As I've admittted before, my garden year started later than it
should. But it is good to finally have something in jars. I'm
small fry for this group, but enjoy that it exists.

Tonight's actual canning is just 14 pints of Blue Lake beans (a bit
more mature than ideal -- had to string them).

But I also have about 30 quarts of tomato puree heating on the
stove. I'm guessing after it cooks down, and I add meat, it will
make 12-15 quarts of pasta sauce. With life and work demands, that
will probably be canned next weekend.

Otherwise, I am sitting here, separating seeds from stems in a bowl
full of freshly cut, dry standing, dill seed heads. While my
cucumbers on hand are marginal, they are better than last batch,
so I hope for dill relish this weekend. Maybe in the morning.

--
Drew Lawson | I'd like to find your inner child
| and kick its little ass

Drew Lawson wrote:
> As I've admittted before, my garden year started later than it
> should. But it is good to finally have something in jars. I'm
> small fry for this group, but enjoy that it exists.
>
> Tonight's actual canning is just 14 pints of Blue Lake beans (a bit
> more mature than ideal -- had to string them).
>
> But I also have about 30 quarts of tomato puree heating on the
> stove. I'm guessing after it cooks down, and I add meat, it will
> make 12-15 quarts of pasta sauce. With life and work demands, that
> will probably be canned next weekend.
>
> Otherwise, I am sitting here, separating seeds from stems in a bowl
> full of freshly cut, dry standing, dill seed heads. While my
> cucumbers on hand are marginal, they are better than last batch,
> so I hope for dill relish this weekend. Maybe in the morning.

it's so nice when things start coming in. we've been doing
pickles for a long time and are almost done with them for us
but other people want cucumbers as long as we can grow them so
we'll just take them around.

i'm assuming you are pressure canning the beans and
sauce?

i have a new bean variety. i started growing them last
year and they were noted as a bush, dry bean, but said
nothing about fresh eating. as usual, with any bean, i
will always sample them at the fresh bean stages to see
if they are good that ways too and these were very tender
and sweet. i didn't eat too many of them last year since
i wanted as many seeds as i could get. this year i grew
a lot of them because i really was hoping to eat some
along with getting a lot more seeds so i can give them
away. they're one of the most beautiful bean plants
and have a lot of good traits. the plants are upright,
bear a ton of pods all at once, bright purple flowers,
beans are purpled so they're easy to see to pick and
they are up farther than a lot of my other bush beans
so the beans aren't dragging in the dirt. nice dark
leaves and red stems. the only negative so far is
that they're a Japanese Beetle magnet. still i'm
looking forwards to seeing how these will cross with
my other beans i grow here.

we cooked up the first batch of them yesterday, 8
minutes in the microwave and they were just right.
i don't plan on ever using them as a canning bean, i
suspect they may turn to mush when canned because
they have almost no fiber at all in the pods. they
were good. if Mom can eat one raw and say that
it was yummy then we've found a keeper. cooking it
just enough and a bit of butter and we were both
happy.

tomatoes are just coming in. i think we'll be
pretty busy with those. rather large crop by the
looks of it.


songbird

In article >
songbird > writes:

> it's so nice when things start coming in. we've been doing
>pickles for a long time and are almost done with them for us
>but other people want cucumbers as long as we can grow them so
>we'll just take them around.

As I somewhat worried, I didn't plant enough vines to have lots of
cucumbers all at once. So I probably won't get any pickles this
year, just mistake-based knowledge. But relish doesn't take too
large of a harvest.

I think I also made the same mistake with the beans. They are
coming in, but not really enough at once for good canning.

I guess that's what happens when you have a poor memory and skip
grwing something for a couple years.

> i'm assuming you are pressure canning the beans and
>sauce?

Oh, certainly.

Some day I'll get a pH meter and test the sauce to see where it
ends up. I'll still pressure can, but I'm curious.

> tomatoes are just coming in. i think we'll be
>pretty busy with those. rather large crop by the
>looks of it.

Mine are coming in and trying to die all at the same time. I'm
treating it as if it is my nemesis -- tomato leaf spot -- but it
isn't acting quite the same. The current batch of sauce can be
enough if it needs to be, but Iusually do two large batches --
August and September/October -- with lots of eating tomatoes in
between.

There are lots of green tomatoes right now. In fact, I've had to
pound in stakes to support a couple of the cages, since the plants
are so heavy.

Since I have them, I'm going to look through recipes for pickled
green tomatoes. Only one way to find out if I like them.


--
Drew Lawson | "But the senator, while insisting he was not
| intoxicated, could not explain his nudity."

Drew Lawson wrote:
> songbird writes:
>
>> it's so nice when things start coming in. we've been doing
>>pickles for a long time and are almost done with them for us
>>but other people want cucumbers as long as we can grow them so
>>we'll just take them around.
>
> As I somewhat worried, I didn't plant enough vines to have lots of
> cucumbers all at once. So I probably won't get any pickles this
> year, just mistake-based knowledge. But relish doesn't take too
> large of a harvest.
>
> I think I also made the same mistake with the beans. They are
> coming in, but not really enough at once for good canning.
>
> I guess that's what happens when you have a poor memory and skip
> grwing something for a couple years.
>
>> i'm assuming you are pressure canning the beans and
>>sauce?
>
> Oh, certainly.
>
> Some day I'll get a pH meter and test the sauce to see where it
> ends up. I'll still pressure can, but I'm curious.
>
>> tomatoes are just coming in. i think we'll be
>>pretty busy with those. rather large crop by the
>>looks of it.
>
> Mine are coming in and trying to die all at the same time. I'm
> treating it as if it is my nemesis -- tomato leaf spot -- but it
> isn't acting quite the same.

we get some kind of issue with tomatoes each year like
this and since it doesn't affect production enough for me
to care i don't do anything about it. by the time the
plants have lost most of their leaves and look like they
are about done, we've harvested and put up what we want.

any green tomatoes that are left can be set on a table
in the garage to gradually ripen, a few may rot, but most
of them will eventually turn red. we've eaten and canned
them and they are ok. not quite as good as ripened on
the plants, but by the time we've made other things with
them it doesn't really matter that much.


> The current batch of sauce can be
> enough if it needs to be, but Iusually do two large batches --
> August and September/October -- with lots of eating tomatoes in
> between.

we eat them as we go along and give some away, but most
of them are canned as chunks.


> There are lots of green tomatoes right now. In fact, I've had to
> pound in stakes to support a couple of the cages, since the plants
> are so heavy.

yeah, that happens every year here too. as above we don't
really do too much about it other than pick what is ready
and cut around the spoiled parts or discard what we can't
use.


> Since I have them, I'm going to look through recipes for pickled
> green tomatoes. Only one way to find out if I like them.

i like a fried green tomato sandwich once in a while
but have not really liked them pickled. since we ripen
them anyways it isn't a big problem to worry about.


songbird