Canning Season Has Begun at Cold Comfort Farm

For most of you this month means "back to school," but here in the north it's canning season too.  In St. Louis, it was way too hot for anything to grow this late in summer, unless you replanted with a fall crop.  At this time our family always looked forward to mid to late September apples for saucing.  I always had a hard time growing a vegetable garden in St. Louis because I had to water the garden often, with chlorinated water - our water was so full of chemicals that when I ran a bathtub of water, it looked like I was going swimming.  And there were more bugs than veggies...unless I used more chemicals. 

I thinned our beets so the others would grow bigger & our first head of brocolli

Here in Houghton, since we all plant our gardens the first week in June, everyone's gardens matures around the same time so we run into neighbors in the canning aisle at Walmart.  As I said in a prior posting, our garden this year was purely a test garden to see what we could grow in our soil...well, have we been surprised - pleasantly so!

Our first large beets harvested

The huge summer squash plants - 30+ inches tall

                                                              

We learned that one side of our garden has WONDERFUL soil naturally and less than 100 foot away, the soil is very different.  I'm so surprised that even in the same growing bed, we have HUGE plants at one end and tiny ones at the other, all planted at the same time, same water, and sunlight.  We will be adding compost to that end of the garden bed to improve the soil next year.  I also experimented with the companion planting method and it seems to be working very well.   

 We, of course, have some bugs but not nearly what we expected or had in St. Louis. I think that the marigolds, narcissus, mints, etc. have done their jobs protecting their charges.  

We've been enjoying our veggies fresh from the garden for lunches and dinners...even the pickled beets!

 So now I've begun the process of canning or "putting it by" as they say here.  And I'm experimenting with that as well.  Mark and I have always been the kind of folks that will eat just about anything (until I started with a food allergy - bummer!).   

  

So, when our beets and turnips matured, I knew you can eat the entire plant, but needed to learn the best way to preserve it all.  I blanched and froze the leaves of both plants to use in soups and stews.  I also found recipes for pickled beet stems and a different one for pickled turnip stems that I've tried.   We have to wait a few days before we can try them - they may become a yearly favorite - or a Christmas presents to my son-in-law, Mitch who likes spicy foods.  They should taste like crunchy pickles.

Since we had a cooler than normal spring, some of our berries are just now ripening so that is adding to the workload.  Yesterday alone I jammed raspberries, thimble berries (Michigan is famous for them), and blueberries. I still have a bucket of blackberries that I froze last evening, holding them until I can pick more and jam them.  It's suppose to rain Tuesday and it will be a great task to do on a rainy day.

 

All this effort does entail long hours at the stove but this winter when the snow is falling and I don't want to go out to town to shop,  I can  make a hardy meal to warm our bones with our preserved and canned food.  It will bring a smile to my face and those hours will seem a very worthwhile effort!  And all that jam on nice warm homemade toast or in homemade yogurt (made from our neighbors cow's milk) will be a wonderful way to start our day.

And maybe, just maybe if you ask nicely or come visit, you can share a jar of pickled beet stems or thimbleberry jam!