Rainy start this weekend

Green Beans

Before we left we tackled the green beans from last weekend.  We shelled a lot of them out, but still managed to get enough to can.  We got 12 and a half quarts of green beans canned.  Here they are:

Here are the ones we shelled out, all spread out to dry for storage:

Canning Vegetable soup

We made it up to the farm Friday afternoon (we were up late canning those green beans above!).  I started in on cleaning the carrots I salvaged from the paw-paw patch.  Unfortunately, the carrots left over from mom's patch fermented , so those were a waste.  At least I got the bulk of those dried!  On that point, they weren't as dry as I would have liked them, so I put them back in the drier; I am going leave them there until they get crisp!  Anyway, I cleaned and chopped the carrots from the paw-paw patch and got almost exactly 1.5 quarts!  This is enough to make one batch of  the Ball veggie soup recipe!  So I went ahead and cleaned/cubed up some potatoes and Katherine did up the onions and celery.  We got a late start on them, so we didn't get done until about 2am!   Here are some pictures:

We got 16 and one-half pints of veggie soup cooked up!

 We did up a 1 C jar of "leftover soup" so that it would be cooked correctly .  We will try it today to see if its any good.

We are currently looking at recipes that include tomatoes an maybe potatoes so that we can continue to save these crops.  I hate wasting food!

Grape juice!

I saved the "must" from the wine I started a couple of weeks ago with the idea of trying to make seconds wine or jelly or something.  I hate to waste the grape skins that still have so much flavor!  Well, I finally got to them today (its too wet to do what I want to do so I stay inside and make a mess!).  I took the must out of the nylon mesh bags that were the basis for each of the 5 gal batches of wine I started.  I boiled the must with about 1 gal of water for each batch (they were in some water from when I saved them).   I should say its quite a mess!  Once I got the juice out and strained I tasted it - it was SOUR!  The fermentation evidently ate all the sugar out of the must - which is good for wine but bad for making juice with the seconds!  Anyway, I added enough sugar to the juice to make an extra-light syrup and canned it.  I got 9 quarts! (7 quarts and 4 pints - I did add a little water to the last two jars to fill but it shouldn't effect flavor).

Concord wine progress

I raked the wine again.  It looked like the primary fermentation is well over.  While raking I noticed that there is still a considerable carbonation in the wine.  I will let it sit for at least one more week before I bottle.  I may decide to clarify, although I am not sure why I should since its just for personal consumption.  I will think about it.

Pears

Went over to mom's to sharpen her riding mower blades (I started down that path before but the blades were REALLY tight, so I brought an air-impact wrench this time!) .  I got 3 out of 4 blades off, sharpened, and back on.  The one blade just wouldn't budge.  I will either have to take the deck off or think of something else.   While i was over there i picked some pears (keifer and/or barlet - she wasn't sure - I can relate! lol).  I want to make some pear wine - maybe some "perry" which is a fizzy pear wine!  I need to order some champagne bottles for the perry!  I looked at the jonahan apples - they are good to pick whenever - so maybe next weekend I will get some apples for pies, jellies and other canning delights!

Last of the tomatoes! 

Katherine processed the last of the tomatoes this weekend!  They were done using the vitamix and pressure canned in pint jars.  12.5 pints.  Now to go back and tally all the tomatoes.  Rough estimates aren't as impressive as I that I didn't record the earliest canning of the Mrs Wages salsas.

Begining of the End of the gardens for the year

I took up the black plastic row covers from the sunflower field and along the inside of the big patch.  Then i ran the leaf vacuum/mower over the corn and bean patch (and part of the tomato patch that I had cleared) to get rid of the smartweed seed heads.  It was a real chore since the weeds were evidently still quite wet and the vacuum clogged and stalled frequently.  I eventually removed all of the tomato trellis stuff as well (and broke a tine off of my digging fork! ARG).  I am hopeful that it will be drier next time I am up and I will mow/vacuum the rest of the garden (except the eggplants).  Maybe I will even do a quick till and seed with vetch.