Summer

It's getting to that time of summer when my garden is really starting to produce. So that means it's also canning time. I love to can. I started canning the first summer after I was married, over 30 years ago. Since then, I try more and more new things so that now canning requires a huge chunk of my time. I don't regret it or even feel like it's too much work. I love gardening and 'putting by' what comes out of the garden. The last two days I've canned raspberry jam and blueberries. Today I will finish the blueberries and then maybe get marionberries. After that it's pickles, beets, and then into tomato season. I can literally a ton of tomatoes. It's my favorite because there is so much you can do with tomatoes. I'll do plain sauce, pizza sauce, spaghetti sauce, salsa, tomato soup, chili sauce, diced tomatoes, italian tomatoes and anything else that suits my fancy and have the tomatoes for. This year I also am growing tomatillos. I've found several recipes that look wonderful.
I love canning so much that last night I taught a home canning class in our community. 15 people came. Of those 15 only 3 had ever canned before. Most were young women who have a desire to be more in charge of what comes to their tables. It was exciting to see their enthusiasm. Hopefully most went home saying, "I can can"!

Carrots

The last of my garden produce is in. It was the carrots. I planted three short rows of carrots and then let some tomato plants grow up around them. The tomatoes looked like they had smothered the carrots. When the tomatoes were pulled out last weekend I could see lots of carrot tops. So today I got them all out of the garden. It was a pleasant surprise to see how well they had grown. Of course, there's always the mutant carrots. Those that seem to take on some alien shape or often remind me of some body part! I washed them all up, dried them on the counter and then put them in plastic bags in the garage refrigerator. They should last for months in the cool temperature. Some will probably be canned next week. I love to can just about anything so I can't resist canning a few of them. If nothing else the beauty of orange carrots in jars adds to the colors already on my pantry shelves.

I have enjoyed gardening more this year than any year. Hours were spent planning, cultivating, pulling weeds and harvesting more than ever before. The best part was that almost nothing went to waste. I canned over 200 different jars of produce. Come winter there will be much satisfaction from opening what has been home grown.

Update on the Tomato Experiment

It's now been over a week since I started the tomato experiment. There are about 40 ripe tomatoes sitting on my counter or window ledge. I have had to throw about 5 or 6 away that were too rotten to use. So what's been the best way to get them ripe? By a wide margin it's the paper bags with two apples in each. The bin with no apples and just left open is where most of the rotten tomatoes have come from. The box with the tomatoes individually wrapped in newspaper still have not produced a red tomato. I have no idea why a paper bag with an apple or two in it is working. If anyone knows, please leave a comment. I'm just happy to get ripe tomatoes. Tomorrow I will make spaghetti sauce and can it.

Love of Canning

I love to quilt. I love to sew. I enjoy most things about homemaking. But I am passionate about canning. I canned my first pickles the first summer after we were married. They were terrible! I wasn't about to give up because there was a sense of satisfaction that came from seeing those beautiful green cucumbers in a jar. So every year (with probably very few exceptions) I have canned something. This year was my biggest canning year ever. In the last two months I have canned 186 jars of different things. Almost everything has been from my garden. That means the cost is almost negligible. My shelves are full of beets, beans, bluberries, salsa, peaches, jams, cherries, many tomato products and pickles. I'm not done yet. There are still more tomatoes to harvest and those will be made into spaghetti sauce and salsa. By the way, we opened our first jar of pickles last week -- they are delicious!

My Good Days

What makes a good day? For me, it's usually means being home and getting to do some things that I love. Today was a good day. I spent the first bit (after a morning walk) working on my latest quilt top. It's my two color quilt that is now a three color quilt! Oh well, things must change as quilts come to fruition. I've decided to call this quilt Leah's Spring. It was started during the 99 days Leah lived and represents through the colors and hopefully the quilting designs the beauty of her all-too-short life. I'm almost to the point of putting the blocks together. It's the same quilt that I made to commerate her memory (see photo quilt below) but this one will be for me. I hope to quilt it very heavily and just enjoy the process.

Later in the morning I picked beans, peas and beets out of my garden. I love to grow what we eat. It connects me with this earth and my creator in a unique way. After the harvest I spent the afternoon canning my produce. To most people I know, canning is a chore and not enjoyable, but not to me. I love to can. Granted some things are messy, sticky or a lot of work, but the satisfaction I get from seeing those beautiful jars of vegies, fruit or meat is worth all the effort. So I canned 5 pints of beets, 6 pints of green beans, and 2 half pints of peas.

While waiting for the canning to be finished I worked on my brown applique quilt. I also spent time watching my new baby chicks. I'm sure there will soon be a post on baby chicks.

But all in all it was a very good day.