Nevadans?

[americanvalkyrie]

hahahahaha it is like perr pressure do it do it COME ON MISSY PRESSURE CAN!!!!! hahahahahahahahahahahahahahah

We'll see how the budget is next year. It's a little late this year to spend that money on it. But if I have anywhere near the garden next year that I did this year, it'll be a good investment.

 

[NevadaRon]

Considering all the topics we've surfed through on this site, I think anything "off topic" is anything that's bound to be deleted by a moderator!

Besides gardening is frequently THE topic here!

Sorry this is so old - trying to wade through 15 pages of posts in the last 5 days. Man you all are chatty!

 

[Peep_Show]

I got the steam canner from Amazon.com....It's by Back to Basics. My kitchen, although hectic, was not all steamy humid like with water baths. It takes the same amount of processing time as the water bath (so if you're economizing time, pick the pressure canner instead), but the steam can actually get hotter than the boiling water. Fun to lift the lid at the end and see the jelly bubbling in the jar... It works! BUT...you have to remember to refill the water if it hasn't boiled all off. However, it only takes 4-6 cups of water over a fairly large surface, so about 6 minutes to get back to your next batch.



Ginger'd Plum Jam (reduced sugar version)

3 1/4 cups chopped (skin removed) plums
3 T. Classic pectin
2 T. grated fresh ginger (if you haven't got a ceramic ginger grater, use the smaller-holed side of a cheese grater)
1 big pinch (about 1/8 t.) ground cloves
1/2 t. butter
2 cups sugar (depending on how sweet you like your jam or how sour your plums are it can be increased up to an extra 3/4 C.)

(About 21 minutes cook time w/constant stirring in the Jam Maker)

 

[NevadaRon]

Check out this picture of my bee hive I took a couple of nights ago:



I sent it to the guy I got the bees from and he says it is called "bearding". He says it is a sign of a strong, populous colony just trying to keep cool in the August heat. They have pretty much filled both of those boxes (they're called supers - these ones are known as brood supers because the queen lays eggs in them) with comb, pollen and honey. The bee guy estimates there is 60-70 lbs. of honey in there.

ETA: Back to reading - only 10 pages back now!

 

[americanvalkyrie]

Wow Ron, that's amazing! Are you uh... selling the honey at all? I'm a huge customer of raw local honey.

Peep_Show, that looks easy to modify to my SureJel way of doing things. I love doing things from scratch, but sometimes it's nice just to buy the box.

 

[NevadaRon]

Ok Ron,

Where did you find this t-shirt?

It was from the place Missy found. You put what you want on the t-shirts. That particular style has "It's a <blank> Thing!" followed by "You wouldn't understand. The site allows you to put whatever you want in for text the submit and you can see what it will look like. As soon as I saw that one, I put CHICKEN in then pasted the picture here! Here's a link, it's the last one on the page:

http://tinyurl.com/8qclo86

 

[americanvalkyrie]

Our "Ames Family Farm" t-shirts are due to arrive by Friday! I'll post a picture when they come in.

 

[NevadaRon]

Wow Ron, that's amazing! Are you uh... selling the honey at all? I'm a huge customer of raw local honey.

All the honey in the brood supers is for the bees to overwinter. I need to put a queen excluder - a screen that is too small for the queen to get through but big enough for the workers - on top followed by a honey super. That way you only get honey in the comb they draw out up there and no eggs or larvae or other yucky stuff. I don't know if I will be putting a honey super on this year or not, but even if I do I won't try to harvest from it this year.

 

[americanvalkyrie]

That makes sense. It's something you don't think about, until you have them.

 

[NevadaRon]

LOL Missy, I was just trying to convince Ty that he should just let me tear this place down and dig us out a new one under the mountain. With all the things that keep breaking I'm about ready to throw in the towel. This week the water main under the cement floor in the barn broke. Still no idea how to get to it to fix it, or why it broke!


I thought you might like that Jann. Plus with your horse trailer the 16 foot panels wouldn't be so hard to pick up. It was really nice getting to meet you allby the way. I hope those seeds turn out good for you.

Sledge hammer. A big one. It won't be fun, but it's definitely doable!

BTW I like that cattle panel one, too. I was contemplating a hoop house out of PVC pipe, but this idea seems a lot sturdier.