What are you canning now?

[silkensunlight]

Lucky you Mickey! I've been looking for "freebies" and no one is biting around here! I put in beets every year and they get ate up no matter how many! My whole family, extended included, eats them right up. I can't wait for next years garden though. Totally re-planned, finally I can get down to business with what I really want to grow and harvest the most of.

 

[Cryptkeeper]

The beets are a favorite here too. this year i planted over 900 beets between 3 plantings. I canned over 60 quarts worth so far from 2 of the plantings, and have about 1.5 months to go till the third and final planting is done to the nice size of 2.5 inches......YUMMY

I had to extend my garden this year since last years harvest was eaten by beginning of january. Next year it will be bigger still growing the scorpion and ghost chili plants.

 

[Happy Chooks]

I love beets.

I'm going to be up to my ears in Swiss Chard too. I let my few plants go to seed and now I have a patch of chard about 3 feet by 5 feet.

 

[mickey328]

Hehe, let the chickens at it and they'll mow it down in no time! Ours absolutely love chard

 

[mickey328]

8 qts, 1 pt of apple pie filling today...then I had to go to work

 

[Happy Chooks]

Hehe, let the chickens at it and they'll mow it down in no time! Ours absolutely love chard

Yeah, I'll be giving the chickens the extra chard. They love carrot and beet tops too!

 

[mickey328]

...and they keep those yolks so gorgeous and golden...and tasty too!

 

[Pozees]

8 qts, 1 pt of apple pie filling today...then I had to go to work

Mmmmm ... I may be able to can using home grown apples next year or the year after - 6 years ago I planted a Gala and a Yellow Delicious tree, but the YD has remained stunted so even though the Gala bloomed two years in a row I didn't get apples last year and didn't expect them this year - then about a dozen really small ones showed up on the tree, and I thought, wow, someone must have one, but it must be really far away, and pollen must really travel far! Well, it turns out a tree I got from Arbor Day 7 years ago and transplanted 6 years ago when we moved here, is an apple tree, and produced a half dozen good-sized apples that are about the tastiest things I've eaten in a long time. They taste like Galas to me even though the skin is a bit different from typical Gala.

Trouble is, not knowing it was an apple tree, I haven't been pruning it - I knew it had similar foliage but kept thinking it was possibly a crabapple. I have a lot of catch-up pruning to do, which I expect to take the next three winters. Now DH wants to plant more Amazing the effect getting home grown no chemical fruit has ...

 

[mickey328]

Instead of "chicken math" it becomes "food math", doesn't it? There's something amazing about being able to eat something you've grown yourself.

 

[Pozees]

Instead of "chicken math" it becomes "food math", doesn't it? There's something amazing about being able to eat something you've grown yourself.

Absolutely - and what I think is happening is the gradual trust in what we grow here vs what we buy at the store - many of us seem to have been brainwashed into thinking only store food is safe, when the opposite is mainly true. The flavor of that apple had a pretty amazing effect on him, and he is still wrapping his head around the possibility this is the same kind of apple I buy all the time and that the flavor is so much better because it is so much fresher and has never known a chemical.