Owlhaven » gardening

Farm kids

Owlhaven — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 05:33:56 +0000

What my hubby and 6 of my kids did this afternoon

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Pantry pictures

Owlhaven — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 03:00:42 +0000

A few of you asked to see our pantry after all the canning. My kitchen is not especially huge, but I’m lucky to have a really nice-sized pantry. The space is triangle-shaped, with two sides of the triangle taken up with deep shelving and the third side of the triangle being double doors for easy access. This first picture is the right hand side of the shelving, looking in. Each shelf fits about 30 quart jars. As you can see, I’ve got pint jars stacked in some places, so there are actually more than 30 jars on several of the shelves.

You may also be able to see the 2-quart jars at the back of the bottom shelf. Those jars are from my grandmother. I sometimes can grape juice in them, but more often I use them to store dry goods like wheat germ, popcorn, Ethiopian shiro (ground chickpeas), and cornmeal. Below the bottom shelf, out of the picture, is a space big enough to keep an 18 gallon Rubbermaid. In that Rubbermaid I store opened 25 pound bags of flour, sugar, rice and oats. The Rubbermaid keeps these opened bags bug-free until I need to use them. I have smaller bins of each of these items close to my baking center.

This next picture shows part of the left side of my pantry. A cupboard blocks me from getting the whole thing. The shelving is actually a couple feet wider than the picture shows. There’s also one more shelf below for small appliances, and floor space below that where I store potatoes and dry beans in small bins. The lowest shelf visible in the photo usually contains cans of food from the store, not canned tomatoes. But I took this picture at the end of September when my home-canned goods were peaking, and my store-canned goods were all eaten up. However, in truth I do not buy many canned goods. Tuna, salmon, condensed milk, pineapple, and occasionally coconut milk are almost the only canned goods I buy.

This final picture is of the food we got during our last run through the garden before the frost. Besides what you see in the picture, we also got about 2 bushels of green tomatoes, which we wrapped in newspaper to ripen in the garage. Using this tactic, we usually have fresh tomatoes to eat until December. They are not quite as wonderful and juice as summer-ripened tomatoes, but they are still better – and cheaper – than store-bought!

How to: Freezing corn

Owlhaven — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 05:31:57 +0000

This week we have devoted a few hours to freezing some of our abundant corn crop. It’s a fairly simple project, but after three people in two days asked me how we do this, I thought it might be worth offering a brief tutorial here.

Start by husking the corn and removing all the silks. My kids have discovered that rubbing a dry washcloth gently on each ear assists greatly in removing the pesky silk. Then the corn needs to be blanched. Fill the biggest pot you own about 3/4 full of water, and let the water come to a rolling boil. Once the water is boiling, set as many ears of corn in the pot as can be submerged, and let it cook for 3-5 minutes. Remove the corn from the pot.

At this point the official wisdom is to immediately plunge the corn in ice water for a minute or two, to stop the cooking process. If you only have a moderate amount of corn, no problem. But we tend to have such ridiculous amounts to process that I run out of ice quickly, and frankly, I don’t see any problem with the corn continuing to cook for a few more minutes. So I simply set the hot corn on the counter on a nice absorbent bath towel, and let it cool.

Once it is cool enough to handle, slice the kernels off the cobs. You can use a special doohicky if you have one, but I find that a nice sharp knife works quite well. About 6 passes of the knife down the length of the corn cob, rotating the cob a little with each pass, does a great job of removing the kernels. You want to go deep enough to get most of the kernel, but not so deep as to cut into the sharp membrane kernel-holders stuff deep in the cob– you know, that stuff that gets stuck between your teeth if you bite too deeply into an ear of corn.

I find that it works well to cut the corn onto a cookie sheet or casserole dish, because the lip of the dish keeps the corn contained. Once you have a good heap of corn cut, you can transfer it to whatever storage containers you’ll be using. Think about what constitutes a reasonable amount of corn for one meal for your family. The year I chose to use gallon size ziplocks, I regretted it. Packaging was easy, but the quantity was just too much to use in one meal. This year I froze some corn in 3-cup plastic containers, and the rest in sandwich size zip-top bags that hold about 2 cups of corn. I’ll need to thaw a couple bags for a side dish for a meal for my family, or maybe just one bagful if I want to add corn to a winter soup.

Once the corn is packaged, with as much air removed from each package as possible, simply put the bags or boxes in the freezer. You’re ready to enjoy late-summer corn goodness all year round!

Technorati Tags: freezing corn

It must be August

Owlhaven — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 05:47:41 +0000

This past week I have been sucked into the garden/canning vortex. We’ve been given free picking rights to a friend’s apricot and plum trees. Plus the garden is exploding: cukes, peppers, zucchini, corn, and the beginnings of the tomato crop. Saturday yielded a couple dozen each of cucumbers, corn, and tomatoes, enough to overload my counters.

