Harvesting time

Howdy all!

The harvesting and canning has begun and this week has been busy.  We've canned pickles, salsa, stewed tomato's, and frozen fresh picked blue berries and black berries. 

First up salsa.  Fresh made with Roma tomato's, green peppers and hot red peppers from the garden.  Add some onion, cilantro, garlic, salt and pepper and there you go! 

Here it is cooking in the pot!

 And here is the finished product after Lori canned it, 10 pints total!  spicy and delish!

Next we picked a peck of pickles.  Ok, i'm not sure how much a peck is but it came to 8 quarts of whole dill pickles and 12 pints of sliced ones.

Here they are in the pickling brine.

and here's some of the finished product.

Lets do some stewed tomato's!  All except the onions are from my garden.  I used some of my Roma's as well as red and yellow pear tomato's.

In the pot simmering.

Cooling on the table, 12 quarts total.

They all look so good,

The Green peppers will be done next week.  In addition to what we have used we froze 10 quart bags of chopped green peppers.  4 gallon bags of blackberries from the pick your own farm as well as 2 gallons from my own bushes.  Today we hit the pick your own Blueberry farm.  We have picked 4 Gallon bags worth of blueberries for goop and jams or syrup. That was 12 pounds worth.  We will go get more in a couple of weeks as well as some peaches!

TTFN

ken

Blueberry goop

Ok, Its officially called a crisp.  Lori couldn't give me a name for it when she first made it for me, so we have called it goop ever since.  We also make it with all kinds of fruit, but we just finished picking 12 pounds of blueberries.  Lets get started then!

 First the recipe!

4 Cups of fruit!
1 cup of flour
3/4 cup of sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup Mayonnaise
Place the delicious fruit in the bottom of 8 x 8 baking pan.
Stir the dry ingredients to gather and mix well.  Add mayonnaise until the mixture resembles course crumbs.  Sprinkle over the fruit.
Bake for 40 minutes or until browned at 400 degrees.

ENJOY!

Growing Your Own Food Not Allowed

Growing Your Own Food Not Allowed

And the government having this authority is good why?

Garden update.

Howdy all,

Time for a garden update.  Mostly good and a little bad.  First the bad.  All my corn is gone.  A fierce rain storm knocked it all flat!  I guess I didn't have the Texas rainstorm variety planted.  Come on three inches of rain in a storm is normal here!  So out it came and I replanted the beans that I had mixed in.  The rest of my garden did great!  Here's the pics of my garden as well as some of the other plants around my house.

First the black berries.

Getting ripe now as I picked about twenty yesterday!  Sorry birds, but those are mine!  The birds get the blue berries and the wild black berries.

Speaking of blueberries!

They are ripening nicely after the rain.  I'm still letting them just grow for a couple of years before I net them in.  Its off to the pick your own farm next week for me.  The same for peaches as I don't have any of those trees.

I expect some bananas this year as the frost wasn't bad enough to knock them back.  These herbs are over twelve feet tall.  This will also be their last year here.  I plan to redo my garden this fall and winter and they will be in the way.  Sacrificed for progress!  I just don't have the room for them and they don't produce that much so out they will go!

Next up?  Peppers!  Both my sweet green and my hot peppers are being harvested.  I have two beds of sweet peppers and a small bed with Hungarian hot wax peppers and hot red peppers. 

OMG!  Have my Tomato's gone crazy!  Three crowded beds of roma's and one with cherry, pear, and tomatillos!  Its a crush and will be difficult to harvest, but i will enjoy doing it!

My strawberry patch has recovered nicely too!  Big and sweet.

 What?

And lastly, for the edibles, a nice cucumber plant full of future pickles.

 Now lets look at some of the other plants around my house that I use to block the hot Texas sun.  I have a major south exposure.  If I did nothing it would look like my neighbors with a nice high cooling bill. 

First I planted Chaste trees mixed with Knockout roses under the window.  The thorns on the roses will deter thieves!

On the back half I have Star Jasmine growing, but no picture, sorry.  I do have a couple of trees!   A nice mesquite that shades my quail coop and a chinese elm.

In the front I have two nice mesquites to replace the trees knocked over by hurricane Ike.

Lastly the front.  Its covered with a couple of nice Cape Honeysuckles!  When they bloom the hummingbirds are in heaven.

Thanks for viewing

Ken

UPDATE of update!  Here's today's harvest.  A whole bunch of large green peppers, two big handfuls of hot peppers and tomato's  and enough cucumbers for about three quarts of dill pickles!

ken ;-)

The Definitive Guide to Traditional Food Preparation and Preservation | Mark's Daily Apple

The Definitive Guide to Traditional Food Preparation and Preservation | Mark's Daily Apple

Lori's BBQ Chicken or Meatballs.

This is my wife's recipe for Bar-B-Que chicken or meatballs.  It's delish and I serve it over rice with the sauce on top.  She is canning some of it right now in quart jars for the pantry.  Here's the sauce recipe.

10-12 pounds of chicken thighs, boneless, skinless are better, or frozen meatballs.

2 cups soy sauce
2 cups sugar
2 cups ketchup
1 tsp garlic
1 tsp ginger

In a large bowl mix the soy, sugar, ketchup, garlic, ginger.  When the sugar is dissolved place in a large pot and add the chicken or meat balls.  Cook until done!

Serve over rice and spoon a little sauce over the rice.

If canning, 6 lbs of meatballs makes 6 quarts.  16 pounds of chicken thighs makes 10 quarts.  Place in pressure cooker for 90 minutes with 10 pounds PSI. 

In the pot cooking away.

Time to can it.

 

 YUM!  Cooling and then ready for the pantry!

With these noses a twitching it has full approval!

No thirty second rule in this house.  If it hits the floor it don't stand a chance with these hound dawgs!