Messing around in the canning pantry today as it is in the low fifties
outside. Got out my empty canning jar boxes and filled them up with all
the clean jars standing around on the shelves and made a little more
space for "stuff." Don't have anything to preserve right now, just a few
cukes coming in plus sweet chiles and eggplant, a very few grape
tomatoes. Expect cukes, chiles, and eggplant to be gone to compost in
another month.

Cabbage, broccoli, leaf lettuce, and radishes all doing well and the
chard in the front flower bed is perking up with the cooler weather.
Probably be harvesting some tomorrow just for our dinner. That chard was
planted in February if I remember correctly and has been producing a
mess of greens every week since then. First time we've actually had
chard last into and through the summer. I believe that because that
patch has shade from noon until nightfall it has had its life prolonged.
The full sun chard in the back garden is long gone even though it
produced bigger leaves and was finally pulled last month due to decline.

Probably going to be nothing to put up until next spring when we hit the
blueberry and blackberry farms nearby. Still haven't managed to find a
place to pick canning pears, may have to go visit friends in Louisiana
next year. Maybe pick a hundred lbs or more of Kiefer canning pears for
jelly, pear sauce, and canned pear slices. I do miss all the "free"
fruit we used to get from friends who inherited trees from long gone
parents and didn't even use the fruit. Oh well, when you live in an area
where the oldest houses date back seven years you have to expect there
would be no fruit trees around. I suspect our young pear tree in the
front yard plus the fig and kumquat trees in the back yard are the only
ones in several square miles here abouts.

George

In article >, George Shirley
> wrote:

> Cabbage, broccoli, leaf lettuce, and radishes all doing well and the
> chard in the front flower bed is perking up with the cooler weather.
> Probably be harvesting some tomorrow just for our dinner. That chard was
> planted in February if I remember correctly and has been producing a
> mess of greens every week since then. First time we've actually had
> chard last into and through the summer. I believe that because that
> patch has shade from noon until nightfall it has had its life prolonged.
> The full sun chard in the back garden is long gone even though it
> produced bigger leaves and was finally pulled last month due to decline.

George, try this recipe for your chard. Delicious!

<http://allrecipes.com/recipe/sauteed-swiss-chard-with-parmesan-cheese/>

Our fall is well underway, with the nights down around freezing. All my
vacuum sealing is done, no 'maters to speak of this year, onions are
hardening off on the deck.

The next round of preserving will be game. Going for geese and ducks
next week, so sausage and jerky will be made. Hoping to get out with my
bow for mule deer soon, too. Then elk and moose seasons... I think I'm
going to pass on whitetail this year. The herds have been hurt by cold
winters and deep snow for the past couple of years.

--
³Youth ages, immaturity is outgrown, ignorance can be educated, and drunkenness
sobered, but stupid lasts forever.² -- Aristophanes

On 10/15/2014 10:02 AM, Dave Balderstone wrote:
> In article >, George Shirley
> > wrote:
>
>> Cabbage, broccoli, leaf lettuce, and radishes all doing well and the
>> chard in the front flower bed is perking up with the cooler weather.
>> Probably be harvesting some tomorrow just for our dinner. That chard was
>> planted in February if I remember correctly and has been producing a
>> mess of greens every week since then. First time we've actually had
>> chard last into and through the summer. I believe that because that
>> patch has shade from noon until nightfall it has had its life prolonged.
>> The full sun chard in the back garden is long gone even though it
>> produced bigger leaves and was finally pulled last month due to decline.
>
> George, try this recipe for your chard. Delicious!
>
> <http://allrecipes.com/recipe/sauteed-swiss-chard-with-parmesan-cheese/>
>
> Our fall is well underway, with the nights down around freezing. All my
> vacuum sealing is done, no 'maters to speak of this year, onions are
> hardening off on the deck.
>
> The next round of preserving will be game. Going for geese and ducks
> next week, so sausage and jerky will be made. Hoping to get out with my
> bow for mule deer soon, too. Then elk and moose seasons... I think I'm
> going to pass on whitetail this year. The herds have been hurt by cold
> winters and deep snow for the past couple of years.
>
Printed the recipe out for my "Collected Recipes" cook book. Sounds like
a winner.

I've never cared much for geese and ducks, raised about two hundred
Muscovy ducks one year. Ate all we could, gave many to neighbors. If
they saw me coming with a bag in my hand they would turn off the lights
and lock the doors. Darned Muscovies have so many pin feathers we had to
skin them. I used to hunt white tail every year, don't even remember how
many I shot and put up as chili, steaks, ground meat, roasts, etc. over
the years. Way back when Texas let you shoot two bucks, must be fork
horns or better. No does. Nowadays you can shoot five does, or two bucks
and three does. I see them along the highway and streets in the evening
grazing on the brush along the fence lines. May go next month and see if
I can still shoot my custom 6.5X55 Swede, turned a military rifle into a
sporting gun back in the sixties and it still hammers well. On it's
fourth stock and third barrel and still drives nails at 150 yards.

Good luck on the meat hunt.

George