Tag: Canning

The Ranger Tree

In the fall of 2023, our 12 year old English Mastiff named Ranger crossed the Rainbow Bridge. He was the best boy and his loss was very difficult for both hubby and me. We decided to memorialize him with an oak tree. The tree was a large one for a nursery tree, about 8′ tall in a 5 gallon pot. It was a challenge to get home, but accomplished by the aid of a friend and her pickup truck. The hole was dug, the tree planted and stabilizing ties added to three points. The tree turned fall colors and lost it leaves. Come spring, the tree put out new growth and we were grateful it seemed to be in good shape. Again, it lost it leaves and last winter, it began to look bent. I checked on it and about 15″ of it’s lower trunk about 3/4 of the way around, the bark had been rubbed off, I expect it was deer rubbing the velvet off of new antlers last spring and summer. I tried protecting the stem and straightening it late winter. The Ranger Tree couldn’t withstand that abuse and it died. A check yesterday, I realized it did not have any buds, and the young branches all the way up were brittle. We had selected an oak because it is a native tree. The nursery from which we had purchased it participates in “Throwing Shade Virginia,” a collaboration between the Virginia Department of Forestry and certain nurseries. If you purchased a native tree or shrub during March through May, you get a $25 discount. Today we went to see what was available and came home with a Northern Red Oak in a 2 gallon pot. It is only about 5.5′ tall, but full of new buds. Once home, the dead tree was dug out, the hole refreshed with new bagged soil and garden soil and The Ranger Tree II was planted. Not to have a repeat, the trunk was wrapped in an expanding spiral trunk wrap and a fence was erected about 3.5+ feet out from the newly planted tree.

To the right of where this tree was planted are the trees showing their spring flowers and new foliage.

And on the other side of the yard across the driveway, the beautiful yellow of the Forsythia. And the green of the lilacs.

We have had some delightful warm spring days, the garden is nearly ready for the summer vegetable plantings. The fall garlic is about a foot high, the spring onions about half a foot, and the peas are up enough to see where some needed to be filled in. Yesterday, a handful of pea seed was soaked in warm water for several hours and the empty spaces filled with them. We have another near summer like day, then a flipflop in the weather going to drop us back to normal daytime temperatures in the upper 40’s to mid 50’s, but Tuesday night it going down to the mid 20’s. The plum tree has bloomed and the blossoms are done. The peach trees are just coming into their own and the Asian Pears might be near the end of bloom. The apple trees haven’t bloomed yet. I hope it doesn’t kill the chance of getting fruit this summer and fall. The fig hasn’t come out yet.

An afternoon home alone yesterday allowed me to prune back the dead flower stalks from plants that leave a semi woody stem at the end of the season. They are always left in place for the insects to overwinter.

Two garden beds still need a bit more soil, but there is a bed that the wooden box had mostly rotted away and the soil from it will be moved to the other two beds. The upper third of the garden without raised bed boxes is going to be planted with sweet corn, pie pumpkins, and sunflowers.

The asparagus began showing up late last weekend and have been enjoyed for one meal so far. The garden won’t be quite as large this year and since I still have 1.5 gallons of pickled jalapenos, only two of them will be planted this year, the peppers to be pickled and canned. There is still a half gallon jar of dried ghost peppers, so they will be omitted this year. Maybe a couple of seranos for Sriracha sauce, and a couple of bell peppers will replace the extra jalapenos and ghost peppers.

I’m not wasting garden space on potatoes this year as the yield has been too low for the space they take up. I might try a potato tower and see how that yield is compared to in the ground.

It is wonderful to see the grass greening up, even though that means mowing weekly, and to see the garden taking shape for fresh vegetables.

Until then, we will be satisfied with what is available from Saturday’s Farmer’s Market.

Tick Season and preparing for new garden

It is only May 1 and already many ticks have made their way into the house on our bodies or on the pups. Three bites already on me. It is going to be a bad year for them I fear.

There is a mowed path to the bees that will stay mowed as the adjacent hay grows, but sometimes you have to walk through the branches of a cedar tree to brush off any hitchhikers and in spite of pants tucked into socks into boots, the bee jacket, veil, and gloves, they are still finding their way in. I dislike chemical sprays even around my pants legs, much less on upper body, especially since most are from going to the bee yard. I’ve had folks suggest wrapping a dog tick collar around my lower pants legs, but that doesn’t stop them from the cedar branches above the lower legs.

They are disgusting, creepy crawlies, disease carriers. We need Guineas, but doubt they would stick around and they are so noisy, but definitely tick gobblers. This will be a difficult year to wild berry pick because of them.

