Grapes, wine-making, mowing, and of course: Tomatoes - still more!

Pretty Posies

Before i left i took some pictures of the balloon flowers in front of the Silver Spring house:

Really nice this year!

Peppers

I picked more jalapenos before I went to the farm.  This time I tried making "Cowboy candy".  Here are the peppers before cooking and canning:

About 5.5 lbs from the 2nd picking!  Good yields on the peppers this year.

After canning

I should mention that I have about 5 pints of liquid left from this recipe!  This is typical for this recipe from what I have read online.  I am saving the liquid and will try to can another batch of cowboy candy with it later this year.

Katherine's Tomatoes

Katherine worked on canning the tomatoes i brought back last weekend.  Here are the results:

These are thick sauce.  

She cooked them for about 12 hours on the stove and in the oven.  We figure these would have been about twice as many if we just made our normal "juice/sauce".

Grapes/Wine

Went up to the farm last Friday eve (9/12) and stopped at mom's place to pick grapes.  She has a bunch of concord grapes (and a few other types) that were in desperate need of picking.  I got about 60 lbs!  I had no idea how much i would need for a natch of wine - Google search didn't help a lot in determining how much i should pick.  I picked what I thought was enough for 5-6 gals of wine.

Picked these off of mom's concord vines.  I got a few apples as well.

I started picking these off the bunches Friday night.  I didn't finish the FIRST batch until around 10-ish Saturday!  Here is the first batch ready to wash:

You can see a few of the other - non-concord - grapes in there.

Ready to squish.  In the primary fermentor in a nylon mesh bag

"Juiced" and additives combined and added.  I used plastic wrap over it while the campden tablets did their job.  I couldn't find the lid!

I tied the pulp in a ball in the bag.  i hope this will keep the must from expanding too much and overflowing the bucket.

I started cleaning up the rest of the grapes after I started the first batch "sterilizing" (the campden tablets are potassium bisulfite which kill the natural yeasts which can make things taste funky.)

The 2nd batch (top of photo) with additives.  The first batch ready to receive yeast - on the bottom of photo.

I didn't take photos of the fermenters setup with the airlocks.  I moved them both into the bathroom and set the bathroom thermostat to 70F (the minimum recommended temperature for red-wine ferments).  The recipe says to stir and mess with the bag of pulp daily, but I wont be around to do that!  I hope they don't over expand and leak juice everywhere!

Picked the Orchard!

I decided it was time to pick all the fruits in the orchard.  I read that pears should be picked before they are fully ripe for best turnout.  Here is everything i got:

Asian pears, crab apples and some nice eating apples!  The eating apples and pears are delicious.  Not sure what to do with the 4 crab apples!

Picked some Kale

The kale recovered from the cabbage worm issues and I was able to pick about a bushel and a half of it.   I tried the "kale cracker" recipe with mixed results.  The recipe gives a measurement of "6 leaves" - what size leaves? Sheesh.  I experimented with varying amounts of kale in the cracker.  First batches where mostly just ground almond and sesame - they were good but very greasy.  So I tried adding more kale.  i baked these on silpat sheets in the oven at 250F.  The ones with more kale took longer to become crisp and i think they burned.  They tasted burned.  But then again, they tasted a lot more like kale.  Not delicious.

First batch - mostly ground almond and sesame!  Tasted good but not much kale in them.

Tried adding more kale and putting it through vitamix until all smooth.  About 2 C of kale puree to 1 C nut mix here.

On the silpat, ready to bake for about an hour.

I decided that I had experimented with the cracker recipe enough and proceeded to simply load the rest of the kale into the dehydrator.  After drying I got the kale into 3 gallon size zip locks - with some pressing and crushing.  Later I went back and vacuum sealed the kale into smaller portion that should be about 1 quart each when re-hydrated.

More tomatoes

Picked more tomatoes!  Here is what I started with:

I got a few more cucumbers too.

I decided to save Katherine some pain and started processing them right away.  First I did a dehydrator full of them - about 7 quarts dehydrated looks like this:

This is the second jar like this of dried tomatoes that I have made this season.  

I also went back and vacuum packed the first jar of dried tomatoes in the seal-a-meal bags - smaller portions.  From what I have read, vacuum sealing them will extend their shelf life considerably.  Again, I put them in quart size  portions (I estimate).  I will probably vacuum seal some of these as well, but I want to try powdering some first.  If they powder well i may use them to thicken the regular sauce.

