What are you canning now?

[rancher hicks]

I recently bought a Granny Smith apple tree. Any advice on growing apples? It's a Semi Dwarf, (like me) how long before I should expect some apples. For some reason Granny Smith's are not part of the pick your own variety.

I prefer them for their tartness in cooking. I like a firm apple that holds up well to canning. Many fresh eating varieties are too soft.

Does anyone do "Cold Storage"?

 

[Lisa and girls]

Hi Lisa , I was nervous about using my pressure cooker too, and then I found a wonderful site that took me step by step on how to use the All American pressure cooker. It is the Prairie homestead site, http://www.theprairiehomestead.com/2012/08/how-to-use-a-pressure-canner-part-1.html
It's broken up into 3 parts. I followed her instructions and it was a breeze. I now have 7 pints of tomato soup in the pantry. Good luck

Thanks!

 

[Lacy Blues]

I recently bought a Granny Smith apple tree. Any advice on growing apples? It's a Semi Dwarf, (like me) how long before I should expect some apples. For some reason Granny Smith's are not part of the pick your own variety.

I prefer them for their tartness in cooking. I like a firm apple that holds up well to canning. Many fresh eating varieties are too soft.

Does anyone do "Cold Storage"?

The only thing I know is that apples produce better and more apples if they have a pollinator... another apple tree of another variety for cross pollination.

 

[Glasshen]

Maiden voyage of the new pressure canner was uneventful, but I need more lemon juice before doing the next batch. Stewed tomatoes.

 

[Arielle]

I recently bought a Granny Smith apple tree. Any advice on growing apples? It's a Semi Dwarf, (like me) how long before I should expect some apples. For some reason Granny Smith's are not part of the pick your own variety.

I prefer them for their tartness in cooking. I like a firm apple that holds up well to canning. Many fresh eating varieties are too soft.

Does anyone do "Cold Storage"?

I read a few book from thelibrary on cold storage this past spring/summer. Wanting to store as cheaply as possible. . . . . but lonnnnnnnng ago I just picked the apples in wooden baskets and put in cellar. Old house, damp, dark, moist. Which is about right for apples!!

Granny smith are wonderful apples. Do you need two trees? or is it self pollinating?? Most trees are NOT self pollinating. ANother variety is needed to bloom at the same time.

Semi dwarf bloom in 2-3 years, so if you need a pollinator, now might be a good time to add one more. ( I'm a pessimist and know that trees can die easily, so I usually plant 3 of something just in case; as in 3 different varieities.) Even the self pollinated types will grow a larger apple if given a pollinator.

You should be able to find good basic apple care books via your library; pruning can be a bear= you need to know how that apple grows to know which method to use for pruning. Pruning Symplified is a book I used long ago.

 

[rancher hicks]

My neighbor has a "wild" tree in their yard that has apples on it. How close do they have to be?

 

[Arielle]

My neighbor has a "wild" tree in their yard that has apples on it. How close do they have to be?

Close enough for the bees to fly from tree to tree!!! Honestly I don't know the number of feet.

 

[Pozees]

http://extension.missouri.edu/p/g6001 - pictures did not copy, text is useful but the pics help a lot, they have charts to tell you what trees do well together.


Apple pollination
All varieties of apple trees should be cross-pollinated with another apple or crabapple variety. To attain the best fruit set on apple trees, the king blossom (the largest and first one to open) in the flower cluster must be pollinated. Thus, the bloom periods of the pollinizer and the king blossom of the apple tree must overlap.
In backyard plantings, two semidwarf apple varieties that bloom at the same time should be planted within 50 feet of each other. Two dwarf apple varieties with similar bloom periods should be spaced less than 20 feet apart to ensure the transfer of pollen between trees (Figure 2).

Figure 2
Apple and crabapple bloom periods. The shaded area represents the time of bloom.
Although some apple varieties, such as Lodi, Liberty, Empire, Winesap, Jonathan, Jonagold, Gala, Golden Delicious, Rome and Granny Smith may be listed as self-fruitful, they will set more fruit on an annual basis if they are cross-pollinated. Additionally, some apple varieties, such as Winesap, Stayman, Mutsu and Jonagold, produce sterile pollen and therefore cannot be used to pollinate other apple varieties. Many nursery catalogues include pollinization compatibility charts (Figure 3) or recommend good apple varieties to use as pollinizers.

