they say, "no pain, no gain" - I swear a farmer must have coined that phrase.  I am the proud new owner of a Honda tiller which will literally dig down to China.  However, while tilling and gardening all day last weekend, I successfully threw my back out and walked around like the Hunchback of Notre Dame until yesterday.  Yep, no pain, no gain {but vicodin, ice, yoga and BioFreeze sure do help}!  I do have a new favorite garden accoutrement...wait for it...wait for it...yes, bird netting {applause}.  The first row of pole beans and lima beans I planted were just about obliterated thanks to ground squirrels, birds and other devil varmints that were eating on them.  Only a few survived from the first planting so I just replanted and covered the whole area with bird netting.  So far, the devil varmints have not been munching on them or digging up the seeds...yea, bird netting baby!

Chloe has a small strawberry patch and the first two berries just turned red overnight - don't you love it when that happens?

images courtesy of me

528 Square Feet...What Was I Thinking?

It was plowing day today - oh what fun! It finally dried up enough here to plow the garden without having a mud cake mess. Nothing like having a good ol' country boy driving a John Deere tractor around your yard tilling half way to China. I love having a garden space where you are forced to wear tall boots to work in it...step into the garden and dirt comes 9" up your leg {I LOVE DIRT}! After the plowing was done, I had the wonderful privilege of hauling 320 lbs. of bagged compost to be spread in the garden along with a good helping of cow manure and chicken poop...it was smelling RIPE in the backyard today!

As you can see in the pic, there is one lonely garlic bed hoping to have some friends soon. I did actually threaten the good ol' country boy to not hit the garlic bed...I've been nursing that garlic for months now and so far so good! I went to {beautiful} Reynolda Gardens yesterday to check on their garlic to do a little comparison. I fully expected to be so disappointed and unworthy when comparing their professionally grown garlic to mine but luck was on my side and looked very similar in size, color, leaves, etc. So all is well in my garlic world.

Anyway, more work on the 528 square foot garden tomorrow - corn and potatoes going in. Earlier this week, Coco planted a small strawberry patch and when I checked on it this morning, a pesky ground squirrel had dug under one of the plants so I had to do a bit of repair work - if it happens again, I guess I'll have to sleep out there for the next two months to make sure those little varmints don't tear it up! Also, we are waiting on pole beans and lima beans to sprout - so exciting! Yep, I'm not joking around here...my goal is to grow 90% of the produce my family eats. On second thought - what was I thinking?!?

P.S. On the agenda for the next several months - weeding, weeding, weeding, and more weeding. Like every day...for real.

image courtesy of me