Winter Gardening

We finally put in our Winter garden today. I've been reading "Four Season Harvest" by Eliot Coleman, and what a revelation it's been!!

We've always talked about having a year-round garden. In fact, that was one of our goals when we moved. But I've never been able to figure out how to do it -- until I read this book. As it turns out, quite a few things (salad greens, spinach, and, of course, the brassicas) can be planted in the Fall and consumed during the Winter. As Mr. Coleman explains it, the critical things are crop selection and timing of planting. Unfortunately, due to various circumstances, we haven't been able to get our garden started until today -- about a month after we probably should have put it in. But, according to the book, if we'd planted at the right time, we shouldn't need to do anything special -- not even a cold frame! Mr. Coleman has 30+ years of gardening experience, and says he & his family enjoy fresh produce from their Zone 5 garden in Maine all year.

So if they're planted at the right time, the plants, which should be at the right size for eating by the time it gets cold, go dormant and can be harvested all
Winter. It's usually cold here by Halloween, so the little guys only have about a month to get going. That's probably not quite enough time, so we may end up having to throw a sheet of plastic over the garden to create a temporary greenhouse. That's ok too -- thanks to my brilliant husband, we've set it up so we could do that if we needed to.

I'm not really sure which factor is the biggest in my interest in Winter gardening -- the high expense and low quality of the produce available that time of year, the limited selection available, the wish to work more closely with the land in providing for our sustenance, the urge to be more independent... In any case, it's pretty exciting to think that we might actually be able to enjoy fresh, homegrown food from our garden all year!!
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Autumn Canning Blues

I think I can understand why our forebears lived such short lives. Over the course of the summer, and while working full-time, I've made it a point to preserve things as they've come into season. As I write this I'm exhausted, but still waiting for the pressure to fall in the pressure canner. There's a load of pumpkin in it, which we grew in our garden, and which we'll be glad to have on hand at some point in the future. Cut into chunks, flavored with honey, cinnamon, cloves and with a bit of lemon juice added for extra insurance, it'll make nice pie (or cookies, or bread) at the holidays -- or even later.

There are also 50 or 60 pounds of tomatoes (mostly red, but some green, too) in the garage, waiting to be turned into sauces of many descriptions: sweet & sour, chile verde, barbecue, creole, pizza... Fortunately, they're canning tomatoes, and so are pretty tough -- they can sit in the garage for a little while. A couple of years ago, I found myself canning the last of them in November.

And then there are the apples I have coming at the end of the week. They have absolutely incredible flavor!! Everyone sort of thinks, "ho hum, apples" -- until they taste these. There are two varieties: Sommerfield (like eating apple cider) and Gala (a little sweeter). It's more than I can manage right now, but luckily, they'll store fine in the fridge, until I'm ready to deal with them -- and we can eat them just as they are, too.

So even though we're heading into Fall, and even though I'm "all in", there's yet a bit of work to do. So I'll do as my forebears did: Imagine all those beautiful jars of summer treasure, lined up & waiting on the shelves -- and keep smilin'!

10/16/10

Just realized I have been saving drafts, and not actually publishing anything, for quite a while. Interesting -- here we are, at the end of another canning season, and I obviously didn't learn my lesson -- I've just spent a couple of weeks canning about 250 pounds of tomatoes -- and there are still the cherries, apricots and berries from last summer, waiting in the freezer until I can turn them into jam or sauce for us to pour over our homemade yogurt...

Ah, well, the more things change... Read more!

Canning Chili Verde, Pumpkin for Pie Filling

Visited a local farm to pick a bunch of tomatoes, both red and green, this a.m. Made a batch of chili verde sauce with some of the green ones, using a recipe I found online. Used the green tomatoes in place of tomatillos -- flavor's pretty much the same, but they're 'way cheaper). Turned out pretty good, but next time I think I'll tweak the recipe just a bit -- this batch was a little warm for us, and I'm not quite satisfied with the balance of flavors. It's close, though, and as long as I'm careful about acidity, it should adjust fine.

I've also picked out a bunch of recipes from the Ball book to try with the red ones. Once they're made up & on the shelf, they'll make it easy to throw dinner together in a hurry some night down the road. Funny thing, though -- I'm running out of places to put my canned goods!! Actually, I still have a bit of space -- I just need to "shore up" the shelves to put them on. I've been thinking in the back of my mind about the best way to do that, and I think I'll just get a closet pole from the hardware store & cut it to fit between the shelves, all the way up. Might have to do it in a couple of places, but it'll solve the problem.

Finally got around to canning the pumpkins we grew this summer. (Sugar Babies -- small pumpkins, compact plants, supposed to be good for pie.) Been putting it off because I knew how much work it'd be, but I finally felt ready to tackle it today. The best way to remove the skin, it turns out, is with a vegetable peeler. Once the pumpkin is halved and the seeds removed, quarter it, then use the peeler laterally -- it's easier than top-to-bottom. Although there's no getting around the fact that the job is labor intensive, this method seems to work pretty well!! I wanted pumpkin that would be more or less ready for pie, so I canned it (hot pack, cut in chunks -- see the Ball book) in a syrup with a little cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves. Pressure canned it, of course, adding a half-cup of lemon juice, and processing it for 10 minutes longer than the Ball book says, for extra insurance. Our whole harvest fit into 16 pint jars, plus a bit leftover that I tossed into the freezer. It'll be nice in pie, muffins, or even homemade ice cream!!
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Locally Grown Apples

Have been too preoccupied with chairing my adopted hometown's Centennial Celebration Committee to write much lately (which was totally out of character for me -- I'm normally much more comfortable in the background, but I guess it's good to stretch a bit, once in a while). The final event of the Celebration took place last weekend, and, to no credit I can claim, it was a rousing success!! So, now that that's behind me, I can turn my focus back to what I love to do -- "preserving the harvest".

THANK GOODNESS for the local farmers market, which was started just this year!!! Every Friday afternoon, I wander through with a few dollars in my pocket, visiting with the farmers and learning about varieties, harvest order and duration... Soon, I'm loading up my car with fresh, colorful, honest-to-goodness, naturally ripened things for us to enjoy during the coming week. I've also made it a point to try to preserve some of each thing (fruits, particularly, but corn and other things, too) for us to enjoy (and maybe even share) during the winter when the only things worth buying at the grocery store are imported bananas and, maybe, apples.

Apples -- one of the farmers has the loveliest, most delicious little apples I've ever enjoyed!! They were selling two varieties today, and I've ordered a 40# box of each to pick up next week. They're cute little things, most of them about half the size of a store-bought apple. And the flavor is unbelievable!! If you've only experienced apples from the grocery store, please do yourself a favor and seek out some really fresh, locally grown apples. I figure I'll give away some, make some into applesauce... One of the varieties was gala, and I don't recall the name of one of the two varieties, but eating it was like eating fresh apple cider -- the complexity of the flavor was astounding!! I think it'll make lovely applesauce -- can't wait to try it out!!

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