In the past week we have canned apricots, plums, apricot jam, plum jam, sweet pickles, pickle relish, and plum chutney. I have never done chutney before– I used a recipe that I adapted from Recipezaar.

Plum Chutney

Makes 10 half-pint jars

Ingredients

6 cups plum puree (seeded plums, whirled in food processor)
2 cups brown sugar
2-1/2 cup white sugar
1-1/2 cups white vinegar
2 cups seedless raisins
1 tablespoon salt
1/2 cup minced onion
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons grated ginger
1/2 packet fruit pectin (optional, for thicker sauce)

Directions

Combine sugars and vinegar in a large saucepan. Bring to a boil, stirring until sugars dissolve. Add remaining ingredients; mix well and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and cook gently 30-40 minutes until slightly thickened. Stir often to keep chutney from scorching. Pour into hot sterilized jars and seal. Process in boiling water bath for 30 minutes. For best flavor, allow at least one month to season before opening.

Saturday…sacrilege?

Owlhaven — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 00:03:57 +0000

You might remember that this spring we got 18 chickens with the plan of having a flock of egg-layers. The feed store only had straight run chicks, so we figured we’d just make chicken dinner out of whatever roosters we happened to get.

Well, roosters we had in abundance. Loud ones. And for those of you who are not familiar with roosters and think that they only crow in the mornings, that is a fallacy, pure and simple. Ours crow about every 37 seconds all day long.

After listening to the din of 8 — yes, eight — roosters for the last month or so, my husband decided that today was the day that seven of them would meet their…ummm…freezer compartment. It was either that or be run out of the quarter-section by the neighbors.

The 4 youngest girls became aware of dad’s foul plan only when the first 3 roosters were delivered to the kitchen, headless and neatly skinned. (Yes, among many other talents, my hubby is a tidy chicken-skinner.) The 13 year old was horrified initially– a puzzling reaction since she’s seen chickens, sheep, and goats being butchered many times in Ethiopia. However she and most of the other kids quickly recovered from the shock, and raced outside to watch Dad.

The 4 year old wasn’t disturbed in the least by the sight of the roosters, and was perturbed when she was told she could not go watch. The 7 year old’s upset lasted longer, and she wisely chose to stay indoors where she did not have to witness any unpleasantness. “How could Daddy do this?” she wailed. “And on the day right before Sunday!”

“What’s wrong with doing it the day before Sunday?” I asked, curious.

“Mom! Now when people at church ask him what he did yesterday, he can’t lie. He’ll have to tell them what he did!”

Apparently she is of the opinion that only those with unstained hands should gather before the Lord on a Sunday.

Garden lunch

Owlhaven — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 02:10:38 +0000

We’ve been eating chard out of the greenhouse for awhile, but today I picked our first 2 zucchini, along with a handful of snow peas, which we enjoyed in a yummy stirfry for lunch. Yeah!! Summertime, here we come!

First homegrown berries this year

Owlhaven — Mon, 25 May 2009 05:19:29 +0000

New babies at the Owlhaven!

Owlhaven — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 23:40:47 +0000

Aren’t they cute????? You can click on the links to enlarge each picture– and if you’d like to see my 4yo’s whole face!

Technorati Tags: chickens

Starting seeds for the garden

Owlhaven — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 05:11:08 +0000

My adorable hubby is sharing seed starting secrets over on his blog for anyone who’s interested.

Garden: Starting seeds indoors

Owlhaven — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 19:28:11 +0000

Starting your own seeds indoors is the best way to get an economical start on a garden. One of these days my husband will be putting up a post with all the details, but I wanted to give a brief answer to those of you who are eager to get going. Our last frost date is somewhere around mid May, so we try to plant indoors by the first week in April. Unless you have an extremely sunny south facing room, your seeds will probably do best if you start them under lights. The good news is that you don’t need some special greenhouse light. A simple flourescent shop light suspended over a shelf in your garage will work great. Start with good potting soil-John likes the kind with Miracle-Gro in it. You can start seeds in yogurt cups or black plastic seed starting trays, or even toilet paper tubes cut in half. Just make sure your containers have drainage holes in the bottom, and a tray underneath to hold a little water. Plant seeds as deep as the seed packet recommends. Keep pots slightly moist but don’t over-water, or the roots of the little plants will rot. The soil should feel damp but not drenched.

That should be enough info to get you started. Keep an eye on my husband’s blog for more details in the next week or two. And feel free to ask questions wither here or on his blog– he’ll be able to answer better than I!

Technorati Tags: grow tomatoes from seed, how to start seeds, seed starting

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