I also "vitamixed' some sauce and canned them.  I pressure cooked most of these:

Vitamixed sauce

Doing them in the pressure cooker only takes 15 mins.  I still added full amount of citric acid and salt.  I did 3 quarts and one pint in the water-bath since there wasn't enough to do full PC run.  A weird thing happened to the first batch of the PC'ed jars when i took them out of the canner they started pinging sealed.  Not that strange, sometimes jars will even seal inside the canner. However, they "unsealed" and resealed several times while on the counter cooling!  Katherine asked in the facebook group and they think it was because the vitamixed sauce has more air in it and it takes longer for it to work its way out.  They said that they should still be good as long as they seal.  I marked the jars in question just in case!  They did all stay sealed (so far).

Tomato Savior!?

While picking  the tomatoes this time I found a carcass of a tomato worm:

Worm carcass with parasitic wasps on him!

Cool!  I hope the parasitic wasps get well established in my area now!

Eggplant picked 

I decided to pick the eggplant before it got too big this year.  I was also afraid that maybe weather would turn too cold and ruin them before I got them!  Last years harvest. Here is the harvest:

Not near as many as last year, but at least i got some after the flea beetle attack!

Picked a few more cabbages too!

The late cabbages are looking really good.  I picked the cabbages and kale and then sprayed them all down with BT.  The worms seem to be under control and I want to keep them that way!

We actually got 2 more than what is shown - we ate them as cole slaw.  Delicious!

Tried drying some pumpkin

I read about drying pumpkin and thought I would give it a try.  I washed a pumpkin well and sliced it thin and placed it in the dehydrator at 150F overnight.  I tried powdering it in the vitamix but it wasn't quite dry enough yet.  I placed the grind into the toaster oven on 150F for a couple more hours then re-tried the vitamix.  This time it made a fine powder.  They say this is a convenient way to store for use as pumpkin puree for pies!  I will have to try that.

Mowed most of the property

Some where along the timeline I managed to mow most of the lawn!  The Huskee mower deck should be in great shape, but the damn thing really mows lopsided.  I adjusted the deck a couple times, but it doesnt seem to help much.I check the spindles - they are mounted fine and the spindles themselves seems to rotate smoothly, so no problems there.  Makes buying that Cub Cadet zero turn more attractive every time I mow!

Canning potatoes and, of course, more tomatoes!

Canning Crazy!

I am getting a bit overwhelmed with the harvesting and canning activities so what I am going to do here is just post some pictures that i took over the past several days and add captions to explain things.

14 quarts and 6 pint and a half jars of tomatoes that Katherine cleaned and I canned on Sept 4 evening

This is a picture of the cucumber relish (I think) that Katherine made on labor day weekend.  16 pints.  She didn't like the recipe so I won't post it.  It has way too much liquid in it.

 We made it up to the farm last Friday, Sept 5, in time for me to gather some of the rough potatoes from the potato harvest and can them!  We ate 3 of the jars shown below during the weekend to see if we liked them done this way.  Personally, i loved them!  Katherine cooked them in potatoes, eggs and onions breakfasts!  Used our own onions too!

This is the next morning immediately after taking them out of the PC.

Closer view

I didn't get a picture of them later that day, but I will state that the "clear" liquid in those jars gets thick and white with starch!  I personally did not work to get them out of the jars after canning so I don't know really how hard they are to dislodge.  Katherine said it wasn't too bad and she votes for canning more of the damaged potatoes.  They are convenient and don't take freezer space.

More broccoli and our first cauliflower of the season!  The cauliflower looks super good!

We haven't eaten it yet.  That's the problem when stuff comes in this fast.  We just finished eating the broccoli from LAST weekend!

I sorted the potatoes according to damaged vs non-damaged and color.  Looks like we got a total of about 175 lbs this harvest!

The ones in the bucket are next years seed potatoes

Brassica patch is looking quite nice actually!

Late cabbage

another late cabbage, heading up nice!

Quite a few late cabbages made it!  We might have to figure out what to do with all this cabbage!

The cauliflower and broccoli plants are still going strong.  Not sure if we will get enough to freeze or pickle though. 

Yep - that's my green globe artichoke!  Katherine says that they are perennial, so even if this doesn't produce this year, maybe next?  I just need to figure out a way of moving it - its in the center of the paw-paw patch!

Another artichoke.  I have 4 in all.

The kale!  Lots of green leaves!  I sprayed all the brasicas with BT.  I didn't harvest any kale this weekend.  I think i will harvest some and start drying it next weekend.

Smokey, checking things out!

Harvested the sunflowers (most of them) this weekend.  I put them on the garage floor to dry.  I thought about putting them in the red-barn on the trailer bed, but i was afraid that squirrels would help themselves!  The garage is a bit tighter.

