Canning and preservation continues

Cabbage Rolls

Last evening I finally tried the "unrolled cabbage rolls" recipe.  I have been wanting a different way to preserve cabbage as well as a more ready-to-eat out-of-the-jar type meal; this recipe meets fulfills both goals!

The recipe I used: "unstuffed cabbage rolls" gets good reviews from the facebook homesteading group users.  I made slight mods because I didn't have enough garlic and wanted to use up some fresh tomatoes.  Also, I converted to weight based instead of "small cabbage, large onion, etc. and doubled the recipe because I wanted to use as much cabbage as I could.

The modified recipe I used was as follows:

• 1.5 lb Ground venison
• 11 oz chopped onions
• 3.5 lb chopped cabbage
• 1 C shredded carrots
• 9 1/4 C tomatoes (I used about 6 1/4 fresh pureed tomatoes and 3 cups canned tomatoes)
• 1 C water
• 2 tsp ground black pepper
• 5 1/4 tsp garlic salt (to make up for lack of garlic and to ratio sodium in 2 tsp of salt)

Made 11 pints.  Pressure canned for 75 mins with 15 lb weight.

second batch:

I made a second batch Saturday night to use the remaining cabbage from last week.  Here is the recipe I used:

1 3/4 lb meat
12     oz onion
64     oz cabbage
9 1/4 oz carrots
8         C pureed fresh tomatoes
3              C canned tomatoes from last year
10         oz water
2 1/4 tsp pepper
8            tsp garlic salt

Made 13.5 pint  (I actually canned a half-pint).  Same PC directions.

Applesauce

I made first seasonal applesauce from some of the apples that I gathered at mom's last weekend.  I only did a bus tray full even though I had a bushel in addition to the bus tray.  Some of these apples are ripe, many aren't.  This turned out to be a problem worth noting in the future.  Unripe apples have a lot of pectin and that pectin makes it hard to cook the apples without burning the apples on the bottom of the pan!

Anyway, I burned the apples on the bottom of the pans even though I added a little extra water (1 C instead of 1/2 C as usual).  I went ahead and ran the apples through the victorio and mixed it all together - it did have slightly burned taste so I added some cinnamon - which I don't usually do - in case I want to cook with it.  I canned 9 quarts and 1 pint.

Tomatoes

I brought back the tomatoes I had left from last weekend.  We didn't have time to process them down in the city-house because Katherine has to work on the taxes (she didn't come along with me this weekend so she could try to finish them up).  After an experiment with powdering some dried  tomatoes earlier this week, I decided that  that I would dry these.  I processed them immediately when I got to the farm yesterday afternoon so that they would have plenty of time to dry.  I processed a full 12 trays in the dehydrator, which I think is equivalent to about 7 quarts of juice/sauce.

I picked some more tomatoes.  The tomato plants are looking a bit rough and the tomatoes are looking very poor.  Lots of rotten and "blighted" spots.  I noticed that the eggplants are still looking good but maybe being encroached on by the tomatoes, so i decided to start removing the tomatoes.  I chopped down the plants near the eggplants first an pulled out the trellis stakes there.

Here are the unripe ones.  I am leaving them on the porch this week.  There is enough other food preservation to do, and frankly, I think that I have more than enough tomatoes at this point!  Of the ripe ones that I picked with this batch, some went into the unrolled cabbage rolls above.

And the rest I made into "vitamix sauce".  7 quarts.

String Beans

I decided to pull the bean plants and harvest the beans.  I got about 1/3 through and filled a large bus tray!  Takes a bit of time but there is shade there in the afternoon so I will continue then.

Update: I finished picking the beans - an additional 5 gallon bucket and half of another!  Whew - will be fun processing these this week.

Carrots

The carrots that I picked at mom's place last week finally got processed - i dehydrated them!  Most of them anyway.  Whats left I will pickle this week - or maybe use some other way.  I should mention that I also got some carrots from the paw-paw patch.  They are little baby carrots!  I think maybe I got  2-3 lb.  Still undecided how to process them.

Dried carrots.  They really shrink!

Here are some from the paw-paw patch.  I didn't dig them all - I don't think I will.  Its  just not worth it.

Beets

I also picked the beets in the paw-paw patch.  There were so few, I decided to give them away to Curtis Raker (a farm neighbor).  Curtis had stopped by while I was  picking the beets and carrots and offered me some radishes.  I declined the radishes, but saw a good opportunity to get rid of the beets!

Red beets.  Probably enough to make a few pints of beet pickles.

Cauliflower and broccoli, and eggplants

The broccoli is still putting out side branch florets.  I gathered enough (1.5 C) to  cook with my soup for dinner.  The cauliflower produced a couple of nice heads this week.

I gave the top one to mom and brought the big one back for me and Katherine.

I didn't get any pictures of the eggplant that I harvested this week.  I got about 5 small ones.  I gave one to mom and brought the rest back.

Finally got my last 2 gardens planted!