This week, the last of the tomatoes frozen toward the end of the season last year were finally processed into pasta sauce. That puts 11 pints of pasta sauce on the shelf to start this year. Three from last year, 8 new ones, plus 3 in the freezer, 3 pints of canned tomato puree added this spring. There is still a supply of assorted tomatillo sauces/salsas/jams, and a bag remaining in the freezer, so they won’t go in this year’s garden. There are 8 peppers ready to plant in two weeks, plus another variety started from seed that will be a bit later. One of the Farmer’s Market vendors had several varieties of tomato starts so one each of two varieties were added to my purchase to give me 8 tomato plants, 2 more than originally planned. The huckleberries didn’t come up in the starter flat which gives me some space to accommodate the extras. The corn patch will be half sweet corn and half Bloody Butcher so seed can’t be saved, but extra seed of the dent corn was purchased to use next year. The plan this year has two varieties of beans and two varieties of peas, so again, seed can’t be saved. Already, a plan for next year is in the works to grow only single varieties of heritage vegetables and save seed for future planting. This will be somewhat limiting, but our primary hot pepper use is Jalapenos, primary tomato use is sauces, sweet corn is such a short season, the Bloody Butcher will provide corn meal and roasting ears. Though we enjoy bush beans, young Pinto’s can be eaten green and if enough are planted, dried for winter chili and goulash. With peas, we enjoy both sugar snaps and shelling peas, but if only shelling peas are grown like year’s past, seed can be saved. It will be an interesting experiment to see if the lack of variety bothers us or if the variety will just come from Farmer’s Market purchases. Seminole pumpkins are great for stuffing or pies and will be the third part of the Three Sister’s garden. Spinach will be planted, but I have never tried to save seed from spinach or lettuce. Cucumbers of course will be in the garden to eat fresh and to make pickles. Garlic was not planted for this year, but will be added back in for the fall garden to overwinter and provide bulbs next summer.

Here’s hoping for a great garden season and more putting by for the off seasons. I need to start gathering jars for processing vegetables and later for when honey gathering commences, probably not until next year though.

Waste Not …-9/21/2019

I am certain that my Great Grandmother who grew up in eastern rural North Carolina in a large family was raised with a huge garden, yard chickens, and the knowledge to can and otherwise preserve what could not be eaten right away to have for the non productive winter months. They probably could grow collards or kale well into the winter, likely made kraut and pickles in large crocks to be dipped into all winter, cold stored apples and pumpkins.

My Grandmother was born in the same environment, but moved to the city as a young woman and I am unaware whether she canned, but I know she didn’t after I was born, she was working outside the home at a bank by then. My mother made a few attempts when I was a young teen, but I remember jars of foods she had prepared, bursting on the shelves in the room off the garage.

Though I had a garden of some size through most of my adult life in nearly every home and making Pomegranate jelly with my Dad most autumns, I really didn’t get into canning until we retired and bought our farm. I keep a decent sized garden, have a small orchard, and many wild berries. This area has a strong ethic of buy local and eat local and the environmental impact of doing so spoke loudly to me. I knew that I wanted to raise chickens for eggs and grow much of our food. That which I can’t or don’t grow, I try to purchase from the Farmers’ Market, both meat and produce. Though I don’t buy produce to can, I do try to save as much of what we grow as I possible by freezing, fermenting, or canning.

The Asian Pear trees produce much more than fruit than we can consume. Last year, we gathered the apples and pears and took them to Wilderness Road Regional Museum and pressed them into a delicious fruit cider. Some of the pears were made into marmalade and jam. This year I was away from about the time the fruit was ripening until the middle of last week. The deer got a lot of it, but enough remained to make 7 pints of applesauce, 3 pints of pear sauce, more than 5 half pints of Pear Marmalade. And a enough of the undamaged ones to enjoy fresh and to barter for some hot peppers in two varieties that I don’t grow.

After a decade of trying to water bath can in an 8 quart stock pot, constantly looking for a shallow “rack” to put under the jars, I purchased a real water bath canner, a 21.5 quart one with a real rack.

Though the tomatoes didn’t do well this year, there are jars of tomato sauce, pizza sauce, and salsa. The cucumbers thrived and many jars of pickles were canned, other varieties fermented and stored in the refrigerator. The hot peppers are still producing and 5 quarts are pickled in the refrigerator, the rest to be shelf stable canned, or being turned into fermented hot sauces in the style of Sriracha or dried.

There are just the two of us with occasional visits from grown children, some of the pickles and sauces will be shared, but we should eat well. The garden is still producing green beans to be enjoyed and frozen, hot peppers to be canned, and pumpkins that won’t be revealed until the leaves die back or we get a frost.

Each year I look at the shelves and wonder if we will eat it all, each spring I anxiously await fresh foods from the Farmers’ Market and early garden as the shelves empty of preserved garden goodness and fill with empty jars awaiting a new season of canning. The canner won’t be put away until the last pepper is picked and the excess pumpkin canned for holiday pies, then the canning tools and food mill will be packed in the big pot and stored away for another year. Waste not, want not.