Tag: Squirrel War Chronicles

Canning and Preserving
Canning and Preserving · Gardening

Canning and Preserving

LSiehLeave a comment

Hello from Canning Central! I’ve been busy canning delicious yummy things lately. K2 reminded me that we “didn’t have to wait until winter” to use the things and I gave her a really funny look. In my head I have to wait until at least December! She is right though. It’s nice to have a shelf of home canned things, but even nicer to actually eat and enjoy them!

I joined a Facebook group about canning and it’s absolutely inspiring, but yet also altogether intimidating to see others’ canning progress. I haven’t posted there yet with my measly looking 5 jar haul. 😳 Luckily, I can post here, no matter how small my batches are.

Now, to get to the actual point of the post! The featured picture is my lemon verbena ready to be dehydrated for teas and other things. I used the arugula forest to make this lovely peppery pesto with parsley and walnuts.

The pesto is in the freezer for quick dinners later. I made this mimosa marmalade as well, for the fridge. It’s from the Little Jars, Big Flavors book.

I don’t have a picture of it, but did make cinnamon crockpot applesauce for the freezer, although we did eat some of it for dinner as well. I have more apples, so will make more after I make the apple chips. These were the not canned other things I made.

Dried lemon balm and lemon verbena (for teas,) dried sage, and freezer marinara sauce. The little jar is lemon verbena sugar.

I did can a marinara sauce from one of my canning magazines. A friend shared extra tomatoes with me, so I gave a jar to him and his wife as a thank you. Also, to encourage more excess produce sharing in the future. 😁

We have two kinds of salsa, although I would like to make more. I used the Ball Canning recipe for Jalepeno Salsa and this recipe for the Fire-Roasted Salsa. https://thehungrybluebird.com/fire-roasted-salsa-canning-recipe/

They are both pretty spicy. The Jalepeno salsa is more of an end spicy kick and the Fire Roasted is more spicy on the front end. We polished off the half jars that were left over pretty quickly.

I made another marmalade too. This one is a Citrus Vanilla Bean Marmalade. It was a pain to make and I was mad at it for being so much work, so haven’t tried it yet. It smelled delicious though. This recipe is from my Little Jars, Big Flavor book.

Three kinds of pickles were made. Garlic Chips and regular dill spears.

I also made one jar of kohlrabi pickles which are a fridge pickle. I haven’t tried them yet, but will soon. I also have no picture of them.

Tomorrow I’m making salsa verde and I have some more jams I wanted to make, so there should be a second canning post. It doesn’t feel like I’ve made much this year yet, but seeing it all written out, I guess I have after all!

Oh, and an update to the Squirrel War Chronicles! I was dismayed to find out that I may owe the squirrels a tiny apology, as I discovered a certain dog munching on my tomatoes the other day. She was going through the plants happily slurping the ripe ones right off the vine! Then when I yelled at her and started to go out to chase her off, she started eating them faster! She even hopped into the garden to snack in there! 🤨

We’re not going to tell the squirrels though, because they stole a bunch of other items. Or did they?! Piggy has no shame, of course, and is peacefully sleeping the sleep of the pure hearted. Dogs, man.

Anyway, enjoy the canning goodness and I’ll share the rest as soon as I have it done.

Garden Update- Squirrel War Chronicles
Gardening

Garden Update- Squirrel War Chronicles

LSiehLeave a comment

Hello from the Squirrel War that’s being fought in my garden! Major players are myself, Piggy, and the Husband. Only one of the squirrels has a name- Steve the Stupid Squirrel. The rest are collectively known as several unladylike words, which I will not repeat as to spare my poor innocent Mother’s ears. 😉

We’re all doing our part for the war effort. The Husband valiantly throws rocks at the squirrels while outside. Piggy stalks squirrels across the yard and then chases them up trees surprisingly fast for such a little tank/potato of a dog. She’s been a big help. The other day I looked out and she was balanced on the cinder blocks munching on the grass stalks that I hadn’t weeded yet while the squirrels yelled at her from the tree.

I ended up spraying vinegar on the cinder blocks and diluted peppermint oil all over the plants and that seemed to help keep the critters away. The neighbors also live trapped a groundhog in their yard to relocate as they didn’t feel like sharing their pool or tomatoes with it. I think that might have been what was eating everything as well. We think we had a burrow in our backyard. We filled it in, after making sure it was empty.

My zucchini gave me one tiny squash and I think I have squash borers, so half the plant is dead. The other half still has flowers though. I do have tomatoes coming through finally. I had caprese with garden basil and three kinds of garden tomatoes today for lunch. There was a Lemon Boy, Mr. Stripey, and some unknown cherry tomatoes from one of my volunteer plants.

My cukes are coming in! I’m hoping to make pickles as part of my canning adventures this weekend.

I found a big one hiding in the vines while I was tying them up over the weekend and have been happily eating it up. I even made a cucumber gin gimlet!

We have harvested some hot peppers and there’s a bunch of these Mad Hatter peppers growing too.

I missed the first tomatillos, but we have more on the plant. I had to look up how to know when they were ripe.

The bell peppers are coming back, which is good. I don’t remember if these are purple or green. My tags didn’t stay with the plants this year, due to squirrel interference. 🤨

Pre weeding!

We even have strawberries coming back and rhubarb (in the featured pic.)

I’ve killed some herbs and need to look at what seeds I have to see if there’s any quick growing things I can plant. We currently have an arugula forest that I need to pick and save seeds from. It made delicious pesto, so I’ll be making more of that for sure. My tea herbs are due for a trim as well, so I’ll be drying those for winter time cold fighting teas.

I know I’ll have to supplement my garden produce with store produce when I start canning, but I know what to do differently next year.

Piggy is currently sleeping like this and it’s making me giggle. I thought I should share it with you, in case you also needed a chuckle.

Wish me luck in the Squirrel Wars and send extra zucchini!