Went up to farm on Friday, with Katherine to plant the gardens.  The car was packed with plants!  Poor Smokey had to ride on mommies lap!  Anyway, we got there we ate, and then I got to tilling right away.  The ground was still a bit wetter than I liked in some places, but I wasn't going to risk planting any later!  I did the big patch first and tilled in all the mulched horse manure and straw/hay & dirt that I took out of the red barn in the previous weeks.  I didn't use any of the baled hay/straw though - just the stuff that was mixed with manure and dirt.  Then I tilled the paw-paw patch.  I used some of the mulched wood chips from the pile up by the house (the oldest pile - i wanted them as mulched as possible) for mulch - just about 5 loader buckets full.  I also had 2 hay bales there that I dropped off a couple weekends ago that I decided to till in.  BIG MISTAKE!!  DO NOT TRY TO TILL HAY/STRAW BALES into your soil!  I had to go over it many times, compressing the soil more each time - grrrr.  Finally got the soil to an acceptable state (barely) for planting.

The next day, Saturday, I started planting the big patch.  First I put down the black plastic around the borders.  This was made more difficult because I did not label or put aside the plastic that I needed so I had to filter through all of my plastic rolls to get it right!  Also, of course, I had to reset the end fence.  The first thing I planted was greenbeans.  I put down a row of bluelake 274 and then a row of tendergreen (? name ?).  Then i put in 6 rows of white and yellow sweet corn.  I planted both the corn and beans using the earthway seed planter.  Everything seemed to work OK, but I felt that the corn was not put down at the rate I thought it should have been.  I didn't even use 1/2 lb of seed for those 6 rows!  We will see in a week or so when this comes up.  I might have to overseed more.  Also, because of this I didn't plant any of the pure yellow corn, which Katherine wanted.  After the corn was in I started transplanting the tomatoes - 144 of them!  It was backbreaking to hoe out the rows - but I thought it was the best way after doing the potatoes that way.   So, 4 rows (?) of tomatoes and then my onions (from seed) and then the eggplant were transplanted.  Then I popped in some cucumbers, spaghetti squash, summer squash, and butternut squash in the remaining space.  Not near as many as I did last year!  Also, this year NO pumpkins or sunflowers are going in the patches!  I plan on tilling some rows outside of the big patch, but inside the electric fence for the pumpkins and sunflowers.  That will be next week - weather and time depending.  I really don't need pumpkins or sunflowers - but I want to see how they grow in those conditions.  Local farmers warn that deer LOVE sunflowers - so that is why they will be inside the electric fence.  In any case, after I finished planting the big patch I did some mowing in the far field - the grass grows so fast there!

OK, so next was the paw-paw patch.  I did that the next day to give it more time to dry out.   First I put in Kale in two rows along the paw-paw side of the patch because that seemed to be the best soil. I hand planted the kale seed because I didn't have much seed and I wanted it in as perfect as I could!  Then I transplanted the cabbages, broccoli and cauliflower together (because they were all mixed together and I lost track of which were which).  Then I put in the artichokes partially into the hay mixed soil - we will see!  Some of that soil feels like bricks!  A couple more seasons and much more organics will bring the soil into a good state - its still pretty 'rough' for a garden.  After the artichokes I used the seeder again to plant beets and carrots.  The beets were partially going into the hay mixed soil and the seeder couldn't handle that, therefore, I simply skipped over that soil, planting beets in rows on either side of the hay area.   The carrots went in next.  I forgot were I was and started planting some of the carrots overtop of the Kale!  ARGGG!  I hope I didn't screw things up too bad.  I broadcast dill seed over the hay mixed area since there was really no other way to seed in there.

OK, here are the pictures of the big patch:

Here are some of the paw-paw patch:

See the hay-mix there in the center? What a mess.  Never again.

The hay mix is very visible here.  See the cabbages on
the left?

Rows from the left: 2 Kale, 4 (?) carrot, 4 (broken) beets - dill planted in the straw

Cabbages, broccoli, and cauliflower

Here are some pics of the front patch - the onions are doing well - and the potatoes are starting up!

Three rows of potatoes on the left!

closeup of potato

More potatoes sneaking out!

I have not idea what this is - lol, will have to look at the front patch blog post.

Ahh - the onion sets are doing great!

Again, no idea - check front patch blog-entry!

Tomato seeds planted and pumpkin bread!

I got a late start tonight, but I managed to get 144 tomato pots planted!

I did 18 pots of each variety.  The cabbages, Brussels sprouts and cauliflower are doing well:

as are the onions:

While I was messing with the planting, Katherine was making delicious pumpkin bread with our home grown pumpkins:

MMMMmmmm MMMM!  I love this stuff!  I eat it as a dessert, a snack, and sometimes for breakfast (toasted with some peanut butter or just butter).

Seedlings are doing well!

Just a quick snapshot of the cabbages, brussel sprouts, cauliflower and onions!

2 rows Cauliflower on left,  2 rows brussel sprouts next to them, then all the rest is cabbage.  All doing nicely!

Onions have stepped up!  I am thinking that I still got a late start on these.  I intend to plant these and some onion sets this year, just to be sure that I get a good crop of onions!