Trying to get a record of the tomatoes.  I think we will just have to inventory them after we are all done at this point.

this shows 28 quarts plus 6 pint and a halfs

We brought 3 bus trays full of tomatoes back this time.  Katherine is already a bit punchy over the weekend canning activities and she thinks there is no end in sight.  We did give some of the heirloom "pink lady" tomatoes away to neighbors and friends at work.  She is going to put some of these in trays (after juicing) to try to get a thicker sauce going.  She did a bunch of sauce on the farm on Sunday night - it was very good!  It does take some cooking though. The idea is that on trays, in the oven, there will be more surface area for the sauce to evaporate faster.  We will see!

Buttercup Squash

Those green squash with the little cap on the end are called "buttercup squash".  We probably got the seed packets mixed up with "butternut" squash (since I don't have any of those - lol).  Well, we finally tried one and it was GOOD!  Wonderful flavor and a great texture.  Bright orange!  We will be saving the seeds from these for sure!

Labor day! Literally - lol

Well, i loaded up my little SUV to the brim with my new wine making stuff and took off last Friday (Aug 29, 2014) for the farm.  It was a rainy kinda weekend - not a lot of rain - about .5 inches all told, but it was on and off making it hard to get out to do much.

More mower issues

When it dried off enough for me to mow, I took out the Huskee riding mower (the one I had just replaced the spindle on last weekend) and proceeded to mow the front lawn.  Mission accomplished.  That was Friday, between showers, if I recall,  I did some food processing Friday night while it rained a bit on and off.  When it dried off a bit Saturday morn I took the mower out and started mowing around the paw-paw trees.  Didn't get far though before I broke a mower deck belt!  That's the second mower deck belt i broke this year on the Huskee!  i hope that it was just because the belt took damage when the spindle went to hell.... So mowing was done that day!  I decided to do some harvesting and preserving work,  Eventually I got up to TSC in Everett and got a replacement belt (and some slime for the front tire that kept leaking air - I couldn't find a leak - but it was consistently going flat pretty fast!).  I replaced the belt and filled the tire with the slime during rains.  Eventually I got back out and finished the mowing.  The tire leak seems to be ok now.  We will see how it holds out over the week!

Dehydration Mania!

I got my zucchini sliced up and in the dehydrator the first night (Friday night).  They continued to dehydrate nicely the next morning while i went and picked more pumpkins, squash and tomatoes from the garden.    I got quite a haul of tomatoes - and I already had a bunch on the porch ripening from last week!  In the meantime I noticed that some of the pumpkins needed to be processed due to spoilage issues.  So first things first, I decided to make "pumpkin leather" from risky pumpkins first.  I followed the recipe, but I substituted splenda for the sweetener.    That turned out to be a bad idea.  The leather turned into "paper" or hard cardboard!  You could seriously cut your mouth trying to eat this stuff!  I pulled the pumpkin leather off the "silpat" dehydrator trays and loaded them up with tomato leather mix (recipe on the same page as the pumpkin leather above).  While the tomato leather was drying i loaded up the rest of the dehydrator with tomatoes!  

Dehydrated tomatoes on the right!

tomato leather - it grows on you!

tomatoes - some saved pumpkin seeds there too, on the paper towels

more tomatoes
and
some dill - i saved about 1 pint of dill seed.

Anyway, I re-did the pumpkin leather by powdering it and adding it to a new batch (which used the recipe above with honey!)    This time it turned out very nice!  I will be making more of this!  No pictures of it though - maybe next time.

Onions Cured!

I checked the onions out in the red-barn., they are cured! So I trimmed the stems and put them in my new plastic crates.

Yellow seem in great shape.

the red seem ok - but the white may have issues.  Mom warned me about that earlier this year.  The white ones don't keep well - they will be used first.

More Tomato Processing

Well, with Katherine busy making cucumber relish this weekend down in the "city" house, I decided I would try using the vitamix to process some of these tomatoes.  The plan was to simply clean and then puree the tomatoes in the vitamix, then boil the puree/sauce and can like regular tomato sauce.  Well, it worked like a charm!  My only concern is the taste and if it gets bitter due to the seeds being ground up.    I did 2 loads of 7 quarts and then 4 pints.

Oh, and i made some more Mrs Wages salsa mix salsa - just did 6 pints (canned 5 - ate one!)

Potatoes - finally all picked!

Was hot as hell and barely got it done because of rain - but I did it!

Letting them dry and cure - then I will sort and process the rough ones.  Then i need to get moving on that root cellar!

Took back alot of tomatoes, some cabbages and pumpkins.  Whew