Gardening in Hot Weather

I am so thankful we are on a well. It means I can water my garden for production without worrying about a water bill.  I wish I could say the same for our poor local farmers. The corn crops are pretty much shot for this year. And my last visit to the farmer's market showed how much the heat afffected the already picked produce.

If you run into limp carrots, radishes - pick your favorite root crop - and even lettuce I have a little tip for you. As soon as you get home, put your limp produce in a ziplock bag with cold water and pop it in the fridge. Carrots, celery, and root veggies can stay in it overnight, or even several days and come back to a crispy crunchy state. Lettuce will need to be pulled out after a few hours, rinsed and dried off to save it from getting all slimy. And no one wants slimy lettuce!

Canning is being put off this year until the last possible moment. It's simply too hot to can where I live right now. I'm hoping to get a canning party going towards the end of August. Things go so much faster with a team! I now understand my grandparents much better when they spoke about all the farmer's "women folk" getting together to can every harvest.

For those of you who don't know how to can, check with your local CSA's, state Agriculture departments, local churches, farmer's markets, and churches for possible classes. It is possible to figure it out on your own, but nothing beats having someone walk you through it the first time at least.

And with this long, hot summer, canning may be the only way to make it through the next big price jumps on food...which will happen sooner than we are all ready for.

Looking for canning resources? Check out www.freshpreserving.com - brought to you by the folks who make Ball jars.and canning supplies.

This is now on my Christmas Wish List - who knew that someone would figure out a way to make a home appliance that does all the cooking and stirring for your jams/jellies?

Ball^® freshTECH Automatic Jam & Jelly Maker 2.5-pt 

 

Ball has had such a demand for this that they've delayed delivery until after August. You can find out more information on this here: Ball Automatic Jame & Jelly maker

Sometimes "Old" Tricks are Best

I read online somewhere about reviving wilted carrots.  The hint was to remove the tops of the carrots and place them in a baggie with ice cold water, seal the bag, and pop it into the fridge overnight.  Guess what?  It works GREAT!

It's Fall, time to pull out all of my veggie garden that isn't being over-wintered.  Some of the items left were carrots, and silly me forgot to put them in the fridge right after cleaning and they got limp.  I followed the advice and I now have crunchy carrots once again.

My garden is a lot of work, but I just can't beat tomatoes fresh off the vine, fresh lettuce, beans, peas, etc...  Fresh is always best, and since I grow most of my own, I know what's been put on/in the plants and get the best results from canning.  Now that I know how to revive carrots, I'm going to need to learn how to can them too.

Canning Success and Vintage Machine Cleaning Tips

I've been learning to can from a friend of mine, which kind of takes time away from my vintage machine restoration projects.  But it's been a worthwhile effort.  Just this past weekend, I made my first attempt at Raspberry Preserves which came out very flavorful and yummy, and I canned up several different types of salsa.  I now have a dozen jars of salsa, a dozen jars of pickles, 4 jars of whole tomatoes, and nearly a dozen jars of Strawberry Jam and Preserves.  Here's a shot of the colorful concoctions (these went to work with me and were gone by the time lunch was over):

In addition to that, I put some Murphy's Oil Soap and elbow grease to good use and cleaned up the stains on the old Kenmore cabinet I picked up to put Black Betty in and am happy with the results.  Not so happy with the pictures though, as the before ones are no good.  I hope to post pictures of the cleaned up cabinet in a few more days, after a bit more elbow grease.

Well, I've been digging and digging and have yet to find any recommended "recipe" for the various cleaning methods I've seen out there, which I find annoying.  So, for everyone else out there, I'm going to measure my combinations of vinegar, baking soda, lemon juice, and 409 and post them here with before and after shots of the results.  Even if it only helps me, it'll be worth it.

Black Betty's buttonholer attachment has been found too, along with the manual.  Here's what I've found so far, knowing that there is more somewhere in a box in my craft room.  (I still have ones to open from our move 3 years ago).

This is the correct part number for the buttonhole attachment for a Singer 15-91.  Others work as well, but this one was original to the machine.  And I really like the "Made in U.S.A." mark.

In the next few days expect to see a few before and after pictures of a couple of plated pieces after being cleaned in vinegar or a baking soda/lemon juice mixture.