Figure 3
Apple pollination. Except where indicated, varieties listed on the left can be used as reliable pollinizers for cross-pollination.
Manchurian crabapple, with profuse white flowers, is commonly used to pollinate early- to mid-blooming apple varieties, while Snowdrift crabapple is used for mid- to late-blooming apple varieties (Figure 2). When using a crabapple tree as a pollinizer, it should be planted within a similar distance to an apple tree as listed above.
In situations where a solitary apple tree is planted, branches of open fresh blossoms of another apple or crabapple pollinating variety can be placed in buckets of water and hung in the tree. Another way to ensure pollination where a single tree is planted, is to top-work or graft another apple variety onto the existing tree. To top-work an apple tree, 6- to 8-inch sections of branches of one apple variety are cleft-grafted onto terminal branches of another variety.
In commercial apple plantings, a row of pollinizer trees is often planted between every four rows of the main variety of trees (Figure 4). If pollinizers are placed within the row, every fifth semidwarf tree is a pollinizer and each pollinizer is offset in adjacent rows to stagger them throughout the orchard block. In high-density plantings of dwarf trees (5 to 6 feet between trees within the row), apple or crabapple pollinizers may be planted between eight to ten trees of another variety in the row.

Figure 4
Alternative planting plans to ensure cross-pollination of apple trees.
Beehives are generally placed in commercial apple orchards as the king flowers open. If hives are brought in before this time, bees may forage flowers of other broad-leaved plants instead of the apple blossoms. For this reason, dandelion flowers should be removed by mowing or by herbicide treatment before hives are placed in the orchard. In orchards where semidwarf trees are planted, one hive of a medium-strength colony (15,000 to 20,000 bees) is generally sufficient per acre. Two hives per acre are used in high- density orchards where dwarf apple trees are planted. Extra strong colonies of as many as 50,000 bees have been effective in pollinating four acres of semidwarf trees under ideal climatic conditions.

 

[Pozees]

I liked this as well:

http://www.organicgardening.com/learn-and-grow/apple-tree-pollination

If you have only one apple tree in your yard or incompatible varieties, all is not lost. Crabapple pollen fertilizes apple blossoms. So if you have a crabapple in the vicinity that blooms concurrently with your apple tree, you're in business. Grafting a branch of a compatible variety onto your existing tree is another option, though I recommend you hire an arborist to perform this job. You can also use an old, very effective orchardist trick, says Matthew Rogoyski, Ph.D., a horticulturist at Colorado State University. "Put a bouquet of crabapple branches in bloom in a 5-gallon bucket of water and place it inside the canopy of the tree," says Dr. Rogoyski. "Then bees can visit the crabapple blossoms and transfer the pollen to the apple blossoms."

 

[Pozees]

I finally got caught back up I was 300 posts behind, it took me all week but I finally made it to current!

I canned pickled whole jalapenos today using a recipe someone posted last year for dills - tried it last year with sliced jalapenos and it worked great, so I hope it works for the whole peppers. I'll know in a month The recipe is so simple - instead of brining, you just jar the cukes/pickles-to-be with a Tbl of pickling salt and 1/2 cup of white vinegar, a whole clove of garlic and a head of dill, top off with boiling water, process, store in a cabinet for a month. For the peppers I just left out the dill and garlic, although nothing wrong with adding the garlic to be honest. Process in water bath. Here it's 20 minutes (5400 ft elevation) but sea level is only 10 minutes.

I also canned three quarts of pre-chile - I harvested tomatoes and peppers, so I boiled the tomatoes for a few minutes to loosen the skins, pulled them off, added some seasoning and stewed for a little while, then added chopped peppers, onions, cumin, garlic powder, dried cilantro, and mexican oregano. All I need to add is the pork and the bechamel and it's chile!