Seems as though more harvesting from the garden goes on every day. And it's a good thing because although our days are filled with sunshine, the temperature is dropping especially at night. For the last few nights we've gone down into the 40s which makes me think the time for ripening garden produce is drawing nigh.
In the last day or so, I've made my last batch of Bread & Butter Pickles. That will last us for possibly two years.
And a first batch of Strawberry Jam from berries I froze earlier in the season. This amount wouldn't begin to last us two years!
The vines of pickling cucumbers have oodles of blossoms which should mean lots of cukes to come. But with our dropping temperatures I'm getting a little nervous thinking I may not get enough to make as many quarts of Dill Pickles as I'd like.
I brought in this huge bowl of parsley to dehydrate and add to the stash for winter's use. (Sorry for the blurry picture.)
After getting more blueberries this year than I anticipated, the ripening of the green berries still on the bushes if definitely slowly down. While I was working on making Stuffed Green Peppers for the freezer this morning, Papa Pea picked these berries from the bushes. Only about two cups but we're happy to have them. I'm going to miss my bowl of fresh blueberries with a little cream and milk for breakfast when they're done for the season.
How about you? What preserving are you doing right now? All pictures enjoyed and appreciated!
13 comments:
Dehydrating large amounts of garden herbs here in Wyoming. Peppers, cucumbers, beets and zucchini need to be processed this week and next. I dehydrated shredded carrots to use for muffins, cakes and soups this winter. The elderberries are ready to be picked, also. Thank you for your blog posts.
Glenda - You've reminded me that I need to concentrate on dehydrating more of the herbs I grow. They really are so much better than the ones you can buy, aren't they? They retain so much more color AND flavor when we grow and dry them at home. I've never dehydrated carrots as they keep well for me in their natural state but I like your idea of shredding and drying them. We fight the birds for our elderberries each year and the birds always seem to win. Thank you very much for commenting!
Yes, it seems that suddenly the daylight hours are much shorter, nights are cooler and mornings are so dew-wet. Pretty sure there is a groove across the kitchen floor from sink to stove....I am on my last boxes of jars, and there are no more to be had locally....and the big freezer calved.. Hubby got a propane one going, and we have a small back-up one, plus the kitchen one..so disaster averted. New freezer on the way Thursday.
Gorgeous looking jars...so rewarding! Your cucs are so beautiful and uniformly shaped. Blueberries...and strawberries....what luxury! Do you grow flat-leafed parsley at all? Curious as to what you do with those beautiful green peppers besides stuffing them? Somewhere, you said you were thinking of changing your recipe...did you? Just chuck full of questions this AM!!!
Rosalea - Oh, no! Freezer failure!! The thought of that strikes fear in my heart especially this time of year. Glad to hear you had some back-ups. I have always preferred the curly type of parsley rather than the flat leafed. I've read the flat leafed has more flavor but . . .
I do make a lot of Stuffed Green Peppers as we like them and it's a bit unusual to serve to company where they always seem to go over well. I do chop and freeze some peppers so I never have to buy one for a recipe during the off season. Also, our good neighbors have trouble growing them and put them in their tomato juice recipe so I give them what they need. The changes I made this year to my stuffed pepper recipe are just in the seasonings to give them a little more oompf. More garlic, larger quantities of herbs and spices, more rice 'cause I felt they were too "meaty" for me in the past. (Protein loving hubby gave the okay on that!)
Yesterday I looked for dried mint in two different stores with no luck, and thought of all the mint you dry for Papa Pea's tea. I have two pots of mint but neither taste good; I need to find a good culinary mint and plant a pot of it to dry for myself.
I’m up to my eyeballs with preserving—along with everyone else! I’m going to try a new tomato sauce today and see how we like it. I do have a question regarding how you store your carrots “in their natural state”. Could you provide some details please? Thanks!
—Melanie
Michelle - I agree that it is hard to find a good tasting mint. Last year I tried to start another mint bed and had a friend pick up twelve peppermint plants for me at a special greenhouse she always went to (while visiting relatives) in another state. Turns out they tasted NOTHING like mint even though that's what the label said! Frustration! I have purchased dried mint from our Co-op which was supposedly organically grown. Papa Pea said it tasted like dried grass. So, yes, I think you'd be better off finding a good culinary mint you could grow yourself. Good luck.
Anonymous (Melanie) - After trying storing them in sand, in sawdust, by themselves in 5 gallon pails, we finally hit upon what has worked for us. I package them up in gallon plastic bags (about the quantity of a 2 lb. bag of carrots you'd buy in the store) that I've poked some holes in (for a little ventilation), put a twist tie on the bag and put them on the bottom shelf of our spare refrigerator. They keep for us almost until the next spring without starting to grow "hair." This does require the refrigerator space and we're fortunate to have a spare one. Don't know what we'd do without it. Hope your new tomato sauce turned out super!
With the heat we had my garden is about done. But i just finished putting up peaches and cabbage to go with my corn from earlier.
Lisa K Thomasson Jung - Yep, this time of year it seems our gardens are either about done because of the heat or the turning of the season, as we have up here, and not enough heat anymore! Peaches, cabbage and corn . . . now that's goodness all ready for winter!
Dehydrated green onions for my baked spuds later on. More tomato stuff than I can probably ever use, and I'm now doing peach/orange marmalade. Green beans to come. Ain't it a wonderful time of the year!? And I'll start back on the wood cutting pretty soon, too. Cheers.
Tim - Yep, we're starting to give serious thought to the wood working now, too. I had some leftover onion sets after planting my main storage onion crop so put them in the ground very late. Now I'm enjoying a nice supply of "scallions" for salads and other cooking. Do you reconstitute your dehydrated green onions for you baked potatoes or just sprinkle them on dried? It is truly a wonderful time of the year. I just wish I wasn't a bit pooped from the whole gardening season. I think I'd enjoy this harvest time more! ;o)
I use the dried green onions all ways. I think they're best when 'pre-mixed' with some melted butter or sour cream. But in the dead of winter on a cold night, anything green from the garden is good.
A vloger I follow said that this summer for her had been a 'hair straight back' sort of summer. I can identify with that - even though I don't have much hair left anymore. Cheers!
This year I’ve been preparing hand made hampers for the family, so I’ve done a chow style picalilli, smooth blackberry chutney, a red hit mutiny style Indian chutney and a green tomato, ginger and pear chutney. These have been paired with small truckles of cheese and some home made crackers. I’ve also made sweet stuff hampers strawberry jam, redcurrant and rhubarb jelly, bramble jelly, boozy black cherry jam made with lavender sugar, damson jam, Victoria plum jam and something I call garden jam which is a combination of ripened fruits from the garden. Feeling very virtuous as I know everyone will enjoy the goodies and they will recycle the jars back to me did next years offerings.
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