What did you do in the garden today?

[Emma-Daisy]

It's Sunday night here, hope everyone had a good weekend. Managed to get the last of my early potatoes in today and a cover crop on one of the beds I'm resting until Autumn. My first lot of radishes are well on their way and my zinnia and giant sunflowers seedlings are doing well, nothing else has come in the greenhouse yet though.

 

[Sueby]

Thank you everyone for the suggestions. It's why I mentioned it here, I knew you'd all have good ideas. DH wouldn't let me pay someone to help - he'll want to do it all himself. I really feel waiting till after the harvest is the best idea. If I can carry 1 gallon of water a day, after the first month or so I'll be able to lighten his load. Collapsable hoses are a great idea & I'm even on a hill! He'll just have to move them when mowing.

@WthrLady how do you can your chicken, just chunks in water or something? Interested now that I have a pressure canner & would like to make things easier after surgery - canned chicken sounds like a good idea for chicken salad, kind of like tuna. Totally open to any ideas from y'all....

It's been snowing out for like an hour. Not quite sticking yet, hopefully amounts to nothing. I got the strawberries covered & a little more straw on the onions. Hopefully all is good, not supposed to be above freezing for a couple days tho.

 

[WthrLady]

Im not sure how your set up is, but a kids wagon with good wheels is an excellent tool while down a limb and trying to feed critters. Also even though they need replacing yearly, the collapsible hoses will save alot of trouble hauling water. They weigh next to nothing and empty themselves.

The collapsing soft hoses are a PIA, They don't work over a distance as they don't have an outter wall to hold pressure, all you get is a trickle, and then the hose tries to shrivel up. We tried a 300 foot one to get water to the barn in winter from the shop, the idea to get water to the tanks, and then drain, shrivel, and put it away in the shop over night. Nope.

 

[WthrLady]

Thank you everyone for the suggestions. It's why I mentioned it here, I knew you'd all have good ideas. DH wouldn't let me pay someone to help - he'll want to do it all himself. I really feel waiting till after the harvest is the best idea. If I can carry 1 gallon of water a day, after the first month or so I'll be able to lighten his load. Collapsable hoses are a great idea & I'm even on a hill! He'll just have to move them when mowing.

@WthrLady how do you can your chicken, just chunks in water or something? Interested now that I have a pressure canner & would like to make things easier after surgery - canned chicken sounds like a good idea for chicken salad, kind of like tuna. Totally open to any ideas from y'all....

It's been snowing out for like an hour. Not quite sticking yet, hopefully amounts to nothing. I got the strawberries covered & a little more straw on the onions. Hopefully all is good, not supposed to be above freezing for a couple days tho.

Yes, mam.
I fill my pressure COOKER with chicken breasts, that have been trimmed of as much fat as possible, to the fill line and then just water to the water line near the bottom of the pot. I process as directed. Let natural pressure take it down to open the pot.
Then I shred it all.
It goes into pints and quarts 1" from the top gets 1/2 teaspoon of canning salt (NO iodine), and then water to 1" from the top. Let air pockets out, WIPE rims with vinegar to remove any grease, toss on lids and rings, and process in the pressure CANNER for your altitude and jar size.

For CHUNK chicken I cut the breasts up and Start the cooking process in the oven. Cooking the chicken first removes most of the water and keeps the chunks from sticking together in the jar. Not an issue, I just don't like raw pack chicken, the way it looks after canning. Same deal with headspace, water and salt and time.

I mostly do shredded as that's what I use most of.

 

[karenerwin]

@Sueby the first thing I ever canned years ago was chicken! I did the raw pack. It was very easy and I loved the results. I’m out of town until Wednesday night but when I get home I’ll look up the directions.

 

[chickengr]

Call your local 4H club and see if they have a couple kids. OC with HPAI anyone WITH birds should be near YOUR birds....so. But by then we should be clear of the season.


Heck, I don't pass up good deals. I can can it!
I was withing 20 minutes drive of a place last weekend that I KNOW has good quality chicken breast meat for a great price, so I went and put up chicken for two days. I LOVE having ready made in the pantry to grab and make my life a little faster or easier later. (Adding in I've switched only buying marked known brands of chicken as I managed food poisoning (mild) from store brand, water/acid added chicken to save $ just after Christmas. Nope. Not again. There was frozen chicken breast on bone in the freezer section on foam trays, not even an origin on them that I could see, and I've never seen them there before. NOPE)

last time I bought chicken (about 4lb of chicken thighs) was about 6 years ago. it stunk so much when I cooked it that I didn't think of eating it. my dogs got it.

 

[chickengr]

@WthrLady how do you can your chicken, just chunks in water or something? Interested now that I have a pressure canner & would like to make things easier after surgery - canned chicken sounds like a good idea for chicken salad, kind of like tuna. Totally open to any ideas from y'all....

you can boil any vegetables and add canned chicken at the end - chicken soup. or oven potatoes and add canned chicken for about 5-10 minutes at the end. or salads, sandwiches, etc.

 

[Sueby]

Thank you all - very helpful! I just remembered I have the Ball Blue Book - bet theres a recipe in there too! I wish I had tried it before I vacuum packed all that chicken yesterday.

 

[Ascholten]

She hit the curb, panicked and overcorrected turning the wheel the WRONG way and hit the curb with her back tire too...
View attachment 3039452

Kids.... Her dad has been calling her 'Crash' all morning.

Decades ago, my sister did something similar, only it was pulling the car into the garage, my dad was standing there 'directing' her turn the wheel this way, NO the other NO STOP,TURN ...... she ended up running over a few jars of canned blueberry something or another, which basically exploded all over my dad. I think i was like 9 or 10 at the time, I bust out laughing and started calling my dad, "Grape Ape', which was a cartoon at the time, and got the everliving #%# beat out of me.. ahh the memories.

 

[TJAnonymous]

@Sueby the first thing I ever canned years ago was chicken! I did the raw pack. It was very easy and I loved the results. I’m out of town until Wednesday night but when I get home I’ll look up the directions.

Id like them too!