Today has been lovely. No more than 70 degrees or so. I've been wearing jeans and my sweater most of the day. Perfect weather in my opinion. Got a lot done in the garden this afternoon. More canning too, without sweating like a pig over the cauldron of boiling water bath.
The garden looks a little bare again. With all the potatoes out, we've had a lot of room open up for new plantings. We have in the bare places, black eyed peas, some kind of Japanese carrots, French Breakfast radishes, candy-cane striped beets, lots and lots of shelling peas, bok choy and turnips.
The edamame are filling in nicely. Cucumbers are doing their thing. I just canned 3 qt jars of cuke pickles this afternoon, using pumpkin pie type spices and apple cider vinegar, garlic and dill.
The wee little eggplant are finally growing! They're super cute. Hopefully I can keep little hands from picking them too early.
Yesterday we used all the ripe tomatoes we had for drying. The Excalibur works beautifully! The tomatoes dried perfectly and smell really good despite being totally dehydrated.
I have 4 shelves of basil drying in there right now. Also hung lemon balm, catnip, mint, parsley and yarrow down stairs to dry.
We bagged up the second batch of sauerkraut today. I think we got around 8 qt. bags of that. No more kraut. I can't honestly think we'll eat it all over the winter. Then again, if we really stay local, we might be coming up with fancy sauerkraut recipes. Holiday cookies topped with roasted kraut. Kraut omelettes. Kraut bread.
Greg pickled mushrooms yesterday. They're amazing! Also made another, yet different type of pickled eggs. It was my job to lance them before stuffing them into jars. They're not my thing, but they look pretty in the jars.
Off to go make an attempt at waking up little E, who fell asleep just before dinner and will now be up super late watching infomercials because everyone else in the house will be sleeping.
1 comment:
That is all so impressive. I wouldn't know where to start with canning and making relishes.
I always remember going down to the "chippy", (fish and chip shop), in England as a child and seeing big jars of pickled eggs. I never tried one but always wanted to!
Post a Comment