Harvesting & Freezing Vegetables

This has been a busy week harvesting the vegetables. Peas, broccoli, carrots, lima beans, pinto beans, tomatoes, sweet bell peppers, and French Horticulture beans all came ready at once. Baskets of vegetables lined the kitchen and down the hall. Tired, sore muscles begged for Aspercreme (terrific odorless creme)! Once the organic produce is in the house, we had to process it for winter storage. Time to get out the cutting boards and kitchen knives and start to trim, peel and chop. Once the veggies are cleaned and ready, we use a large stock pot with a strainer insert to blanch them. (Our preferred method of food storage is to freeze it.) A good canning/freezing cookbook will have all the blanching times in it for each vegetable. After blanching, you have to cool the produce immediately. We use ice water. Be sure to make enough ice cubes ahead of time so you can save money by not having to buy the ice. We use large clean bathtowels on the counter to drain the produce once they are removed from the ice water and paper towels to pat them dry (we prefer Bounty). They don't have to be totally DRY but they freeze better without the excess moisture. We use a Foodsaver Professional III model vacuum sealer to package all our vegetables . They last a lot longer than using other methods of freezing. We still are using produce from three years ago with no freezer burn.

This next week will find us rototilling the gardens in preparation for winter. That's all for now. May you have a bountiful harvest!

Composting

It is an ongoing process to produce enough organic compost for the six raised garden beds we have planted. Today we emptied another of our four composters and the results are fabulous! We have rich, black earth that has recycled from plant life such as grass clippings and plant trimmings, mixed with sand, chicken manure, and horse manure. It takes us less than 30 days to create this high quality organic fertilizer for our gardens in our compost bins. We use frame mounted compost drums that are easy to rotate with a hand crank. This keeps rodents out, prevents the nutrients from leaching out of the compost during rains, reduces the odor of the decomposing matter, and reduces time and labor involved in turning the compost pile. In case you want to make your own compost, this is how we do it.
It is important to maintain the right mixture ratio of carbon to nitrogen (30:1). This helps speed the decomposition process. Now, in case you're wondering, the carbon is the dried, brown stuff such as dead leaves, dried plants, wood ashes, straw, hay, sawdust and so on. The nitrogen comes from the green grass clippings, green plant trimmings (like when you prune your flowers), salad scraps, coffee grounds (go figure!), eggshells, and animal manures. Note that on the animal manures, it is advised to NOT use domestic pet waste to avoid the possibility of diseases. We personally only use horse manure and chicken manure. An old timer told us that the horse manure keeps the deer and elk out of the garden whereas the steer manure draws these animals into the garden. It seems to work since we don't have any problems with these creatures and yet neighbors who use steer manure can't seem to grow a garden without it being devoured by the wildlife. The chicken manure provides a more neutral pH level of 7.0.
Before I forget, DO NOT use ANY meat or dairy related materials or other fats, any pesticide treated plants or grass trimmings, any diseased plants, sawdust from pressure treated wood, charcoal or coal ash. Also avoid using any plant life that has gone to seed without first being sure to remove all seeds. (This helps with weed control) Well, that does it for today. Till next time, Happy Gardening!